It’s an exciting day here at Frosty Garden! Our seed orders are in and we finally get to put our mitts on all the new stuff we are planning for the 2025 season! We also figured this is an opportunity to discuss how we process these seeds into our seed bank, once we get them.
The first thing we do is write the purchase year on every seed packet. We use this for future seed viability assessments as we’ve found seed houses can be somewhat inconsistent in labeling. It just helps to have a big fat 2025 label on each packet.
Most years, we’re doing something highly experimental and this season is no different. So, we also go through our new seeds and make sure we have a sowing schedule for each and every seed packet. For new to us stuff, we often have to do a bit of research to get a “first swipe” at a sowing schedule for those seeds.
Every time we grow something new to us, that initial sowing schedule is always a best guess. Once we actually grow these things, we assess whether that sowing schedule is accurate or if it should be moved sooner or later in the sowing season. This is why the sowing schedule we publish is both highly accurate and as comprehensive as it is.
Our sowing schedule sort of acts like a checklist for us. As we go through each week of sowing in the coming months, we’re basically making sure we sow everything we intended. It’s usually pretty accurate. Except that one time we totally forgot to sow violas!
Once we’re confident everything is in order, the seeds are then put into our collection. Again, we use a large photo organizer to store our seeds and this is massively helpful for managing a large seed collection.
We are trying out a new to us seed vendor this year! We selected Swallowtail Garden Seeds out of Santa Rosa, California. We found they had a very impressive line up of flower genetics and were also quite enamored with their large collection of subarctic grade perennial flower seeds. We’re excited to see what they bring to our gardens!
Hope you all are as excited for next month as we are! We’re really looking forward to slinging some dirt again!
