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Oklahoma Gardening

Baker Creek and TGS Catalogs

14 years ago

were both in the mailbox today. So will have plenty of reading to do tonight. Dawn I wanted to join in on the catalog update fun. LOL. Jay

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Comments (12)

soonergrandmom
14 years ago
I have been in Joplin all day and came home to find my Baker Creek catalog also.
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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
14 years ago
Jay, Two catalogs in one day is a very good day. : )

In my mailbox today, I had the catalogs from Baker Creek, Seeds of Change and Vermont Bean Seed Company. (I think I got one from VBSC a month or so ago so this must be a dupe.) Also in my mailbox was a big fat envelope of seeds from Baker Creek--the ones I ordered when they put the new cart up in late Nov. or early Dec.

Carol, I now have probably as many seeds from Baker Creek as you do and I have no idea how I'll squeeze them all into the garden this year, although succession planting beans and cowpeas will help somewhat because I have many varieties of each.

I haven't had time to look at all the catalogs thoroughly yet but I bet I'll find something I want in at least one of them. Really, though, I'm about finished ordering seeds. The only varieties I "need" to order that I haven't ordered yet are a couple of warted pumpkins.....Goosebumps and Knucklehead, and maybe their companion mix of warted gourds that is named, I think, Gargoyles. I'll probably order those tonight and consider myself "done".

