It is a big job to order our seeds for the year and it usually takes most of one day. Ken orders the corn, melons, winter squash, cabbage, broccoli and lettuce seeds. I always order all the colorful peppers and hot peppers, summer squash, green beans and cucumbers. I don’t know exactly why we do it this way; we just seem to pick the things we are most interested in and ‘dig’ in. We work in the garden the same way. He picks the things that he orders and I usually pick the things that I have ordered. Funny isn’t it? 
The first thing we do is gather all our seed together and take inventory, counting the seeds, to see what is left from last year. We store our seed in small boxes and separate them by variety and kind; they are easier to find this way when we are planting the seeds. After we have a pretty good idea of what we have, we start looking at the stack of seed catalogs. When we find a variety that we want to order we start a list on an 8×11 sheet of paper; this becomes our order form. As we work through the catalogs, if we find a variety that we like better in another catalog it is easy to just cross it off the list on one sheet and add it to another. Each sheet has the name of the company at the top of the paper and the year. You know all years can look the same and we don’t want to mix them up later when we look back to see what we have ordered. We keep last year’s orders in its own manila file folder to reference how much and what varieties we ordered last year.
We make notes as we go and if we remember something that we are forgetting to order, we write it down. It is fun to see some of the new varieties and of course we have to order a few of those to try. I not only had to include some eggplant this year I even ordered a package of ‘white’ eggplant, and of course that was the one package that is back ordered.
Then we begin ordering from each sheet. I order as much as I can online through each company’s website but some of the companies do not have that option. I always enjoy talking to the ladies at the Twilleys Seed Company with their sweet southern drawl and their knowledge of farming. One time she said, “Is that the plant that grows about 3 feet tall?” I had to smile this is not like talking to some operator in India, this lady knows her seed.
When we receive each order I always check it for accuracy to make sure that we received exactly what we ordered; we do not want any disasters when it comes to variety or amount of seed. We are working on a strict daily schedule and do not have time to reorder or make mistakes. Our times are in God’s hands; but we do our part the best we can and He does the rest. I write on each order the date we received it so that I know how long it takes the company to ship their seeds. This way if I do need to order something late I’ll know exactly the time frame that we will be up against.
…and they are already arriving, we received our first seeds in just 4 days, Wow! So exciting I want to begin seeding but I have to wait until the calendar says, “Go”. Well we have plenty to do until then, like begin trimming the grapes and cutting the starts, and the weather outside is not very inviting. O-well I better get at it, ‘Springs a coming’.
