[Homestead] Plants are blooming

bob ford bobford79 at yahoo.com
Sat Sep 20 10:45:24 EDT 2008


Lynn, I found a free seed swap site on the Internet a while back.  It is for people who grow any heritage type plants to swap with others who have them.  Its a really neat suite, they mainly have southern heritage vegetable seeds, if I remember correctly, but did have some cold weather seeds.  They have a list of the seeds they have and will give you like 20 of each, with a limit of how many plants at a time.  Then they ask that when the plants produce seeds, that you send seeds back.  If I can find it in my bookmarks, I will post the url ....bobf 



----- Original Message ----
From: Lynn Wigglesworth <lynnw1366 at hotmail.com>
To: homestead at lists.ibiblio.org
Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2008 7:38:49 AM
Subject: Re: [Homestead] Plants are blooming


Winter is when northern gardeners sit by the fire and read seed 
catalogs. It's one of the great joys of rural life. I always plan a 
bigger garden than I could ever possible take care of.

I do have a greenhouse, but it's more for starting plants in the spring. 
It doesn't make sense to add expensive heat and lights for a few 
tomatoes in the winter. I do grow figs in my greenhouse; I love them but 
they need the extra winter protection to survive...the unheated 
greenhouse is a zone 7 or 8, while outside is a 4 or 5. The figs go 
dormant, but overwinter. Also fuzzy kiwis. I'm looking for other 
perennial fruits that wouldn't survive outside here, but will overwinter 
in a zone 7.

We grow crops in the summer and can/freeze/dry the excess for winter. 
Fresh tomatoes are, alas, only available (outside the supermarket) for 3 
months or so, starting with the early ones, through to the huge sandwich 
tomatoes. I live on tomato sandwiches in August and September. Living 
with a 4 month growing season, you learn the meaning of "make hay while 
the sun shines".

Lynn Wigglesworth
Tioga County, PA

bob ford wrote:
> Do you have a hot house for winter plants?  What do farmers/homesteaders in cold areas do in the winter ?  bobf 
> 
> 
> 
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: Lynn Wigglesworth 
> To: homestead at lists.ibiblio.org
> Sent: Saturday, September 20, 2008 6:34:36 AM
> Subject: Re: [Homestead] Plants are blooming
> 
> 
> bob ford wrote:
>> I'm also zone 9.  When you say that your tomatoes "are done" do you mean they have their blossoms set, or that you already have tomatoes?  ...bobf 
> 
> In northern PA, it means that we had our first frost warning Thursday 
> night. The tomatoes survived that, but they can't shiver and make fruit 
> at the same time. They might ripen what's left on the vine, but they are 
> pretty much done.
> 
> Lynn Wigglesworth
> 
> 
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