Dawn
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Well, Peggy, if you say so too, then it must be true! I'm very glad I only grew one plant. I can't believe there's such a thing as a home-grown tomato that isn't even worth bothering to eat, and I grew Celebrity for several years, before I learned better. As for variability, the much-praised German Red Strawberry and Green Grape are ok, though nothing to inspire any excitement -- but I am holding off on judgment for these varieties until we get some decent tomato weather, or maybe I'll even try them again next year before deciding. (Of course, even in a bad year, Arkansas Traveller is always good.) But why on earth would a company send out free seeds for a yucky variety, thereby PROVING that their catalog descriptions are hooey?
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Carol, I always have transplants standing by to a certain extent even if I just started them in small paper cups a week or two before I intend to transplant them. How old the transplants are will vary. I usually keep a few tomato and pepper transplants in 1 gallon pots on the patio where they get morning sun/afternoon shade well into June or early July so I can plop them into the ground to replace a plant that dies. If nothing dies, I'll eventually toss the unused 'backup' plants onto the compost pile. In a rainier year, they may send roots down into the compost pile and grow there, but since the compost pile is not fenced off from the wild animals, a deer or rabbit or something usually will eat them within a few weeks. For follow-on or succession crops, how I prepare succession plantings will vary, depending on which kind of vegetable we're talking about. For example, I often plant southern peas to replace broccoli and cabbage when they're done. So, when I see the little broccoli heads just starting to size up, I'll sow southern pea seeds in tiny bathroom-sized paper cups with the bottoms cut out of them. Then, when it is broccoli harvest time, I harvest the heads, pull up the plants (normally I don't leave them for sideshooting because I'm eager to get the new crop into the ground) in the morning and then in the cool evening hours, I'll transplant the southern peas, cups and all, into the garden and water them well. Then they have a little time overnight to adjust to being transplanted, but since I have transplanted them in their bottomless paper cups, there's rarely any transplant shock at all. It is not essential, obviously to start the seeds in cups as opposed to direct sowing, but I do it for two reasons. First, to get the succession crop to produce earlier a bit earlier. (Remember that everything I do is aimed at maximizing the harvest we get from our garden.) The plants from cups are a week old most of the time when I set them out. Secondly, to ensure no wasted space. If I sow seeds, I may have an empty spot here and there where seed didn't sprout. When I transplant young seedlings, there are no empty spots. It can drive my friends and neighbors crazy when they stop by one day and see a raised bed full of young pea plants that only yesterday had huge broccoli plants. I, however, love those fast transitions. For a long time, I assumed I was a garden wierdo (and maybe I am) because I preferred to start every followon crop in cups and transplant immediately after yanking out the previous crop. However, I then learned that some serious biointensive gardeners use a similar method--starting every single thing they grow from transplants and direct seeding virtually nothing for the same reasons I do...maximizing harvest and productivity, and then I didn't feel like such a weirdo any more. That's one way I succession plant, but there's another method that works really well too and that is to plant sprawling, rambling warm-season plants close to early season plants. You might be putting those sprawling plants into the ground in April or May when the cool-season crop was planted in February or March. Then, after the early cool-season plants are harvested, the warm-season plant that was planted much later will quickly spread and take over the recently-made-available space. For example, I might plant Seminole pumpkin near the potato bed. It will be starting to ramble and roam and move close to the potato bed, and then after I dig the potatoes, it will take over that area. Or, I might plant Sugar Baby watermelon in May somewhat close to the carrots that were planted in March. Once the carrots are harvested in June, Sugar Baby rapidly takes over the space they formerly occupied. Most years, this works out really well. It may seem peculiar to some folks to start carrot seeds inside and transplant them outside, but it guarantees me a carrot crop instead of having to spend 2, 3 or 4 weeks to wait and see how well the carrots do (or do not) sprout in any given year. Some years, usually either in a drought year when soil is exceptionally dry or in an exceptionally wet, rainy year, I start carrots inside and other years when the weather is right in the middle--not too dry and not too wet--I direct sow them outside. If I am direct sowing carrots, I prefer to use homemade seed tapes made during the cold winter months, so sowing the carrot seeds outdoors takes only a few minutes and their spacing is pretty good other than maybe an occasional gap in a row where a seed didn't germinate. A Three Sisters garden is another form of succession planting where you can harvest 3 crops at 3 different times from one bed. I plant the corn first and let it get at least knee-high before I plant beans that will climb the beanstalks later. These beans need to be direct-seeded because I don't want to disturb the roots of the previously planted corn plants by using a trowel to dig a hole large enough to transplant beans started in cups. If it is an early corn with short stalks like Early Sunglow, I plant half-runners that won't overwhelm the stalks when they start climbing. A much taller corn can handle a bean that is more of a rampant grower. I will plant pumpkins and winter squash a couple of weeks later (it depends on soil temps) around the perimeter of the corn and bean planting. They'll ramble and roam and eventually spread all over that area. The corn is normally harvested first. Then, later on, it will be the green beans that are harvested and, when harvesting them, I have to be careful that I don't step on the pumpkins vines and crush them. Eventually, the beans are pretty much done and the pumpkins or winter squash are getting quite large and I'll harvest them last. That's a way to get at least three crops from the space generally devoted to one crop. I think I have grown virtually every single crop you can grow from seed in paper cups, except for carrots, turnips, radishes and beets. I have started carrots inside in the cardboard tubes from paper towels, wrapping paper, and toilet paper. I save all those cardboard tubes, cut the larger ones down to the same size as the ones from toilet paper, line them up in a seed flat, fill them with a soil-less seed starting mix, plant the carrot seets, and transplant them out into the garden within a week of the carrots sprouting. Carrot seeds will sprout much more quickly for me indoors in warmer temps under lights than they do outdoors, and if we have one hard rain while I'm waiting for the carrot seeds to sprout outside in my sloping garden, there won't be any carrots because a hard rain will wash the seeds out of the garden and down into the bar ditch or the woods. In order for carrots sprouted indoors to do well, though, you must transplant them outside almost the minute they sprout. They get really long really fast so you can't keep them inside more than a very few days after they sprout or they'll grow out of the bottom of the cardboard tubes. Another way I speed up the succession planting process is to pre-sprout seeds indoors in wet paper towels or coffee filters, and then transfer those pre-sprouted seeds directly into the ground where they are to grow. So, I'm still direct seeding them, but with the pre-sprouted seeds, the plants will pop up out of the ground in a day or two instead of in a week or two, and there won't be any gaps in a row where seeds didn't sprout, because I discard seeds that didn't sprout and only plant the sprouted ones. I even use presprouting for seeds I'm starting in flats on the light shelf sometimes, although that's more common in a year with few fires. In a year with lots of fires, I'm gone too mcuh to pre-sprout and just throw the seeds in the flat, put them on the light shelf, and try to remember to check them every morning and evening to see if they need watered. I use all kinds of tricks like that to make my garden as productive as possible. When people say they cannot understand how I can fill up a root cellar, 2 or 3 freezers and hundreds of canning jars from a garden "only" the size of mine, I think to myself that if they lived here with me for one gardening year and saw all the extra effort I put into keeping every square inch planted and producing something, then they'd understand how it is possible to get such large yields. I hate, hate, hate "wasted space" in the garden and do everything I can to avoid having any land sit idle for any period of time during the gardening season. Dawn
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Dorothy, I'm glad yours came. I did see Poona Keera on the website and it was not showing that it was sold out. I'm not sure why it didn't make it into their catalog. It seems like it usually is there. Dawn
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Germination rates have been fine for me with Baker Creek seeds. However, I have had a few off types show up in batches of their seed...although I have had the same with other companies, too. I like BCs wide selection of seeds...lots of unusual varieties. However, I also like the "sorting" though multiple varieties that happens before varieties make it into Johnnys and High Mowing Organic Seeds catalogs. For strange or unusual, BC is great, for a sure crop with a tested variety I'll go with Johnnys or HMOS. BC's catalog is different than others and fun to look at. The photos are not "specimen" shots, but more artistic. They may not always showcase what the traits of the particular variety really are....but they are always eye catching. LoneJack, I thought the Atomic Grape tomatoes mostly looked unusual, not appealing. I was surprised to see them on the cover. And I'm someone who has grown several Brad Gates/Wild Boar Farms tomatoes. If someone gives me a few AG seeds I might grow them, though. The garden gets some "just for fun" varieties each season and some friends delight in getting seed to me that might make it in for the year.
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elkwc
Original Author
14 years ago
Dawn is that "done" till after Christmas, the New Year or for the "2010" season" ? I can't believe you are done for the season yet. I still have a few things to order. Garlic for next fall. A couple that I want and was late on this year. Have to order a few things from Skyfire and also Amishland as soon as they both get completely updated and vented row cover from Harriss. Then I'm done till I visit another site. LOL. Jay
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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
14 years ago
Jay,

