There are few things I love as much as seeds. They come in so many wonderful shapes, sizes, colors, and textures, and produce such a wonderful variety and bounty of food and blooms. Each from just one tiny little kernel! Some people may fantasize about rolling around in a big ole pile of money, but I say ptui! I'd much rather roll around in a mountain of seeds. (Or leaves. Or chocolate. But not grubby money. Bleck!)

So I was very excited today to attend the Project Grow seed swap held at Downtown Home and Garden.

Here's the loot from the swap. You'll have to take my word when I tell you I contributed at least twice as many seeds as I took, and that I plan to share the wealth at future swaps!

Yep, people just love talking about seeds, especially in winter.

I'm really excited to try something called orach, which supposedly tastes like spinach but gets kind of viney, and a bunch of new-to-me heirloom tomatoes: 'Blondkopchen,'* 'Costoluto Genovese,' 'Coyote,' 'Garden Peach,' 'Little Lucky,' 'Pink Accordion,' 'Riesentraube,' and 'Tiger Tom.' Also scored some fennel and four o'clocks seeds.

I may also have purchased some heirloom tomato seeds from Project Grow, of varieties I tasted last summer at their tomato tasting: 'Snow White' and 'Brown Berry' cherries and 'Mrs. Benson' beefsteak.

I've grown over 15 varieties of heirloom tomatoes in each of the last two years and swore to myself (swore—you gotta go with your strengths, I guess) that, for a variety of reasons, I would grow no more than 8 varieties this year. Ha ha ha ha ha! The best laid plans and all that. 'Cause the list above doesn't even include my favorites 'Tiger-Like,' 'Japanese Black Trifele,' and 'Gajo de Melon' or the 'Black from Tula' and 'Dr. Wyches Yellow' (plus a purple tomatillo) from the lovely proprietor of the Populuxe Seed Bank.

I guess it's high time I start winter sowing this season!

I was also excited that there was free food! Downtown Home and Garden owner Mark Hodesh cooked up eggs, any style, on this wonderful 1930s stove. (Note to self: Always take more than one photo so people don't have their eyes shut. Oops. The management has been notified.)

Nommy! Soft-boiled eggs and toasted Zingerman's bread--all free! My dad and I loved eating our eggs this way, dipping the toast into the ooey, gooey yellow center. The fact that my mom thought this technique bordered somewhere between barbarian and childish only egged (ha ha) us on.

I enjoyed the sunny, seedy swap so much, it prompted a second post in under a week.

Hugs, ya'll!

*Seed originated from the Gatersleben Seed Bank in the former East Germany, for my #seedchat friends.

Happy Easter, everyone! This is my second post for the Seed GROW Project, organized by Mr. Brown Thumb, with nasturtium seeds (Tropaeolum majus 'Spitfire') donated by Renee's Garden.

As shown in a previous post, I winter sowed some of the seeds in a milk jug on March 5 and some in a seed flat on March 6.

By March 30, the nasturtiums sowed in the seed flat had sprouted and their seed leaves were just starting to unfurl. Aren't they the cutest things ever? The ones sown in the milk jug had not yet come up. I think it's probably a bit warmer in the seed flats than in the milk jugs.

Only a few days later, on April 3, five of the six nasties sowed in the flat had their full, unfurled seed leaves. (I don't know what's up with the sixth seed, but I'm sure it will sprout soon.) I love nasties because their seed leaves are so similar to their true leaves, unlike most plants whose seed leaves look like rabbit ears.

On April 3, the first of the nasturtiums sown in the milk jug had popped up, too. The rest can't be far behind.

I plan to grow some of the nasties up a chain link fence and others in my veggie garden.

Speaking of Seeds...
Back in January, I started two snail mail seed swaps, and both recently returned to me. After picking out a few seeds for myself (you guys sent some interesting stuff to pick from!), I packed up the remainder and donated it to Growing Hope. Their director was excited to use the seeds for the Growing Gardens program. Thanks to all for participating, and hope you all found something you liked. Special thanks go to Frances, who had a lot of extra seeds to share.

Sweetbay asked what seeds I took for myself, and in case anyone else is wondering, I got quite a haul:

• Bean, white half-runner
• Blue shrimp plant ‘Pride of Gibraltar’
• Collard greens
• Columbine
• Coreopsis ‘Sunfire’
• Cosmos 'Cosmic Orange'
• Dill
• Golden Alexander
• Grass ‘Little Bluestem’
• Hollyhock, yellow
• Lion’s tail
• Mustard greens
• Poppy ‘Black Peony’
• Poppy 'Shirley'
• Radish ‘Sparkler’
• Rudbeckia ‘Cherry Brandy’
• Sage, scarlet
• Salvia ‘Victoria Blue’
• Sea holly
• Squash ‘Uchiki Kuri’
• Sunflower
• Sunflower 'Cinnamon Sun Red'
• Sunflower 'Giant Headed'
• Tomato ‘Black Russian’
• Tomato ‘Moneymaker’
• Tomato ‘Red Short Vine’
• Tomato ‘San Marzano’
• Toothache plant

I've winter-sown most of them, though I'll direct sow a few in my newly cleared areas!

