Can a French Gardener Help Me?

[ferdzy]

Hi Gang;

I would like to place an order from Graines Baumaux, but they do not appear to ship to Canada. Is there anyone who would be willing to receive an order then re-mail it to me?

I am working on my trade list still; I hope to have it in a week or so. Or if there is something you are looking for, let me know! And I will see what I can do.

[12540dumont]

Ferdz,

They won't ship to me either.

But they will ship to Spain, Italy, the UK and a few other places.

[diane]

I had a look at their offerings: 37 leeks, lots of mâche, artichokes, more eggplant than I would ever want.

My neighbour has family in France, so if you don't manage to find a French member, maybe I can facilitate
a sale.

Diane

[ferdzy]

Hi Holly; thanks for the clues! Diane, I will keep that in mind. I am still looking for someone willing to pass on a parcel for a trade, but I will also check out some other strings to my bow - I may have some contacts in England.

They have two versions of an onion I've been looking for for about 5 years, plus their heirloom carrots make me drool. I'll keep trying!

[ilex]

Dec 30, 2014 11:11:29 GMT -5 ferdzy said:

Hi Gang;

I would like to place an order from Graines Baumaux, but they do not appear to ship to Canada. Is there anyone who would be willing to receive an order then re-mail it to me?

I am working on my trade list still; I hope to have it in a week or so. Or if there is something you are looking for, let me know! And I will see what I can do.

Any good reason to do so? After the Kokopelli affair they are not my favorite company.

I can do it (and I also have some carrots for you). Just not I am slow.

[ferdzy]

Hi Ilex;

Basically, I have found 2 companies in the world with seeds of Roscoff onions. I bought some from the other company (Robinsons) 2 years ago and germination was very poor. So... take it or leave it. Since I've been looking for 5 years now, I would like to take it. I don't know much about the Kokopelli affair, but my impression of Graines Baumaux is that their prices are criminal. Still... they are pretty much it for this one item.

I would still love to have some carrot seed from you! I will be getting my trade list up soon, I hope.

[Laelia]

I can do that for you, if you wish

[ferdzy]

Thank you Laelia, I will keep that in mind. I think perhaps I have a plan now, though.

(p.s. Welcome on board!)

[diane]

So Ferdzy, back in 2010 when you were able to buy the pale pink onions which were grown in Ontario, and told the grower that you were
thinking of putting some into the garden to make seeds, he said that wouldn't work, that the onions didn't come true.

Did you take him at his word, or did you try growing them for seed anyway?

[12540dumont]

Yo! Ferdzy, they sell these "bulbs" on-line in the UK. If you can't get a seed, perhaps you could get the onions and do it yourself? The Big River store has them.
Suttons has them in sets and so does Tuckers. And here's another that has seeds

www.labonnegraine.com/oignons/474-oignon-rose-de-roscoff-.html

I know what it's like to be on a seed hunt. The Irish Seed Savers have some onions that I would love. (Yeah, I know, probably too far north). But they won't let me join. Sigh, I guess it's because I'm not Irish, I can't be Irish, I don't know "Danny Boy", "Toora Loora Loora" or even "Irish Eyes".

I wish everything was not soo exclusive. And seeds from other countries not so darn hard to get.

[ferdzy]

Diane, I did plant some. I didn't know as much about growing onions then as I do now, and I'm pretty sure I planted them too deeply. They didn't even come up. (Also, they may have been treated to prevent sprouting?) I have not seen them on the market since. I bought something labelled pink onions last week, but I don't think they are remotely the same.

Holly, I'm pretty sure I can't get sets into the country because they are plants. Commercially packaged seeds are no problem. Plant material, completely different story.

I have an Irish ancestor who was deported for stealing sheep - think I could join?!

[12540dumont]

I'm pretty sure the sheep will get you in.

[diane]

Jan 3, 2015 20:02:13 GMT -5 ferdzy said:

I can't get sets into the country because they are plants.

Yes, and even more forbidden because onions are such an important crop.

I know about bean collectors. I wonder if there are onion collectors in North America.

One difficulty to accessing a collection - whether in GRIN or someone's private collection - is that onion seed doesn't
remain viable very long.

[diane]

I have some information from another British Columbia grower who grew Roscoff onions from seeds a friend had
brought from England. Only half germinated, they didn't grow particularly well, had small pretty bulbs that didn't
taste special, and when she tried growing some bulbs to get more seeds, they didn't grow. Do we have a case of
Terminator onions?

[ferdzy]

Shouldn't be. I'm sure they got them from where I got them - Robinsons. I got 27 seeds to germinate out of about 200 or 300. (It was supposed to be 50 seeds per pack, but they were stuffed. I think they realized germination was poor.) I left them out where they got flooded, and I lost about half of them, but that was my carelessness, not a fault with the onions. I planted the remaining 15 or so, and left them in the ground over the winter. Nine came up again in the spring, and 4 flowered in isolation and produced a reasonably good quantity of seeds. I'll be growing them out again this year, but with only 4 onions I worry about them being too inbred. But my experience is that they are good old onions. Didn't eat any given the numbers, but they smelled really good.