Wednesday, January 11, 2006

Round Robins, Seeds, & Worms

Dear Readers!

(I think there are a couple of you now . . .) Today I got to work out in the yard. I feed those always hungry worms, planted some calla lilies, and weeded one of my raised beds. I finally got my donation sent off to the community garden located on the Rosebud reservation. I sent them 15 bare root blackberry plants, 10 Jerusalem Artichoke bulbs and lots of veggie seeds from my seed list. I also received a round robin - a big box of seed from a group I belong to. Round robins are a lot of fun. They consist of a box where the participants deposit any extra seed they may have from their garden, from trades, or extras from purchased seed. Each person selects the seeds they want, and before mailing to the next person on the list - they add seed from their own collection. Depending on the robin and how much seed is in the box - the rules may be to add more than you take, or to take what you can use and add what you can.

In any event it is great fun. I belong to two round robins and have now had one turn in each. Both times I found seed that I all ready knew I wanted - but was unlikely to purchase, as well as other fun things to try. From my first round robin I have growing some as yet very small blackberry lilies, some Zebrina Mallow, and one autumn climatis. The blackberry lilies were something I wanted for their showy fall seeds, the Zebrina Mallow I wanted for its showy flowers and edible leaves, flowers, and seeds. The Autumn climatis I had never heard of - but selected some seed just for fun. In the mean time I looked it up and it is very fragrant and blooms in the fall . . .

If anyone reading this would like more information as to how you can join a round robin you can e-mail me, instant message me, or reply to this post.

I don't know if I will get out in the garden tomorrow - I have to go to town for a big grocery shopping trip. But we shall see . . .

Hope you had a wonderful day . . .

Harvest

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

How do you find a seed round robin to join? Did you make one up among seed-saver friends? Sometimes round robins get stuck on somebody's desk and then it stops. Sounds like a dynamite way to get past the overspecific I want this-I want that specifications and get the process happening faster, though.