Happy Snowy New year 1/3/2010

[bruce smitty smith]

Can you imagine? 2010? Sounds like a number out of a SCiFI Book doesn't it?

The seed catalogs are arriving daily now so that there is a continued barrage of them to add to my confusion as to who to order from. I'm going fully OP and heirloom seed this year and starting my goal of saving my own seed from year to year. Last Fall I read the book Animal, vegetable, miracle and it changed the way I look at what I'm growing and eating. Another goal I have is to eat as locally as I can and buy my food as directly from the farms around me as possible or grow as much of my own as humanly possible.
Fruits and vegetables should be easy, but meats may be a little more difficult and expensive, but I need to know that the meat on my plate was not raised by some big factory farm and fed all kinds of unnatural foods.
That has become very important to me the older and hopefully wiser I get. Another Goal I have set is to finally build my small hoop house and begin growing winter salad greens year round. I read all of Elliot Colman's books this last summer, and even bought "four seasons Gardening", and will undoubtedly buy another of his called "The New Organic Grower". If you seriously look at the present state of the world, you can not doubt that we are heading for some very rough times and need to begin preparing ourselves like our ancestors of old did or possibly not make it. I'm finishing a root cellar I made in the basement, and learning to grow storage crops, as well as making my own canned goods. I will be foraging wild foods and fishing as well to keep the cost down so that we may apply the savings to pay off debt. Making a root cellar and learning to can is another way to save money, at present we rely very heavily on the freezer and fridge, but what if that failed? or the power failed for any real length of time? I do live in New England. Look at the crazy weather patterns all over the world and in the USA.. Take Katrina? what if I had something like that happen closer to me? Could I feed my family? Provide for all their needs? Not right now, but I hope before the end of this new year I will be there and to that end I will be applying myself..

[Phillip Miller]

This is a news article that is a little scary about meat that carries antibiotics to humans http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=6191894n&tag=related;pho...
It is no wonder there is so much illness today.

[bruce smitty smith]

HI LInda,
Yeah I Hear you about GM seeds. We are Buying form www.rareseeds.com
Highmowingseeds.com
and www.richters.com

I love seed savers too.. WWW.SEEDSAVERS.ORG

[Linda Sebring]

Who to order from? I stumbled upon a website that is interactive for folks to "rate" seed providers. I would like to know if this site is reputable. I use local providers = Territorial Seed and Nichols Garden Nursery. Territorial Seed is highly rated on this Watchdog site. Reason why I looked it up is to find out for my mom about Gurney's as she had a catalog and was asking me how to tell if any of the seed is genetically modified. She is very adamant about being able to save seed now so I tried to help her find out about Gurney's because some of their plants have patents so I suspect they might do the Genetic Modifications, or not, but the catalog says nothing. Usually when company has pledged to not use GMO seed they proclaim that right in their literature so I was suspicious. Still don't know if they use GMO seeds but this Watchdog site showed that they have somewhat poor customer service if you compare them to others. Just what I read and I would be happy to have the opinion of others. In general I perfer to get varieties that have been field tested in my bio-region instead of opting to get just any seed that could or could not do well here.

FMI on Dave's Garden - the WatchDog page can be found here
http://davesgarden.com/products/gwd/