Seeds Have Gone Places!!

I've been playing around with our own Landrace varieties for 5 or 6 years and would love to add in some "mystery" genes. I am also preparing to break ground on a new playground (my word for a experimental planting area) on this hillside so it's perfect timing!

Will plant in our Florida back yard. Thanks

Last year was quite tragic for me. Not knowing a thing of what a vine borer was as a first time gardener left me in great distress when I saw a slit in my precious Ronde de Nice zucchini's stem. My celebration the day before of my first harvest quickly turned to tears :(

But with Spring in full force I'm ready to get moving yet again! I had prepped some garden beds for who knows what this past winter. Still they lie empty as my raised beds quickly fill up. But obviously the squash family is the best family to put into this garden bed, for one has already claimed that land as its own. A volunteer from the compost :)

I think my mystery compost squash deserves a peculiar friend!

I am really enjoying this thread. I am not interested in the seeds, like the cartoon I am out of space to plant but seeing everyone's posts is great. Thanks

I have three spots I am trying out this year. With new crops and natural growth, these seeds could be the ones to make it. They are along a creek, water side of  pond dam and one new raised bed at the foot of my new green house (first winter). Looking for natural foraging, complimenting growth with some wild gourds and the table. Thanks for the offer.
John

Hello, My lady and I are always growing anything we can find out here in Colorado. Most of the stuff I have grown from seed are varieties that I have harvest from the wild. As of now we have some mustard greens, mallow,beets, arugula, basil and some rose hips going... spring is just begging to set in with warmer nights.... I am working on some raised beds for our tiny yard ( everything is indoor at the moment.). Thank you in advancew for taking the time to read this not so colorful post! Stay well.

Best Jeremiah

One month ago we closed on 80 acres in Southern Oregon! I've since joined permies and am here to learn all the goodness! We put in some beds to slow the groundwater that runs through here and you can see the start of my very first ever Hügelkultur bed! Plus the view from one of our ridges! So many possibilities!

[color=green]I'd like to grow squash all over my new hugel/hill. They may like it there and there is an old elm to climb, as well as the perimeter fence if they feel they need more space.  I am a squash addict and like to grow pie pumpkins too so this will be fun to see what ensues, if I qualify!  I am zone 4 and can plant on May 20.  Thank you!!

Pearl:

Thank you for this amazing offer!

I created my first Hugelkultur bed this year and am looking forward to seeing how it does. I live in New Mexico where water is a precious commodity and am hoping that Hugelkultur and Permaculture will be the way forward for myself and my fellow New Mexicans.

Pearl Sutton wrote:Winter Squash seeds want to go places!
(Can only ship to the US, sorry, international shipping is a problem.)

Landrace seeds are seeds that came from plants that had several parents, it's never certain what exactly you will get. Permies tend to landrace things by letting them breed, so we end up with a type that works well in our area, under our conditions.

TJ Jefferson has landrace winter squash going, a mix of Cucurbita moschata varieties that have been interbreeding in a Virginia garden.
From Wikipedia:
Cucurbita moschata is a species originating in either Central America or northern South America. It includes cultivars known as squash or pumpkin. C. moschata cultivars are generally more tolerant of hot, humid weather than cultivars of C. maxima or C. pepo. They also generally display a greater resistance to disease and insects, especially to the squash vine borer.

Varieties of C Moschata you may have heard of include: Butternut, Calabaza, Crookneck, Dickinson pumpkin, Golden Cushaw, Long Island cheese pumpkin, Moscata di Provenza, Seminole pumpkin,  and Tromboncino.

These have been known to climb trees! Check this post in What squash climb the best? for pictures and what TJ said about them.

I have on my desk a BUNCH of seeds from TJ!! What will grow from them? Who knows? Want to find out?

So, what I am looking for if you'd like some free seeds compliments of TJ and permies, is post in this thread, and either show pictures of where you'd plant them, or tell us! If you get a PM that says "address please!" reply to the PM with your mailing address, it means you will be getting seeds in the mail! (Sorry, US only, shipping seeds internationally is problematic.) Best posts are most likely to get seeds, make them good and interesting! If you want to play but don't want seeds, put "No seeds" at the bottom of the post.

This free seed offer is brought to you by Permies dot com, TJ Jefferson (who grew the plants!) Greg Martin (who is an evil plant pusher who wants you to grow things SO BAD he'll pay shipping for you to get seeds!) Carla Burke (who has dogs, goats and chickens helping lick stamps!) and me, Pearl Sutton (who has a big bag of seeds on her desk!)  

What will come up? We don't know!
Where will you put them? Tell us, and you just may get some free seeds! 25 seeds per pack, enough to share!

