Awesome (really!) Video about Pollinators

If you've ever wanted to see pollinators at work, up close, photographer Louie Schwartzberg produced a video that gave me a new appreciation of hummingbirds, bees, bats and butterflies. The Hidden Beauty of Pollination, a TED talk, is 7 minutes long and absolutely worth it! (Don't forget to click on the Toggle Full Screen command at the top right of the video.)

If you've never seen a bat in action, here's a screenshot:

Considering that honeybees are disappearing due to colony collapse disorder (CCD), and that bats are disappearing due to white-nose syndrome, please spread the word about this video.

Personally I don't want to hand-pollinate all my crops, as some of us are known to do with zucchini! Thankfully we have an estimated 350-400 native bees in our area, but even so....

Seed Catalog: Bountiful Gardens

Bountiful Gardens is one of those catalogs that make you feel all sustainable and tree-huggy just browsing through it.  They are a California-based project of Ecology Action, promoters of the Biointensive method (John Jeavons, double digging, intensive planting, etc.).  The seed is mostly West Coast-grown and the descriptions don't necessarily take our Mid-Atlantic climate into consideration, but it's worth a look.  For vegetables, selection is pretty good (open-pollinated varieties, many heirlooms) and prices are quite low.  This may be the place to find seed for that unusual plant you wanted to grow; it's where I first found seed for sea kale and for Egyptian spinach or molokheya.

I'm also very keen on their seed mixes and seed collections - the mixes are just fun if you want, for example, to try multiple varieties of turnips without buying a pack of each, and the collections would make good gifts for a beginning gardener.  They have good selections of slow-bolting lettuces (for California, at least; I'll see how they do here) including both a mix and a Summer Salad Collection.

I'm also very tempted by the seeds for both native and non-native trees and shrubs (aronia, black currants, tea, etc.).  And if you've been wanting to try grains this is one place to check out.  Lots of books and useful supplies available as well.  Overall, a fun, quirky, sincere, sustainably-minded seed source.

I refuse to double dig, though; it hurts my back.

Notes:  (1) You can order a print catalog through most of the catalog websites (or in some cases, download a PDF version).  (2) Mention of specific products, brands, or companies is not intended as an endorsement by the University of Maryland.  (3) I do not receive consideration of any kind for mentioning products, brands, or companies in my postings.  The seed catalogs I review are those of sellers from which I have previously bought seeds.

Frugal Gardener: Seed catalog(s) revelation!

Does the Frugal Gardener in you get irritated when you see five packets of seeds you want to buy in one catalog but the sixth packet you want is in another catalog—and you aren’t about to pay a second shipping and handling fee to get that one extra packet?

Over the last couple of weeks I’ve discovered that several seed catalogs come from the same source and that you can place one order from several catalogs and pay just one shipping and handling fee, provided, of course, that you wish to purchase from the cooperating catalogs.

When I was reviewing catalogs earlier this month, I noticed in passing that the mailing addresses of two catalogs, Totally Tomatoes and Shumway’s, were in the same city.  Then, when I compiled my “must order” seed list recently, I jotted down catalog abbreviations, page numbers, SKU numbers (product identifiers), and prices and realized the SKU numbers were the same in the two catalogs.  For example, the SKU for Amish Paste tomato seeds in both catalogs is #00029.

When I finished my list, I went to the Totally Tomatoes website and entered my selections.  Before final check out, however, I had an idea.  Why not add a SKU number for the last packet on my list—rutabaga seed, which is listed in Shumway’s but not Totally Tomatoes, and see what happens?  I did and bong! —the site wouldn’t accept it.

Still later, after I had checked out of the Totally Tomatoes site, I had another idea.  I sent an email to Customer Service at Totally Tomato and said I’d noticed that the addresses are the same and would they please add a packet of Shumway rutabaga seed to my order.

After we had exchanged several emails, Customer Service said for business and accounting reasons they could not mix orders from the two companies but that there is a website, egardenersplace, where you can order from “all our catalogs.”

