2024 Seed Shopping
Well, I’ve done it. Ordered what I think are more than enough seeds for 2024. Let’s see what ridiculous things I ordered.
A few themes you’ll notice is that I’m working on trialing more brassica varieties here. And I continue to try to consider more spices, herbs, and seeds we can grow here too, so you’ll see that as well.
It started at Siskiyou Seeds in southern Oregon, because I had a tab open from earlier this week, and surprisingly, my cart still had the 3 items I’d added on a whim. I was most excited about the Spigariello Broccoli, a version harvested for their tender leaves. I also added a few extra broccoli varieties, then found Dijon mustard, Dahlia seeds, Dwarf greek basil, Mrihani basil, Fennel seeds, Perilla, Stella blue winter squash, Rosa di Milano onions, and Zargana of Nestos dry beans.
I moved north to the Willamette Valley of Oregon and placed my Adaptive Seeds order. There I resupplied my Gernika sweet paprika seed, grabbed a few more breadseed poppy varieties, found a new Gochu to try (Korean Hot pepper), Nigella (black cumin) seed, plus several open pollinated onions and leeks. I’m excited about the Newburg onion and hope it will replace Patterson, which is a hybrid. Anytime I can swap an open pollinated for a hybrid I’m growing, I’m all for it. I really hope these onions impress me this summer.
Then I jumped over to Johnny’s Seeds, and I was a bit disappointed that a few of my favorites were out of stock, but I made do. I resupplied my gem marigolds, strawflower (Seashells Mix), gomphrena (added Audray Purple-Red and got more Raspberry Cream), Halona cantaloupe, tatsoi, Oregon Giant snow pea, KN Bravo daikon, Red King 2 radish, Red meat radish, and a few new watermelons because the didn’t have my Mini Love: Ocelot and Century Star, both hybrids.
Back to Oregon, I jumped over to Territorial Seed. They are where I first tried mustard greens and iceberg lettuce. At this point, I ended up double ordering a few things, like I added Tah Tsai (it’s a tatsoi, which I’d just ordered from Johnny’s), Miz America mizuna, Dragon Tongue mustard greens, Wasabina mustard, Regency iceberg lettuce, Sorrento Raab, and … drum roll … fenugreek seed. I couldn’t resist that one!
I shopped Fruition Seeds for some very very expensive items: turmeric and ginger. I usually just buy ginger from the coop but I am determined to do a side by side growalong in 2024 to see if the seed really does perform better (plus, I’m writing another article on ginger for late 2024 so I feel it’s necessary to have this all sorted out for that). I also bought more peanut seeds as well as an open pollinated watermelon, Sugar Baby. So now I’ve got too many watermelon seeds.
I didn’t find Fortex pole beans, our old favorite, at Johnny’s, but I did find it at a local MN seed company, North Circle Seeds. I see their seeds in our local coop and love their Musketeer melon so I ordered Fortex pole beans (trying them to see if the Japanese beetles won’t devour them next year), but while I was there I checked other things out and added Red African eggplant and Lina Sisco Bird Egg bean (it’s apparently on the Ark of Taste Slow Food list and is a super short bush bean).
Last but certainly not least, and a company I’ve wanted to support for a few years now, is Kitazawa Seed. I was going for more brassicas, specifically Asian varieties. I ordered a few Chinese broccolis, a Japanese mizuna (Mibuna), more eggplants (Konasu which is super dark black and looks amazing), and Yu Choy Sum seeds, another edible stem, leaf and flower brassica.
I didn’t order any corn, cabbage, carrots, zinnia (proud of myself), potatoes, tomatillos, or tomatoes! I did take the time to go through every seed packet just to be sure we have enough seeds before ordering all of this, too.
I have plans to build more covers for brassicas next summer to hopefully minimize their population here, but I have a feeling they will outsmart me somehow. The good thing is we don’t have any major travel plans (except sending a kiddo off to college, which I can’t even begin to get my head around), so we are really looking forward to a summer in the garden next year and these seeds are making me even more excited to expand our herb and brassica garden next year.
