What Can a 1935 Burpee Seed Catalog Tell Us? Many of the best gardens are planned around the kitchen table on cold winter nights as people gather to page through the seed catalogs arriving now in stacks as deep as snowdrifts. More than 24 million American households will spend an estimated $128 each on mail order seeds, plants, bulbs, garden tools and garden supplies in 2006, the Mailorder Gardening Association says. Yet the catalogs we see today, online and printed, are very different from yesteryear. [Special note: Have some fun and LISTEN to this article, which is only 2 minutes long. Subscribe to my podcast feed (so you can open the attachment below) OR simply listen to the mp3 file now by clicking here] Otherwise, keep reading...
Across the garden Gardening On the Web: What's Old Is New Again Thanks to the Web, there s a new way to find old seeds. It's 15 degrees outside. I'm checking my garlic, which is covered with plastic and frozen in the soil. The sun hits my cheek, but there s little warmth in its kiss. To me, nothing provides more comfort on a winter day than sipping coffee and cruising through seed catalogs. In those pages rest the promise of spring and childhood memories of my Grammie's beans, hot and seasoned with bacon, salt and pepper. Today, it's easier to sprout past memories in real life, because old is new in seeds. Heirloom varieties, considered new and improved in their day, are now old and reliable. That's because "heirloom," means varieties introduced at least 50 years ago that are open-pollinated, not the result of hybrids. People are re-discovering the diversity in color, texture and taste that heirlooms provide. [Lend me your ear! To LISTEN to this article, which is only 2 minutes long, subscribe to my podcast feed (which let's you open the attachment below) or simply listen to the mp3 file now by clicking here] Then again, you can keep on reading...
Mooseys Garden Guest Book :: RE: Moosey`s Trip Author: Kim in Iowa Subject: Piet OudolfPosted: 18 Feb '06 3:13 pm (GMT 12) Topic Replies: 4 Moosey, I would be nervous to meet Mr. Oudolf too but I saw him on television visiting with another Iowa gardener (Karen Strohbeen) and he seemed to be a very nice fellow, who loves plants just like we do and probably would be very interested in New Zealand plants, especially any that look good when dead/dormant...since he likes interesting stalks and seed heads in winter. The day we were there his wife Anja was out running the nursery (they sell plants there). She sold us the tickets to go inside their garden and look about. She also told us where the restrooms were. I should say that she told my husband this, as I was too shy to try to speak any Dutch but he had studied it. She may well have switched over to English when she heard his Dutch... It is so nice to see your garden in summer. Here it is the coldest it has been all winter, -1 degree F. and -21 degrees wind chill. My eyelids were freezing up on the walk home from work this morning. The rest of me was well-enough bundled up for a six-block walk! Your kittens look so darling racing up the trees! I'm jealous! What a lucky gardener you are. If I could visit world gardens, I'd visit yours, and Ninfa, and everything in England once. At least. --Kim