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What's New at Fedco Seeds |
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Welcome
to Fedco’s 35th Year! We’ve seen a lot of changes in 35 years, but we are still here for the same basic reason. We love our work with seeds on our gardens and farms! My 40th serious garden/farm season, the fourth in Colrain, MA, was in many ways my best ever, despite its periods of strange weather. March, eerie in its uncharacteristic warmth, the first three weeks of April bone dry, May cold and wet, and June the longest period of unbroken sustained heat that I have ever experienced. Then, following two months of near-drought, September surprised with its cool moisture and early frost. On Apr. 22 we were blessed with a 2" rainfall that signaled the clear demarcation between early spring’s weirdness and late spring’s unpredictable normality and provided the defining moments of my season. Proving the old adage that timing is everything, that most welcome storm assured that I would enjoy robust stands of all the spring crops I had sowed in the prior two weeks. Keeping them all thinned would prove a bigger challenge than getting them established. So conditions proved ideal for my spring trials and just as optimal for the summer crops that I pushed out earlier than I normally do in May, taking advantage of its adequate moisture to get them well started, and then of June’s steady but always bearable heat to accelerate their growth. By the time mid-June’s dry spell rolled around, all were deep-rooted and would later show little distress even when tested by more severe drought. Not everyone was so fortunate. Excessive spring rains inundated many Maine growers and kept them off their fields till way late. Two freezes early in May beleaguered orchardists, devastating fruit production in trees that had developed way too fast in the accelerated spring. Growers in the Midwest and Mid-Atlantic parched with insufferable dry heat and watched their crops shrivel. While the tomatoes that ripened in our sunny dry August were unusually flavorful and spared from any late blight, growers in other areas not so far away lost their crops prematurely to that scourge. In the end I am left with pleasant memories of summer squash and cucumbers that ripened weeks earlier than they ever had for me in Maine, of Sun Golds on the 4th of July, and of delectable vine-ripe melons that began as early as August 6 and refreshed me all through that steamy month. Most of our seed growers appear to have enjoyed similar luck. Their ultimate harvest is reflected in this catalog of unparalleled bounty for our 35th year, an abundance of riches we are thrilled to share with you. –CR Lawn |
Fedco Seeds, PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903
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Copyright
Fedco Seeds Inc.
February 1, 2013
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