Hey all! Just curious...

Short of seed-saving, what is your favorite place to pick up heirloom varieties? I've been purchasing from Baker Creek (rareseeds.com) and they have the best selection I've seen so far, but always curious to see what else is out there.

Keep on growin'!

... Condense soup, not books!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/02/11 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: -=[ExoplanetBBS.net]=- (21:4/174)

On 18 Feb 2022, InfectedBootSector said the following...

Hey all! Just curious...

Short of seed-saving, what is your favorite place to pick up heirloom varieties? I've been purchasing from Baker Creek (rareseeds.com) and
they have the best selection I've seen so far, but always curious to see what else is out there.

Sadly, and perhaps lazily, Amazon.com. But I will definitely check out Baker Creek.

Keep on growin'!

What zone are you in and what are you growing?

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

On 18 Feb 2022, InfectedBootSector said the following...

Hey all! Just curious...

Short of seed-saving, what is your favorite place to pick up heirloom varieties? I've been purchasing from Baker Creek (rareseeds.com)

Some suggestions would depend on what your end growing goal is.

Some suppliers focus on "storage seeds" intended to held in your reserves for perhaps a good number of years before planting.

Some do wonderful old school varieties in a true Heirloom ideal.

So, what youup to?

--- Steve K9ZW via SPOT BBS

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/02/11 (Linux/64)
* Origin: SPOT BBS / k9zw (21:1/224)

On 18 Feb 2022, InfectedBootSector said the following...

Hey all! Just curious...

Short of seed-saving, what is your favorite place to pick up heirloom varieties? I've been purchasing from Baker Creek (rareseeds.com) and
they have the best selection I've seen so far, but always curious to see what else is out there.

I ordered 4 different types of pepper seeds from them just now, we'll see how it goes. I built a 5-container herb garden for which I can set the desired moisture level of each container, and if any container goes below its
moisture level it lets me know so that I can water it, but not over-water.
I'm currently working on an 8-container version, so I should be able to put each pepper seed type into two containers.

It struck me as a little odd that all of the plants/vegetables on the Baker Creek home page (and there are a lot of them) are black. Is black produce a specialty of Baker Creek?

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

It struck me as a little odd that all of the plants/vegetables on the Baker Creek home page (and there are a lot of them) are black. Is black produce a specialty of Baker Creek?

No, Baker just doesn't specialize in in one type of heirloom seeds.

My son in law grows a lot of peppers and he introduced me to the black
peppers recently which I had not heard of before. He is a member of several pepper grower groups which exchange pepper seeds of different types.

nristen (Karl Harris)
bbs: bbs.theharrisclan.net SSH/2222
gemini: gemini.ctrl-c.club/~nristen

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/07 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Search BBS (bbs.theharrisclan.net:34123/2222) (21:1/161)

On 20 Feb 2022, nristen said the following...

It struck me as a little odd that all of the plants/vegetables on the Baker Creek home page (and there are a lot of them) are black. Is bla produce a specialty of Baker Creek?

No, Baker just doesn't specialize in in one type of heirloom seeds.

My son in law grows a lot of peppers and he introduced me to the black peppers recently which I had not heard of before. He is a member of several pepper grower groups which exchange pepper seeds of different types.

Yeah, I noticed that all of their seeds aren't for black plants, but their front page looks like some kind of Goth garden (nothing wrong with that, of course). I did buy some pepper seeds, some of which were black peppers. I personally like the heat but I'm not the only one for whom I'm cooking, so sweet peppers it was.

I also went back and got some of the micro-tomatoes that can be grown in a 6" (~15cm for the more civilized among us) pot. We don't have many freezes here
in central Texas, but we do have a few, so it'll be nice to be able to
bring it in if needed. Other than that, I bought a couple of varieties of
gourd seeds and some heat-tolerant Chinese beans to (eventually) plant along the backyard fence.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

peppers. I personally like the heat but I'm not the only one for whom
I'm cooking, so sweet peppers it was.

