Ballerinas in Floral Disguise Part I - The Oriental Lily Check Out The Harvesting History Collection of Plant Videos on YouTube The lilium genus, surprisingly, is only indigenous to the temperate zones of the Northern Hemisphere, but it has been so popular for so many centuries that it is worldwide in distribution. There are many, many species native to North America, Asia and Europe. Flowers are of many different sizes and shapes – some highly fragrant, some not. Lilies were a part of the Greek and Roman civilizations. New World lilies and the lilies of China and Japan were quickly and eagerly embraced by Europeans and the British. Since the Renaissance, the development and cultivation of lily cultivars has proliferated, but it was not until the late 1800s that the
View more-
-
Kale and Collards-Some of the Cold Hardiest Vegetables in Existence Kale and Collards are probably the earliest cultivated variations of the European wild cabbage. Kale is known to have been widely grown by both the Greeks and the Romans. From a scientific classification point of view, kale and collards are considered to be the same plant – just two different varieties. Sometimes collards are described as a kind of kale. However, diehard Southerners will tell you that collards are collards and kale is kale and they are very different. Kale, also known as Borecole, and collards are non-heading, leafy greens that are among the most cold-hardy vegetables grown. Kale is definitely a cool season crop whose sweet flavor is substantially enhanced when the plant is exposed to several
View more -
Check out our detailed videos on growing potatoes and growing potatoes in tires on YouTube! To see our Starting Potatoes in the ground or in tires videos on You Tube click this link Potatoes cannot be shipped if the temperatures are below freezing. We will ship to the west coast when we have 5 consecutive days above freezing temperatures. We will ship to the midwest and east coast when we have 3 consecutive days of above freezing temperatures. For this newsletter, we are going to be talking about standard potatoes. Harvesting History sells two kinds of potatoes: the fingerlings and the standards. Fingerlings are long, somewhat ‘finger-shaped’ potatoes. The standard potatoes have a round or oblong shape. We will be discussing fingerling potatoes in our February 2, 2019 newsletter. Potatoes are
View more -
The Flowering Vine, Morning Glory Heavenly Blue To purchase Morning Glory Heavenly Blue Seeds click this link In terms of ornamental grandeur derived from floral displays, the most underrated assets we have in the horticultural world are the flowering vines. Blankets of yellow, red, purple, white, blue orange and just about any other color you can think of have embellished dirty old fences, chipped pillars and columns, rusted stair railings, neglected sheds and disfigured walls for centuries. Cascades of opulent colors have introduced drama and elegance to building facades, balconies, porches and bridges. Unfortunately, in today’s world where instant gratification is the only acceptable gratification, flowering vines are a rarity. They are a rarity for the simple fact that vines take time to grow. You can’t run
View more -
Tomatoes To purchase Harvesting History Tomato Seeds click this link Today’s newsletter was created to answer a question that we receive frequently, “Help me to choose some tomatoes for my garden. I do not have a lot of space.” In today’s gardening world, the problem of limited space is ubiquitous from city dwellers with only a roof top or a balcony, to suburban homeowners with only a deck or patio, to rural farmers who can only protect a small space from the critters, to seniors, everywhere, who refuse to abandon their much beloved tradition of summer tomato growing and consuming the luscious fruit warm from the vine. The “Complete Tomato Garden” will have 1-2 different varieties of tomatoes from each of the three kinds of tomatoes: plum/paste,
View more -
Greetings Harvesting History Friends and Neighbors! The 2019 New Year begins in 3 days and with it the start of the 2019 gardening season, but we are getting a jump start on the season with our first newsletter of the 2019 season today. This season our newsletters will focus on three types of gardeners: • Traditional Heirloom Gardeners, • Teachers Who Inspire Children to Become Gardeners and • Container Gardeners This newsletter’s topic is PEAS, one of the oldest, most beloved fruits of all time. Peas probably originated in Eastern Europe or Central Asia and are among the oldest of the cultivated crops and one of the most important to civilization. It is thought that mankind began to cultivate plants and seeds around 10,000 BC and archaeologists have found evidence
View more -
Species Tulip - Acuminata Buy Now for Fall Planting! This is the third installment in a series about a remarkable class of tulips known as the Species Tulips. If you are archiving these newsletters the other two installments occurred on 9-8-2018 and 9-22-2018. For those of you who have deer, squirrels, bunnies, chipmunks and other critters that like to decimate the spring garden before it even sprouts, there are actually many bulbs that are critter resistant, in fact, there are tulips that are critter resistant. These tulips are known as Species Tulips. These are the original wild tulips collected from Persia, the Caucasus, Africa, Southern Europe, etc. Even today, wild species are still being discovered and cultivated for commercial sale. Understand, that after these wild species are collected and
View more -
The 2018 Garlic Harvest: The Largest and Best Tasting Varieties 2018 Creole Garlic, Burgundy Buy Now for Fall Planting! Harvesting History spends a lot of time with our customers sharing stories with them at Harvest Festivals and Flower Shows, horticulture lectures, answering questions from emails and other social media platforms and speaking with many on the phone. At this time of year, we are usually sharing with them the best of the annual garlic harvest. In the past, we have only shared this information in one-on-one situations, so our friends and customers who live far away or who do not attend functions where we exhibit were never privy to this information. This year we have decided to write a brief newsletter commenting on what we have seen and tasted now that
View more -
Basket of Shallots Many of our winter hardy vegetables – onion and elephant garlic sets, parsnips, salsify, etc. - can be planted in both the spring or the fall, but to be really successful with shallots, you should try to plant them in the fall. Shallots are sold as sets, but unlike onion sets where each ‘set’ is a baby onion and will produce a single mature onion, a shallot ‘set’ can be a nearly mature single shallot and this shallot will produce 4-6 mature shallots. From a single sack of 6 shallots you should expect to get 25-40 shallots. Shallot Sets BUY NOW FOR FALL PLANTING Shallots benefit greatly from being planted in soil that has been amended with Rock Phosphate and Potash. You can dust the
View more