I hastened to the website and found eight catalogs listed.  Four contain vegetable seeds: Totally Tomatoes, Shumway’s, Jung, and Vermont Bean.  Four sell flower seeds, roots, and/or plants: McClure & Zimmerman, Roots & Rhizomes, Edmund’s Roses, and Seymour’s.  I haven’t ordered from egardenersplace because I’ve already made my 2012 seed purchases, but I have checked the veggie-seed catalogs, and the SKU for Amish Paste tomato is the same in all.

The egardenersplace homepage shows the covers of the eight catalogs and says readers can order from all catalogs and just pay one shipping and handling fee, which appears to be $6.00 for orders under $60.00.  At the site, you click on a catalog, search or leaf through, select packets, and then go to another catalog, if you wish, to make more selections.  Check-out procedure is like that at most websites.

This Frugal Gardener likes the idea of buying from several catalogs and paying just one shipping and handling fee.  Now I wonder whether I should recommend that Vermont Bean change its name to Wisconsin Bean.

And a final finding that made Frugal Gardener smile: Though packets for the same seed variety have the same SKU numbers, prices occasionally differ.  In the two catalogs that I used to make my buy list, I found 5¢ and 10¢ differences in two packet prices.  Frugal Gardener, though, doesn’t see such massive savings reason sufficient to buy from one catalog and not the other.  If he did, though, perhaps he should start calling himself Pinchpenny Gardener.

If you’d like to take a look at the eight catalogs on the egardenersplace website, CLICK HERE.


Notes:  (1) You can order all eight print catalogs through the egardenersplace website.  (2) Mention of specific products, brands, or companies is not intended as an endorsement by the University of Maryland.  (3) I do not receive consideration of any kind for mentioning products, brands, or companies in my postings.  The seed catalogs I review are those from sellers from which I have previously bought seeds.

2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map

Fresh from the press, this is the new 2012 USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map !

Enter your Zip Code to find witch zone you are.

In Central Maryland, we are now a zone 7a

Seed Catalog: Pinetree Garden Seeds

I order more seeds from Pinetree than from any other catalog, which is the bargain-hunter, practical me coming through.  Where else can you still buy a packet of seeds for under a dollar?  I qualify as a long-time customer, having received the catalog back when it was pretty much colorless, and then later getting onto their website, still barebones and IE-only when everyone else was mounting more up-to-date technology.  Both the catalog and the website have improved since then, though content still wins out over appearance.

Pinetree caters to small-scale home gardeners, the idea being that most of us don't need a packet of 50 tomato seeds, 25 will do fine and then you're not paying for seeds you will never use.  With the exception of some fancy hybrids and rare seeds, the prices are $2.00 or less per packet.  Seed counts are provided, so compare. In most cases, you're paying the same or much less per seed than with other catalogs and comparable prices to buying off a seed rack; there are exceptions.

Tomato seeds as compared before:  Celebrity, 15 seeds for $1.75; Brandywine, 25 for $1.35. Black-Seeded Simpson lettuce, 500 seeds for 95 cents!

Descriptions are homey and personal; they've tried all these seeds and it shows.  You are seldom going to find the latest fashions in vegetables here, but you'll get a wide selection to choose from, including hybrids, open-pollinated and heirlooms.  They also sell herbs, flowers, plants, bulbs, etc., along with a whole lot of books (some discounted steeply) and supplies for gardening, kitchen use and crafts.

Finding things in the catalog can be a little challenging, due to an odd organizational system in which vegetables are listed by type and then you also get a section of international vegetables by region and then a section of container vegetables.  There's some cross-referencing, but it's still confusing - for example, to find Bull's Blood Beet I had to look under Dyeing Herbs.  (I like to eat it, thank you.)  Searching on the website solves this problem.

This is also not a catalog where you get the Latin names of plants provided (a personal preference not shared by everyone, I realize).  But if you're looking to not spend a lot of money while still ending up with most of the seeds you wanted, Pinetree is an excellent first stop.

Notes:  (1) You can order a print catalog through most of the catalog websites (or in some cases, download a PDF version).  (2) Mention of specific products, brands, or companies is not intended as an endorsement by the University of Maryland.  (3) I do not receive consideration of any kind for mentioning products, brands, or companies in my postings.  The seed catalogs I review are those of sellers from which I have previously bought seeds.