MASSIVE Seed Haul! Baker Creek, Pinetree Seeds, Totally Tomatoes

My new seeds for the 2024 garden season are here! Today I’m sharing my seed hauls from three companies – Baker Creek, Pinetree Seeds, and Totally Tomatoes. I’ll show you what I purchased, and share a little about my plans for these vegetables (and a few flowers).

If you missed my first seed haul of 2024 (MIgardener seeds) you can catch it here: https://youtu.be/T9EKZbC9vgA

I recently shared my must-grow veggie varieties – you can watch it here: https://youtu.be/KqGlkJBJuL0

Music by Epidemic Sound: https://www.epidemicsound.com/

Hey friends welcome back to Homestead on a Prayer I hope that you’re having a great winter that you’re getting through the cold and if you have snow where you are I hope you’re getting through all of that fine and even enjoying the cold and the restful season now winter isn’t

Admittedly my favorite time of year I like to be outside as much as possible I like to be working in the garden and you know Clint feels the same way as you can hear he likes to be outside too so this time of year one of my favorite things

To do is to start planning the garden for next season we have kind of an unseasonably warm day today so I figured it would be a good day to come outside as you can see the dead Garden is behind me and share with you some really exciting seeds that I got in the

Mail you know pretty much as soon as the Christmas season is over I kind of shift gears and start getting into Garden planning mode and I think probably a lot of you a lot of people who really like gardening are the same way so I have I

Have a a pretty significant seed haul to share with you guys today this is from three different companies so first I have a really small seed haul from totally Tomatoes just a couple seed packets that’s a company I’m not really all that familiar with but they do have

Some great selection I have mediumsized haul from pine tree seeds I’ve ordered from them several times and I’ve always been really happy with their seeds and finally Baker Creek Baker Creek is one of my go-to seed companies for some really exciting and hard to find seeds

So I ordered quite a bit from them so I’m going to start with my smallest seed haul and work our way up to the bigger most exciting seed haul so we’re going to start with totally Tomatoes now as I said I’m not really all that familiar with this company they do you know

Unsurprisingly specialize in tomatoes they have hundreds of tomato varieties that they offer as I said I don’t really have a lot of experience growing from them but I did want to Branch out and try a few different varieties this year so the first tomato variety that I got

From them is called defiant this is a hybrid tomato for the most part you know I love to grow heirlooms I love to grow open pollinated varieties I really like a lot of fun variety but I have struggled really for many years in my garden with tomatoes eventually

Succumbing to disease before the end of the growing season and I’m hoping by introducing a couple hybrid varieties to my garden I can extend the growing season they can hopefully you know a lot of times hybrids are bred for disease resistance and so by adding a couple

Hybrids to my Garden my hope is to just extend the Tomato Harvest a little bit I mean ideally I would love to be able to get tomatoes all the way up till Frost I’m not sure if that will happen or not but we’re going to give it a try so this

One the defiant hybrid is a tomato that was highly recommended to me by by some of you actually and also by some other people as well so I am excited to try this one this is kind of I think a classic medium Red Tomato so I am still

Going to to be growing a lot of heirlooms the majority of my tomato plants will be heirloom tomatoes but as I said I just wanted to throw a couple hybrids into the mix as well so this next one is also a hybrid this is the Lemon boy plus hybrid tomato this one I

Believe is basically a classic round yellow tomato I think that’s mediumsized as well that one again was very highly recommended to me by many people so I’m really excited to try growing those I’ll probably grow maybe one or two plants of each of these and then I will fill in

The rest of my tomato space with heirlooms so the final tomato variety that I purchased from totally Tomatoes is a little bit different and I have kind of different plans for it this is a heartbreaker d red tomato and that tomato it’s a small tomato in pretty

Much every way it’s a cherry tomato so it has small size fruits the plants are also supposed to be really small as well I believe that the catalog said that they could grow in a 6 to 8 inch pot which is pretty small so my hope for

Those is to kind of experiment with possibly growing some of those inside my house over the winter you know during The Long Winter it’s it’s really hard to go that whole winter without fresh Garden tomatoes and I’m hoping that by growing some of those in the house I

