Visiting Seed Savers Exchange Part Two (and a chance to win heirloom seeds)
While visiting Seed Savers, you will be able to see a lot of the varieties from their catalog in the gardens. There are several trial gardens filled with vegetables and flowers, they’re organized into different families. So there’s an entire garden dedicated to cabbage family plants, onions, members of the nightshade family, etc.
Even though they’re only planting a few plants of each variety and only a few of the varieties available, it really does make you realize the number of options that we have for our home gardens.
How can you not love the classic red barn and buildings? I think they provide the perfect backdrop for heirloom vegetables and poultry.
The plants are labeled well so you can note different varieties, and decide which ones you’d like to grow in your own garden. I especially loved these galvanized seed packet holders, I must find some of these!
You’ll also be able to check see some heirloom poultry and the Ancient White Park Cattle, the rare breed of cows that they keep at Heritage Farm.
After looking through the demonstration gardens and the gift shop, you can head down to the orchard to see the fruiting plants. During our visit some of the apples were ripe. They had a sign asking you not to pick apples from the trees, but to feel free to pick any up off the ground. We picked up a few and took some photos next to their labels since we’re hoping to put in orchard someday.
I’m so glad we hit the gardens when we did, the end of August. Everything was at the height of it’s beauty and production, which made up for the fact that I missed out on this in my own garden since I was gone almost the entire month of August.
Ironically as we left, we passed what you see above – field after field of hybrid and GMO corn test plots. A stark contrast to what we had spent the morning hours enjoying at Heritage Farm.
Of course, I couldn’t leave without purchasing an heirloom seed collection to give away here on the blog. After looking over all the seeds, I finally settled on the Heritage Farm Favorites Collection. It contains: Chioggia beet, A & C Pickling cucumber, Dragon carrot, Dragon’s Tongue bean, German Pink tomato, and Seed Saver’s lettuce mix. All you have to do is comment on this post for your chance to win. Winner Chosen:
If you were in charge of keeping one kind of edible plant from extinction which one would you choose?
See more from my visit:
Visiting Seed Savers Exchange Part One
For more photos of my visit to Seed Savers that didn’t make the blog, head on over to my Flickr photostream.
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Visiting Seed Savers Exchange Part One
I mentioned on Tiny Trailer Travels Part Six that we stopped at Seed Savers Exchange on our way home. You were all excited about seeing photos from this stop. I finally had some time to sit down and go through all the photos and today is the day!
If you’ve ever driving through the northern part of Iowa, I’d recommend taking a few hours to visit Heritage Farm in Decorah – you certainly won’t regret it. Make sure you allow a few hours to walk around and see all the gardens and the orchard.
We stopped in the visitor center first, it’s full of the most diverse collection of gardening books you’ll ever see. I saw a few that I haven’t had a chance to read yet, looks like I’ll have some great garden reading this winter. They also have a collection of heirloom seeds, as well as other gardening items – and of course you can purchase or renew your membership.
It’s was drizzling slightly the day we went, but we still made it around to all the gardens. Lucky for us the new Diversity Gardens right out front that were installed this spring were in their full glory.
Since Seed Savers focusing on preserving heirloom plants, their gardens aren’t always perfect. You will see plants throughout their life cycle and in the seed setting stage. That means plants are not ripped out when they’re no longer pretty or no longer producing vegetables for harvesting. There was lettuce blooming for seed and cucumbers yellowing on their vines – no botox and facelifting for these garden – the natural cycle is allowed to carry on.
You will also find Diane’s Garden behind the visitors center. Diane Ott Wheatly was one of the founder’s of Seed Savers.
There is so much at Heritage Farm that I decided to break this post down as it was getting quite long. Be sure to allow plenty of time when you visit, you certainly won’t regret it!
Check back tomorrow for part II and a giveaway of a gift I purchased while visiting.
Are you familiar with Seed Savers Exchange? Have you ever visited their farm?
See more from my visit:
Visiting Seed Savers Exchange Part Two
For more photos of my visit to Seed Savers that didn’t make the blog, head on over to my Flickr photostream.
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Swanky Purple Sunglasses Seeking New Owner
We live on a fairly well traveled road in our little community. It’s the main thoroughfare and we get a good deal of traffic every day. As a result we often find trash and random items in our front flowerbed and ditch in front of our house. We find the usual drink cans, plastic bags, pieces of paper and the occasional odd item like a cell phone charger. When we got home from vacation Mr Chiots was weeding the front hillside garden and said, “Hey, I found your lost sunglasses”.
