Any Good Sources for Heirloom Plants?
Posted: Wed Feb 15, 2017 4:44 pm
I am so excited! I am taking the week of February 27 off from work and caregiving (I will still check in once a day to make sure all is well with my friend and her family). Friends have encouraged me to take off to Charleston, South Carolina (one of my two favorite old cities to visit), but I am looking forward to working at my old house. Maybe it's the 393 years of farmer blood in me, but I find digging in the dirt to be rather therapeutic.
As my tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths are out with buds (way too soon for us) and the weather isn't supposed to get below freezing any more after this month in my area, I am setting my eyes to prepping my new veggie garden and installing a picket fence for the dog to run off the leash.
For me, I have determined I want to stick with heirloom varieties of plants that would have been available for John McCuiston in 1884. I am very excited about growing a number of varieties of flowers and vegetables that most of us aren't familiar with in this day and age.
I have found a couple of sources online that sell the old varieties of plants. I ordered seeds for my Victorian vegetable garden from http://www.heirloomseeds.com. A few of the varieties I ordered were some that I haven't seen since my grandmother threw away my grandfather's old seed packets. He always saved seeds from his crops for the next year's plantings, and some of his seeds can't be found today. His Ledmon watermelons were always in high demand in the small community, and those seeds are almost impossible to find nowadays. This site had the crowder peas he grew that I loved so much as a child. I am really looking forward to my first fresh batch.
My garden will certainly be nothing like the acres I was accustomed to as a child, or the acres and acres my ancestors tended at Warrascoyack Plantation outside of Jamestown, but nonetheless it will hopefully be enough to keep the farming tradition alive in my family branch to some degree.
I also plan to start a good-sized collection of old garden roses. I am ordering from http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com this year, and hope it turns out to be a good experience.
Do any of you folks have a good source for heirloom or "old garden" plants?
Have any of you attempted plantings in a historical manner? I am going to give a shot to historical methods of gardening this year, as best as I can and am curious if anyone else has tried anything similar.
As always, if you have pictures, I want to see!
As my tulips, daffodils, and hyacinths are out with buds (way too soon for us) and the weather isn't supposed to get below freezing any more after this month in my area, I am setting my eyes to prepping my new veggie garden and installing a picket fence for the dog to run off the leash.
For me, I have determined I want to stick with heirloom varieties of plants that would have been available for John McCuiston in 1884. I am very excited about growing a number of varieties of flowers and vegetables that most of us aren't familiar with in this day and age.
I have found a couple of sources online that sell the old varieties of plants. I ordered seeds for my Victorian vegetable garden from http://www.heirloomseeds.com. A few of the varieties I ordered were some that I haven't seen since my grandmother threw away my grandfather's old seed packets. He always saved seeds from his crops for the next year's plantings, and some of his seeds can't be found today. His Ledmon watermelons were always in high demand in the small community, and those seeds are almost impossible to find nowadays. This site had the crowder peas he grew that I loved so much as a child. I am really looking forward to my first fresh batch.
My garden will certainly be nothing like the acres I was accustomed to as a child, or the acres and acres my ancestors tended at Warrascoyack Plantation outside of Jamestown, but nonetheless it will hopefully be enough to keep the farming tradition alive in my family branch to some degree.
I also plan to start a good-sized collection of old garden roses. I am ordering from http://www.antiqueroseemporium.com this year, and hope it turns out to be a good experience.
Do any of you folks have a good source for heirloom or "old garden" plants?
Have any of you attempted plantings in a historical manner? I am going to give a shot to historical methods of gardening this year, as best as I can and am curious if anyone else has tried anything similar.
As always, if you have pictures, I want to see!