What an exciting time for us gardeners! Many of you, like us will have a glasshouse or cloche starting to overflow with seedlings growing bigger by the day for the garden. Our first seed sowing is off to a great start and we have been busy pricking out brassicas like Broccoli De Cicco and Kale Pohara, which are both new to our range this season! There is still time to plant brassicas if you have yet to sow any.  Our tomatoes, peppers and eggplants are healthy and protected this time of year by a double layer. They sit in the glasshouse and we have a frost cloth cloche over them for added protection in case of a hard frost. This is the safest way to ensure they don’t end get frosted in early spring. If you have yet to get some of these long season heat loving crops in, act now and you will be rewarded!

If you are new to sowing your own tomatoes, peppers or eggplants it is important to know they need a warm spot to germinate. The soil temperature needs to be at least 18°C for germination. As this is impossible to achieve outside this time of year, we use a heat pad indoors to get our solanaceae babies going. Once the seeds pop and the first leaves appear we then transfer them to our double protection glasshouse I mentioned earlier.  As the seeds do not require light to germinate your hot water cupboard or somewhere near a woodstove that is always lit can be ideal places for germination. Just remember to keep the soil moist but not too wet to prevent damping off.

I have been reading a bit about tomatoes from a fellow American seed grower, Joseph Lofthouse. He is doing some very interesting breeding work with tomatoes wild ancestors to try to strengthen our domesticated cultivars. As it turns out, tomatoes are one of the most highly inbred vegetables we grow, and this is why so much effort and knowledge is needed to procure healthy fruits! For more information, check out his full article here. Joseph is a landrace grower, someone who encourages crossing among same species cultivars as a way of breeding locally adapted strong varieties with genetic variation and vigor. I am still getting my head around how we can start some landrace varieties here in our seed garden. Naturally my thoughts jump to pumpkins, corn and brassicas as they are some of the harder varieties to maintain genetic purity so an easy place to trial the landrace seed idea. Watch this space.

Something else that has been inspiring me lately is a book given to me by my mother called, Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden -The classic account of Hidatsa American Indian gardening technigues, by Gilbert L. Wilson. Originally published in 1917, this is an amazing account from an ethnobotanical and anthropological perspective unique to its time. The book details Buffalo Bird Woman’s garden knowledge and how it was to garden in her village before the introduction of settlers tools and ways. Reading about her families garden and how they designed, developed  and maintained it is truly useful for gardening knowledge today. I highly recommend it. It is also inspiring me to try again the Three Sisters Planting of Corn, Beans and Squash(Pumpkin). This is something I have done in the past with mixed results. Now seeing how they laid out the planting, allowing more space between pumpkin plants, I see huge value in this companion planting group and have plans to have a whole section of our garden dedicated to this design this season. Photos hopefully to come in future newsletters.
 
On a different note, we have had the great fortune of being featured in the August issue of NZ Gardener Magazine. For the article please find it here. Since this article came out, we have experienced a spike in sales, which we are grateful for. We just wanted to explain that this is why we have SOLD OUT of a few things including some of our New Garden Packs. Our apologies for any disappointment this may cause. Please know we are doing our best to keep continuity of supply going. 

A new shop is opening in Nelson and they are stocking our seeds! Go check out Tim's Garden store if you are local or in the area.


Things to Sow in the Garden Now:

Tomatoes, Peppers, and Eggplant seeds need to get underway ASAP if you have not already done so.  By planting these seeds now, you ensure you will have a long harvest of the heat loving summer crops!  We are also planting our spring brassicas, like kale and broccoli, not to mention the faster growing, Tat Soi, Mizuna, and Rocket.  Wild Arugala is also great to get on its way now, being a perennial this plant will ensure leafy greens in your garden for years to come.  Spinach Bloomsdale, Silverbeet Fordhook Giant and our Orach Red are also ideal spring greens to plant. Salad Burnet, can also be sown, along with all our lettuces like Specked, Tree, Odell’s, Mignonette, St Vincent and don’t forget the reds like Lollo Rossa and Red Salad Bowl.  As for flowers for compainion planting sow, Aquilegia, Calendula, Cornflower, Stock, Phacelia, Echinacea, Lupins, Sweet Peas, Hollyhocks, Sweet William, and Dianthus Clove Pink.

Do you have a glasshouse or cloche or frost free area, if so you could be sowing early courgettes, cucumbers and beans!

We often follow Rachel Pomeroy's biodynamic calendar in Organic NZ magazine for inspiration on sowing times.

Our Website is the best place to find the most up to date information on what we have available at all times during the year.

We encourage orders through this medium, but of course we will still accept orders via email from our Catalogue or via the post using our printed order form.
 
