Are the petals of a Cosmos flower more perfectly placed than those of any other flower? The folks who named Cosmos “Cosmos” were thinking along those lines since the Greek word cosmos means order and harmony. Another name for Cosmos is Mexican aster. It is native to Mexico and Central America and then travelled to … More A cosmos of another colour
Last year, I had a favourite sunflower. I watched it at every stage through the growing season and through the winter. And the stalk lingered long into a second year. It’s been hard to find a new favourite flower this year. Much harder than I expected. There was a mullein that I really liked. But … More A Zinnia in the garden
These corn poppies all started from some seed I got a while back through the Seeds of Diversity Canada member seed exchange.(@seeds_diversity) When I first grew them out they were all red and pretty similar to one another. I saved the seed and grew them out again. 1 or 2 pink flowers appeared amidst the … More Finding new colours in my Corn Poppies
Liz Martin and Matthew Glenn farm in the Finger Lakes region of New York State. They grow vegetables for CSA and market and every year they grow a handful of seed crops on contract to seed companies. In this episode Liz and Matthew talk about how they started saving seeds hoping to improve some crop … More The seed growers podcast episode 8 – Liz and Matthew of Muddy Fingers Farm?
Frank Morton is a seed grower outside of Philomath, Oregon. Frank runs Wild Garden Seeds with his wife Karen and the help of Victor Sauvie and Mark Luterra. They sell seed retail through a print catalog and online store, and sell seed wholesale to seed companies. We had a pretty long conversation so I’ve broken … More The seed growers podcast episode 7 – Frank Morton of Wild Garden Seed?
Helen Skiba is a flower farmer outside of Boulder, Colorado who sells her fresh flowers through farmers markets, weddings, wholesale and a flower CSA. Helen also sells dahlia tubers and dutch flower bulbs through her website. In this episode Helen talks about how she integrates saving seed into a cut flower farm for on farm … More The seed growers podcast episode 6 – Helen Skiba of Artemis Flower Farm
Flower Seeds Biology and Technology I haven’t actually read this book. In fact, I received it about an hour ago. There aren’t a lot of references about flower seeds out there and a few folks have mentioned this one to me. (In fact, Eric Budzynski just brought it up two weeks ago when we were … More Farmer Book Club: flower seeds biology and technology?
I’m going to start 2022 with this picture of my favourite sunflower and a bird feeder. A sunflower that sprouted from a seed that made it out of the bird feeder and past the juncos and chickadees and squirrels and blue jays. My favourite sunflower might not look like much right now. But I have … More A Sunflower To Start The Year ????
There are a lot of ways that lettuce can turn into jelly. A long list of fuzzy moldy slimy diseases. And they can strike seemingly overnight. One morning you have a bed of tall romaine lettuce looking perfect for harvest. And the next day … not so perfect ???? ???? ???? ???? ???? I’m going … More Keeping Your Lettuce From Turning Into Jelly
Serious celosia subsumed in an icy sheen A last scarlet splash to salute the seasonal sequence A celebratory send off in a snowy expiration (Yes, this is more magenta than scarlet – but where would the alliteration go then?)