My first Blog..

Welcome everyone to my very first blog. First of all i'm new at this so bear with me. It might take me a little while to get the hang of this.

I suppose i should start out by telling you about myself. My internet nickname is American_gardener. You can find me all over the web talking about seeds, trading seeds, or just discussing growing different vegetables. I'm a 50 year old male.. living in Michigan, and i've been growing vegetables ever since i could walk. I'm also a seedsaver, I've been collecting, growing, saving and trading seeds for over seven years now.. and i hope to be starting up a new kind of seed company next fall(2009)to make my collection available to everyone worldwide. Over the past 7 or so years, i've collected thousands of varieties of vegetable seeds. I've been trading seeds from scores of countries for about 3 years now.. hence the title of this blog; Worldwide Seed trader. I've gathered more varieties than i could ever possibly growout in ten lifetimes. My gardening area is small, it's aproximately one acre right now and i can never grow everything i want to... so i'm always looking for help.

Over the past few years i've been conducting trials on the various types of vegetable seeds i've collected by sending small samples out to voulenteers who grow them and report back to me what they think about them.. along with descriptions. It's been mostly tomatoes since i have over 2000 varieties of those.. but i also conduct trials on everything else. This year i'm doing my trials at a friends forumn http://alanbishop.proboards60.com/index.cgi . It's an excellent site, with alot of experienced growers and plant breeders and if you're interested in that type of stuff you're more than welcome to come and take part in any trials i have going on at the time. You can get more details from the threads or just contact me once there.

Other than that i don't really know what to say right now. I'm always looking for new trades, i'm always looking for help with trials, and i'm always looking for people to help with seed increases.

I'm always searching for vegetable varieties that are not in general circulation (non-commercial varieties, ethnic varieties, and especially those that have stories or family histories associated with the seed). It's a mission of mine to make all the open pollinated vegetable varieties available to everyone.

If you have seed that you are saving that has been passed down through your family, or you know someone who is saving heirloom seed? I'm especially interested in rescuing and preserving these varieties. I'm also interested in stories or family histories associated with family heirloom seed. Any stories about the origin of varieties, how they were used, and qualities such as disease resistance, earliness, and storage quality.

Please contact me if you would like to provide seed for this project. Send any information you can, especially the variety name (if it has a name), describe its origin, growth habit, special qualities and family history as best you can. And if the seed is not already in my seed bank, i'll send you instructions on how to send me the seed. I may ask you some questions about how you would like the seed (and any stories associated with the seed) to be handled. After the seed has been received, I will preserve the seed in my seed bank, and grow out a small portion for increase and further documentation of the variety. A portion of the seed may eventually be made available to other seed banks, traders, or offered for sale.

Also another interest of mine is old seed catalogs. If anyone has any old seed catalogs that you would like to offer in exchange for seeds or even for sale.. i'd be interested in hearing about them.
I'm looking especially for seed catalogs dated prior to 1940, primarily those with detailed variety descriptions (and photographs). I have a number of varieties in my seed bank that have a name, but no description other than that provided by seed growouts. Old seed catalogs are very useful for providing this documentation and verification for those.

If you have any pre-1940 seed catalogs that you would like to sell, barter, loan, or donate please contact me.

I don't anticipate i'll be posting any lists of the varieties i have to trade in here. It would just take up so much space. I may, but for now just contact me if you want to know what i have available.

OK.. i guess that'll do it for my first post. Anyone want to comment about how dumb this sounds or anything to do with my business plans for the new seed company, or trading, or growing, or my trials, etc... Contact me anytime.

Dave