Wait a minute now, you don't like super sugary sweet tea? The kind that hurts your teeth? That is definitely unsouthern American.


Sandy, that seed saver idea is the best I have ever seen, Thanks.

I'm not fond of super sweet tea, either. I grew up in a household where the tea was plain brewed, and if you wanted it sweet, you added the sugar at the table. My mom and grandma didn't drink it excessively sweet, so I didn't either. Besides cultural food influences, I think perhaps the familial food influences count for a lot more of a following.
My grnadma also never cooked green beans to a mush, she just cooked them until crisp tender, but still used salt pork or bacon for flavoring.
Now other forms of Southern cooking? Count me in!

zylvert said: Veggies in the winter here in Sarasota, Florida ..... oh,, we have all-year bugs too ...............

Beautiful!!

Growing up we very seldom had tea. When we did it was unsweetened. I didn't like it. Most times only other choice was just water. I chose water.

Tea, koolaid, same stuff different flavor without the sugar. Cannot judge that Memphis lightweight pollen by what we get under the pines and oaks in southern areas- it is so heavy you see it shimmering and settling thru the air worse than dust in Lubbock...Fl too has it fit to gag on. Heat goes with bug, cannot separate them. Pools in Houston half inch thick on the ground, in puddles, looks like someone poured a gallon of paint out. Fl pollen is different than Tx pollen- I can be ok with Houston and go down for the count as soon as I hit Florida. Oh, yeah, same in Calif/Nevada if it rains and the creosote bushes bloom, 2 deep breaths of that lovely creosote bush and I am not able to breathe.
Have never seen a photo case like that, but how does she keep her seed packets so clean????

kittriana said:

Have never seen a photo case like that, but how does she keep her seed packets so clean????

A number of you have recently referenced someone who has an enviable seed storing solution -similar to Kittriana's comment above, but I'll be darned if I can find the original post and or picture. Anyone able to direct me to it?

I need to find a system - any system. My current one involves leaving open packets of seed in as many sweatshirt pockets as possible. While others find their way to the workshop, desktop, or CD rack. I recently found a packet in a pair of sneakers that hadn't been worn in two years. Over Christmas I found a years-old unopened packet of seed that I had obviously used as a bookmark in a cookbook. Meanwhile, I harvested a healthy amount of seed from a particularly nice old french variety of Aquilegia - - - and have promptly lost the packet of meticulously gathered seeds. A system would be good.

Here you go. https://homesteadandchill.com/...

I think it is terrific way to organize seeds but I suspect I am not organized (or OCD) enough to organize my seeds this way. Also, I would need a What the Heck category for those seeds I pick up along the way that I put in my pockets and find much later. I always wonder where I got them and what they are. There must have been some reason I wanted to save them.

JBarstool said:
A number of you have recently referenced someone who has an enviable seed storing solution -similar to Kittriana's comment above, but I'll be darned if I can find the original post and or picture. Anyone able to direct me to it?

I need to find a system - any system. My current one involves leaving open packets of seed in as many sweatshirt pockets as possible. While others find their way to the workshop, desktop, or CD rack. I recently found a packet in a pair of sneakers that hadn't been worn in two years. Over Christmas I found a years-old unopened packet of seed that I had obviously used as a bookmark in a cookbook. Meanwhile, I harvested a healthy amount of seed from a particularly nice old french variety of Aquilegia - - - and have promptly lost the packet of meticulously gathered seeds. A system would be good.

JB, you really DO need a better system!

Thank you, Ardesia.
You got that right, Weedwhacker!

I have them in plastic bags, sort out by season, summer and winter vegetables, then I put them in one big container, I have the peas and corn separately because they are bulky. Then I have the herbs, and the flower bags.

A place for everything,.. and you know the rest.. no one needs me to tell them that putting things away is a task with it's own merit.
Paging library books raised my appreciation for organization. Also losing my cars keys and having husband.. ahem.. educate me... to have limited specific places that are OK to put certain items.
My main place is one plastic bin. Though packets live in my pockets
or windowsill or kitchen counter (limited number of allowable places ) at times, I know they go back there eventually.
I divided between cool weather and warm weather crops. In that, they are alpha order. If more than one packet of a type, example lettuce, they are paper clipped together.

Now where is my trowel? I think I should have one for every garden bed!

I have a big purse that I throw everything and the kitchen sink in there, I rarely lose my keys. And I also have plastic bins outside, the see through kind for fertilizer, this way I know where to get them.

This maybe a romaine lettuce, I've heard on the news that romaine lettuce went up 61%, here's my hedge against inflation. I don't have anymore room in my compost bin, so my garden waste with lots of worms is in the container next to it, I noticed it grew very nicely compare to the rest, proof that my compost does help.

Looks like romaine. I heard the shortages were due to lots of E. coli, so the prices went up.

Looks like you have some peas growing in that compost also.

They are peas, but my peas are not producing that much, very sporadic, I have maybe one plant that is producing.

I had to yank all my lettuces, it has just been too warm this winter and they were too bitter to eat. I had some that bolted when they were just little 3" plants.

I've already pulled all of my rapini, waiting to pull my arugula.

We had summer til we had winter with 1 hard freeze, then we are now having Spring, I expect to see Winter return just before it swings back to summer. Hmmm, my phone has red and blue spots on the keyboard- I wonder if it thinks it can tell me how to think and write?
Weeds are all so happy out there

I'm going to pick my Japanese mustard of some sort, I got the seed packet free, I have exactly 2 tatsoi plants out of how many seeds sown. Anyway, I'm thinking of taking down my bed of greens slowly, getting ready for summer crop. I may not have to go shopping for a while. I have a freezer full of food, a garden full of vegetables, what more can I want.