A copy of the Sand Hill seed catalog came in the mail the other day. Its a great catalog to read with a lot of very interesting gardening information. In particular, I found the following comments:
About turnips, which I dislike and accidentally bought seeds for: they "make an excellent soil builder when planted and left to rot over the winter". Great! Maybe I will grow them!
About pumpkin and squash culture: "The vine crops continue to be the biggest challenge here in the Midwest to grow organically. We continue to search for safe and effective ways to grow these crops with the least impact on the environment." It sounds like they do not grow these organically yet. Me too. I'd like to find better ways to protect these plants from bugs, especially stem borers.
They list 517 heirloom tomato varieties! (I popped the list into excel to count them.) Incredible. All organically grown. They list 10 categories: red fruited, black/gray/bronze, cherry, green, long-keeping, paste, pink, stuffing, white/cream, and yellow/gold varieties. I think next year I will grow my own tomatoes from seed. This year I grew only chili peppers and I like having only one type of seedling indoors to care for.
I love reading their catalog. Among other things it's always full of very personal information about the people behind the seeds, and their farm. It's great to get the 'story behind the seeds'.
ReplyDeleteIt means when you send them an email or call them on the phone, you really have a good sense of who you are in contact with.
And yes, they have one of the biggest (and best) collection of heirloom tomatoes for sale available anywhere! The only place I've seen more is the Seed Savers Exchange.