Flower Seed Buying And My Seed Database
Hello friends,
It's that time of the year again in New Zealand, when seed companies send you tempting emails showing you the new flower seeds they have available for sale. This year two of my favorite specialist flower seed companies sent me emails in late May, so I had no choice but to peruse their wares.
The first temptation was from Susie Ripley Gardening, where I purchased Cosmos and Larkspur varieties.
I have a soft spot for cosmos, and really fell in love with the cupcake and fizzy varieties. I can't wait to see them floating in the breeze this coming summer.
I also love how Larkspur brings some height to garden borders, so I got some purple and white varieties of that also.
Next up was Crawford Road Gardens, where I picked up a number of seeds including aster, celosia, stock, larkspur, foxglove, scabiosa, lavender, and strawflower. My plan is to increase my garden borders in the back yard, so I picked colours that matched the seeds I bought from Susie Ripley Gardening.
Once I had the seeds in my hot little hands, it was time to enter them into my seed database. I have a seed database set up on Libre Office, one sheet each for flower, herb, vegetable, and native seeds.
The columns are set up for seed type, supplier, sow by date, whether a seed needs to be stratified, if they've been sowed in the current year, and then which months of the year they can be sowed in.
In the rows, I have sections for each flower type e.g. Allium, Cosmos, and underneath the varieties are in alphabetical order. If the variety is greyed out, it means that I don't have that seed in stock right now. If the row is highlighted in the 2024 column, it means the seed has been sown. Cells marked in green show which months the seed can be sown in.
I really love this set up as it means that I can quickly see which seeds I need to sow, if they are still within their use by date, and if I need to reorder any seeds. I recently updated the seed database for spring 2024, so I can now see which varieties I may need to buy when the Kings Seed catalogue comes out this month. I may decide not to repurchase some seed varieties, but at least I will know which ones I've had in the past.
I have separate sheets set up for all my seed types, and it really makes seed sowing that much easier. It means that I can come up with a plan each month for seed sowing, and it also means I can purchase seed sowing mix ahead of when I need it.
It's so exciting to know that spring will soon be here, I'm already loving the return of daylight earlier and later each day. I can't wait until August when it's time to sow tomatoes and chillies.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Repotting Tomatoes and Chillies, and More Seed Sowing
Hello friends,
It's been another busy week in the garden, with warm and mild weather to welcome the start of spring.
I had to repot my chilli, capsicum and tomato seedlings in the last week, as they'd gotten too big for their plastic small glasshouses in the dining room. They're now happily situated in their now bigger pots with potting mix in the glasshouse, and are sitting in a frame which is wrapped up with multiple layers of frost cloth each night. If there's even a hint of bad frosts or snow, they'll be back inside the house in our spare bedroom until the bad weather passes.
Seed sowing is still underway, and will continue through spring.
Vege seeds sown this week:
- Pumpkin Crown Prince F1
- Pumpkin Musquee De Provence
- Pumpkin Baby Bear
- Pumpkin Marina Di Chioggia
- Maize Manaia
Herbs sown this week:
- Chamomile Roman
- Chamomile German
- Catnip
- Soapwort
- Marshmallow
Flowers sown this week:
- Eupatorium Hemp Agrimony
- Gypsophila Snowflakes
- Gypsophila Deep Carmine
- Yarrow Summer Pastels
- Valerian officinalis
There's so much more seed to sow, and things to do in the garden, but work is also busy right now in the lead up to the Christmas season, with me preparing eco textile products for inclusion in the online craft artisan website Felt gift guide. I hope I can balance the two between now and Christmas.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.
Spring Seed Sowing Week 4 2023
Hello friends,
We're up to week 4 of spring seed sowing, and I feel like I'm running behind. The past week has been busy painting and prepping areas of the garden for the coming growing season, but the pressure is also on to continue seed sowing as well.
Vegetable plants sowed this week:
- Beetroot Cylindra
- Cucumber Crunchy F1
- Cucumber Lebanese Medici F1
- Carrot Amsterdam Sprint
- Radish Easter Egg
- Sugar Beet
I also invested in some chicken wire cloches to prevent the sparrows from taking all my precious seed, they watched me hungrily the other day as I direct sowed the first of the root crops.
Herb plants sowed this week:
- Lemon Balm
- Orange Balm
- Olive Herb
- Basil Gustosa
- Basil Sweet Genovese
I'm particularly excited about growing the Olive Herb plants, as we definitely don't have the space to grow our own olive trees. A summary from the Kings Seeds website about the plant:
"Woody low growing border plant with green leaves that have an intense olive aroma. Said to add the flavouring of olives to marinades, pasta, a variety of meat and tomato dishes or wherever olives might be used. Combines well with thyme, rosemary, basil and tarragon flavours. The attractive yellow pompom flowers are also edible. Low maintenance plants are fairly hardy, preferring humus rich, well drained soil but will tolerate other conditions and soil types too."
