One of my favorite things about gardening and sharing with others online is the community. I have learned a lot of great information from others, and have made many friends along the way. One garden friend has taken kindness to the next level.
Rich Murtha sent a special package to us at @gardeningchannel and it sure is a blessing. He donated over 1,000 varieties to the channel!!! Rich purchased the Jere Gettle Heirloom Seed Collection from Baker Creek Seeds, and shared some of each pack with us.
A gift like this means so much to me because it is one that can continue to give. Because these seeds are heirloom, we will be able to save the seeds we grow, and get even more back then we put in. Sounds like a good investment to me 😁
Jere collection Baker Creek https://www.rareseeds.com/jere-gettle-collection/
Richard's Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCBnqwUspH6WzANonaxQyd6Q
Email from Rich:
I am trying to grow the rainbow, share the rainbow, here in Trenton NJ. I have enclosed a 1/10th share of the legendary Jere Gettle’s Jere Collection, which is one pack of each of Baker Creek seed company’s up to 1600 hundred varieties of vegetable, herb, fruit and flower seed they have in stock at their main store. They offer the first 1,025 packs for $1295.00 then pick the rest of the store at $1.00 a pack. This will be in the ballpark of $1,700.00-$1,800.00 depending on what is in stock. This is a pretty good discount considering most packs range between $2.50 up to $5.00 a pack, and I got brainwashed by their trippy catalogue, so I said I’ll take all of it. It will average out to $1.16 a pack or so. I kept half, and split the half other half into 5 portions. I had to get one of these to my favorite show. I want to encourage your audience, in general, to get extra variety by sharing seeds, but also be aware of the tedious process it can be to divide them up. Doing anything several thousands of times is rough, but if a group of people want to band together and endure a good amount of head-down, factory-work hardship, splitting a Jere Collection is totally doable, if…
You stay organized!
Get 2 - 1 packages of 50 gallon Ziploc freezer bags, and 2 packages of 1 quart Ziploc freezer bags to hold sorted sections of packets, and also to use for the sorted dime bag sections. I used 2” square plastic dime bags to hold the sorted seed shares. They come 1,000 for $11.99 on Amazon. This is by far the cheapest option. Organize each pack into sections out of the giant box which all packs will come into bag labeled Amaranth to Zinnia. You will have time to play with the seed later just sort it out. Working a section at a time is best. Have sharpies to label and tape to reseal partial packs. (I used staples and regretted it)
You are not going to hand write all of this, and xeroxing packs is way expensive. I just made a table and centered each variety name, printed it on paper, cut them, and stuffed each dimebag with a paper label and the seed share. I am making the word doc available to try to save anyone interested the step of typing labels.
The idea is to get the seeds from the pack to the dime bag in the least amount of steps. Good luck. Estimates and math helps, drug dealing experience could be useful. (Just kidding). Egg cartons help. I preferred to tap the amount out directly into the bag. I don’t think there is a right way or wrong way. Don’t get to precise with small seeds. The counts will average out. Order in advance and budget time. If you could split a pack in 1 minute the collection would take 26 hours to split up. I got my time down to 2-3 minutes a pack by the end, but was closer to 5-6 minutes a pack in the beginning. The collection can be split down to 1/10 shares but I wouldn’t split it any further. A 1/10th share will give you a pretty nice amount for a good time. Most pack counts are about double the minimum posted on the pack. Some of the rarer and smaller stuff is doled out more sparsely.
If you consider the tens of thousands of hours of work that went into saving this seed through the generations the work won’t seem so bad. Spending time with the packs and seed is also learning. I think I have most of the catalogue memorized by now.
If anyone else tries this, I am sorry in advance, and I would love to hear about it. My email is ************, and my 12 subscriber beginner youtube gardening channel is under Dinosaur Gardening.
I am making a few subeducational videos, and will uploading more NJ gardening videos soon with better variety. Good luck. Grow the Rainbow, share the Rainbow!
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I can't testify with you enough...about baker creek seeds. my favorite...BY FAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! i wait each year.... for their free catalog...to come...and i read it throughout the year...until the next season. sits on the back of my toilet lol!!!!!!!!!!!! https://www.rareseeds.com/request-catalogus/
Haha!! I love it bro. I’m going to start putting my catalogue in my bathroom too 💡
Ooooh that's so yum! I'm jealous. It's SO EXCITING!!! Really looking forward to seeing how it goes/grows. And hey, I like your video... it's got the style. Your authenticity shines through and that is where it's at brother.
Yeah it is, when I think about it I can’t stop smiling lol 🤦♂️
That means a lot to me @rainbow.snake your words are felt my friend 😁🙏🏻
This initiative you have started here is going to grow into a huge project my friend. It will take several years to see this through to fruition, but I am sure that is something you are very used to, and something I hope to be use to one day. All I have to do is acquire land and a dwelling of my own, much easier said than done these days, but if I keep asking the Earth, I have faith it will eventually provide when I prove myself.
Quick question, if you are using manure based compost, would you break up the "tird-pellets" (idk how else to refer to them lol) to have similar consistency as the rest of the soil, or leave them whole? I have always broke them up.
As far as which seeds I want you to grow first, I very much want to look through the website you referenced to make a few suggestions, as I am sure there will be seeds I want to retrieve from you when you get them. Hopefully by then I will at least have a little bit of land, even if it be someone else's, to grow on. I will comment again with suggestions after I review the site.
These are the types of initiatives that will heal this planet and our people, simply by overgrowing our government, and supplying organic, nutritious food, to ourselves and communities - through permaculture practices. Thank you again for being the awesome person you are, and providing the best gardening info I have seen online.
Great work on providing intros to your videos, the short description for this one was very helpful. I would suggest that you edit with hyperlinks to the websites you referenced for easier access for people to suggest what seeds they would like to see you grow. Blessings homie.
Thank you brother @elamental!
Yup, great things always seem to take time :)
I agree brother, your piece of land is there waiting for ya.
Regarding the manure I would break up the pellets probably. But if your manure based compost still has large pellets of manure, then I would still compost it down more. It's hard to know without seeing it though. I would only use manures in my garden if they were composted down with a lot of organic matter, and the manure would be unidentifiable by the time it went around my veggies. A lot of that is my own opinion though. I have used decomposed chicken manure in the food forest before, but only layered it over wood chips, then covered that with more chips, allowing for a sort of trickling down slow release effect.
I agree brother, if we can get a unit coming together in harmony towards a common goal for good. Then I believe there is little that can stand in our way, especially when we are all lifting one another up.
Thanks for the constructive criticism and love brother.
Absolutely bro, loving it. I clicked on the link you provided and it took me to where I can purchase the seed package, however there does not appear to be a list of seeds that come in that pack. Do you have a link for where I can find a list of the seeds you received, so I know what you have to pick from when I am considering a suggestion for which to plant?
Is it this one by any chance?
https://www.rareseeds.com/assets/1/7/Regular_catalog.pdf
bro...I love your child like JOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!! so felt!!!!!! your passion!!!!!!!!!
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