Save Some Seeds and Send Birthday Greetings

Season 4, Episode 44, September 7, 2022

Celosia ‘Flamma Orange’, photo courtesy of All-America Selections

We recorded this week’s episode a few days before Dee’s birthday. Do you know what she was doing right before we got together to record? Of course, you’ll guess gardening. A good guess, but that’s not what she was doing.

She was cleaning out her garage.

There’s apparently something about milestone birthdays that causes one to want to go on a cleaning spree.

I observed my youngest sister doing the same thing when she had a milestone birthday a decade ago. She spent most of her birthday cleaning out her basement in the house we all grew up in. I know this because she would send out messages with pictures of stuff she unearthed with warnings “if you want this, come and get it or I’m tossing it.” That’s how I ended up with a Barbie suitcase filled with rocks.

I’m sure Dee found a few such treasures (who doesn’t like pretty rocks!) buried deep in her garage as she cleaned it out for her milestone 60th birthday. I’m guessing she also found a bunch of old clay pots and black plastic nursery containers. And baskets full of plant labels. Maybe she even found stacks of old seed catalogs from her early days of gardening?

After all those years, those catalogs would likely be vintage, so she can't toss them now, can she?

Anyway, we want to wish Dee a Happy Clean Garage.

Oh wait, I got that wrong.

We want to wish Dee a Happy Birthday, which in this digital age you can do by leaving a comment!

Now, about this episode. Settle in. We have a lot to go over because, once again, we talked for 45 minutes.

Are you here for the flowers? Dee planted the Okies for Monarchs Central Oklahoma wildflower seed from Johnston Seed Company this past week, and we talked about some of our favorite self-sowing flowers.

Dee finally conquered celosia or maybe celosia conquered her because she’s gone from “they never do well for me” to “these celosia are self-sowing everywhere.” Check out some celosia seeds from Floret Flowers where Dee got hers. And check out that orange celosia pictured above from All-America Selections. Wowsa, as they say. No wonder it’s a 2022 winner.

We also talked about zinnias, which self-sow for Dee but not so much for me. You can watch Dee's zinnia video on Instagram and check out the Oklahoma zinnia series at Johnny's Selected Seeds.

For the rest of the self-sowing flowers we mentioned, listen to the podcast.

Are you here for the vegetables? For our vegetable topic we talked about why I went from “oh drats, this is going to be a terrible green bean year” to “I can’t keep up with picking all these green beans” in a matter of weeks. I only grew ‘Provider’ green beans this year. You can get them from Botanical Interests (affiliate link). I also wrote a Green Bean story on my blog.

We said that ‘Provider’ is an heirloom green bean variety so I had to look it up to verify that. Yep. It’s an heirloom, introduced in 1965. Now, what does that say about Dee that she was born before this heirloom variety came on the market?

On the bookshelf we talked about  The First-Time Homesteader: A Complete Beginner’s Guide to Starting and Loving Your New Homestead by Jessica Soward.  (Amazon Link). She also wrote The First-Time Gardener: Growing Vegetables.  (Amazon Link) which we talked about last year.

Her book reminded me that I have a cousin who is probably as close to a homesteader as anyone I know, though I’m not sure they grow a lot of vegetables. You can check them out at Funk Farm Miniature Herefords on Facebook and Instagram

Our dirt this week was about saving seeds and winnowing, which looked quite fun on Episode 23 of the 2022 season of Gardener’s World.

Down in our rabbit holes, Dee discovered  Christopher Kimball’s Milk Street and their podcast, Milk Street Radio. She listened to an episode about Julia Child which made her tear up. Listen to our podcast episode to find out why. 

I read The Mayfair Bookshop: A Novel of Nancy Mitford and the Pursuit of Happiness by Eliza Knight earlier in the week. Then I looked up Heywood Hill Bookshop (a real place featured in the book!) and looked at what was on their front table. Oh, a book of garden stories? Yes, please.

So I went over to Bookshop.org (shipping from the UK is pricey) and bought Garden Stories, edited by Diana Secker Tesdell and  Stories of Trees, Woods, and the Forest, edited by Fiona Stafford.  (Amazon links here and here but we prefer Bookshop.org because they support independent bookstores.)

Because I bought two books (okay three if you count a book of Christmas poems), Dee said I should check out Flylady to tame the chaos. I’m a long way from my next milestone birthday, so we’ll see if I can muster the will to do some cleaning like Dee is doing.

What else did we talk about? If you live in the Oklahoma City area, check out the Central Oklahoma Daylily Society and their plant sale on September 10th! Dee will have some of her daylilies in the sale.

And in case I hadn’t mentioned it, September 7th, when this episode officially drops, is Dee’s 60th birthday, which she is celebrating with a clean garage!

Happy Birthday, Dee!

Finally, here’s the usual stuff we include with every episode:

Affiliate link to Botanical Interest Seeds. (If you buy something from them after using this link, we earn a small commission at no cost to you. This helps us continue to bring this podcast to you ad-free!)  Book links are also affiliate links.

Email us anytime at TheGardenangelists@gmail.com 

For more info on Carol and her books, visit her website.  Visit her blog May Dreams Gardens.
For more info on Dee and her book, visit her website.  Visit her blog Red Dirt Ramblings.

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(Note added after sending… I sent this newsletter out into the world and then sent Dee a text to tell her it was out there. Her reply, “I saw that. I haven’t had time to read it because I’m cleaning out the closet in the spare bedroom.” Further proof that what I wrote about milestone birthdays and cleaning sprees is so true! Next week, maybe she’ll tell us about any treasures she found!)