Some homestead chores are so much fun you have to worry they might be illegal. Browsing the seed catalogues and putting together your order has to be at the top of that list for wintertime. Now that I grow most of my own seed, I don’t order much but that doesn’t stop me from browsing. It is often satisfying to simply go back to whence my seed first came, in appreciation for the seed company that offered it, and the gardener who brought it forth. I’d like to share some of my favorites, and some you may not have heard of, or thought about growing All are open-pollinated and available from the smaller seed companies so can become the start of your own seed saving adventures.

DRY BEANS -- Johnny’s Selected Seeds has fond memories for me, I still grow a number of open-pollinated varieties that first came from them, many years ago. Unfortunately, many of those varieties are no longer offered, which emphasizes the importance of learning to save your own seed. But they and many other independent seed companies still list dry beans, probably my favorite seed saving crop. They do take up a bit of space in the garden, but they are so much fun. Easy, too -- and good eating. If I had to grow but one bean (and it is not easy for someone who regularly grows twenty some varieties of dry beans to choose one), it would be the venerable Jacob’s Cattle (also called Trout, Anasazi, Coach Dog, Dalmation). Colorful, early, fast cooking; it can be harvested as a snap bean, though it shines as a dry bean. It has a long and ancient history, and is still a favorite, particularly in short season areas. It is my earliest bean.

Grow dry beans much as you do snaps. I plant the seed in a wide bed 5-6" apart. If they are also good as snap beans (not all are), harvest what you need fresh, then leave the rest to dry. When the pods are mature, dry, and crisp, pick the pods or the whole plant. Your soil will appreciate it if you cut the plants instead of pulling out the roots. You can store the pods in a paper sack in a dry place until some quiet winter evening when you can pod them by hand (the cleanest method). Or you can stuff dry pods or plants in a cloth sack (sew one up out of an old sheet), then stomp and dance upon them until the seeds are free. Clean by screening then winnowing. Pick out the best looking seed for next year; eat the rest. Be aware, fresh dry beans don’t take long to cook; and Jacob’s Cattle are some of the fastest cooking. They are also delicious.

DRY CORN -- Fedco Seeds and Garden City Seeds offers one of the best dry corns for the short season gardener -- Painted Mountain. Bred and selected in Montana by David Christensen, it is a beautiful and colorful flour corn. Don’t limit this corn to just flour or corn meal though, it is a very good green (sweet) corn and highly decorative. Since it takes a large patch (at least 200 plants) in order to save your own seed, plan to have your cake and eat it too with this variety; eat it green, grind it dry, and save the best (from at least 100 ears) for seed.

A fast and easy corn bread can be made by soaking 1 ½ cups finely ground dry corn in 1 cup hot water. Add ¾ cup whole wheat flour; 1 egg (if you have one); ¼ cup oil; and 2 tsp baking powder. Mix quickly, adding more water if needed (for a rather stiff consistency). Spread in a hot greased pan (I use a glass cakepan, but a cast iron fry pan would work, too). Bake in a hot oven till lightly browned on top. For a crunchier bread, don’t soak the cornmeal for long; for a smoother bread, let the cornmeal soak longer or pre-cook in a double boiler.

YELLOW POTATO ONION -- Southern Exposure Seed Exchange was the original source for my staunch, reliable, Potato Onions. An often ignored workhorse of the onion family, this multiplier onion was once very common in backyard gardens, as it should be today. An excellent keeper, it is mature and ready for use when last fall’s regular storage onions are gone or in the compost pile, and the current crop is still growing. Plant a mixture of sizes of Potato Onions (also called multiplier, hill, mother, or pregnant onion) in early spring. The large ones will produce a number of small ones, and the small ones will produce a large one. In midsummer you will have mature 2" onions for eating, and small onions for pickling. Just be sure to save enough for next year’s planting. This is truly a year-round onion.

LEAF CELERY -- Seeds Blum offers (in addition to one of the more creative catalogues!) a number of good celery varieties, including the uncommon (in catalogues that is) Leaf or Cutting Celery. This is a strong flavored, easily grown, seasoning celery. The stalks are small and numerous. You can harvest from it all summer, then dry the remaining leaves and stalks for winter seasoning. Separate the leaves from the stalks for drying as they dry at different rates. Even if you don’t have a dryer, the leaves will dry easily on a rack in a warm spot in your house. For fun, also try a Red or Pink celery.

