Back in April, well exactly April 1st, I opened an email from Adaptive Seed Company. They were offering a one day only deal. Floor Sweepings Seeds were available for $4.01 and not only would the purchasers get a seed packet of "floor sweeping" one would also receive a coupon for $4.01 off the next purchase. Well...I was all over that. Was it real, was this April Fools Fun, real seeds swept up fro the floor after a busy day packing seeds, or was it truly a joke and one would only get the coupon. I guessed there would be real seeds involved and I was right. I love a good mystery and experimental gardening so I ordered my floor sweepings right away. The seeds, and coupon, soon arrived and there was a wonderful mix of seeds. Some I could easily identify and others not so much, especially all the teeny, tiny seeds!
I planted a large selection of the seeds in seed starting pots and put them under our grow lights where we had already started many seeds such as tomatoes, peppers, flowers, etc.. Soon all Sorts of little seedlings emerged.
Mostly the seedlings were kept in the house but on warm enough days I moved them all to the little greenhouse to acclimate to the outdoors.
In late May I planted them all in the ground in specific places so I could monitor the plants and see just what we got from the floor sweepings mix.
In early June we were already eating from the April Fool's seeds, all sots of lettuce, spinach, chard and amaranth greens. By late June we see full grown Marigolds, Sunflowers about to bloom- giant and smaller, zinnias coming along and probably more flowers. As for veggies we have the already mentioned greens plus celery, a tomato plant, peppers, corn, a couple beets, runner beans (one plant!), possible Brussels sprout plant (I think), fennel, onion or bunching onion, a cucumber or squash plant, so many kinds of greens and a few things I still haven't identified. There's a lot of amaranth and I'm using some greens now but will also use the grain seeds when they are ready.
All this and there is still round two to come. I still had LOTS of the assorted, tiny seeds that didn't get started indoors. I started them in a couple more places a week or two ago. I'll separate and transplant as needed as they grow.
I really hope the seed company offers something like this again next year!
