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Our Dahlia roots, brought in
thoroughly dried sand and air tight jar, are looking also very
sturdy, we are longing to see them in flower as they were costly
roots
- Sarah Low, Dunedin, New Zealand,
1849 -
see What's
Coming Up #113
We explored the various branches of
the cellar... The root cellar for the cabbages and squashes laid
out on a board, and the beets and carrots growing whiskery in their
box of sand, and the potatoes with their blind albino tentacles
like the legs of crabs. The cold cellar for the apples in their
barrels and the shelves of preserves...
- Margaret Atwood, in The Blind
Assassin -
The Emigrant's
Friend recommended wrapping seeds in tinfoil (for the long
voyage) and then putting them in a barrel which had been lined with
moist sugar, with layers of sugar in between each lot of seeds.
Others swore they got the best results when they placed their seeds
in melted beeswax. Pulpy fruits, such as currants, gooseberries,
mulberries and strawberries, were squashed between layers of cotton
or blotting paper, carefully dried and then inserted in letters or
parcels...
- from A History of Gardening in
New Zealand by Bee Dawson -
We've come a long way from those days of praying over
precious seeds carried for months in sailing ships...
Seed
Savers Exchange in Decora, iowa. One of the largest privately
run seed banks in the world, committed to preserving heirloom
vegetable and flower varieties. A great place to buy seed, a good
effort to support with your purchases or membership.
.