Flower plants sowed this week:
- Dahlia Beeline II Keith Hammett
- Dahlia Keith Hammett NZ Gardener 2023 Seed Swap
- Dahlia Sunflower Keith Hammett
- Lavender Hidcote
I sent in a self addressed envelope to NZ Gardener in order to get some Keith Hammett dahlia seeds for this year's dahlia grow along, it's always great to see what sort of dahlias pop up, they're dahlia seeds collected from his breeding program. Each seed will be unique, and not ever seen before.
I hope your seed sowing is going well, this week is spring!
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.
Spring Seed Sowing Week 3
Hello friends,
It's been another busy week in the garden seed sowing for Spring. And also, seeds that I've already sown have started germinating, including my tomato, chilli, and lettuce seeds.
In the Vegetable Garden this week:
- Prepped the first vegetable garden bed for sowing peas and potatoes
- Checked on chitting potatoes (Rocket, Jersey Benne, Ilam Hardy, and Haylo)
- Sowed Greenfeast peas
In the Herb Garden this week:
- Sowed Oregano
- Sowed Common Sage
- Sowed Cumin
In the Flower Gardens this week:
- Sowed King Size Apricot Aster
- Sowed Crambe Cordifolia
- Sowed Dianthus Cruentus
- Sowed Echinacea simulata
- Sowed Gomphrena Raspberry Cream
- Sowed Knautia Macedonia Scabium
I didn't sow as many seeds as I hoped this week, as I was working on my winter citrus project to get the garden areas ready for when my citrus plants go into the ground in October.
Hopefully this week I'll get more seed sowing done.
Have a wonderful day,
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.
Spring Seed Sowing Week 2
Hello friends,
It was a busy week seed sowing for Spring. I like to sow a mix of vegetable, herb, and flower seeds each week, so no individual job is too big at any one time.
Vegetable Seed Sowing this week:
- Pearl Drop Onions (for pickling)
- Italian Long Keeper Onions
- Pukekohe Long Keeper Onions
- Long White Spring Onions
- Santana Spinach
- Space Saver F1 Cabbage
- Summer Sprouting Purple Broccoli
- Coastline Lettuce
- Drunken Woman Fringed Lettuce
- Rocket
Herb Seed Sowing this week:
- Gigante Italian Parsley
- Celery for Cutting
- Soapwort
Flower Seed Sowing this week:
- Alyssum Painters Palette
- Alyssum Carpet of Snow
- Pansy Imperial Antique Shads
- Pansy Purple Lace
- Viola Clear Colour Mix
- Viola Frizzle Swizzle
- Viola Imperial Antique Shades
- Calendula Dwarf Colours Mixed
- Calendula Nova (herbal variety)
- Snapdragon Potomac Lavender
- Statice Apricot
- Night Scented Stock
- Spring Sparkle Stock
- Allium Purple Sensation
- Allium Showy Persian Onion
I have super easy way of seed sowing annual flowers, a cheat way really. I have a lot of self seeded annual plants in my flower garden beds, and I keep an eye out in late winter to see when plants like calendula, pansies, and alyssum start germinating. Once I see that the ground is warm enough for that to happen, it's time to sow annual seeds.
I gather all my annual seeds, and start opening all the packets. Here is where the lazy part is, I dump all the seeds into one container. And once all the seeds are mixed in all together I go out into the garden and start sprinkling seeds around where I want my annual plants to grow.
Within a couple of weeks all the annual seeds start germinating, and since I know what the seedlings all look like, I know not to weed them out of the ground. It may be lazy, but it saves me heaps of time in not having to sow each seed out by hand. I also like the wild, non structured feel of where the plants grow, as compared to all my other plants in the garden.
I have also just popped all my poppy seeds into the fridge to vernalise for two weeks. After that I will sow those seeds in a similar manner. I already have poppy plants that have self seeded into the garden as well, but I wanted to add even more coloured varieties this year.
How is your seed sowing going? With sunrise coming at least a minute earlier every single day, I can just feel the coming of Spring deep within my bones. The sky is no longer dark when I wake up in the morning, and I look forward to seeing the sun pop over the hills as I make breakfast each morning.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
Want to discuss my post? Feel free to chat with me on Instagram or Mastodon.
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