new kit additions. heirloom seeds

[i_am_jim]

have just purchased a heirloom seed kit from mozybeau farm. it contains over 90 varieties of fruit and veg seed. got a load of freebies with it aswell ten extra varieties of water melons and a pack of medicinal/culinary herb seeds. contains 16 varieties. cost me nearly £40 thought it was a bargain as they tend to be expensive and hard to find in the uk. comes in one of those sealable mylar bags. have it stored away in the fridge for safe keeping. i'm having to use shop bought seed on my veg plot at the moment have a few heirloom varieties growing, but looking forward to growing fully heirloom varieties next year. will have a go at some seed production and storage of my own. if it works out okay i hope to have plenty of seed to share. I also bought one of those UV steripens for £63, thought it would make a good addition to my kit as i have loads of purification tabs but they do make the water taste grim. it uses 2xcr123 batteries. and also added a new british army knife to my collection has a 2 and a half inch blade, a can/bottle opener on one side and a spike on the other side. what is the spikes use? rope splicing or something like that?. anyone know?. i'm using it as a dibber for planting seeds.

[preppingsu]

Can you post a picture of the knife - it might give us a better idea.

Please let us know how you get on with the seeds.

Don't forget to stock up on batteries for the steripen thingy too.

[hobo]

Thank you for this info! Will check out the seed collection now! Was it from their ebay shop? Which collection was it? How much was import duty?

Cheers

Hobo

[jansman]

The spike is generally used by soldiers to pierce food tins when boiling them in a mess tin.

[i_am_jim]

hi hobo, yes it is from their ebay page. it was the 90 varieties pack it cost £28.54 and postage was £11.17. thought it was a bargain considering how many seeds you get. it arrived a few days after i paid for it. will be ordering from them again. they also do a massive 600,000 seed pack aswell for only £49.63 a whopping £32.51 postage though. hi preppingsu & jansman, just tried to post a picture of the knife but for some reason the post hasn't appeared. have just done a google search and found out the spike is called a marlin spike it is used for untying knots and rope splicing, aswell as piercing food tins.

[i_am_jim]

i have bought heirloom seed from the following companies. http://www.heirloomseeds.com/ lots to choose from. has some intersting sweetcorn

http://www.realseeds.co.uk/ check out the bulgarian leeks on here never seen ones like these before. very good value for money.

http://amishlandseeds.com/ has lots of hard to come by fruit veg and flowers.
i am always adding to my seed stock from wherever i can get them. a bit of diversity in seed stock can only be a good thing.

[TwoDo]

i have bought heirloom seed from the following companies. http://www.heirloomseeds.com/ lots to choose from. has some intersting sweetcorn

From a preppers point of view you might wish to find an alternative to sweetcorn. You would be hard put to find a crop which extracts more nutrients from the soil for less reward. IMHO, without external inputs of fertilizer, you would not likely get more than three decent years of sweetcorn out of most soils - after which the soil will be useless for anything. The indians in north america used to place a small fish (about the size of a large sardine) in with each corn kernal when they were planting. This provided enough nutrients to make a corn crop sustainable over the years. They also co-located beans and melons in the same patch.

I don't grow sweetcorn. Not that I don't like sweetcorn (I like it very much) but from a preppers perspective I do not think it is not a good crop. Takes a lot of land for what you get, the seeds are the only edible part of the plant, bugs love it, as do birds, it is hard on the soil and, very importantly, requires loads of water.

Beans, however, are pretty much the reverse of sweetcorn in every way.

[i_am_jim]

twodo i agree with what you say about sweetcorn, a lot of hard work for not alot of food. have never been that good at growing it to be honest, never had a succesful crop. i only put the sweetcorn comment because they sell an old fashioned variety that is blue, had never seen blue sweetcorn before. i do have sweetcorn growing this year only because my mates children wanted to grow some. i have quite a bit of old fashioned multi coloured veg on my plot this year to try and get my mates children into growing their own food. i think it is an important skill for children to learn instead of sitting infront of an xbox. so far it seems to be working as they are constantly with me working on the plot. although they are a little dissapointed that it takes so long to grow. they thought it would be instant. the innocence of a seven year old mind!!!. thanks for the bit about the indians and fish had seen it on a programme years ago had forgotten that little nugget of information.