Will be able to kind of fill that craving a little bit and get some good homegrown Tomatoes even during the winter so as I said that will be kind of an experiment but I will keep you posted on how that goes I do have some grow

Lights in my house so I may experiment with growing some in grow lights I may experiment with growing some in my window sill as well I’m not sure if they’ll get enough light this time of year but I figured it’d be worth a try and we’ll see what

Happens now I did get one more seed packet from totally Tomatoes which is not a tomato variety this is a sprouting broccoli variety called aspa bro I think it’s called that because the stems are supposed to have kind of an asparagus like Flavor now sprouting broccoli grows from what I understand understand I’ve

Actually never grown it before but from what I understand it grows multiple smaller broccoli heads and you kind of harvest them as shoots with a significant portion of stem I wanted to give some sprouting broccoli a try for the first time this year so if anyone

Has any experience or any tips to share with growing sprouting broccoli particularly if it’s this variety but even if it’s a different variety I would love to hear any tips you have because that’s a new vegetable to me but we love broccoli in my house so I thought it

Might be a little fun to bring Branch out a little bit and try something different so we’re going to give that a try so that’s all I got from totally Tomatoes just that small little seed hul next I’m going to show you my seed haul from pine tree

Seeds now this is a small Seed Company they’re located in Maine so while they’re a little bit north of me their growing season isn’t all that different from mine here in Connecticut so I know that the varieties that they stock are varieties that are also likely to do

Well in my area now there there’s no rule that you have to order from seed companies in your area I mean Baker Creek is in Missouri they’re very far from me I still order a lot of seeds from them as well but I like to make sure that I support some companies that

Are fairly local to me as well so pine tree is one that has been tried and true for me I order from them pretty much every year and they have in my experience they have great seeds so the first variety is Tango celery I’ve never really been incredibly

Successful with growing celery I decided I want to give it a try again this year so that’s another one if you have any celery growing tips for me I would love to hear what works for you for growing celery next I have this Imperial broccoli now broccoli is I we love

Broccoli I grow broccoli every year this is a new variety though my primary broccoli variety is going to be Eastern magic this year but what I wanted to do was grow several broccoli varieties to kind of stagger the maturity dates so that we don’t have all our broccoli crop

Come in at once we want to be able to harvest it over an extended period of time and this one has this is a 70-day maturity when I get to the Eastern magic I’ll check what that is but I think it’s about a week or two earlier than this

One so by ordering different broccoli with different maturity dates the hope is that we’ll get an extended broccoli Harvest next I got Cosmos double click snowpuff now I love Cosmos I grow Cosmos in my garden every year it makes a beautiful companion plant just a great beneficial plant for your garden this

Particular variety I haven’t grown before but it’s supposed to be a double white Cosmos which means that it has extra petals and kind of it’s a more filled out fluffy variety so I’m really excited to try that I’m generally drawn to really bright colorful flowers but I

Think that mixing this white Variety in with the others will really help the other colors to pop so next from Pine Tree I got these lettuce winter density seeds this is a variety that I’ve grown many times before I like to grow it because it is very cold tolerant so I

Find that that is a really good variety for extending my lettuce Harvest I like to plant it primarily as a fall lettuce I may not even start any of those this spring but by planting it as a fall lettuce it will go depending on how the

The weather is that season it will go really far into the fall and usually into early winter as well and then if I cover it which I do sometimes then I can get an even more extended Harvest of lettuce we love to have Greens in the winter when it’s cold

And dreary outside and there’s nothing else we can harvest in the garden so I’m planning ahead a little bit and getting some seeds for my fall Garden too not just my Spring Garden so next is the other broccoli variety that I mentioned this is Eastern

Magic this is going to be my main crop of broccoli and I mentioned that the other broccoli the Imperial broccoli has a 70-day maturity date this one has 62 days so they’ll be about eight days different now maturity dates when you’re looking at your seed packets that’s an