Bruce Katlin wrote:Pearl:
I created my first Hugelkultur bed this year and am looking forward to seeing how it does. I live in New Mexico where water is a precious commodity and am hoping that Hugelkultur and Permaculture will be the way forward for myself and my fellow New Mexicans.

I moved from NM to MO due to the water issue (amongst other reasons) and am still trying to get used to it raining so much! I never met fungus on my plants before I moved here.... Quite a learning curve! I did organic gardening in NM for 30 years....

I am putting in a bed covered over with cow panels just for squash this year. I LOVE to try unknown varieties! It's like a present you can't wait to open! It's too cold here in Michigan for squash, yet, but summer's comin! I can't wait for my  grandson to go under the squash tunnel. He'll love it. (Start 'em young!😉)

I have a 50:50 compost/soil raised bed in
our backyard next to a tall hedge of mock
orange with goats on the other side. They'll
love the squash if it vines through! We live
on Kauai, the Garden Island.

Howdy!
I was going to ask for a seed or two, but I see so many people that I have so much in common with, who are so much further on their path (and therefore, in my mind deserve a spiffy new squash), and those just starting out who could really use a nice landrace squash plant that has proven tough enough for Virginia.
I'm an older, more experienced gardener by certain standards and have grown squash and fed the neighborhood (I quickly learned that friendly neighbors are the ones that *don't* get bags of zucchini on their doorstep every few days), or made the silly mistake of watering blooming squash from overhead before it had a chance to pollinate, and so grew nothing but beautiful leaves.

You live, you learn, you move on.
I'll take some time to poke around because if there's a seed swap in this Garden Forum area, that sounds like where I want to be!
I should be planting some sweet potato slips in the newly designated "Sweet Potato Experiment #1" bed before I call it a day or lose the last of the light.
I planted a ginger knuckle that had been purchased from our local store, along with two sweet potatoes that looked healthy, but different from each other - hoping for two varieties! Put them all in the tray at the same time, and EVERYTHING SPROUTED! So, the ginger gets pride of place near, but not in a bed. I will surround it with chives that have been molested by rats nightly for a year or so - but keep coming back.
Anyway - I would love a seed or two of Mystery winter squash, but hope that maybe I can try the saved seed from one of you lucky folks! Just keep me in mind, and I'll see what I have that's worth the price of a stamp.

Bright Blessings!

Everyone who has posted: Be sure to check your PM''s in the next few days! We are choosing people to get free seeds!! :D

I would plant them -- in the hands of my favorite gardening fiend...  I mean friend.  Funny story being that particular "Freudian slip"... I accidentally said that to another person, and she acknowledged, that yup! she qualified as said fiend because it has become an employable passion.   Anyway, why should permies then put them in my hands?

Because she is becoming the go-to person for many of the community gardens in the city where she lives, including one directly connected to a local homeless shelter program and providing both skills training and fresh vegetables and greens, etc. She's quite good at heirloom seed gardens and would be an ideal experimenter, seed harvester and distributor at the end of the season. She can put those seeds in the hands of hundreds.

God bless in all efforts here!

I merged your stuff with the following thread. I hope that is okay by you.

I am posting for the first time.  I think.  And what I am posting about is the squash seed giveaway.  At least that is my intention. See, I am 69 (which is code for: my brain came of age before computers and has not yet caught up) and just moved from the rolling hills of NC to the mountains, so from zone 7b to 6 a/b (don't know which yet, or both, here in my little holler with its white pine woods, open meadow, and flood plain by the little creek.)  It is a dream come true.  So, new to this area.  In years past I have grow many pumpkins and squash-- but what will grow here?  I have the flood plain garden spot, and I have a steep bank right outside my back door where the land rises up the hill to the piney woods.  There is a fence put in by the former owner at the base of the hill, so I would love to try growing squashy guys there to let them climb, and I would also love to put them in the garden by the creek where they have plenty of rooooom to run all over.  It's adventure gardenin', my favorite kind.  

I'm currently building a 4 by 8 foot raised bed in my side yard, similar to the one that I built 2 years ago. This one will be roughly along the contour, in order to impead sheet flow.  Also, the downhill side of the bed is a 2"x8"x8ft board while the uphill side is a 2"x8"x8ft board; so it's kinda terraced. I haven't yet added soil to it, for two reasons. Currently my small chicken coop is sitting there, waiting for my chicks to graduate into it it so that I can get some minor scratch & fertilizer action in the run before they are old enough to be let out for day-runs.  (In the permi spirit of function stacking, the chickens are pets with benefits; I feed them, they give eggs & counour the growing tick problem in my area. I've already been bit by two this year and I have yet to venture into the high grass or woods since the thaw.) The second reason is that I have some seed sized potatoes (from the grocery store) that I have planted in the existing soil, that I want to see get started before I start building the soil up upon it. I don't know if it will work, but I'm trying.  Also, I ordered some "frost peas" that I planted all over the yard about a month ago, to use as chicken forage, and now my yard has white flowers everywhere. I had set up brush piles as pea trellis, but it seems this kind is more like a "fieldpea" in that it doesn't seem to climb but creep low across the grass. I'm calling that a partial victory, since I plan on burying the brush piles in the fall anyway.

