My Free Seeds Have Arrived

Remember last week, when I posted about The Dinner Garden, an organization that offers free vegetable seeds to anyone who asks?  Well, yesterday, my free seeds arrived!

I was excited to open the package, because I didn't know what seeds I would be receiving.  While I do enjoy looking through stacks of seed catalogs, there's something liberating about not having to make any decisions whatsoever.

Here's what we ended up with:

• Parsnips
• Peas
• Broccoli
• Onions
• Red Cabbage
• Arugula
• Daikon Radish
• Mustard Greens
• Fenugreek

The first four are some of my favorites.  Red Cabbage and Arugula I like but don't eat frequently.  The last three I've never tried.  I know that Fenugreek is supposed to help female animals produce more milk, so maybe I'll feed some to my sheep when they're nursing lambs.

The one thing I realized about all these seeds is that they all seem to be ones that want to be planted early.  There's no tomato, corn, cucumber, pepper, seeds here that want to wait until the soil is much warmer.  Which means I have to hurry up and prepare the garden space!

The place where we want to put the garden is where the main horse paddock area used to be when we still had horses.  The soil is dreadfully compacted there, and huge weeds have grown up.  So we need to cut down and clear out the remains of all those tall weeds, and I'm planning to counteract the horrible soil compaction by making raised beds.

I wanted to make raised beds before this, but the cost of buying materials for the edges was more than I wanted to invest.  But last time Ken and I were walking around trying to figure out where to put new fence lines for the sheep, we discovered a large pile of discarded bricks in a little section of woods. 

I seem to remember that one of our neighbors told me that this house used to have a brick patio.  It looks like when the owners tore out the patio (Why would they do that?  It used to be exactly where we'd like to build a patio now!), they just threw all the bricks in a pile near the edge of the property.  So now, my plan is to go rescue all those bricks to use as edges for my raised beds.  It wasn't what I had originally been planning on, but, like my seeds from The Dinner Garden, it's free!

Free Vegetable Seeds!

Sometimes it only takes the simplest idea, the smallest offer of help to make a big impact.

If you've been reading this blog for any length of time, you'll know that our farm finances have been very, very tight for the past few years.  We want to keep making the badly-needed improvements to bring the place back from the run-down, fixer-upper status that we bought it in, but for the past couple of  years, it's been a struggle.

More than anything, I want to keep expanding the "farm" aspects of the farm.  I want to put in a garden and a small orchard.  I want to grow herbs.  I want to get chickens.  Eventually, maybe even a few heritage-breed pigs and a small milk cow.  I want to keep making progress toward a more sustainable, self-sufficient farm, where we grow most of our own food, and have some to share with others.

But with so many other non-negotiable demands (like mortgage, taxes, the need to replace a leaking roof, the need to buy hay for the livestock) on our already tight finances, even something as simple as starting a vegetable garden ends up getting put off.  Until now!

I just discovered The Dinner Garden, a wonderful organization with the slogan "End Hunger Through Gardening!"  They provide fruit and vegetable seeds for free to anyone who asks.  That's right.  FREE.  No charge, not even for shipping. 

Since beginning their mission in early 2009, they have provided seeds to over 30,000 families and hundreds of community gardens in all 50 states, from Maine to Hawaii and Texas to Alaska.

Here's their mission statement:

The Dinner Garden provides seeds, gardening supplies, and gardening advice free of charge to all people in the United States of America. We assist those in need in establishing food security for their families. Our goal is for people to plant home, neighborhood, and container gardens so they can use the vegetables they grow for food and income.

Isn't that a wonderful goal?  If they can make an offer like that, I figure I can at least set aside the time and labor to prepare the ground here, and get my garden started.  I sent for my free seeds today.  Won't it be fun to see what they send me?

Meanwhile, if you want to start a garden, why don't you contact The Dinner Garden too?  And, if you're in a position to do so, please support their efforts, either through donations or by passing the word along about their marvelous venture.

We can end hunger! from Dinner Garden on Vimeo.