And here is our   Order Form PDF  or Order Form Excel
 
Email orders from the catalogue to: sethasseeds@outlook.com 

Or post order forms to: Setha's Seeds PO Box 60, Tutira 4181

And a reminder that selections of our seeds are also available from Cornucopia Organics in Hastings and Edible Garden in Ashhurst, the Thames Organic Shop in Thames and Tim's Garden in Nelson. 
 

Happy gardening,

Roddy, Setha and River Rose

Still time to plant tomatoes!

Chinese Cabbage Chi Hi Li is great for making kimchi!

Sweet Peas are a beautiful spring flower. Last chance to get them underway.

Get all your Salad and Cooking Greens underway.

Last chance to sow heat loving peppers! Try the beautifully sweat Jimmy Nardello.

Do you have you glasshouse/cloche set up sorted? if not check out our Seed Propagation Booklet for some great ideas.

Our Alpine Strawberry is new and available NOW!

Lupins are great to get underway now.

If you want to try a easy to grow, small plant and fruit pumpkin, with good storage abilities, try Delicata!

Chamomile, sow now!

Carrot White Belgium can be succession sown now.

Echinacea is a great perrenial medicine to get established, sown now.

It feels like winter has really set in! We have had record lows this winter with temperatures plummeting to -6°C! If this sounds familiar you might be less inclined to get out in the garden.  Fortunately, it is the quiet time in the garden as the garlic is in and safely mulched away, and now is more of a time for reflection over the last season and what you will do this coming season in your vegetable patch.  A perfect time for browsing our new 2019/20 catalogue! We have updated our website and our full range of freshly germination tested seeds are all listed on both our Website, PDF Catalogue, and we can also send you a physical copy of our catalogue if you get in touch to request one. We prefer orders through the website, but please choose the method of ordering that works best for you.


As we gear up for spring in the garden we are also looking to invite an individual or couple to intern with us. We have had so much fun with our internship program and we hope this year is no different. Internships are a minimum of 2 months and can extend for longer periods. We also accept wwoofers for shorter periods. We can tailor programs to suit your needs, so any questions please get in touch. Please let anyone know who you think might be interested.  All enquiries are welcome and considered and more information is available on our website.

In other news, we have a new shop stocking our seeds!!! Thames Organics, on the Coromandel requested our seeds last year. They have a selection of our seeds available at their shop. If you are local to them, go check it out!
 
Please stay warm and happy these winter months and enjoy the bounty you have put by, preserved or harvested fresh from the garden.  We have fresh vegetables on the menu daily such as, Speckled, Tree, Odell’s, Lollo Rossa  and Winter lettuce, mixed with wild plantain, chicory and dandelion greens to make a fresh salad sprinkled with chopped Welsh Bunching Onions and Calendula petals, to accompany the warm winter roasts.  Chucks Winter, Queensland Blue and our new favourite, Delicata Pumpkin’s make great additions and allow us to harvest our fresh seed one meal at a time. Oxheart and White Belgium carrots are roasted regularly or grated to make a fresh salad with a simple dressing and some toasted seeds. Broccoli De Cicco and Kale Pohara are both new to our range and offer great winter greens too!  We are so lucky in this country to be able to harvest fresh vegetables pretty much year round with a bit of prior planning.
 
We are also about to start planning all of our spring plantings, as now is the time to decide: what do you want to grow this year! Such an exciting time where the possibilities seem endless; or at least as endless as space allows.  So remember how big your garden is when sowing seeds. Also take a moment to check out our NEW Garden Packs! Something we are excited to introduce this year, giving you a selection of seeds at a great price. Another new thing to check out is our Pre-Order Seedlings! If you struggle to get your tomatoes and peppers in early enough, try ordering a few from us! All seedling orders must be received before August 1^st 2019.


Things to Sow in the Garden Now:

As we have passed the Winter Solstice and the days are growing longer we can start sowing some of our earliest spring vegetables. We will be sowing shortly, Kale Red Russian and Phora, Silverbeet Fordhook Giant, Broccoli De Cicco, Arugula Wild, Cress, Rocket, Mizuna, Tat Soi and Lettuces Tree, Speckled and Red Salad Bowl, Lollo Rossa. Don’t forget the companion flowers! You can get underway Aquilegia Grandmother’s Garden, Diathus Clove Pink, Stock White, Sweet Peas Mary’s or America, Calendula, Echinacea, Lupins, Sweet Williams and Poppies. So many options, some perennial and some annual so make sure you choose the ones that suit your garden best. 

We often follow Rachel Pomeroy's biodynamic calendar in Organic NZ magazine for inspiration on sowing times.