I also plan on a "Miyagi Pond" just downhill from the in progress 4x8 raised bed. It will also be 4x8, and about 3 feet deep; 2 feet down towards teh middle & 1 or 2 feet up on the raised sides.  I do raised bed gardening, not because I need the intense soil management that normal square foot gardening usually entails, but because the raised beds very well define the edge of the garden.  I like the Miyagi style mini-ponds for the same reason.  I will line the pond with regular pond liner, and direct the flow from my sump pump & a portion of my roof into it.  I plan on breeding Rosy Red minnows while also growing an aquatic fodder (Duckweed, maybe.)  By keeping a fine pool net next to it, I can scoop out a treat of both greens and protein for the hens anytime I like.  Eventually, I'd like to build a larger Miyagi pond farther downhill, and grow a type of fish that I'd like to eat, such as Perch. In this case, I'd set up a small solar panel to drive a pump to push some water back uphill to the smaller pond, establishing a flow.  Also, by using a Holtzer style monk in the upper pond as my drain back to the lower pond, I'd be able to flush some Rosies down to the lower pond at will, whenever their population is growing too high or any other reason.  Those unfortunate Rosies would be hunted down like chickens in a dogfight, but would reduce my need for commercial feed for either the chickens or the plate fish.  I might also use the solar panel to run a pump on a shallow well, to provide a regular introduction of clean water during the dry months (haven't determined if that is worth the effort or not).

The ponds would also provide convenient access to excellent irrigation water, just by dipping my watering can into the low pond.  Sorry, but my cell phone's camera is broken, along with the screen, so no photos will be forthcoming.

I have room in my garden. I took these pictures today. These hugelkultur beds were built last year.

I have recently started a small orchard.   I have some apples, peaches, and pears.  There is one grape plant that I hope will some day use the fruit trees to climb on.  I grew some pumpkins in the area last year as a weed suppression/ground cover and it is about time in my area (zone 6b) to begin thinking about what ground cover (aka squash) I will be planting this year.  Would be great to try something new.

I love squash and I’ve always feared saving seeds from them because they cross pollinate so readily. I’m so very happy to learn that landrace seeds are a thing!!!

I’d love to try TJ’s seeds. I’m in zone 5b. My plan is to put squash in my top cattle panel trellis bed. I also want to put squash in the far corner where the fences come together. (Pic 1)

The area in picture 2 is a bed with mostly sleeping, small perennials. Last year I had plans of a luffa gourd growing up the stump and on the poles to the tree, but my luffa never made it. I’d love to see a vine fill that trellis (chicken wire is added to the middle in the growing season).

I made some walls for this salvaged window out of sod. I then pulled most of the mulch off to let the soil warm up. The window just goes back in my 'junkyard' when it warms up. I'm going to try to get some longer season stuff started

I have a couple of beds available for them seed babies. I am in the Seattle area.

My seeds came!  Thank you so very much

Saralee Couchoud wrote:My seeds came!  Thank you so very much

Yay!! Thank you for letting us know!

Mine came today too!!! So excited to get them started. Thank you so much! ♥️

My seeds came! Thank you!
Just completed the other two raised bed containers.

Thanks, Kj & Tom!! That's great!

Thanks got my seeds.

Yay!! Thanks for letting us know, Danny!

Howdy!
I wanted to let you know that my seeds arrived and were planted (well, 3 of them) in my duly designated squash bed. I think I may have miscalculated. On a lot of things. But have decided to brazen it out, After all, all the seeds sprouting means I'll eat well this Fall.

I am in the process of sharing seeds with neighbors, friends, and relatives. I'm thinking I'll end up fighting "Squashzilla" this summer, but I would much rather have too many plants than not enough.
Plus, the chickens will enjoy the shade.

Sounds great, Kristine!! Thank you!

Got my seeds in the mail, now to get them planted between rain storms!  Thanks again!

Perry: you are very welcome!
I'm dancing the rain this week too, trying to get stuff done in the garden. Wet springs with random snow make gardens challenging :)

Thanks to a particularly wet, stormy, and cold night spring - my seeds have yet to deal with real heat. But they germinated very well.  I will add photos soon, as first true leaves have just started coming. Thank you so much for your kindness!! <3