From left: zinnias; this year s Souther Exposure Seed Exchange catalog; a red alpine strawberry.
“I wish we could bottle and sell the hope and enthusiasm that comes with the newness of a fresh start every spring, a stack of seed catalogs, and the come-hither whispers of new plants at local garden shops,” says Mary Beth Shaddix, who with her husband, the nurseryman David Shaddix, grows a garden filled with both new and tried-and-true vegetable varieties each year in Shelby County, Alabama. “Hope keeps me going back to the garden, watching, studying, staying surprised.”
As those seed catalogs hit mailboxes across the South, gardeners reconnect with the roots that link us to plant people through the ages. “If you want to grow heirloom varieties or save seed from your plants, you’ll need to order seeds from a catalog that specializes in heirloom varietals and grow your own,” says Michael Washburn, the garden manager at Blackberry Farm. His role model, Blackberry’s mast
Be Prepared for a Possible Seed Shortage Jan 18, 2021 by kazoka on Shutterstock
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Spend too much time pouring over seed catalogs and plotting out every square foot of your raised beds and the seeds you need might be sold out.
Vegetable seed sellers experienced skyrocketing demand last spring as concerns over potential food shortages drove some of the demand; gardening also helped pass the time during quarantine leading seed companies to post virtual “out of stock” stickers on some popular seed varieties. As seed starting season begins again, sellers say demand hasn’t slowed down.
“The demand has been massive,” says Mike Lizotte, co-owner and managing director of American Meadows and board president of the Home Garden Seed Association.
2020 offered plenty of successes in the garden
Top: A pea stone pathway lined with bricks was a big project but was worth it to keep out weeds. Above left: Calycanthus or sweetshrub is a shade-loving shrub the author loves. Above right: Blue beauty tomatoes are a good-looking early variety. Left: Dahlias make nice cutflowers.
Henry Homeyer. (Courtesy photograph)
Modified: 1/10/2021 9:02:07 PM
By HENRY HOMEYER
This past year was a tough one for many of us: isolation due to COVID-19, political turmoil, employment interruptions and more. But in the garden? For me, it was pretty good, overall.
It was a very dry summer, but that meant that there were fewer fungal diseases on my tomatoes and phlox. Since a small stream passes through my property, the water table is high, and my established plantings did fine with little supplemental watering.
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In spring 2019, Rob Connoley opened Bulrush in St. Louis, in the Grand Center Arts District. Courtesy Rob Connoley Text size
Growing up in St. Louis, chef Rob Connoley spent summers and weekends holed up in the family cabin about an hour south, in Ste. Genevieve, Mo. “It is a very special place to me, but I hadn’t had the distance to reflect on how special it was until my return to Missouri,” he says.
In the 18
th and 19
th centuries, Ste. Genevieve, the oldest European settlement in the state, was the gateway to the Ozarks, a mountainous region that stretches across southern Missouri and northern Arkansas, and encompasses parts of eastern Oklahoma and Kansas. Ozark cuisine, at the time defined by the likes of liver dumplings, was another aspect of his childhood that Connoley, 52, admits he took for granted.
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