59 January 13, 2007

t looks like we have finally gotten some cold weather. Trust me, I’m not complaining about a warm winter. I have to pay a heating bill too.

Every once in a while, a few things come in the mail that are items worth letting you know about. The New England Wildflower Society is doing a fundraising effort. From January 15 to March 15th, they are selling 285 varieties of wildflower seeds. Proceeds of the sale go towards the plant conservation work of the society. If you would like to get a catalog and order form, go to www.newfs.org/seeds/ or you can call them at 508-877-7630.

I also received in the mail a seed catalog. No great news there if you are on anyone’s catalog mailing list. I did find this company’s catalog very interesting. The company is Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds. They search out many older varieties of flower and vegetable seeds. They collect seeds from all over the world. I took a quick look at just the varieties of tomato seeds. They must have 100 to 150 different varieties of tomato seeds. The company was founded just 10 years ago, but the depth of items in their catalog is really something to behold. If you want to check out this company go to www.rareseeds.com. or you can phone them at 417-924-8917.

With the arrival of some cold weather, people are worried about how the plants that are outside will be affected.  Baring some really long term temperatures in the single numbers or below zero, plants should survive the change just fine. As I have said before, any plant that came into flower during the warm weather of December or early January, will not have flowers again in the spring. I have heard that there is some worry that if the warm weather were to stay, apples and peach trees could come into flower during the winter months. This, of course, would be devastating to the crops of orchards throughout the area. As much as we have enjoyed the abnormally warm weather, we should hope for some cold weather to prevent any crop damage due to warm weather.

Well, the brain has run out of things to say, so for this week, I’ll be done.
I’ll talk to you again next week.