I really think I am done. I got out my seed box today and sorted out all the varieties I intend to plant in 2010 and it is a ridiculous amount. I do not need to order one more thing. As soon as the holiday season is over, I need to get busy outside breaking new ground (in three separate places) to expand the garden so I'll have room to grow all the varieties I want to grow. January is usually a great time for me to do stuff like that since it is normally pretty mild here and it is our driest month in Love County, statistically speaking.

OK, I haven't done my Dixondale order yet--no reason why I haven't, so I need to get that done. I might order a small amount of seed potatoes, but then again I just might use what I can find locally.

I only ordered a handfull of flower seeds because the veggies are taking over their space too.

Dawn
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scottokla
14 years ago
I only get TGS and it came yesterday here. I will only order from Burpee and maybe TGS this year. I will mainly just start Brandy Boy, Celebrity, Bush Early Girl, and a few others in larger quantities from seed. Then I will add to it using three-packs of about 10 or 15 varieties from the local nursery. I can get about everything I want for tomatoes and peppers in the 3-packs from the local places in Bixby for about $14 per flat of 54 plants.

I am envious of a lot of you guys, but by the end of July I am tired of all the sprawling indeterminants and the dozens of cages and it isn't as fun anymore then. This was the first year I was not burnt out by August, probably because of the kids' interest. I'm ready to go right now, though.
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soonergrandmom
14 years ago
Today I received Jung Seeds and Plants, Tomato Growers Supply, and R.H. Shumway catalogs. If I ever have time to sit down and read, I will have plenty of material. I thought I had ordered everything, but several are on backorder, and two were just marked "out" so I don't know if that means they were out for 2009, or not carrying them anymore. I would have thought that they would just have backordered those also if they will have them for 2010. I guess this means I need to order seeds again. LOL
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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
14 years ago
Carol,

It irritates me when they say a variety is "out" with no further explanation. I do think that the use of the word "out" instead of "back-ordered" probably does mean they don't expect to have it at all, whether the reason is that they have dropped that variety or that the seed grower/wholesaler had a crop failure or that the seed arrived but had such poor germination rates that they are opting not to sell it.

