power-shopping the seed catalogs, with joseph tychonievich

ABOUT THIS TIME OF YEAR I GET FED UP with holiday to-do’s, and need a solid dose of horticulture instead. What better task to treat myself to than getting ready for seed-catalog shopping season: making an inventory of leftover things, testing for germination, writing a wishlist—and ordering a few new catalogs to widen my winter world.

The Red-Spotted Newt starts his life in the water, hatched from one of 300-400 eggs his mother lays, becoming a tadpole-like larvae, gills and all. After several months he sheds them and becomes terrestrial, and is called an eft (the term for the red juvenile stage). This stage lasts a couple of years or up to seven, according to some references, before the next metamorphosis in the salamander’s life occurs and he once again changes colors…and habitats…returning to the water. Now I know why some of the salamanders swimming in my garden ponds are slightly different from others: some are tadpoles, some adults back from their years on land.  The University of Michigan says these creatures can live 12-15 years!Of course as with everything in nature, there are exceptions: populations that skip the red eft stage (in some coastal areas) and others that never undergo the second metamorphosis back into the water. I think my pals are cut from the classic mold, but I am not a scientist.In all this reading sinc

But Deb, up the hill, outdoes us all. Deb leaves dirigibles. You know: like the Hindenburg—but of shallots, that is. “What in the world is that?” I asked in my email reply after the hefty thing had landed (pictured above, with two good-sized onions and a coffee cup for scale). And Deb emailed back thus:“It’s a banana shallot,” she wrote. “I first saw banana shallots, also known as chef’s shallots, on one of Jamie Oliver’s cooking shows. I couldn’t believe it when I saw the thing–it is enormous, as big as a good size yellow onion and in truth, bigger than some bananas!  I love shallots (the onion’s sweeter sister) and have grown the traditional variety for years from sets (or bulb-lets). The possibility of growing this new variet

IN SOME THINGS lonerism backfires, like when the ladder needs steadying to get at the top of an errantly sprouting espalier, or a truckload of eight cubic yards of mulch is dumped by the far gate. Though ordering seeds is not heavy work, it is best not done alone, either; I have always had a companion for the task. My latest one, of considerable years’ duration, got it in his head to move to Oregon recently, for greener garden pastures, taking with him not just the in-person dimension of our friendship, but also access to the nearby greenhouse that was, of course, a perfect complement to the shopping we did together all that time.“I’ll buy the tomato seeds if you’ll grow them,” the conversation with Andrew would always begin, as if he needed my ten- or fifteen-dollar annual enticement, when of course we never really paid careful mind to who bought what or really kept a running tab of our years-long botanical barter. It hardly mattered; what counted was the chance to look together, to compare notes, to react collaboratively to the possibilities—ooh! aah! ugh!—and eventually to relish the harvest (or to commiserate when something was a flop and there was no harvest, or

FOR THOSE OF US WHO DEFINE “what I can’t live without” as “the entire botanical world,” and nevertheless dare to go seed-shopping online or on paper…caveat emptor. I’m one of those types, which is why I’m forcing myself to re-read my seed-catalog shopping rules before starting to write any orders.

That’s what I have learned so far from the University of Michigan Museum of Zoology’s Animal Diversity Web, another of my favorite hunting grounds for information about the natural world’s creatures. Their portrait of the Eastern Red-Backed Salamander explains that this species respires through its moist skin–meaning dry times are hard times–and cannot tolerate extreme acid conditions (such as a pH of about 3.7 or lower).No wonder these slender little salamanders are always tucked in under my pots, since they are a favorite food of various mammals, snakes and even some birds. Hideouts! Everybody has to eat something, so as for what they eat themselves: Snails are on the diet, apparently (along with various insects, mites and spiders, worms, millipedes and more), so I wonder how long the new relationship depicted above in my photo would have lasted.“They forage by thrusting out their tongue in a quick, forward motion and cap

At first, I thought this would be a post for beginners, but realized even experts are over-indulgently inclined. Some over-riding principles: I buy organic seed when available for my organic garden, and seek out regionally appropriate varieties. Here’s why, in detail.For me, resisting buying everything requires an annual review of the basic mathematics of vegetable gardening. Now (not after 11 boxes of seeds arrive that you forgot you ordered) is the time to crunch your own numbers:How many of A, B and C plants can fit into my Y square feet (and for what cost in

Andrew (we did a radio show together and he co-owns a local nursery near me) was right when he said he and I use a lot of the same ones, year in and out—Johnny’s and Sand Hill Preservation and Baker Creek and Seed Savers and Fedco and the others displayed under “Sources” in the sidebar on every blog page here. But I had never been to Ginny Hunt’s Seedhunt before, nor to Secret Seeds in England, not even virtually. Thanks, Andrew.The former is serious business: an old-fashioned list like all my favorite catalogs were when I was first learning to garden (meaning no photos, and lots of Latin names). It’s filled with things I’m enjoying looking up and then imagining places for in the garden, an impressive list of California natives, for instance, some of which would do as annuals and maybe even then self-sow here; an equally strong list of Salvia, and more. Don’t be shy: I don’t know what an Amsinckia is, either, nor a Hemizonia—but I’m having f

Since 1993, Scott has run Old House Gardens, the only American resource devoted exclusively to heirloom bulbs, many available nowhere else–older varieties that have been handed down for their enduring value and interest.After a degree from Columbia, Scott returned to Michigan to teach school and bought an 1870s fixer-upper house in Ann Arbor that led to an epiphany when he realized some of the plants outside it were hand-me-downs of gardeners past. He pursued a masters in historic preservation, worked as a landscape historian, and has taught landscape history at Eastern Michigan University.And most important for this discussion: Having that whole catalog of b

The British Clematis Society’s seedhead page makes it all very clear, should the thought of propagating vines from seed–or just a deeper desire to understand what is going on outdoors, which is what always gets to me–cross your mind. Follow each of those feathery tails (the strands of silky stuff) down to the base of the puffball, and you’ll usually find the beginning of a seed. Those in the picture aren’t ripe yet, in case you’re wondering. Still too shiny.(*Or maybe you’re just wondering what a wig-hat is? Don’t ask me; I learned the phrase from Tommy Tucker’s much-covered 1964 Number 1 single. It’s apparently something you wear with “High-Heel Sneakers,” as the tune was titled. My Clematis didn’t read the enti

Wind, which most simply described is the motion of air molecules—the air in motion—bring us more than just extra leaves to contend with.  It is a powerful pollinator, for example.The US Forest Service says that about 12 percent of the world’s flowering plants are pollinated by wind, along with most conifers and many other trees.Grasses and cereal crops are the most common types among the flowering plants. Since they don’t need to attract

Technically speaking, a “good bug bloom” would be one whose individual flowers are small (even if they’re massed in a big flowerhead, as dill or fennel are), and whose pollen and nectar are exposed for easy access.  They’d attract beneficial insect pollinators and predators—lacewings, for instance, or ladybugs, or ground beetles or beneficial wasps—creatures who spread pollen and/or feed on insect pests.A succession of beneficial blooms—not just one species or variety—will yield season-long appeal to a range of desired insects in all their life phases. Co-founder Ken Greene of Hudson Valley Seed Library says their Good Bug Blooms mix was formulated with that (and also eye-appeal to humans) in mind.Their current mix includes sulphur Cosmos, annual Gaillardia, ‘Lilliput Mix’ zinnia,