Garden
"Staying Home" doesn't need you must remain cloistered inside! We want to enthusiastically encourage you and all our friends to consider an old-time Victory Garden. Empty grocery shelves indicate that we should grow something healthy that only our hands have touched and perhaps be less dependent on others for food. Owners Mike and Karen Duke have been organic gardeners for decades, and are happy to share a wealth of advice and assistance.
Victory Gardens were introduced in 1917, a means of growing enough food at home to allow farmers to export food to Europe, where most farmers had become soldiers and there was a dangerous food shortage. So Americans were enlisted to grow gardens not only in their own back yards, but in public spaces as well such as school grounds, parks, vacant lots, etc. You need not plow up your whole yard; simply companion planting some vegetables in your flower gardens can grow an amazing amount of produce. "Companion Planting" is actually a science unto itself that helps one or both plants grow and produce more prolifically. One example: roses benefit from being grown with members of the onion family as they help protect the roses from aphids and prevent black spot while also increasing their fragrance. So happily grow chives, garlic and onions with your roses. See how easy that is?
We'll be introducing lots of ideas for you, but before anything else you must plant seeds. We have been ridiculously finicky about seeds. We grow almost exclusively heirloom, non-gmo seeds. Heirloom seeds are important because it's a pure strain of the plant that has been grown from decades; you grow the seed into a plant, take the very best of all the fruits it produces, and save its seeds and have your seeds for next year, totally free of cost. If you attempt this with non-heirloom or hybridized seeds, the seeds are often rendered infertile by the company seed company who patented it, or the seed will grow an unexpected fruit from any number of the varieties that were combined to make that seed. So, always buy heirloom seeds when possible and avoid Genetically Modified Organisms (GMO) seeds.
Karen was in ill health last summer and unable to collect as many seeds as we commonly put up, so we found ourselves having to buy many seeds this year. She called the supplier and said "hey, I think we can sell some of these seeds for you" and struck up a wholesale relationship with them. Many are the same varieties we've grown for years, but we're excited to try some new things ourselves this year.
We hope you can embrace this idea and find gardening to be the soul-warming experience that we do. So we're going to begin by offering you the same seeds we're planting ourselves.