Be careful ordering more seed.....it is a contagious activity, and one order often leads to another and then another and then another. LO

Dawn
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elkwc
Original Author
14 years ago
Carol I agree it is aggravating when you order early as soon as the catalog comes out and you get that message. And I've got several that are on back order and a couple where they said out. Guess that might help me cut my tomato list down. LOL What I hate worse is when they send and order back and say out and don't even send a refund. Sandhill did that to me 3 orders in a row. Why I haven't ordered from the last few years. And the only company out of close to 30 I've ordered garden supplies from that hasn't sent a refund. My feeling is if it is out when the catalogs arrive why was it listed. And in Sandhill's case I've seen the items stay listed on their site for 4-6 weeks after I've received notice that they were out. I know it takes time to keep a site updated but that should be considered when deciding to sell a product online. Off my soap box now. Jay
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soonergrandmom
14 years ago
Well, I guess I was at fault on this one as well, since I ordered from their 2009 seed list because they hadn't updated to 2010. This was Willhite and my previous experience was very positive. They sent a sub on one that I didn't like, but it didn't seem worth sending it back. I like the tallest peas I can find so I can pick standing up, and they sent a shorter one. They backordered four items, but then there were two more that just said "out". There were several subs I would have taken in place of those two, but they didn't contact me to ask. They had my address, my phone number, and my email so there was no excuse for that in my opinion.

Jay, I agree that if they don't have it, then the website should reflect that. If they can't keep up with the website, then they shouldn't have one. Sometimes I choose a company based on only one thing they have that I want, but I will order more than one item from them so I don't have to pay shipping for several companies. It irrates me when that one item that was the reason for the order is not shipped.
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carsons_mimi
14 years ago
This was my first year for online veggie orders. I placed a small order with TGS and it arrived in my mailbox from FL in 3 days. I thought that was incredibly fast. The order was complete and included a free pack of tomato seeds. Another order through SSE arrived within a week's time so they did great as well.

I checked out The Cook's Garden website (www.cooksgarden.com) based on a recommendation from another forum and went absolutely nuts. I ordered way more than I have room to plant. I think you folks have an infectious condition rubbing off on the newbies. Guess more containers are in my immediate future (sigh). Anyone know of a good source?

Lynn
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gldno1
14 years ago
I just got Jung Seed catalog and will have to place an order. I have finally found the 24 inch tree guards for my fruit trees. The bunnies attacked them last snow we had and I had to go out and wrap them in aluminum foil and tape...not too attractive.

I always wonder when they say they are family owned....Dave's Garden shows them being associated with lots of other companies....do they own them or does someone else own them all? I guess it doesn't matter if you like their products and their service but I don't want to be misled in thinking they are just a regular family owned enterprise.

I have ordered from them many times in the past.
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Okiedawn OK Zone 7
14 years ago
Glenda,

J. W. Jung is still a family-owned company and has now become a conglomerate, I guess, since they have purchased at least 8 other seed companies that I'm aware of.

Company founder J. W. Jung passed away in 1988 a few days before he would have celebrated his 101st birthday and I believe it was both his son and son-in-law (Tuenis Zondag) who ran the company for many years. Currently, it is J.W.'s grandson, Dick Zondag, who runs the company and the 4th generation, Nathan Zondag, joined the firm after finishing college in 2007. I think Jung celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2007 because I remember them bringing back some favorite seeds from each decade and all the evelopes that year had 1907-2007 printed on them.

So, even though they now own 8 related companies, they remain family owned. I've always liked J. W. Jung and have ordered from them many times. Since they bought all the other companies, though, some people feel like their quality has slipped a bit, especially in regard to live plant material. I've only ordered seed from them and I've had great germination rates and excellent customer service.

Dawn
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