By Jannie Vaught Plan first, sort seeds and decide what you need to purchase. You can still plant some cold crop plants, Asian greens, lettuce, radish, and spinach. It is also bare root fruit tree season and cane berry time. Most nurseries will begin to have fruit trees and blackberry plants in or will have…
By Jannie Vaught I am a seed catalog reader. As I grow more interesting varieties I am often lured away by the siren call of that very pretty plant in the catalog. And boy do I get hooked easily! So after all the reading and examining each page back and front, I get my garden…
By Jannie Vaught “The beauty of seed is rivaled only by their purpose.” Seed Savers Exchange. Definitions that will clear up the usage of these terms. Sustainable: able to maintain at a certain rate or level. Renewable: not depleted when used. These are just two of the many descriptive words now used when someone is…
By Jannie Vaught Which is a good time to brush up on seed saving, I am using the Book The Seed Garden The Art and Practice of Seed Saving from Seed Savers Exchange. If you are interested in going deeper into seed and plant identification this is a good book to have. Definition; Taxonomy and…
By Jannie Vaught Being born and raised in a farming and gardening family, now it is called “homesteading” my grandparents and parents always saved seeds and plant cuttings. This was as normal as cooking dinner. They walked the Trail of Tears, with seeds, and were relocated to central California after the dust bowl. My Uncle…
Jannie Vaught The month of leaves, is this why it is called Fall? Anyway the bamboo leaf rake is out and the leaf re-distribution has begun. Don’t loose a single leaf! Break down thick layers of leaf accumulation in beds and lawn. Thick heavy matts can encourage mice, voles and pests. Break up the matted…
Jannie Vaught Most of the stone fruit trees are budding and many in flower. The Blue Bonnets are showing with their bright blue sparkles. I didn’t realize how color hungry I had become, then the first flowers and the Bonnets show and I think I’ve been living in black and white. I have 2 subjects…
By Jannie Vaught Stepped out to work in the garden and was driven back into the warmth of a hot tea and time to plan and study. Let’s look at seed preparation. Water soak; many seeds will germinate faster when they are soaked in water before planting directly into the soil. For thick-skinned seeds…