Estimate that’s going to depend on many different factors it’s going to depend on your weather conditions it’s going to depend on the nutrients in your soil there’s so many different things that can affect maturity date but by having a variety that’s estimated to be 62 days

And one that’s estimated to be 70 days we will definitely be extending the season kind of however that works out so as I said Eastern magic is a tried and true variety I’m sure that that one will do well Imperial is new so we’ll find out together how well that works in my

Area next I got these halao hot pepper seats this is a type of jalapeno this one is another tried and true I go I grow this pretty much every year we actually didn’t have it last year because I forgot to order seeds for it but with the exception of last year this

Has been in my garden every year for at least the last last you know six or seven years it’s been a while this is a Dependable variety for us we like to grow two different jalapeno varieties I usually like to grow one that’s a little bit more mild and one that’s a little

More spicy and this would be our spicy variety this year so I’m really excited about that one now here’s a new one to me this is the Oklahoma salmon Zenia now zenas are not new to me I love zenas I grow an abundance of zenas in my garden every

Year because they’re so dependable they’re so beautiful they’re just so beneficial for the garden you know they attract pollinators they attract beneficial insects they just make your garden a beautiful place to be and they’re just so easy and carefree to grow so zenas are definitely a tried and true this particular variety the

Oklahoma salmon just looked so beautiful in the Seed Catalog it’s a nice soft orange kind of blushed with pink they looked really pretty so I’m really excited to try those now I’m getting some tatsoi greens this is one that I’ve grown several times before it’s kind of similar to a

Mustard it’s probably a little bit less spicy than a mustard grein but it’s really Dependable in cool weather conditions I really like to grow that first thing in the spring and then again in the fall to extend my garden Harvest so that’s just a good simple one to add to your

Salad next the carpet of snow alysum if you watched any of my garden tours this past season you saw that I had so much beautiful white alysum in my garden I mean it’s a beautiful plant it kind of spreads out it’s low growing so it makes a great

Living mulch I mean as you can tell from the name carpet it really just does spread out and form a carpet it blooms in cool weather so what usually happens with my alysum is it’ll Bloom fairly early in the season then it’ll kind of take a break for the summer doesn’t

Really like hot weather but it won’t die it’ll just kind of stop flowering and then in the fall when it cools off again it’ll bloom again so it blooms at a time when you don’t have a lot of other plants blooming so I really appreciate it for those reasons and it also is

Really good to suppress weeds because it spreads out and covers the ground I mean who wouldn’t rather have your ground covered with a beautiful white flower instead of weeds that you have to pull up so that one is a go-to that I grow every year next we have the Safari red

Maragold this particular variety I have not before at least not from seed I know I’ve gotten I’ve gotten some maragold transplants from a local Nursery before that looked really similar to the picture of these maragold in the Seed Catalog so it’s possible that this may be a variety that I have grown before

But I’ve never started it from seed that being said maragold are really easy to grow they’re very carefree and dependable they have a reputation for being great at repelling pests so that’s you know always a great thing to add to your garden natural pest control especially when it doesn’t involve any

Work on your part is a great thing and they’re so beautiful and cheerful I have some yellow marals that I plan to grow but I wanted to add some bread into the mix to kind of just to spice up the garden a little bit and make it a little

Extra beautiful next I have another Zena variety this is the queen red lime Zenia this one I’ve grown several years it’s really beautiful it’s the lime Zena series is a series of zenas that are kind of a bright lime green but unless you you can get the plain

Lime but it also comes in a bunch of other colors too this one is the red so it’s kind of a lime green color overlaid with a reddish tone it’s really beautiful it’s sort of it’s almost like a muted almost antique looking color I really enjoy this zinea and I was out of

Seats for it so I’m restocking it finally from Pine Tree I got the nestam tall climbing mix now I’ve grown nests in my garden Garden for many years mums are another one of the classic mustow companion plants you know they’re beautiful they just Bloom abundantly as a little bonus they’re they’re kind of

Fun to eat too they’re a little bit spicy they make a beautiful garnish and a salad both the flowers and the leaves are edible and by getting a mix like this you’re ensuring that you have lots of bright colors and lots of variety that’s going to really add a lot of