My Son-in-law that I mentioned enjoys the Carolina Reaper and can handle several of them at one sitting. I however can not handle anything near that heat.

a 6" (~15cm for the more civilized among us) pot. We don't have many freezes here in central Texas, but we do have a few, so it'll be nice to be able to bring it in if needed. Other than that, I bought a couple of

I am in in southern Texas and just recently had some nights that got down to the high 20s. Did you have anything like that recently? I have brocoli out
in the garden already but have to wait on putting the peppers out.

nristen (Karl Harris)
bbs: bbs.theharrisclan.net SSH/2222
gemini: gemini.ctrl-c.club/~nristen

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/07 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Search BBS (bbs.theharrisclan.net:34123/2222) (21:1/161)

On 21 Feb 2022, nristen said the following...

peppers. I personally like the heat but I'm not the only one for whom I'm cooking, so sweet peppers it was.

My Son-in-law that I mentioned enjoys the Carolina Reaper and can handle several of them at one sitting. I however can not handle anything near that heat.

Ooh, no, I can't handle that kind of heat. I'm more into serranos and
habaneros on the hot end, and poblanos on the milder side.

a 6" (~15cm for the more civilized among us) pot. We don't have many freezes here in central Texas, but we do have a few, so it'll be nice be able to bring it in if needed. Other than that, I bought a couple

I am in in southern Texas and just recently had some nights that got
down to the high 20s. Did you have anything like that recently? I have brocoli out in the garden already but have to wait on putting the
peppers out.

We had a few. We haven't planted anything permanently. We had a gazebo with
hot tub that fell into disrepair so we had it demolished and want to put a permanent greenhouse in its place. We had a decently-sized temporary
greenhouse in the other (non-hot-tub) gazebo, but it did not survive the elements for much more than a year.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Here are some photos of my seedlings.

https://coldwarcomputing.com/photos/seed_garden_2.jpg
The one in the back (at the top of the photo) is the first one I made, and it contains herbs (clockwise from upper left: Rosemary, Thyme, Oregano, another Rosemary, and Basil). All have germinated.
The one in front contains 5 instances of Chinese Five-Color Peppers. Only two have germinated.

https://coldwarcomputing.com/photos/seed_garden_1.jpg
This is a front-on view that puts all of the wires and stuff in perspective. Each of these gardens has 5 containers, and each container has a soil
moisture sensor. The Arduino continually cycles through them, making sure
that each one is at or above a hardcoded, per-container threshhold. If one is below the threshhold, it stops cycling and the red LED turns on until the problem is resolved, and then it goes back to cycling.
The peppers were originally an experiment to determine a good moisture level for peppers. The moisture threshholds for the 5 containers were set to 10%, 20%, 30%, 40%, and 50%. Only the seeds in the 10% and 20% containers germinated. I replanted the three containers that did not germinate, and now the threshholds are set to 10%, 12%, 14%, 16%, and 18%.

https://coldwarcomputing.com/photos/seed_garden_3.jpg
This is the new seedling garden that I'm working on, which will have 8 containers and 8 sensors. This is for the Baker Creek seeds, which haven't arrived yet. There will be four varieties of pepper, two varieties of gourd, one microtomato, and one bean plant.
We have a privacy fence around our backyard and the one at the rear of the
yard already has a grapevine growing up the center of it. I thought the gourd and bean vines might make nice additions to the left and right.

Jeff.

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/08/26 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: Cold War Computing BBS (21:1/180)

Concerning the black features, I'm sure it was marketing/graphic design choice. Their catalogs and site are top-notch and they have a good eye (in my opinion). I think it was just them being artsy.

I used to purchase from Landreth a while back, and they had a pretty neat, almost bespoke catalog. It was also one of the oldest operating companies here in the states at the time. They ran into some financial issues and were sold a time or two. I haven't checked into them in a while, but might be worth a look again.

... I'm not a complete idiot... Several parts are missing!

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A48 2022/02/15 (Raspberry Pi/32)
* Origin: -=[ExoplanetBBS.net]=- (21:4/174)

Here are some photos of my seedlings.

Thank you very much for the pictures and descriptions. It was very interesting. I was especially interested in your experiment to find the best germination moisture. I forwarded the pictures to my son in law. I had to explain to him what a BBS was.

nristen (Karl Harris)
bbs: bbs.theharrisclan.net SSH/2222
gemini: gemini.ctrl-c.club/~nristen

--- Mystic BBS v1.12 A46 2020/03/07 (Linux/64)
* Origin: The Search BBS (bbs.theharrisclan.net:34123/2222) (21:1/161)