It's getting to be that time of the year again; time for seed catalogs! Catalogs have just started rolling in, but I won't get my favorite one for another month. Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds is my favorite seed catalog, for both information and the beautiful pictures. Admittedly, they aren't the cheapest company going, but they do have great shipping rates and an unbelievable selection. Their 2010 catalog doesn't come out til December, but that doesn't stop me from daydreaming about next year's garden.
I've got tomato seeds aplenty, herbs too. This year, I'll be researching corn varieties more than any other vegetable. The problem we're running into is that we are situated right smack in the middle of a corn field. There's 100 acres of corn behind us, a couple hundred acres across the road, so anything we plant will try to cross with field corn. This summer, my beautiful Country Gentleman corn was so tough and dry that even critters wouldn't eat it, so open pollinated heirloom varieties are out of the question.
The way I see it, we have a couple options for next summer:
1)Hope and pray that the farmer plants soy instead of corn and then I can proceed with my beautiful heirloom varieties.
2)Do without fresh corn, or pay an arm and a leg at one of the local farm markets. It's such a disgrace to pay $5/doz for corn when we live in the middle of a corn field!
3)Research hybrid varieties in hopes that we'll have better results than we did last summer.
So, all you corn/seed experts out there in bloggerland, riddle me this: would hybrid corn varieties cross with the field corn resulting in nasty, inedible corn? I know next-to-nothing about hybrids, so any information you have to offer would be lovely.
3 comments:
My comment here won't be very helpful, and will probably only add to your anguish over the corn... I just watched King Corn, Food, Inc. and the Future of Food. All three address the corn issue that you mentioned. Most corn grown now is a Monsanto genetically modified variety and it is cross pollinating into everyone's corn near by. Now this was all regarding commercial farming, but I'm sure it is going to affect small growers as well. I would contact a couple of see companies and ask them what they think. Seed Savers Exchange (www.seedsavers.org) would be a good place to start. Hope it works out for you!
Andrea, I got my heirloom seeds from Bigjohn and this last season was great. I plan to buy more to store, but the nice thing about heirloom seeds is that you can save the seeds year after year. And the food from the seeds is so good. My wife will never eat a store bought tomatoes again. Here is his links
http://www.survivalistseeds.com/
http://www.bigjohnsheirloomtomatoes.com/
http://www.oldhomesteadgardenseeds.com/
Amy, I think you're probably right....about everything :)
Pete, the problem wasn't with the quality of the seed...it's a problem of my yummy delicious corn crossing with the field corn 10 feet from my garden fence.
I just wonder if there's any type of corn I can grow surrounded by GM stuff.
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