Beauty to your garden they’re also great at p control as well so I can’t recommend nests highly enough now in the past I have for the most part just grown the mounding varieties they kind of form a little compact Mount but last year I experimented with some of the climbing

Or trailing varieties and I really loved how they worked now they do climb they do Trail they take up a lot of space how I use these primarily last year was over in my sidey garden I have some raised beds so I grew them on the edges of the

The raise beds and then allowed them to Trail over the bed and into the walkways and they were so beautiful that way and they kept going full force full bloom right up until Frost I think it was probably at least one of the most beautiful parts of my garden this year

Or last year I should say so I’m really looking forward to Growing those again so that’s it from Pine Tree so now let’s get into the baker Creek seed Hall Baker Creek is another one of my go-to seed companies they are one of my go-tos for really unusual unique rare varieties

They just offer a lot of interesting plants that you can’t get other places they also exclusively offer heirloom and open pollinated varieties which is something that is really important to know if you are thinking of saving your own seats that’s something that I have been trying every year to expand a

Little bit saving my own seeds so for that I like to grow primarily heirlooms and open pollinated so Baker Creek has a huge selection of those so let’s get into the seed hul here now this year from Baker Creek I did get some vegetables but a lot of what I purchased

From them was flowers because they had a lot of different flowers that I couldn’t find other places and as I said some vegetables as well so a nice big variety the first is the cherry rose Jewel nestam now everything I said before about nesters Shams applies here

This one is a mounding variety not trailing variety but I really enjoy those beautiful cherry red flowers I’ve grown this a couple years in a row and I’ve really enjoyed it every year so I just wanted to in addition to my Nester mixes I just wanted to get a couple

Other specific varieties that I wanted to make sure to have as well next I got this robber cauliflower this is a new variety to me I have grown cauliflower several times with varying levels of success I’ve had a couple years that I’ve been really successful with cauliflower and a couple years

Where I really was not so much successful so I last year was one of the years where I didn’t really get any cauliflower so I wanted to try a new variety so I’m going to be growing that one this year next I got this LTI land chamomile

I really enjoy this chamomile this is my favorite variety of chamomile that I’ve grown now a lot of people say that chamomile is so easy to grow the most challenging thing is keeping it from taking over your yard I have not personally had that experience I’ve actually struggled a little bit with

Chamomile I’ve had trouble getting it to germinate and then when I do get it to germinate I’ve had trouble getting it to really Thrive and take hold and Bloom abundantly but this one has been consistently successful for me I find that the flowers are a little bit larger than you know the traditional

German chamomile I believe this one is a Polish variety so I’ve been growing that every year and every year that I’ve grown that I’ve had success with it so no need to change up a good thing I’ve really been enjoying eny that so we’re going to grow it again this

Year next is the Orchid flame nesters now this one I’ll give you another look at that this one is beautiful this is a new variety that I have not grown before but I really liked that color combination I’m I’m a sucker for flowers or vegetables really anything that is multicolored and really vibrantly

Colored I just thought these were really beautiful this one I believe is a mounding variety it says compact plants so that one will not be a trailing variety like my other mix you probably have a little you probably have a little more flexibility about where you plant a

Mounding variety of neram I wanted to make sure that I have both so in spaces where I’m a little bit more constrained with space I’m going to plant the mounding varieties next I got the Phoenix nestam and this is another nestam mix this one I believe is a trailing it actually says

A semi-trailing variety I just thought that the shape of the petals was really pretty and unique and so different from my other nests that wanted to give these a try as well so as you can see my garden is not going to be hurting for nesters shims this year and I cannot

Wait for it next I got the Lauren grape Poppy I mean that’s a beautiful flower that nice soft purple I’m really excited about this one now I have had mixed results growing poppies I think that that is one where it really does depend on the weather I

Have found my best success with growing poppies when I plant the seeds really early and they have time to kind of stratify or be exposed to cold even freezing temperatures for a while before they germinate so I’m going to make sure and get out here really early pretty

