Randi

Seed Saver Exchange

Last fall I read Barbara Kingsolver’s novel Animal, Vegetable, Miracle as one of the books in my monthly Book Club.  The book is a true story about Kingsolver and her family, who only ate local food for one year.  If something was in season, they simply didn’t eat it.

It was amazing to read about their daily life, all of which was food related.  While I try to eat local food as much as possible, I decided to go super-local and expand my garden this year.

I ordered seeds from the Seed Savers Exchange.  Their mission:  “Since 1975, Seed Savers Exchange members have passed on approximately one million samples of rare garden seeds to other gardeners. We are a non-profit organization of gardeners dedicated to saving and sharing heirloom seeds.”   It is awesome!

Last week I started my seeds indoors as directed on the seed packets.   Black-Eyed Susan and Purple Coneflower (two of my favorites) are perennials, both started indoors.  Sunflowers are annuals and I’ll start those outdoors soon.

Yum yum!  All of the tomato plants are planted.  Beans and basil go outdoors.

Most seeds that you purchase at a home & garden store come from one of several large corporations.  Those seeds (plants) are engineered for “better breeding-higher yield,” but that often is of no interest to bees or insects.  Seed Savers promotes biodiversity with many varieties of seeds from sources all over the country.

Hydrating the peat pellets.

Seed-helper

The pellets expand upon contact with water.  To “start” the seeds, just dig a little hole in each pellet and drop in seeds as directed on the packet.

The seeds will sprout in 5-21 days (depending on variety) when kept in a warm area out of direct sunlight.

Time to wait and see what “comes up”!

I'm Randi Voss, a professional wedding and portrait photographer based in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. I specialize in photographing fun, happy weddings working throughout the wedding day as both a photojournalist and a portraiture artist. Have a look around my blog to see what I've been doing lately, both personally, and professionally, and get to know me better. View the Galleries to see some of my favorite photos. Leave a comment to let me know your thoughts. Sincerely, Randi

One Comment

  • sister

    my seeds will have to be started a little later… but they’ll still be good. i might get some of your seeds (unless you used them all) so i can have bees too!

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