I’m a bit crazy when it comes to seeds. Actually, to be perfectly honest, I’m a seed addict. I love seeds more than I love actual gardening. What for some women are shoes, bags, and clothes for me its seeds. I love to choose colorful packages and waiting for them to arrive. I love to organize my seeds and plan my garden.

That’s one of the reasons why I always start early with my seed purchases. I love to have lots of time to decide and run the bags through my fingers multiple times, before actually opening and sowing them.

I used to buy half of my seeds in December and the other half in May, but the past couple of years I do it in October or November. Some might think it’s too soon, but I think I have fairly good reasons why I do it so early.

The first of the reasons is that in October our seed stores are still full of vegetable packages, so I can buy everything that I need in just one purchase. When I separate my purchases, I have to pay for shipping each time, and shipping is not cheap. Also, there’s a delivery problem during winter. I can’t be sure that I’ll receive my packages on time during the winter months, or that I’ll be able to go anywhere and buy my seeds. Winters here can be rough, and we’ve had times when roads were so iced that we were stuck indoors throughout January. Of course, that also means there were no deliveries because the trucks can’t climb the icy hill. Ordering seeds early saves me the insecurity and fear of harsh winter problems.

Also here in Croatia, there’s actually no difference if you buy seeds in October, December, or March. There are 99% chances you’ll get the seeds that were a pack of the same seed order from the previous year. The seeds are sold until all the packages are sold, and ordering the seeds in March won’t give me any fresh seeds. They will be the same seeds as in October, only the selection of the varieties will be poor, and the best ones will be sold out. Sellers that sell fresh seeds have fresh seeds in October, and the ones that sell them until they are sold will have the same ones in March.

Of course, the best solution to have fresh seeds is to have our own seeds, but let’s face it, there’s a very small chance you can get all of your seeds just from your garden. Sure, when years are good you can gather dozens of varieties from the garden, but when the year is bad, like this one, there are very few varieties that actually produced seeds.

I’ve been collecting seeds like every year and I could collect only 10 bags of seeds, mostly flowers. Most of the seeds are actually from June and early July like lettuce, early flowers, and first cherry tomatoes. As soon as heatwaves started, there was no more chance for seed collecting. Sure the seeds would have dried beautifully during hot summer, but that’s when you have seeds to collect. Not when the plants aren’t even flowering.

This is why last week I started and almost finished ordering my seed collection for next year. I’m sticking to the two stores that I’ve used last year, which, in my opinion, have the best selection of seeds, and their prices are not exaggerated like in most stores here. One of the stores is a farm store that sells everything a farmer needs, including seeds, and the other is a small family farm that sells seeds and plants from their nursery.

Yesterday I’ve received my package from Planthouse, a family farm with a nursery. I’ve been ordering seeds from them for years now. They have a huge selection of tomatoes and flowers that can’t be found in our stores. When I want something different, I know they will have it. I used to buy only seeds, but this year I decided to buy some seedlings from them and I was really happy, so last week I ordered my seeds for next year and again some flower seedlings. 

The biggest reason why I order seedlings with every seed purchase is actually the delivery service. There’s no big difference between seedling packages and seed letters, but they are delivered two different ways. Seedlings come by parcel service(GLS), and are delivered 24h after they receive the package, and the seed letter is shipped by our normal postal service, which is to be perfectly honest terrible. Mail takes ages to get here, it is often misplaced(stolen), and many times we only get a notice to go to the post office to pick up our mail, and I don’t feel like spending additional money for the bus ticket.

So I’ve treated myself to a couple of sedums, houseleeks, strawberry-raspberry, and oleander. I even got one oleander seedling for free, so now I have two. I’ve bought oleander for my balcony, they like their head in the sun and feet in the water, so they will like my balcony. The balcony is always warm, during summer it is boiling hot, and the fence will keep the roots in the shade. 

Recently I’ve started buying more and more sedums and houseleeks. Previously I didn’t like them, but now I’ve grown to like their shape and the fact that they don’t care if it’s cold or hot. I can leave them outside and not worry about them freezing. I bought an interesting little houseleek “Sirius”, which actually looks a lot like a cactus, only this one can stay outdoors. I love cactuses, but I don’t have anywhere to keep them during the winter.

I’ve also gotten dozens of flower varieties and dozens of new veggies. Now all I need to do is to have fun with the best part of my seed obsession, planning when I’ll sow each bag of seeds.