seed catalogs

[mjciccarel]

Received the first one of the season today. Tomato Growers. Does anyone actually order from these? MJ

[Pat Kiewicz]

Absolutely. Tomato Growers is one of my favorites, as are Johnny's, Pinetree, Park's and Stokes...also Jung's...

Well, not every one of them every year, but lots of them sometimes.

[mjciccarel]

I have ordered from Tomato Growers a few times but I have a hard time justifying the shipping. MJ

[Pat Kiewicz]

If I can justify the extra property taxes for the back half of my lot where the veggie garden is, postage fees are a snap.

Likely I'll have to give it *all* up one day.

[songbird]

or find a local person or group who doesn't have any garden space and let them have at it. a shame to let a good garden go to idle.

songbird

[songbird]

...

that's a bit of fun. :) where are you at?

songbird

[Winters_Lackey]

songbird wrote in news: [e-mail]:

A first ring suburb of St. Louis, Missouri, USA.

[songbird]

i'd assume that means the lot sizes are not very large?

are you growing for market or for mostly your own use or ?

songbird

[Winters_Lackey]

songbird wrote in news:b5ee2b-a99.ln1@ID-

306963.user.uni-berlin.de:

Both lots are 6750 sq ft, but our house takes up quite a bit of it. The little house we rent out is very small, and has a big back yard that I do not rent with the house. The raised beds in the community garden are each ~50 sq ft.

Exclusively for our own use. Anything we can't use, we give to family/friends/neighbors/whomever. Last autumn I took a bunch of sunchokes to a coffee shop that I frequent occasionally, and some to the Penzey's spice store for the employees. This year, I might consider selling the sunchokes, though we really should eat more of them. They are full of inulin, which is a prebiotic that feeds the nice yogurt bacterias.

Fun fact, though bacteria is already plural, when refering to more than one species of bacteria, it is correct to use the word, bacterias.

I've posted enough times here that I really should introduce myself. My name is obviously Bryan, and I'm a 53 YO happily married guy who is fairly obsessed with edible gardening, though it took decades for me to get good at it. I'm also into cooking from scratch. I've taken a sabatical from working outside the home to finish my first novel, so I have lots of time to devote to those two passions.

I've been on Usenet for 16+ years, mostly alt.punk (I'm an aged punk rocker who sang in a crazy lefty fusion punk band for 10+ years), and more recently, rec.food.cooking, where bad cooking and flame wars are far too frequent. One thing that might be of interest to this NG, or might not, is my layman's knowledge of dietary fats. rec.gardens.edible seems to be mostly on-topic, and that is a happy thing.

[George Shirley]

Sunchokes, aka Jerusalem artichokes, are very good when pickled. At our old place we had a stand of sunchokes that had been in the ground over twenty years. Fried, stewed, baked they gave us a tremendous amount of intestinal gas, pickled, nary a problem. Even the great grands like them. We deliberately didn't bring starts with us as they take up a large amount of space. We downsized from a 14,000 square foot lot with an 1875 square foot house on it to one with 6500 square feet and a 1960 square foot house.

I probably should introduce myself too, some of the folks on here know me from rec.food.preserving. George Shirley, age 74, soon to be 75, been gardening and preserving food since I could walk, married 54 years come December, two kids, five grandkids, six great grands, all within driving range of us now that we're home again in Texas. Retired oilfield trash and, yes, we even gardened in Saudi while we were there and again in Yemen. Been on UseNet since 1990, got my first computer in 1982, an Osborne One, anyone remember those? I do ninety percent of the cooking in this house and one hundred percent of the cleaning up after myself. Never could carry a tune but love music of all kinds, was/still am a fifties rocker. Former USN and don't miss being at sea.

George

[Winters_Lackey]

George Shirley wrote in news:53691d56$0$19184$862e30e2 @ngroups.net:

You used to be somewhat of a regular in rec.food.cooking. It's gotten even worse.

[David Hare-Scott]

When I was there ( some years ago) the problem was too many extended pissing competitions over who has the biggest collection of very expensive pans (or knives, or gadgets...) and whether black truffles were really better than white. I was told on different occasions that if I really wanted to be able to cook my kitchen benches would be stainless steel and the floor would be tiled with a drain hole so it could be flushed like a commercial kitchen. Those who mistake form for substance often cannot see they have a problem. I seem to recall Sheldon, our Brooklyn, and all his extended (cloned) family were regulars too.

D

[songbird]

George Shirley wrote: ...

:) welcome George, there's a bit more conversation here. :) and quite a few smart folks who know names of plants and things.

i'm old enough to remember most of the early small computer setups. never actually got into them, but the IBM PC i eventually bought was working fine when i gave it away some 14 years later.

songbird

[Winters_Lackey]

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in news:lkbt9c$ggb$ [e-mail]:

Sheldon posts here?

[David Hare-Scott]

Brooklyn1 is one and the same AFAIK, Fran is of the same view.

D

[Winters_Lackey]

"David Hare-Scott" wrote in news:lkda52$42j$1 @news.albasani.net:

He's been using Brooklyn1 for several years.

[George Shirley]

Yeah, I know, take a peek at it every once in awhile, looks to be a flame zone nowadays. I vaguely remember that was the reason I left it. Sometimes it's nice to be old and senile.