From away to garden.com and Robinhood Radio.com, this is Away to Garden with Margaret Roach. You're a weekly invitation to dig in and grow. Once upon a time, the seed catalogs came out around the start of the new year, but these days, the very first ones may arrive by Thanksgiving, and their listings may be posted online even earlier. So I guess what I'm saying is it's not too early to start talking about seed shopping, and it's never too early to start scouting out new seed sources that you might not know about. My guest today is the adventurous seed chopper Joseph Takonovich, who has called himself a plant crazed garden nerd, and we're here together today to share some of our favorite places to track down unusual goodies of all kinds from alpines to native perennials. More in a moment but first these messages. Underwriting support for a way to garden provided by color blends wholesale flower bulbs. A third-generation bulb company offering top-sized flower bulbs directly to landscape professionals and ambitious residential gardeners on the web, colorblends.com. And by High Moeng seeds, Wolcott Vermont, Professional Quality Vegetable, Flower, and Urbocedes that are 100% organic and non-GMO project verified. On the web, HighMoengCeds.com and by Whiteflower Farm offering a wide range of carefully selected and expertly grown garden plants. On the web, whiteflower farm.com. Joseph DeConovich is a writer, a plant breeder, and of course a gardener, and the author of the book Rock Gardening, reimagining a classic style, plus a graphic novel on growing food called The Comic Book Guide to Growing Food. You may recall past conversations we've had on the show about other passions of his such as Snap Dragons and Gladioly's Joseph Gardens in South Bend, Indiana, and I'm glad he made time to talk to us today from there. How are you? I'm doing great. How are you? Okay. I had a little snow last night. How about you? A lot of snow. We have about a foot on the ground. Sorry. Happy early November. Yeah. What? Do I have an interwinter with a bang here? Yeah. Okay. So much for those spring like or early fall like days of a few days ago. Okay. So seed seed shopping, first of all, you have to confess, have you already ordered some things? Um, yes. Okay, truth be told, he has already. I think the rare are the items on your wish list and the more obscure your sources, it's kind of a race to get there before they're going because these are not

giant factory type places we're talking about, right? Yeah, sometimes yeah, and also sometimes it's because seeds, you know, you can store them I'm a little bit sometimes if I get a B in my bonnet about something I'm ordering seeds all the time. You thought I'm not gonna sew it till the spring sometimes if I start thinking about it then you know any time you order it you can sit in my

seed box until I get around to it so I'm not going to sew it till the spring. Sometimes if I start thinking about it, then, you know, anytime you order it, you can sit in my seed box until I get around to it. So

I'm kind of always ordering seeds if I'm honest. Okay. Now we have the full confession. The seed box is it, where does it live? Is it live in a special cool dry place or what's the, Where is it in your house?

I keep it in my basement, which is pretty cool.

Okay.

And then I, they're like,

tupperware tubs and I put a little bit of

silica gel, which is pretty cool. Okay. And then I, they're like,

tupperware tubs and I put a little bit of silica gel, which is that absorber's moisture. Yes. You see those little packets in the shoes and stuff in the bottom to keep them nice and dry. So that's kind of my system. They used to be in the refrigerator, but my husband thought that maybe you should Keep your refrigerator space for food.

So another in the basement.

He's so boring.

He's so boring. He's so. Doesn't understand at all. Are there some things that you order every year like that you can't sort of live without? I mean, for me, like I like to make this particular vegetable soup and I have this one bean, this pole bean called Ant-Ada's Italian pole bean. The just one of those ones, it's like a greasy bean from the South-West ones where the shell stays on and the beans are pumped inside, but the beans are tender and the shell stays tender. So it's like you get the green and the bean in your soup and it's rich and wonderful. And so I get that from total tree seed every year and that's in Valley of New York near me. No know it's like I have to have that. Is there anything like that that you absolutely have to have? I think I usually end up ordering different things. I mean there's stuff I grow every year. You know there's a few tomatoes I have to grow every year. But usually I save seeds from them myself. And then I'm often, yeah, I always order some kind of kale. And I grow this. The one, it's like an Asian broccoli, the cultivar is happy rich. That is, my must have vegetable garden that I get from Johnny's selected seeds. It's almost like a broccoli leany, but I love it because you can plant it once. it makes a big bush, and it just keeps harvest about once every one or two weeks, all summer long. It's interesting. There's the one, and I don't know how to pronounce it. It has a Latin American name like piracy kaba, piracy kaba, pi-r-ac-a-b-a. And that is one that it will keep building not giant heads but right Rats again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and again and not giant heads, but florets again and again and again and again and again over many weeks and it's great. Yeah, yeah. I kind of don't want the giant heads. No. It's so impractical. I know that's what the grocery stores you're used to seeing, but when you want big heads, if you plan them all once, you just get this day loose abruptly and then nothing then nothing. So I like the ones that send off some of the all sets.

Oh, interesting.

I don't know that one. Yeah. So, okay. So you hunt for other kinds of season. You have a lot of plant passions. You're an alpine gardener. You have you breed plants. You have all kinds of, I think I said in the introduction. you call yourself a plant crazed garden nerd.

And, you know, it's, I think I said in the introduction, you call yourself a plant-crazed garden nerd. And you know, it's what kinds of places do you scout out? What are some of things you're looking for? So I really love, I love some kind of small eclectic company that it's one person with a passion who's collecting, you know, unusual seeds. I would love stumbling on them. Usually if the website looks like it has been updated since the internet, since it was AOL or something, that's always a great sign. And one, I really love, there's a company called Seed Hunt, which is run by one of the name, Ginny Hunt in California, which is all California native seeds. And it's just like, her singular passion. And it's just fascinating because the whole list of stuff I've never heard of, which is catnet for me. Got to try it, right? Yeah, got to try it. Got to try it. Yeah. So California natives, interesting. Yeah. And what's interesting is she has a lot of California native

animals. Obviously the perennials I can't grow because it's snowed yesterday. But there's a lot of California native animals that germinate when the rains come, I guess in the fall, and are kind of winter spring, you know, fall season annuals for California that actually do pretty good in my midwestern summer. So, um, Clarkia is a huge genus and every year I just have to order new species of Clarkia from seed hunt just to see which ones are going to do a do well for me here in the Midwest. That's great. So seed hunt, okay, so that's one and that's one I've never heard of. So that's interesting. And then people who are listening

who are of course are from the West

may wish to indulge in some of the perennials

and so forth as well.

They're sure, yeah. If you are out in the West Coast, I'm sure they've hopefully a herd of it already, but yeah, it's such a really tons of stuff that I don't think you're gonna find in any, with the traditional catalogs.

Huh. Okay. Any other sort of ones from other regions of the country?

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