Barkant Turnip Seeds for Sale

BARKANT TURNIPS are a very vigorous forage turnip with lush leafy tops and large purple and white tasty roots high in natural sugars. Bred for dairy farmers this hybrid has a very mild flavor so as to not taint the cow’s milk and thus is a good choice for people who do not like strong flavored greens and turnips. The leaves are great raw in salads, or chopped into a stir fry, soup, or cooked southern style with smoked bacon or hamhocks. Many people who dislike turnip roots cooked love them raw in salads. Sow the seeds in Florida from October through February as it is a cool season brassica vegetable. Northern gardeners should sow the seeds in spring when they'd plant other cole crops like broccoli and cabbage. Normally sold only to farmers in 25 or 50 lb. bags. You will receive 1 teaspoon of the seeds, (approx. 600 seeds) for $3 plus a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope sent to me at:

John Starnes 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611

I will fill your order quickly. Thanks and happy gardening! John

Seeds of Purple Kosaitai for Sale

In some ways reminiscent of a lavender colored broccoli-raab, this Chinese brassica makes oodles of very tender, mild-flavored leaves delicious raw or cooked all winter long here in central Florida, then as spring approaches it produces lavender-green bud clusters much like petite broccoli heads, also good raw or cooked. Like all brassicas in central Florida, it thrives in full sun in rich, damp soil that is just slightly acidic (vs. the very acidic so common here so sprinkle dolomite on heavily acid soil). Sow the seeds in Florida in succession from October through February for a steady supply of this rare Asian member of the Crucifer family. I use the lavender-purple leaves in salads and stir fry, and as an attractive plate garnish. Loves cold weather, very frost hardy. Northern gardeners should sow the seeds in spring when they would plant broccoli and other cole crops. You will get ½ teaspoon of seeds (approx. 300 seeds) by mailing me $3 plus a SASE at:

John Starnes 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611

Thanks and happy gardening! John

Rare Velvet Bean Seeds for Sale

Velvet Beans (Mucuna pruriens) hail from India and thus love our hot humid Florida summers...their rampant annual vines will quickly consume a henhouse or patio frame to provide cooling shade all summer. I'd be curious how they would do in summer in more northerly states. This plant is the world's richest source of natural L-dopa, and is being cultivated to provide treatments to folks with Restless Leg Syndrome and Parkinson's. Ayurvedic medicine has used the Velvet Bean for many centuries as an aphrodisiac....I can attest that in combination with the Ayurvedic medicinal herb Ashwagandha (Withania somniferum) it works BIG time...finally had to cut back as I was getting behind in yard work due to taking matters into my own hands, so to speak, several times a day!! Wowsers! Cattle and chickens can graze on the tender new leaves, and the roots are powerful natural soil nitrifiers. This strain is the food grade selection, and NOT the wild form with orange stinging hairs on the pods. I like to cook the plump green pods in water with salt, garlic and hot peppers, and serve them as finger food at potlucks in the manner of edamame soybeans. Each fall I cook, shuck and freeze the beans out of the pods to use medicinally, as studies show that eating a few daily for three weeks, then none for three weeks, repeated back and forth, can induce the pituitary gland to make more Human Growth Hormone and thus delay graying of hair, while adding lean muscle mass (some body builders now buy pricey Velvet Bean capsules at health food stores). Some feel this boost in HGH might also explain the aphrodisiac effect. The vines grow ridiculously easy in my fertile soil each summer, and require a large strong structure to climb on. You will receive 10 seeds for $4 plus a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope sent to me at :

John Starnes 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611. I will fill your order quickly. Thanks and happy gardening! John

