Try Something New

Try Something New.

As per their long-time tradition, the Gardening Grannies met New Year’s Day afternoon to peruse their collections of early catalogs and put together shared orders for Spring necessities. Beside the fellowship, they have two main goals: divvying up who’s going to order what of the newest untried offerings and naming their favorite catalog!

This year’s winner for over-all favorite catalog was “The Whole Seed Catalog” from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds in Mansfield, MO. One of the things the Grannies liked best about it was its sheer size: 355 pages of information-packed color pages of organic seeds, growing information, recipes and stories about the Gettles and their world-wide search for seeds. It is so well presented that you feel like you know and like the owners, Jere, Emilee, Sasha and Malia Gettle personally. You can check the catalog out at www.rareseeds.com or while you’re out and about at your favorite book-sellers (we found them at Barnes and Noble in Salisbury), see if a copy is for sale in the magazine section. We think The Whole Seed Catalog the best place to order your basic gardening needs.

Now, to the even more serious job of what to try that’s new this year. Some of the choices are new to the market and some are just new to the Grannies’ gardens.

• A new-to-the-market product called “Ketchup ‘n’ Fries” comes to us from Territorial Seed Company at wwwTerritorialSeed.com. This is a tomato/potato (TomTato) graft where the above ground part of the plant produces cherry tomatoes and the below ground part produces potatoes. It is presented as being in very short supply and they take phone and web orders only. Each plant is a startling $19.95 and, while all Granny Griffith could think about was how many seedlings she could kill in a season, Granny Eckel stepped up and will do the test order. We’ll let you know how that works out!

• Granny Griffith (she’s Welsh, you know) found an enticing description of early leeks (King Richard) in The Natural Gardening Company and has decided to give this smaller short season variety a try. It will take up much less space and time in her small raised bed gardens. You can find them on the web at www.naturalgardening.com or on page 18 of their catalog.
• Granny Henry has elementary age granddaughters whose favorite colors are…. you guessed it…. pink and purple! The Territorial Seed Company has a clever marketing maneuver that hit a home run with their “Purple Power Seed Collection”. This collection has all things purple: carrots, okra, broccoli, cauliflower, jalapenos, radishes, corn, onions, tomatillos, kohlrabi, tomatoes, kale and beans. Granny Henry’s plan is to involve the girls in all stages from starting seeds to the kitchen and the not-so-subtle plan of expanding their palettes at the dinner table. In the garden and on the table, these special purple veggies will be coordinated with pink flowers. Home run!
• The Cook’s Garden (subtitled “seeds & plants for gourmet gardeners”) offers an enticing selection of salad and specialty greens. The Grannies didn’t try them last season but this year Granny Del Pizzo has them on her list. She is particularly interested in a mix of heirloom varieties plus Cook’s Cutting Mix and Cook’s Blend (both exclusives). www.cooksgarden.com.

Gardening Grannies live, love and garden on the Delmarva Peninsula. You can reach us at gardeninggrannies@47abc.com