Do you like free stuff? How about free food? Well, there’s no such thing as a free lunch, but you can come pretty close if you’re willing to put in a little work. I was recently turned on to wintersown.org, a site that promotes seed saving (Google Monsanto and GMO if you want to freak out about your food). They have a couple of programs for giving away seeds. All you have to do is send in a SASE per seed sharing program. I opted for both the “whatever” (they pick) giveaway and the tomato seed giveaway. So for $2.52 in postage, I got not just the 12 promised packets of seeds but in fact got a few extras. Here’s what I wound up with:
- The Whatever Packets
- Black-Eyed Susan
- Golden Zucchini
- Cleome “Violet Queen”
- Maximillian Sunflower
- Big Dave’s Red Tomato Blend
- Kitchen Herb – Parsley
- Helen’s Flower (Blend)
- Perennial Lupine
- Zinnia Mix
- Mixed Morning Glory
- The Tomato Packets
- Tigerella Tomato
- Blondkopfchen
- Clear Pink Early (excited about these)
- Early Ssubakus Aliana
- Goji Faranji
- Fuzzy Peach Tomato
- Brandywine (an heirloom variety; excited to try these too)
- Italian Market Wonder
- Crimson Sweet Watermelon (huh?)
- Kitchen Herbs – Parsley (kind of makes sense as a companion herb?)
Talk about over-delivering!
So now I need to get started winter-sowing. I’ve done a teensy bit of seed germination indoors so far. We have potatoes growing in small trash cans in our bathroom, and I’ve been growing a single sweet potato for a while now (they have the most beautiful delicate leaves when they’re small). I also have egg cartons growing peas and carrots. And I have some garlic coming up in the actual garden. The bulbs I planted earlier have leaves, and I checked on the bulbs I planted more recently this afternoon and found that the roots they were deploying had actually pushed the bulbs up out of the dirt a little. I guess the freeze we’ve had this week has made the ground hard enough that the roots had trouble digging down.
I’m really eager to get started with the tomatoes in particular, and I imagine Lennie and M will have a good time sowing flowers.
The tomato packets also came with a printout of instructions for saving tomato seeds. It’s a fairly involved process, but now that I’ll have a bunch of tomatos (with any luck), I’ll definitely try to save my own and maybe even contribute some back to wintersown.org.
Two Ells 
Potatoes in trash cans in your bathroom? I think not. Go take a picture already! You and M will start a movement!!
Do you know how to grow sweet potatoes? You just snip off those pretty vines, strip a few leaves from the cut end, and bury the end in the garden. The vines only need to be about 6 inches long. You can see the little rootlets developing if you look closely. You can snip and put them in water and let the roots develop before planting but you don’t have to. Don’t plant them out too soon. Wait until at least May. They will likely look like they are dying once you plant them. Just keep them moist and they’ll perk up in about a week. They don’t need much in regards to food but do try and loosen the soil up a bit. They do a good job themselves. They grow straight down!!
Of course, if you already knew this, just disregard.
Now go wrestle the camera from M and get snapping!!
Kristin