Barnapoli Rape Seeds for Sale

BARNAPOLI RAPE is a very vigorous brassica vegetable with lush tender leaves much like a very mild collard green reminiscent of broccoli leaves. It loves the winter months in Florida as do collards and other brassicas, but is an ideal spring crops for folks in snowy regions like Denver where I gardened and landscaped for 15 years. Bred for dairy farmers, it has a very mild flavor so as to not taint the cow’s milk and thus is a good choice for people who do not like tough, strong flavored greens. Use the silvery blue-green leaves raw in salads or added to stir fry, omelets, casseroles and soups. Sow the seeds from October through February in Florida and similar climates as it is a cool season brassica vegetable only that resents our humid summer heat. Northern gardeners should plant the seeds at the same time they would broccoli and other cole crops. Normally sold only to farmers in 25 or 50 lb. bags. You will receive 1 teaspoon of the seeds, (approx. 600 seeds) for $3 plus a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope sent to me at :

John Starnes 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611. I will fill your order quickly. Thanks and happy gardening! John

Known botanically as Canavalia ensiformis, this annual tropical vine LEAPS into growth once the humid heat settles in, soon covered with lush leaves, beautiful blooms (VERY fragrant in the morning) and then those amazingly giant tender "bean" pods that, when cooked, taste much like a good Romano bean. Raw they contain low levels of the same cyanogenic glucossides found in other raw tropical crops like Cassava ("yuca" on Cuban menus), chaya, lima beans and more, but just a few minutes of cooking eliminates them. ( I now consider those compounds to actually be a dietary source of nitrogen, plus cyanide itself is a building block of our own DNA!). The vines are too strong for your average trellis.....plant your seeds in rich soil and in full sun by a chain link fence, or something similarly strong. For $4 and a Self Addressed Stamped Envelope, you will get 10 seeds of this rare edible crop. Be sure to let a few pods ripen and turn tan and dry each fall to insure you have seeds from now on. Crops like this one that LOVE summers here are one reason my gardens are productive year round, whereas so many folks think there are no true summer crops here and thus let their gardens lie fallow and unproductive half the year. My address is: John Starnes 3212 West Paxton Avenue Tampa FL 33611

Chinese Brassica Vegetable 'Purple Kosaitai'

I am liking this ancient Chinese veggie more and more..... it is a cold hardy winter crop here in Tampa, but would be a spring crop in a climate like Denver's where I gardened for 15 years. My friend Allen Boatman recently commented, as we ate leaves directly from the garden, that it is very "spinachy".....mild, crisp. I nibble from the plants daily as I work in the gardens, and love it in salads and stir fry. I don't think it is derived from Brassica rapa, but it is eaten like other rapes like 'broccoli-raab/ rapini', the unopened flower heads the main focus. But for me it is the leaves that make this frost hardy crop so desirable. A few weeks back I suddenly had germination in the kitchen garden of seeds a plant in a Water Wise Container Garden spread last spring after a wonderful winter El Nino rain, even though the heat season begins in about a month. I would encourage anyone who enjoys stir fry, salads, edible plate garnishes or omelets to grow this wonderful brassica. I am almost sure I got my first seeds a few years back from Kitazawa Seeds. If I still lived in Denver (heaven forbid!!!!) I'd sow the seeds in mid April, knowing the cold hardy seedlings could take late frosts and snows. John

Water Wise Container Gardens for Starting Seeds In

About a year ago I spied a giant stack of plastic pharmacy trays in a drugstore dumpster and since I am a packrat, I grabbed it, KNOWING I'd think of cool uses for them. And I have. By drilling 8-10 holes on the sides, about 1.25 inches from the bottom, I turn each one into a Water Wise Container Garden perfect for starting seeds in. That lower 1.25 inches of soil stays damp, so losses of seedlings to drying out is a thing of the past. Plus it takes MUCH less water to keep the medium ( 1/2 home made compost, 1/2 greenhouse potting mix) damp. I use sections of miniblind to separate the differing groups of seedlings, and to label each. It has been a chilly spring, but by laying a piece of plexiglass across the top, with a small gap left to release surplus heat, I am getting super early germination from heat loving seeds like molokhiya. Oh how I love dumpster diving and the creative processes that great finds can trigger!