Organizing new seeds

It’s that time of year when gardeners start to dream through seed catalogs and troll websites, buying and later organizing new seeds.

All this shopping is like being a little kid at a dessert buffet. Once the packages start to arrive, I’ll need to organize my bounty.

New Year dreaming.

Each year, I write about buying new seeds. Will you grow some ephemeral spring beauties like I did last year, or will you attempt to wrest organic summer squash from the squash bugs yet again?

Too many new seeds?

It’s fun to go back and see what new seeds I bought in each new year. Shall I again share what I’ve bought so far this year, along with what’s been sent to me to trial? Can a gardener have too many new seeds?

Where do I buy my new seeds?

I’m often asked where I buy new seeds. Carol Michel and I are doing a seed catalog series on our podcast, the Gardenangelists, throughout January, but here are the new seeds I’ve bought so far and where I purchased them.

John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds

• Mignonette. I’m still trying to figure out why I bought these. I know people grow it for scent, but I don’t even remember purchasing it.
• Nicotiana ‘Only the Lonely.’ I love flowering tobacco for a lot of reasons. It attracts moths, and many varieties have a beautiful scent that starts later in the day and evening.
• ‘Jade’ bush green beans. Although I’ve grown pole beans, I enjoy growing bush beans more.
• Heliotrope ‘Marine.’ I love the scent. Maybe I was thinking I would place these outside my kitchen window with mignonette.
• Dill ‘Dukat.’ For some reason, I bought more of this dill variety. I have plenty, although I like to sow additional seeds throughout the growing season. Otherwise, swallowtail caterpillars eat it all in one wave.
• Spinach ‘Bloomsdale Long Standing.’ It’s an heirloom that grows better for me than any other spinach I’ve tried, and believe me, I’ve tried them all.
• Radishes ‘Lady Slipper.’ I love radishes, and this is a pretty mix. Have you ever cooked radishes? They are delicious and mild when cooked.
• Onions ‘Redwing.’ These just came, and I need to get them in potting soil ASAP.
• Lettuce ‘Blushed Butter Cos.’ A Romaine lettuce that is especially pretty.
• Lettuce ‘Divina Butterhead.’ I’m going to start these inside the greenhouse and then transplant them.
• Lettuce ‘Tennis Ball Butterhead.’ I’m doing the same with these as a project for Bill. He loves butter lettuce, especially the small heads.
• Eggplant ‘Bride.’ I think I said on the podcast that I wouldn’t grow eggplant. I lied.
• Turnips ‘Milan Rouge.’ I love beautiful turnips grown in the garden.
• Tomatoes ‘Bella Rossa.’ I love to grow tomatoes.

Select Seeds

• ‘Morning Call Blue & White Picotee’ morning glory, Ipomoea nil. I fell in love with the color.
• Salvia ‘Big Blue’
• Nicotiana x sanderae ‘Select Watercolors’
• Nasturtium ‘Vintage’
• Cleome ‘Cherry Queen’

Pinetree Garden Seeds

• Basil ‘Dolce Fresca’
• Basil ‘Osmin’
• Salvia sclarea, clary sage
• Bush bean ‘Derby’
• Dill ‘Thalia’
• Cucumber ‘Adam.’ It’s supposed to be extra crunchy and require no staking.
• Radish ‘Pinetree Mix’
• Spinach ‘Pinetree Mix’
• Zinnia ‘Oklahoma Salmon‘

National Garden Bureau and All-American Selections

Each spring, NGB members send garden communicators new seeds to try and then write about. Some are national All-American Selections, while others are regional winners.

It’s fun to try out new varieties sometimes before they are even on the market. Here’s what they sent me this year.

• Broccoli ‘Purple Magic.’ I better get those going in the greenhouse.
• Lettuce ‘Bauer’
• Hot pepper ‘Buffy.‘ I’ve grown this one before. A great pepper.
• Chile pepper ‘Quickfire’ is a beautiful pepper I’ve grown before.
• Pepper ‘Red Impact’
• Pepper ‘San Joaquin F-1
• Sweet pepper ‘Dragonfly,’ which I’ve grown before. Quite tasty.
• Eggplant ‘Icicle’
• Pepper ‘Wildcat’
• Tomato ‘Sunset Torch’
• Tomato ‘Purple Zebra’
• Begonia ‘Viking Explorer Rose on Green’
• Coleus ‘Sun Coral Candy’
• Zinnia ‘Yellow Profusion Bicolor’
• Celosia plumosa ‘Flamma Orange,’ a good one.
• Celosia plumosa ‘Burning Embers’
• Impatiens interspecific ‘Solarscape XL Pink Jewel.’ These are downy mildew resistant.
• Marigold ‘Siam Gold’
• Antirrhinum majus nanum, snapdagon ‘Tall Doubleshot orange bicolor’
• Torenia ‘Summery Love Pure White’
• Sunflower ‘Concert Bell’

Now, that’s a bunch of new seeds to try. Thank you, National Garden Bureau.

Johnny’s Selected Seeds

I like Johnny’s because they are always generous with their seeds, and the germination rate is really, really good.

• Hot pepper ‘Mad Hatter.’ I love this AAS pepper because it’s beautiful, can be harvested at all stages, and tastes so good.
• Hot pepper ‘Padron,’ a jalapeño. I love a good jalapeño. I make a lot of guacamole.
• Pepper ‘Shishito.’ These little peppers are an excellent side dish.
• Kabocha winter squash ‘Sweet Jade.’ I haven’t a clue why I bought this one. Maybe I thought it was a summer squash.
• Tomato ‘Harvest Moon.’ New for 2024 and very beautiful.
• Basil ‘Everleaf Thai Towers.’ I wanted to try another Everleaf basil. Readers and listeners know how much I love ‘Everleaf Emerald Towers.’
• Nasturtium ‘Bloody Mary. ‘ I grew this variety last year, and they were stunning.
• Gomphrena ‘Audray Mix’
• Zinnia ‘Oklahoma Carmine’

Organizing new seeds is a bit of a chore, but it can also be fun.

For one thing, organizing new seeds gives us a chance to keep on dreaming. In the garden of my mind, there are no mistakes yet and no bad weather. No insects chomping down on leaves, and no disease. It’s fun to dream.

Last year, I decided to organize my seeds in my large school binders with plastic storage sheets designed for seeds. They store better than the plastic photo album sheets I used before, and the seeds don’t fall out of the binder as often. I also use zip binders, just in case.

These are not all of my new seeds.

I ordered tomato and zinnia seeds last fall. Inspired by this post by Barb Merchant from Windfall Flowers last August, I went a little nuts for pale lemon-yellow zinnias. I’ll write about my crazy zinnia infatuation in a later post. Just know I’ll be growing zinnias all over my landscape this year. Having so many new seeds is a beautiful problem to have.

Now, I’d love to hear how you organize your seeds. Do tell.

I hope you’re having a good winter. We’re supposed to have beautiful weather with highs in the 60s next week, so I plan to get out there and work in my cut flower-raised beds and uncover the hellebores in some of the other parts of the garden.

See you soon.