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jude on flickr
"a seed has no competition, for getting to the point, a little water, soil and sun, stem and root both do run, the green imperative..." It never gets old for me, the joy of seed starting: down in my basement on my husband's workbench, my little green babies thrive under grow lights from February to May. Nothing quite compares to all that brilliant, built in, green know-how bursting forth with relatively little effort on my part.
So, how to get started? You'll need some planting medium, or starter sets with reusable trays to catch water, and some earth friendly plastic wrap to cover your seed pots during germination. You will also need a plain old water sprayer and energy efficient grow lights. I use tap water with no fancy fertilizers and-boom-before you know it, there they are and the race to get them in the ground begins!
Most seed packets will have specific instructions about seed planting depth and conditions, degree of growing difficulty, whether the seeds need stratification, and the approximate number of days till harvest. Here are some of the many great sources for organic and heirloom seeds: Seeds of Change, Johnny's, Territorial Seeds, organic seed from Park seed, High Mowing Organic Seeds. You can even buy organic grass seed for your lawn from a company called Dirt Works! There are also so many great how-to organic gardening books available. I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for you while I'm sitting on my basement stairs watching my seedlings sprout! Happy gardening!
How to foster green biodiversity
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It recently came to my attention that a major seed supplier, Seminis, is now owned by MONSANTO. Personally I don't want to give one dime to Monsanto, so I will be buying from other responsible companies that don't have any ties to the biodiversity-killing-genetically-engineered-ag-empire.
It appears that Territorial and Johnny's, despite having signed the "safe seed pledge" are buying at least some varieties of non GMO seeds from Seminis. Park seed hasn't signed the pledge at all so I wouldn't touch them, and Seeds of Change is now owned by M&M Mars, so people might want to consider that...
High Mowing Seeds looks good. Seed Savers Exchange is a fabulous organization, though I haven't joined/used them yet. Others I like are: Kitchen Garden Seeds, Richters Herbs. I hear that Fedco seeds is a great company too.
Seed companies that have taken the "safe seed pledge" can be found here:
http://www.gene-watch.org/programs/safeseed/sourcebook.html
A list of the companies that sell or are affiliated with Monsanto is in this blog post. Not sure about the source but it looks comparable with other info I see around the web:
http://my.kitchengardeners.org/forum/topics/1091455:Topic:25574?page=3&commentId=1091455%3AComment%3A336...
Have you heard about Peaceful Valley Farm Supply? They are at groworganic.com, and are one of the largest retail suppliers of organic farm and garden suppliers in the US...and have hundreds of ORGANIC vegetable and herb seeds. Their commitment to the organic movement, and open disdain of anything GMO is simply remarkable.
Thank you so much for your thoughtful and informed comment. The link to the safe seed source book is Wonderful! Select seeds is a company that I have ordered from before and I was happy to see them on that list. The Monsanto deal is very troubling and I think will drive more of the informed market share to smaller more reliable sources. They may well find that this deal will be part of their undoing! Thank you again and Happy planting!