Winter-sowing Begins Soon

The winter-sowing season is upon us.

The shortest day of 2019 and the dawn of 2020 will soon be here. I'm already looking at seeds saved in my organization system (more on this later) and seeds to order from my favorite nurseries!

Here are links to some of my favorites:

• Fedco Seeds: My all-around go-to favorite for vegetables, flowers, herbs, and native plants. Fedco, a cooperative of seed savers, provides excellent seed and service. 
• Strictly Medicinal Seeds: Highly-respected site. Richo Cech, an authority on herbal medicine plants from around the world, is generous with his knowledge. Browsing his plant descriptions and reading his shared articles is time well spent.
• Mary's Heirloom Seeds: Informative site with great prices on small orders. Service is exceptional. I order from Mary's when I want seeds fast!
• Renee's Garden: Very fine seed in varieties well-adapted to home gardens.
• Select Seeds: Heirloom flowers, many saved from being lost to time.
• American Meadows: Annual and perennial seeds plus information to match plants to growing conditions.
• Prairie Moon Nursery: Informative website helps to match native plants with specific growing conditions. Wide selection of quality seed.
• Southern Exposure Seed Exchange: A new favorite for me. Now that I'm gardening in Florida's Big Bend, I find that I need plants that are well-adapted to my region.

I also like these nurseries:

• Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds: A stand-by for non-GMO and organic seed.
• Park Seed: South Carolina nursery. Seeds for unusual plants offer an economical choice for building a garden.
• Burpee Seeds and Plants: My first seed orders were with Burpee and I still order from them every year. My Lemon Grass seeds from Burpee were very successful.
• Johnny's Selected Seeds: High quality seeds for serious market gardeners.
• Victory Seeds: A fun site to browse, focused on home "Victory Gardens."

Some nurseries I've wanted to order from for some time include:

• Swallowtail Gardens: The available variety is inspiring.
• Seedsavers Exchange: I hope to order from, and eventually contribute to, this group. A future post will review Seed to Seed, the authoritative source on seed saving by Susan Ashworth and the Seed Savers Exchange.
• J. L. Hudson, Seedsman: I have a growing list of seeds to order from J. L. Hudson. So many exciting possibilities!

As I begin my orders for 2020, I'll be sure to update this list with any sources I've missed!

Progress

A lot has happening at the Homestead this week.

Rick surprised me with three adorable, fat, baby Pindo Palms from Just Fruits and Exotics. Here they are in all their cuteness!

Starting Seeds

So far this year, we've started twenty kinds of seeds - and there are many more to start! We're using Trudi Davidoff's outdoor winter-sowing method to start vegetables, herbs, flowers, early greens, and native plants, and pots and trays indoors for the micro greens and house plants.

I've started a "2018 Seed-starting List" and will be adding pages and pics as we go forward.

Transplanted

It's hard to transplant a fully grown tree - and hard for us to move now that we are older. We left Camp Creek, West Virginia, in the summer of 2016, for our new home in Monticello, Florida, and are just now starting to establish our roots - and regain our balance.

Gardening is different here - challenging in new ways, but with a longer growing season (265 days compared to 143 days at our West Virginia home) it will be possible to have really productive spring and fall gardens. Growth will slow down in the hottest part of the summer (but sweet potatoes and okra should flourish) and in the coldest part of our zone 8b winter (but collards and kale should last until spring).

In 2016-17, we started just a few seeds: calendulas and alyssum, chamomile and sage. The calendulas and the sage did well. The alyssum and chamomile did not survive the heat.

We used a small "lasagna garden" space, last spring, for new strawberry plants, and transplanted rosemary and sage, and they continue to do well. We plan to add to the strawberries, and to prune the rosemary and sage, soon. We are growing five varieties of rosemary: Tuscan Blue, Blue Lagoon, Arp, Barbeque, and prostrate rosemary. Two varieties of strawberry remain from last year: Ozark Beauty and Mara de Bois.

Six little boxwoods, started from cuttings and grown on in the herb border, made the trip with us and three have survived. Other transplants included a Chinese juniper, a tough little 'Wyoming' canna, our indestructable cast iron plants, a small flowering quince, some horseradish root, a blueberry bush, and a special rose with sentimental value - all are doing well.  The little sedums, the sweet woodruff, and the mountain mint that we brought may have disappeared but we're still holding out in hope to see them in the spring.

Last fall, we added an eastern red cedar, a rhododendron, an Indian hawthorne, a 'Klein's Hardy' gardenia, and in the spring, some lilies of the valley, two more cannas, two Asiatic lilies, and some liatris. We also found a chinqapin chestnut and southern red cedars at Native Nurseries in Tallahassee.

For Christmas trees this year, we decided on two orange trees, an 'Eversweet' and a 'Cara Cara Red' from Just Fruits and Exotics, in Crawfordville. While there, we just could not resist two beautiful sweet olives (Osmanthus fragrans) that reminded us of North Carolina, and a loquat seedling (6' tall!).

A walk through our garden before Christmas dinner turned up parsley and bunching onion plants, still green and growing - proof of the love that surrounds us.

Winter sowing has begun for 2017-18. After we inventoried and ordered, the first six groups of seeds went outside! So far there are calendulas, maypops, redbuds, yarrow, hyssop, and bunching onions. (A great resource to learn about winter sowing is Trudi Greissle Davidoff's (the originator of winter sowing) WinterSown website. The winter sowing forum members on Garden Web have also shared some great ideas.) We also started clatonia (miner's lettuce) and a Mesclun mix in two window boxes.

All of this planting was just in time for snow! Here's the view from our front deck...

The headlines today read, " Snow falls in north Florida: schools, theme parks closed." Too funny!