Much I’m going to prep a layer of compost in my garden beds and then I’m going to scatter these this will probably be the first thing that I plant this year but I’m hoping that they do really well the years that I have been successful with poppies they’ve been

Beautiful and put on an amazing show so every year I try and hopefully this will be another year of some success next I got the rubenza cosmos and look how beautiful that nice deep rich red Cosmos are beautiful plants and I grow those every year I’ve never grown

This variety before but they’re kind of known for coming in a mix of more muted colors you know different shades of pink some some light purple some whites so this really deep color is a little bit of a different a more unusual variety so I’m really excited to try those this

Year next is another Cosmos this one is the apricot lemonade I tried this one for the first time this past year and the flowers were really pretty I didn’t have and I think this was primarily my own fault because of the way I planted it I didn’t have the best germination so

I didn’t have as many of these plants as I was hoping for last year so I’m looking for forward to trying again this year and hopefully get some more of those because the ones that did grow in bloom were really beautiful next I have another Zenia variety this is the Exquisite Zenia and

I thought this was just a pretty bright pink color they just looked really fun and beautiful so I’m going to add those to my Zenia lineup next is yeah another nesters sham the tip toop Alaska salmon nestam and I want you to notice in this picture here look at the leaves

The flower obviously is beautiful but you can see those gorgeous variegated leaves this past year or last year I grew the Alaska red nasam and they were this deep rich burgundy color and I really loved them but they had that same variegation in the leaves and that made

Them beautiful plants even when they weren’t blooming so I’m excited to add another another one from that series into my garden next I have the I’m probably going to butcher this pronunciation mus de provance I’m not sure I I don’t speak French so hopefully that was somewhat

Correct this they have it labeled as a squash this is a pumpkin which you know is a type of winter squash I thought this was a really beautiful unique looking pumpkin I think that it would be beautiful for fall decorating and a lot of people have said that it has amazing

Flavor for baking as well now I haven’t tried growing large pumpkins before I’ve only grown really small ones so I’m not sure how well this is going to do in my limited space but I wanted to give it a try and see how it does so we’ll find

Out together next season how that one does now this is a free seed when you spend a certain amount of money with Baker Creek they send you a free seed packet I think it’s if you spend $10 which I certainly did then you get one free seed packet and if you spend 35

Which I also certainly did they send you two free SE packets so this is one of my free seeds this is the Datil or Datil pepper this one I’m thinking vicious heat sounds a little too spicy for my taste my brother loves spicy peppers so

I’m going to call him up and see if he wants to give this one a try if anyone has experience with that pepper let me know how it is but I can tell that it’s definitely out of my spice tolerance so I think I’m going to pass that on to my

Brother and see how he likes it next I got the Mero lettuce now you can see that beautiful Rich red lettuce color I love growing lettuce and I love growing a big variety of lettuce I always have to make sure that I have a few of these deep Rush colors now if you

Saw I posted a seed haul I want to say a week or a week and a half ago where I showed you my Mi Garder seed haul and I did get a couple varieties of lettuce that weree this really rich color from that seed company as well but you know

Never too many lettuce is one of those that I plant many many seeds of and I continue continuously replant as the season goes on so the more varieties the better as far as I’m concerned when it comes to lettuce now yet another nestam this is a nestam tip toop blush and these just

Look really pretty and muted I thought it would be really nice contrast with the really vibrant Noms that I have you know I have a lot of those mixes with the bright red orange yellow varieties I thought some of these really pale pink varieties might make a really nice

Contrast and this one is a a compact plant as well so that’s the mounted variety rather than the trailing now this is a new tomato variety that I’ve never tried I have heard great things about it and it’s as you can see a really unusual color sort

Of a burnt orange almost a brown tinged color this is the thorburn’s Terracotta tomato so this one’s new to me as I said I’ve heard great things but if you have any experience growing this tomato or tasting this tomato I’d love to hear what you thought of it so I’m really

Excited excited to give that one a try next I got the Chinese yellow heart winter Choy this is one that I’ve been trying to grow for a couple years and for one reason or another I haven’t had a great deal of success with it but I’m just

