Farm equipment covered in snow
Happy Winter! Snow covers the ground, and greenhouses idle in anticipation of Spring. Farm work is less urgent, yet there is still plenty to accomplish before the rush of the coming growing season. Greenhouse repair work and washing burdock root are saved for warmer days; but this reflective time of winter is also perfect for analyzing last growing season’s ups and downs, looking over seed catalogs, planning crops for the 2020 season and ordering seeds and supplies. Grower conferences populate the calendar, farmer friendships are rekindled and of course we find time to take the dogs for a Nordic ski around our fields and woods.
Flipping the calendar page to February makes Spring seem that much closer and real. Flint repurposed the wood shop temporarily and has rosemary, greenhouse tomatoes, and other seedlings germinating under lights. The whole space will be packed with small plants until mid March, at which point we start heating our seedling greenhouse. Before you know it, we’ll be swimming in seedlings!
Professional Farming tip- Storing your leftover garden seeds:
Before each growing season, Cate Farm buys over 250 different varieties of seed! That’s a lot of packets, and a bit of cash. Sometimes we buy more seed than we need for one season to get a bulk price break, but in general, we don’t want to run out of seeds just when we need to plant them on schedule. It’s better to buy a few extra seeds than too few. Hence, we have lots of seed left over at the end of the growing season.
Most seeds will store for multiple years if kept cool and dry. Each seed packet lists the germination percentage at the time of sale, usually 80% or better. We keep seed packets in plastic bins in our 50-60F shop over the winter, in a shaded location. We keep very expensive seeds, like some fancy tomato varieties, in the freezer in a plastic bag, which is the best way to preserve seed viability. The fridge works very well too, if seeds are sealed in a plastic bag (refrigerators tend to dehydrate).
Just a few vegetable seed types do not store for more than a year. These include onions and parsnips. We will plant these types after a year of storage and see what happens, but because we can’t count on good germination we usually reserve them for our home garden.
Every winter we take physical inventory of our viable seeds and place our seed orders accordingly.
Check Out this Seed Storage Guide from Johnny’s Seeds!
We hope you have a great garden!
The Team at Cate Farm
