A New Database, Grow List, and More!
Hello seedsters (is that a thing? It should be!). I’ve been feverishly working the past few weeks to get a whole bunch of stuff updated around here. Not only that, but a bunch of you have ordered seeds through the distribution page so I’ve been working like mad getting all of that out. I’m starting to see seeds in my sleep. Not that I’m complaining, we’ve had unseasonably cold weather here, so it’s nice to amuse myself with all the seeds in order to try to block out the -30C temperatures outside.
Newsletter – The first quarterly newsletter has been sent out for 2014. I like to announce some things on there first, so if you haven’t yet, be sure to sign up by entering in your email address in the little box to your left. You can be sure I don’t share your email addresses with anybody – I don’t even use a third-party service to send the emails, it’s all done right on my own desktop. The next newsletter will be emailed in May.
2014 Grow Outs – This is going to be a big, big year for the bank. My wonderful volunteers have really stepped up to the plate this year, and between myself and my four volunteers, we’ll be growing around 80 varieties of edibles this year (the majority of which are tomatoes). That in turn means that we’ll hopefully have that many different varieties to offer gardeners and growers all over the world in late 2014/early 2015. You can check out all the varieties slated to be grown in one handy list, here.
The New Wiki – In 2011 I started constructing a database/wiki of detailed grow out information that’s been collected by myself and the volunteer growers. It might have taken me a while (due to my inability to garden because of the move), but I’ve officially launched it. This is not a compendium of all tomatoes ever, but strictly for varieties grown out by the bank. This year we’ll have a big push to enter in a lot of new info as these varieties are being grown out. Please be sure to check it out, and if you have any suggestions for information to add, please let me know by contacting me.
Seed Bank Holdings – I’ve finally gotten all the information in the seed bank’s database re-entered, so the current holdings list is now completely, 100% up to date with all the varieties, and information I have on them. There’s about 38 pages of it there, so if you want to read it all, I suggest grabbing yourself a coffee first and getting a comfortable chair.
That’s all for now, but stay tuned! I have a few more articles planned here for the site, as well as general updates slated to happen. As the gardening season ramps up for me here on the prairies, I’ll be using this site more and more to keep all you lovely folks up to date on the status of how the garden is coming along.