Really determined to grow it because it looks so fun I think it’s really beautiful I love that it’s supposed to be extremely winter hearty I like to play around with expanding my season as much as possible especially extending it into the winter as much as possible and

This seems like a great variety to do that with so I think one year my cat got into my garden and dug up all the seedlings and I can’t remember what happened every year but for various reasons I’ve tried this one several times and never actually harvested it so

I’m holding out hope I ordered new seeds we’re going to try again this year and hopefully we’ll finally see some success now in case you can’t tell I love zenas zenas and aams I will have an abundance of both this is the mazia not sure if that’s pronounced correctly

Zenia but I mean you can see why I wanted to grow that one it’s beautiful it’s that deep rich pink color with the white tips I think it’s really pretty I think this is going to add some really nice contrast to my garden now you know I’m I’m really all

About edible gardening I love to grow vegetables and provide as much of our food needs as I can but there’s just something so special about creating a garden that’s also a place that you love to be a place that just feels welcoming and beautiful and and you know these plants are

Practical too because they do help my vegetables produce better so I’m going to just grow all the flowers in addition to my vegetables now here is my second free seed packet another packet of Mero lettuce now I did I did already get a package that I had ordered and paid for

So this is a second pack but you know as fun as it would have been to get a new variety that I had not already ordered this is one that I know I’ll definitely use use and contrary to what I think a lot of people think seeds actually do

Last for several years depending on the variety of seeds that you have they may last for a year or two or they may last you know eight or more years lettuce varieties lettuce seeds will usually last a couple years as long as you store them properly so if I don’t get to the

Growing all my M love lettuce seeds this year I can save those and grow them in my garden next year so even though I already got a packet of that I’m not upset about getting another one next I got this mother of pearl poppy mix now kind of similar to what I said

About the Lauren grape poppy I’m really excited to grow these I mean they seem really beautiful and I like having a mix of poppies like that so I’m basically going to grow these the same way I’m going to sprinkle them out in the garden as soon as I can as early basically as

Early as I can get my soil prepared I’m going to sprinkle those out probably if I can get them out here in late February early March you know that kind of depends on how Frozen our ground is whether or not we have snow but I’m going to try to get

Them out here well before our last frost date and hopefully we’ll get some poppies going this year now I did get one more tomato variety this is the S rooys again not sure if I pronounced that correctly but I mean that’s undeniably a beautiful tomato I really do love to have a big

Variety of tomatoes that I grow I you know tomatoes are probably my favorite thing grown the garden because there’s just so many beautiful varieties and a homegrown tomato just tastes unmistakably so much better than a grocery store tomato there’s no comparison so I like to grow as many as

Possible and as many heirlooms as possible so the final seed variety that I got in this haul are these greens I have no idea how to pronounce that so I’ll just let you see it on the screen there these make a great substitute for spinach and I’ve really enjoyed these I

Haven’t been successful with them every year that I’ve grown them I think this is another one where how your spring or fall weather is will really affect the success that at least in my case the success that I have with these but the years that I have been successful with

Them I’ve really enjoyed them they’ve lasted really well into cold weather they’ve had really great flavor they’re great in a salad so I wanted to grow some more of these and try again and hope for some success this year so I really love ordering my seeds I love looking through the seed

Cataloges and dreaming I love getting my seeds in the mail and just planning for the garden it kind of gets me through winter I know right now it doesn’t look very winry out here we don’t have any snow here in Connecticut and it is well it is chilly it is warmer than it

Usually would be this time of year here in Connecticut so while it’s not very wintry it’s still wintry enough that I can’t really be outside or playing in my garden so this is the closest that I can get is ordering my seeds and planning so thank you so much for hanging out with

Me today and seeing the seed haul I would love to hear what seeds you have that you’re really excited to grow in your garden this year so if you have any special varieties that you’re most excited to grow go ahead and leave that in the comments because I would love to

Hear from you so I hope you’re having a great day hope you’re looking forward to Spring like I am while still enjoying the rest of winter can’t wait to see you soon I’ll see you next time