No sooner did I pose the same connundrum in Onestraw's blog post than I recieved a quick and helpful response from Mr. Straw himself (actually he shares his real name with a poet, which is really cool...but I digress)
I got the answers I needed, in the form of a link to Fedco seeds. How I missed these guys before is beyond me, for some reason they didn't show up in any searches, unless I actually looked for "Fedco Seed" Bottom line: fantastic selection, I was able to find everything on my list I still had remaining, like 70 and 90 day corn, potatoes, onion sets, early cabbage.
And as if that wasn't enough, last night I stumbled upon my wife thumbing through our new (well, new to us) copy of Gaia's Graden. She handed it to me with the section on keyhole gardens open and said, lets do this instead. I was floored, despite her professed lack of artistic capability, she has a finely tuned eye for the asthetic, it makes itself know in demands for symetry and order. I was able to manage a concession for the herb and perennial area so that I could maintain a more wild feel, but I would have never guessed she would be inclined to abandon the orderly rectangular "banks" of raised beds for keyhole mounds. I'm stoked. Now I have to get out the graph paper and the compass and come up with square footage estimates...and retool the layout in the Jeavons book.
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2 comments:
I must say, I found Gaia's Garden so much more in tune with how I think than How to Grow More Vegetables... and my husband love the John Jeavons stuff.
I know John Jeavons has great stuff in there, and I do buy seeds from Bountiful Gardens, but I. Just. Can't. Open the pages of that book and not feel uneasy. Something about all the diagrams and doing things exactly right... I'm on edge just thinking about it!
I think its a difference of scope. Gaia's garden is broad reaching, its a permaculture perspective. How to grow... is a more focused work, specifically on getting the absolute maximum sustainable yeild of edibles. I think the charts and diagrams are essential for me to figure out the timings. Maybe its just a preference, I'm a network/database admin by trade, so I relish that kind of stuff. I'd been wandering in the vagueries of intuitiveness when it comes to planting, crop rotation, etc. I definitely welcomed the structure.
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