We both got a good laugh because they’re a little too stylish for my tastes. I’m sure the owner is sad that she (hopefully not he) lost them, but into the goodwill pile they will go to find a new home.
And a little self portrait so you can see what my flowers and vegetables always see when I’m out and about taking photos for the blog.
Have you ever found anything left by passersby in your garden?
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Finally, A Decent Onion from My Garden
I’ve declared my love for all things of the allium family before. I really do love onions and have always been disappointed that the ones I harvest from my garden are small. I’ve tried growing onions from seed, from sets and from plants. Each year I harvest mostly teeny tiny onions. I’m pretty sure it’s soil here, which is very, very lean. This year I planted my onions in the new garden that I prepared in the lot we purchased this spring. I started them from seed early in January and transplanted them as quickly as I could, which was not super early since I had to clear the lot and make a new garden area.
The new bed was amended with a generous amount of bone meal and I was religious about weeding the new onion bed, going through it once a week and the onions seemed to really appreciate my extra efforts in this area. I gave them a watering with Neptune’s Harvest once a month. The onions weren’t quite ready to harvest when we went on vacation and I was hoping it wouldn’t be too late when we got home. Luckily, it wasn’t.
I’m a big believer in planting different varieties of vegetable to find one that does well in your particular micro-climate and soil. Each year I try different kinds of vegetables to find the one best suited for my garden, every now and then I get lucky and find one the first year that does very well (like ‘Boston Pickling’ cucumbers). Of the several of onions I planted, two of them produced much larger nicer bulbs than the rest. Which ones?
Yellow Sweet Spanish Onion – These golden onions produce fruit up to 1 lb (16 oz.) and their great flavor lasts longer than most other varieties. Yellow Sweet Spanish onions are gardeners’ favorites because they grow quickly without much effort. You will be able to harvest your onions less than four months after planting. (Source: Sand Hill Preservation)
These onions did very well and I’ll definitely be growing them again, especially since they’re supposed to be a good storage onion. I need an onion that will store into April, hopefully these will.
Borettana Cipollini – Gourmet Italian. Small, flat yellow onions. Shaped much like a button. A long day type with average storage ability of around 4 months. Mild well developed flavor. These flattened little onions are sought after for their distinct sweet taste. They command a high price at specialty markets. Small size 1-3 inches in diameter by 1 inch depth. For pickling, grilling and in salads. A good onion for colder climates. Comes out firm, stores well. Fills the gap between winter-stored onions and the early new ones. (Source: Sand Hill Preservation)
I was also quite happy with these little lovelies, for cipollini onions they’re quite large. I really love the flavor of these, especially when used whole in roasts, so I’ll be growing them again as well.
Not all the onions grew to a substantial size, I still had some tiny ones from the other varieties I tried. I don’t really mind, as they’re quite nice peeled and used in dishes whole as pearl onions. This doesn’t mean that I won’t be trying other onions and other methods of growing onions in my garden. There are a few varieties that have been recommended to me that I want to try (like ‘Copra’). I’m also going to try to overwinter some onions to see if that will work here. I’ve read it only works down to a zone 6, but with a good layer of mulch it can work in a zone 5 as well. Overwintered onions are supposed to grow bigger and mature faster in summer.
Do you ever grow different varieties of vegetables trying to find which ones do best in your garden? Have you found any that work particularly well for you?
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Targeted Ads
Yesterday afternoon my nieces & nephew came over for a visit. While I was chatting with my sister in the side garden we noticed 3 pre-teen girls stapling an ad to a tree right behind my mailbox. Then they proceeded to walk down the street yelling “Dog Walking, Dog Walking, Dog Walking”. While all this was happening Lucy was sitting in the front yard barking at them. The kids wanted to go over to read the sign, so we did:
What a great little flier, I love the “100% garenteed”. It’s kind of funny that they put up this flyer right across from our house, since have empty lots on both side and across the street. The only person that will see it is us – how’s that for targeted ads! I was always an industrious little girl. My sister and had always had a business going to earn money, our most profitable was a popsicle business.
What kinds of things did you do to make extra cash when you were young?
