The last Saturday in January is designated as National Seed Swap Day. You can celebrate with these ideas for making seed sowing simpler this season.

Many beginning gardeners fret about starting their garden from seed. I know, because I worried about every seed I planted when I first started gardening, too.

But the basics of planting seed are simple. Gardeners plant seeds in the ground, cover seeds with soil and keep soil moist until seeds germinate.

Seeds want to sprout and grow–and many do without our help.

But for as long as people have been planting seeds, they’ve been trying to make seed sowing easier.

Native Americans rolled their seeds in clay balls to protect them from sun, wind, birds, and other animals. The seed balls weren’t planted, but broadcast on top of the ground so when it rained, the clay would melt and start germination.

Dr. Bob Gough may have departed the gardening world last year, but he left gardeners with more than 17 books on horticulture including The Guide to Rocky Mountain Vegetable Growing.

I never had the opportunity to meet Dr. Bob Gough face-to-face, but I got to know him anyway. He was the author of the “Ask Dr. Bob” gardening column on the pages of Zone 4 magazine. One of his last books, written together with his wife Cheryl Moore-Gough, is one of my go-to resources for vegetable gardening in a tough climate.

Soon we’ll all be fretting over chilly days that delay planting, so now’s a good time to pick up a copy of this book and tap into some of Dr. Bob’s vegetable growing wisdom.

The book is a good guide for any gardener, but it was written especially for gardeners who grow in short-season climates like we have in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Utah, and Wyoming,

How to Grow Tabasco Sauce, Step 1, included information on growing Tabasco pepper plants from seed. Step 2 is an illustrated guide for using the fresh peppers to make your own Tabasco sauce.

After the Tabasco peppers have ripened to the perfect color of red, pick them from the plant, wash, and carefully remove the stems and green caps. Chop peppers and place them in a saucepan. It’s always a good idea to wear kitchen gloves whenever handling fresh peppers.

Add about 1 1/2 cups or more of white vinegar to the pan of chopped Tabasco peppers. Mix in 1 teaspoon of salt. Heat the mixture until it just begins to boil and then turn heat down. Simmer for 5-7 minutes. Allow the pepper and vinegar mixture to cool completely.

Carefully pour the pepper mixture into a blender. Make sure the lid is on tight and puree. Pour the mixture into a jar and tighten the lid. Place the jar in the refrigerator and allow it to steep for 3 weeks.

This is the first of a two-part blog post on how to plant, grow and bottle your own Tabasco sauce.

Well-known food writer Eugenia Bone once wrote there isn’t a condiment sitting in the refrigerator that can’t be homemade.

That idea stuck with me last season as I was deciding what to plant in my garden. I thought about all the assorted bottles of sauces and small jars of accompaniments taking up space on the shelf in the fridge and landed on my favorite: Tabasco sauce.

Because that large bottle is my go-to favorite for spicing up soups, adding a zing to curry and sloshing on dirty rice, I decided to plant, grow, and bottle my own.

It was about this time last year when I set my sights on homegrown, homemade Tabasco sauce and I kept that in mind as I shopped for seeds in the piles of gardening catalogs that stack up so nicely right after the first of the year. I found authentic Tabasco seeds in the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog.

In keeping in the spirit of The Heirloom Life Gardener book giveaway, here’s a short review of the Baker Creek Seed Company catalog for fans of heirloom gardening.

I had the chance to meet Jere Gettle, founder of Baker Creek Seed Company, at a garden writers trade show in Raleigh several years ago. I was delighted to shake the hand of the guy dedicated to heirloom plants. He’s as genuine and humble as the seeds he sells.

There’s a lot to admire about Baker Creek Seed Company, from the colorful catalog cover art created by Jere’s mom, to the family photos of his wife and daughter, to the fact that all of the seed are non-hybrid, non-GMO, non-treated and non-patented. These are true heirlooms.

Gardeners can find just about any heirloom vegetable or rare seed they want, from amaranth to watermelon, in Baker Creek’s annual catalog. Each selection includes complete descriptions of where the seed came from, a bit of its history, why the variety was selected for the catalog and ideas for using the finished product in the kitchen.

Congratulations to Cherrie LiFonti for winning The Heirloom Life Gardener in last week’s special book giveaway*.

I thought asking gardeners what gardening means to them was as a good way to share my review copy of a new gardening book. It turns out the giveaway resulted in much more.

I learned just how much gardening really means to gardeners, whether they’re new to it or have been gardening for years.

Many gardeners mentioned how gardening is all about connections to family (past and present), nature, and plants. Other gardeners explained how gardening means learning and discovering.

Some gardeners said how happy gardening makes them to produce healthy food for their families and to help reduce the grocery bill. Gardening is peaceful, relaxing and it feeds the body, spirit and mind. There were comments about gardening making happy childhood memories. That gardening is free therapy.

I couldn’t put down my copy of The Heirloom Life Gardener, the fascinating story of how Jere Gettle started the Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company. You can win a copy of the book that boldly states, “Anyone can start a garden.”

To enter the book giveaway, post a comment here on what gardening means to you before Friday, January 13, at 5:00 p.m. Mountain time. The winner will be selected at random from all comments and notified January 16. This giveaway is open to gardeners in the U.S. and Canada.

The new book called The Heirloom Life Gardener is all about gardening with heirloom vegetables. But there’s much more to it than that. I think this book is also a love story.

Jere Gettle started working in his family’s garden when he was only 3 years old and almost immediately he knew he wanted to become a seedsman one day. He started Baker Creek Heirloom Seed Company in 1998 in the bedroom of his family’s home when he was only 17. That first seed catalog has grown to one that includes 1400 varieties from 70 different countries.

Happy New Gardening Year to You!

One of my favorite gifts from the holiday season is this happy solar-powered sunflower. When light shines on its adorable solar cell, the flower sways from side to side and the leaves bounce up and down. This little plant doesn’t need any batteries, water or special care.

If only all gardening could be so easy!

You may have noticed I took a December break from the computer. I kept up with my VegetableGardener.com blog for the Fine Gardening magazine network, but I used the rest of that time to recharge my own solar-cell.

Stepping away from the keyboard was refreshing. I spent time brainstorming new ideas for articles, planning new gardening projects and thinking of ways to make WesternGardeners.com a better resource for gardeners.

I hope you’ll stick around to see what’s in store.

The Brighton (Colorado) Chamber of Commerce recently recognized our friends at Brighton Shares the Harvest with the Nonprofit of the Year Award. Congratulations to Linda C. Young and her group of dedicated volunteers for organizing a community effort to donate 4,300 servings of fresh produce to area families!

I met Linda through our mutual interests in growing and giving programs. Here’s the story of how her desire to get fresh produce to hungry families was the seed that’s sprouted into something big in Brighton:

In the summer of 2009, Linda kept hearing about communities and their efforts to make fresh, local produce available to those who couldn’t afford it or didn’t have access to it.

“We have a lot of families who rely on our local food pantries for supplemental food assistance and fresh produce isn’t always available to them,” Linda said.

Do you love trees? Adore shrubs? If so, you could win Michael A. Dirr’s new book, Dirr’s Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs (a $79.95 value).

After reading the introduction to Michael Dirr’s new Encyclopedia of Trees & Shrubs, I just have one thing to say: I want this guy as a neighbor.

I’d get the rare opportunity to watch a genius at the work of “garden-making” and see how some of his new tree and shrub introductions perform in the landscape.