BROCCOLI -- Although not uncommon, I’d like to mention the DeCicco Broccoli. With this great non-hybrid broccoli available, I don’t know why anyone would choose to grow a hybrid. Available from many sources, including High Altitude Gardens, DeCicco is another of those mainstays: it’s good, reliable, and easy to grow seed from. An old European variety, it was introduced in 1890, and is still popular, for good reason. After the main head is harvested, it will continue to sprout second and third (maybe more) crops of smaller heads. For seed, start your plants early inside and grow a good number of them for health of the gene pool. Flowering broccoli is a grand plant; put it in your flower bed (in the back, as it gets quite large). You’ll have plenty of seed for yourself and to give away.

HULLESS BARLEY -- You’ll find a lot of interesting heirlooms in the Bountiful Gardens catalogue (a project of Ecology Action), including a crop you may not have thought about growing -- Hulless Barley. Although this probably won’t be a main part of your vegetable garden, it’s fun to grow. The awned heads are beautiful (grow a large enough patch to get the best effect), and it matures easily even in a short season. Relatively easy to thresh (I can’t say that any of the small grains are easy to thresh, even at their best) with a hand-made flail, then winnowed clean, the grains can be ground for flour or sprouted for casserole additions. Friends of ours use their sprouted barley in beer making. And it just plain feels good to grow some of your bread material. It is sure to give you an appreciation of how very hard it would be to grow your own yearly supply of small grains, by hand, in your garden, should the need arise. Wheat is more common, but barley is more reliable in our area.

DRY SOUP PEAS -- Prairie Garden Seed and Fedco Seeds are two of the few sources for another of the "lost vegetables" -- Soup Peas. They offer a number of good varieties, including some of the large seeded capucijner types. Cooked as you would dry beans, soup peas have a flavor all their own and are well worth growing. Dry peas are much more reliable for the short season grower than dry beans. Grow them as you do garden peas, but let them mature and dry on the vine. Then thresh and clean the same as dry beans. In a damp year I often cut the mature vines and spread them on sheets; storing them under cover during rains, and hauling them out when the sun shines to dry. Just be sure not to take too long at this, or store them in a critter-free spot. One year I lost about 20# of dry peas, which I didn’t discover until I went to thresh them. There wasn’t a pea to be found. But I later found them growing here and there throughout my garden where the squirrels or chipmunks had stored them. Any edible pea you grow can be matured, dried and harvested to be cooked as soup later. Just save the best looking seed for planting next year.

GARLIC is one crop that always comes through for me, no matter rain, drought, frost, or heat. And if you want garlic, go to the garlic folks at Filaree Farm. They grow some 450 strains of garlic, and they list a good number of them in their highly informative catalog, so you should be able to find a garlic (or two or ten) that suits you. Although the softneck varieties tend to be better keepers, the hardneck varieties have that beautiful curling flower stalk (worth growing just for that!). I plant my garlic in the fall, 5" apart in a wide bed, and mulch with hay (but you can get started with a spring planting, but the harvested bulbs will be smaller. A little weeding next summer and that is all there is to it until harvest. Truly a homesteader’s best friend, useful for both palette and health. Try some of the purple colored varieties for variety. The intensity of color will vary depending on your soil and weather. They make a nice contrast with the whites.

Then there are POTATOES. Now if you think a potato is a potato is a potato, you haven’t perused the Ronniger’s catalogue. Potatoes do not need to be boring. How can you not smile when cutting up a potato with flesh the color of a bright purple parrot, or the bright pink of a rose. Next to the yellows and whites, it turns dinner into a work of art with no further ado. Once you get a look at the various skin color options (red, pink, yellow, white, russet, dark blue, purple with pink…) you won’t be content with just a plain old white potato again. However -- though your potato salad may be the talk of the town, be prepared for people’s reluctance to eating it. For some reason, no matter what you say, some folks have trouble trusting pink and lavender colored cooked potatoes. Until they grow them themselves that is.

TOMATO -- the reigning queen of most gardens -- the fruit of many lives. But to ask me to name one variety is really asking too much. I could I suppose, if really pressed, but I don’t think it would make any difference. Most gardeners already have their favorites, and are usually quite vocal about it. And I hardly need to urge folks to grow tomatoes! I will say, however, if you are only growing one or two varieties, and especially if you only grow what you can get as plants locally, give yourself a great gift. Browse the many seed catalogues dedicated to open-pollinated varieties, learn to grow your own plants, and go wild. Plant six varieties, or twelve. At least three or four. There are wonderful tomatoes out there, for almost every garden in all parts of the country, of all shapes and sizes and shades of red and yellow and green. Every year try a few new ones. It is sure to greatly expand your view of this common garden resident.

Now, if I had to choose just one, it would have to be the early, reliable, Earlirouge -- a mainstay in my short season garden. But I’m happy I’m not so limited.

Check out the list of independent purveyors of open pollinated and organic seed, order their catalogues, and have fun browsing, dreaming, and growing.

SEED COMPANIES

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