Now you'll please excuse while I go nom nom nom eat my Lindt Easter rabbit which I've successfully saved for about 6 weeks now!

New year and old traditions! Welcome to another Mish-Mash Monday. Ahoy maties!

Seed Swap Starting Soon
If you expressed interest in joining my seed swap in my preview post back in September, it's time now to officially sign up. Update: Sorry, the seed swap has reached capacity.

Looking Back
Some cool things happened this year:

• In February, I quit my job to pursue Garden Faerie full time.
• In May, I attended the Garden Bloggers' Spring Fling and met old and made new friends.
• In July, I visited my niece in CO and the Denver Botanical Gardens.
• In August, I visited MOBOT, one of my favorite gardens ever (you didn't miss the post... I've been saving it for winter).
• In December, my blog was named one of Horticulture magazine's Top 20 Gardening Blogs.
• All year, I steadily removed buckthorn, large and small, from the south side of my backyard and at the end of the season had made some real progress.
• I went public about being a curbside shopper.
• I enjoyed the freedom to arrange my days to suit my own needs and spending more time in my garden.
• Wonderful things came in the mail:
  
• Cheryl, Esther, and Liz sent packages of British tea, which I'm still enjoying.
• Gail, Randy, and Shady sent me great plants (and Beckie, Linda, Lisa, and MrBrownThumb gave me seeds or plants in person).
  
• Genevieve sent Wicked Plants, which I won on her site, and some free items in a promo for her OpenSky store: 3 pairs of Atlas Nitrile gloves and a Fiskars soil knife that I adore.

Looking Forward
You might even say putting your best foot (or paw, as the case may be) forward! Hyuck! I'm in town all week.

My biggest goal for 2010 is mundanely mature: I need to find stable employment. I've loved my near year of being the Garden Faerie (speaking, teaching, gardening, garden coaching, and garden writing), but the reality is, it can't support me in the long-term. I've worked over 20 years in corporate communications (technical and marketing writing, editing, and web content management) and am looking to draw on those skills to move in a slightly new direction. Possibly user interface design, project management, or instructional design/training. I don't know how realistic a change in career focus is in the Michigan economy, but I'll soon find out!

Footyprints on My Nice Clean Snow*
The east and south side of my backyard borders on a nature area, so my snow never stays pristine long, as various furry and feathered friends make their way to my feeders.

The usual suspects include, of course, birds...

squirrels (which I love!)...

and ducks! I love their tracks!

Who's visiting your feeders?

Happy Mish-Mash!

*I swear Yosemite Sam once said "Who put footyprints on my nice clean desert?" but can't find the sound file.

It's time again for hosting my round-robin, snail-mail seed exchange. Here's how it works. I start the swap by placing about 30 little seed packets into a large padded envelope. I enclose the addresses of participants printed onto labels, in the order of the swap. (I also enclose directions, but it's pretty straight-forward.)

I send the envelope to the first person on the list.When the envelope arrives, that person runs gleefully from the mailbox into the house and takes out any seed packets they want, replacing them with the same number of seed packets for the next person. They then send the packet on to the next person on the list, ideally within a few days, and so on until the last person sends it back to me. I'll then pick out my share of seeds and donate what's left over to a local community garden.

You can use any kinds of seeds (veggie, herb, native, showy, perennial, annual, biennial, woody, Jack in the Beanstalk, whatever). They can be extra seeds from a apcket, seeds you collected in your garden, etc. You can enclose any amount of seeds per packet, but if you have a lot of seeds of the same type, I'd recommend dividing them into smaller amounts in multiple envelopes. You replace seeds by the number of packets you took, not the number of actual seeds. (It's also OK, for example, to take 6 packets and replace 5, or to take 5 and replace 6. Use your own judgment.) You can use any kind of envelope or packet to hold your seeds, whether the original seed packet or one you made yourself. You need to label the seeds by name and color, plus anything else you find helpful.

I start the swap early to accommodate winter sowers and because it takes the envelope a while to make it from person to person.

Fine print and update: Sorry, the swap is now full. Last year, I had a ton of extra seeds. I was excited when the swap got tweeted and listed on swapping forums, and I was able to start off multiple swapping rounds for many new visitors. This year, however, I have fewer seeds to start with, so I need to add the caveat that the swap is open to "the regulars" (bloggy friends, regular commentors) in the U.S. only. (I've researched international postal regulations on mailing seeds. I can mail them out of the US (unless they're in suet cakes, of all things, which are prohibited because of the oils!). However, for me to receive multiple seed packets from outside the U.S. I would have to fill out a ton of forms from the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture that essentially make me a registered seed importer (see third comment here for details). Eep, that's just too daunting!)

Thanks for everyone who signed up. I will mail off the swap the week of January 11.

Happy new year! Monica