Our Website is the best place to find the most up to date information on what we have available at all times during the year.

We encourage orders through this medium, but of course we will still accept orders via email from our Catalogue or via the post using our printed order form.
 
And here is our   Order Form PDF  or Order Form Excel
 
Email orders from the catalogue to: sethasseeds@outlook.com 

Or post order forms to: Setha's Seeds PO Box 60, Tutira 4181

And a reminder that selections of our seeds are also available from Cornucopia Organics in Hastings and Edible Garden in Ashhurst and the Thames Organic Shop in Thames.

We wish you an amazing year ahead in the garden, with bountiful harvests and cool evenings outside to bask in the fruits of your labours. As the temperatures plummet now, know that the shortest day has passed, and believe it or not, summer is around the corner.
 

Happy gardening,

Roddy, Setha and River Rose

Check out our NEW Garden Packs!

We now have a large selection of mixes in the Salad and Cooking Greens section.

Delicata is a new pumpkin in our range, but an old favourite of ours!

Pre-Order Seedlings available now. See website for more details.

Abenaki Pean is a new bean to try!

Chamomile, a new herb we are excited to have in our range!

Cucumber Tendergreen is a great new addition this year!

Carrot White Belgium is back again!

Yams are now available!

Chinese Cabbage Chi Hi Li is back again!

Bean Mangere Pole is NEW and a great green bean!

Gourd Ruka, is beautiful and we are so pleased to be able to offer it.

Seed Potatoes Now Available. 1 Kg packs $10.00 plus shipping. Limited Stock.

We have our seed potatoes for sale! Available are small amounts of Chatam Island, Henry's Large White (NEW VARIETY!!!), Hua Karoro, Kowiniwini, Matariki, Peru Peru, Paraketia, Uwhi, and Urenika, available for sale. If you are interested please order soon, as stock is limited.  

In other news, our garlic is in and looking gorgeous! So sorry to inform we have SOLD OUT of our seed garlic for the season. We would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who ordered and apologies for anyone who missed out. We are hoping to continue to succeed to grow garlic with rust present, and in time be able to expand production.

And here is a new idea to circulate with you all. We have often advertised a workshop and asked folks to come along. This time around, we have had someone contact us from Northland interested in our building workshops; Tiny House Construction and DYI Handyman Skills for the Self Sufficient Lifestyler. We thought we could offer, a full day workshop, combining these two workshops to give an overview of both. I have suggested dates in May (Sat or Sun of May 18^th or 25^th weekends). If any of you are also interested in attending please email me to express interest, and let me know which date you can make. If neither of these dates work, all good, suggest a new one! We are at the drawing board, so anything is possible.

Things to Sow in the Garden Now:

April is a good time to be transplanting your winter garden veges; some things can still be sown from seed like Tat Soi, Mizuna, Rocket, Arugala, Lettuces, Kale, and Coriander.  And don’t forget the companion flowers like Caledula, Poppies and Lupins. Make sure you have prepared a fertile growing patch with plenty of compost or aged manure.

As your summer gardens are finishing up, make sure to make compost from the crops as they come out as well as sow cover crops.  On our scale, we use cover crops to build soil fertility as well as compost. We have been using Buckwheat, vetch and Lupins mix this season. It is great to see some of the cover crops we let go to seed germinate in beds at this time of year, another sign that nature can be an equal partner and know just when it is right to get the seed under way! 

We often follow Rachel Pomeroy's biodynamic calendar in Organic NZ magazine for inspiration on sowing times.

Our Website is the best place to find the most up to date information on what we have available at all times during the year.

We encourage orders through this medium, but of course we will still accept orders via email from our Catalogue or via the post using our printed order form.
 
And here is our   Order Form PDF  or Order Form Excel
 
Email orders from the catalogue to: sethasseeds@outlook.com 

Or post order forms to: Setha's Seeds PO Box 60, Tutira 4181

And a reminder that selections of our seeds are also available from Cornucopia Organics in Hastings and Edible Garden in Ashhurst and the Thames Organic Shop in Thames.

Garlic planting season is happening right now. If you haven't gotten yours in yet, you might want to try planting on April 12th, Moon opposition Saturn, this is a good day to strengthen all seed and form strong structure for plants. This helped us last year to combat rust.

Interested in building skills? Email us to get on the list for our upcoming building workshop, see below for details.

Potato Henry's Large White is NEW to our collection this year!

Lupin Blue is beautiful and fixes nitrogen into your soil! Plant now.

Still time to plant Spinach Bloomsdale for winter eating.

Calendula Orange, a great winter companion flower.

Winter lettuce can still be sown now.

Poppies like Hungarian Blue Breadseed and Tyneside Mix can still be sown.