On 2/18/2016 12:05 PM, Derald wrote:
George Shirley wrote:


We're trying to eat up all the eggplant delights in the freezer. Had
burgers and eggplant fritters for dinner last night. Looking in the big
freezer it appears that my dear wife has put up about six bags of
fritters, five more containers of ratatouille, another six containers of
eggplant stew. I'm afraid to look for more. G
+1!


My first order from Victory, won't be the last. I have a bookmark with
nothing but seed companies in it and am trying to get back to the tried
and true heirloom seeds.
Well, I only grow open pollinated varieties but don't pay much
attention to the "heirloom" appellation because it seems to have become
a rather flexible marketing term within the past 25-30 years or so. I
only have four seedsmen bookmarked. In addition to the three mentioned,
I get good results from Reimer. Many in the NG rely on Johnny's and on
Baker Creek (online as rareseeds.com, IIRC).

I generally send all the useless catalogs to
the recycling bin. Now that we've bought a worm bin and are about ready
to start setting it up I may just use the catalog pages for worm food
and bedding. We're going to use red wigglers as they are good
composters. Have not seen a regular earthworm on this property yet.
Earthworms would not be in my garden beds naturally: Native soil
is sandy with nothing much to eat. I introduce them with compost and
with "leaf mold", where they are abundant, and keep them well fed with
my soil amendments.

So far we have found no native earthworms on our property. Most likely
because there is five feet or more of clay fill under the property,
covered with a couple of inches of sand. We put some native earthworms
we bought into the raised beds last year, nary a sign of them since.

We're setting the bin up today or tomorrow to get it ready for the red
wigglers. Hoping for worm castings to add to our gardens eventually. We
have a barrel composter but it takes months to make decent compost with
it. We will run both I guess.