Monday, April 26, 2010

Survival Seeds

So, over the winter I was contacted by a very nice lady from Hometown Seeds, asking if I'd link to their Survival Seeds packages. She offered to send me one of the packages in thanks, and I told her that I didn't endorse anything on the blog that I hadn't tried, but if she was willing to have it be a review rather than just a plug, I'd be happy to do it.

Hey, Farmmom gets a free garden this way.

Well, what with life being busy and waiting for actual spring, we hadn't gotten anything done with them, until now.

The other day, we started the cabbage, peppers, and tomatoes in a little greenhouse thing that we bought at El Marto Del Wal, so this will be the first post of many concerning these non-hybrid seeds.

In general, I have to say I like the idea of a garden that's renewable from itself. You may not get some of the fancier plants, but you also don't have to buy new plants and seeds every year.

For a SHTF planning accessory, I think it's a good idea, if you know enough about what you're doing to manage starting an entire garden from seeds. It's not that hard, but you do have to know that things like peppers and tomatoes are best started indoors in planters or the greenhouse trays you can buy. The kit comes with instructions, though, so most of the guesswork is taken out of it. For instance, I didn't know that we needed to start the cabbage indoors until Farmmom read the instructions.

Plus, the kit comes with a LOT of seeds. For what exactly it contains you can check out the website, now linked on the sidebar under "Other Stuff"... I think it would provide for a small family fairly easily, were you to plant all of the seeds.

Anyway, I'll get regular updates about germination rates and eventually what the veggies taste like (which will probably be a great excuse for mom to do another recipe post) and we'll save seeds from this year's plants to plant next year.

I'll try to get Farmmom, who is after all the gardener in the family and is actually doing the growing, to give some of her observations direct instead of them filtering through me, too.

And, just a note, also under "Other Stuff" you'll see a link to "Custom Cheap Vinyl Banners"... This goes to buildasign.com, who have also offered me free shit. I like free stuff, and upon looking around their website I decided that they seemed reputable, and for some blog swag, I'd do it. Once I get my chosen free shit designed and ordered and get it in, I'll do a review of that as well, and probably hold a couple of contests in order to give away some of the aforementioned free shit. I'm not endorsing their products just yet, mind, that'll wait until they get here and I'll be honest about what I think of them.

If anyone else wants to offer me free stuff- keep in mind that I love free stuff, as anyone does, and I will be completely honest about any free stuff you send me. If it's good, I'll say it's good, if it's crap, I'll say it's crap. I'm bribeable to the extent that you'll get a link such as are already there, but not bribeable enough to give a good review of crap to my readers just cause you gave me something shiny.

That is all.