I Wet My Plants

I’ve finalized my list of tomato varieties that I’ll be offering for sale this year.  You can see the list here or on the right side bar.

Last year I offered pre-orders on plants around late April, after I had already started all the seeds.  This year, I’m offering pre-pre-orders whereby I will sow seeds by request on top of what I would typically sow at the end of March.  I figure, this way, those who know what they want will get what they want instead of whatever I have left over.  Let me know if you’re interested!

(also, I think I’ll just call it “pre-order” from now on)

Well.  That was an impressive break.

Last year’s growing season was quite hectic.  I went overboard on my tomato sales (800+ plants), I never got my order of sweet potatoes and ground hogs threatened the satellite garden.  I did, however, manage to plant about 70 cloves of garlic before the ground hardened, a goal I’ve been trying to hit for the past two years.  Yay!

I’ve been elbow-deep in seed catalogues and have already received a big envelope from Johnny’s Seeds.  Carrots, cucumbers, tomatoes, corn salad and lettuce top the bill.  I’m also awaiting a package from Tatiana’s TOMATObase because I really, really need more tomato varieties.  My partner joked that there should be a show for seed hoarders.  In an unrelated moment, he also mentioned that store tomatoes are tasteless and he’s looking forward to the summer, which I take to be tacit approval for my seed hording.

Looking for a way to uncomplicate your seed starting dates?  I’ve got an automatic seed starting chart in Excel for anyone who’s interested.  Just plug in your first spring frost date and first fall frost date and all the start, transplant and harvest dates will be calculated out for you.  There’s even consecutive sowings so that you’ll be up to your ears in lettuce and beans all growing season.  For those technically advanced, you can even add your own vegetables that I didn’t include.  All dates are based on You Grow Girls’ Automatic Seed Starting chart and the charts at the back of the All New Square Foot Gardening book by Mel Bartholomew.  Let me know if you’re interested!

I’ve been trying to source a European corn salad variety that my dad remembers from Germany.  It’s a narrower, darker green leaf with an upright habit, about 4″ tall; taller than a broadleaf.  The only thing he remembers is that they served it in first class on Lufthansa in the 80s.  I know, right? Anyone with a lead on a cultivar will have my eternal thanks.  So far, I’m looking at Verte d’Etampes, Cavallo, Verte de Cambrai, Vit, Rodion, Medallion and Granon and will be passing the pictures by my dad for some, hopefully, positive identification.

Oh, and those precious garlic bulbs I planted?  They’re under seige by my dog Maui who thinks digging, tearing and shredding at the tarp and straw that covers them is super-awesome-fun!

[insert photo here if I could find my camera]

P.S. I’m getting excited about spring!

I bought a few different varieties of seed potatoes when they first came out in May at the local garden centre.  This year I decided to go with Red Chieftan, AC Chaleur, Irish Cobbler, Banana and French Fingerling.  I laid the potatoes out on plates and found a cool, sunny spot in my basement by the window.  They sat there for a few weeks.

The day before I wanted to put them in the ground, I brought them upstairs:

Lots of growth on the eyes.  Next you have to cut them, ensuring that all pieces have at least one eye.  First, hold the potato in one hand and a sharp knife in the other.  Turn the potato around to see which is the best way to make your cut:

Using your knife, make a clean cut through the potato.  These ones are kind of small so I only really could make one cut – larger potatoes could take up to four or five cuts:

Lay out your pieces, cut side up, on a tray so that they can dry out before you plant them the next day:

Here’s all my potatoes cut up.  It didn’t take very long:

Next you have to prepare the beds.  My mom has got a great way to plant seed potatoes in the garden and I’ve been doing it the same way she showed me a few years ago.  First you need to mark the trench (1) where you want to put your potatoes.  Then dig a trench (2) about 3″ wide and 6″ deep.  Space your potatoes (3) depending on the final size of your potatoes – mine are all smaller so I spaced roughly every 4″ – 6″.  Back fill the soil (4) so that it covers the tops of the potatoes.  As the potatoes grow, keep back filling until you’ve reached the same height as the rest of the garden.  This way you don’t need to hill the soil.

I had my first and only weekend as a vendor at the opening of the Kemptville Farmer’s Market on Sunday, May 31st (I know, this post is long overdue) and it was kind of a crap day.  The forecast was for rain, however, no one thought it would hail:

That makes it three times now that my tomato plants have been hailed on!  Ridiculous!  Everyone else’s stuff got full of hail too:

Many vendors and customers took sanctuary under tents and umbrellas:

There was a space between two tents tied close together and underneath was a little hail pile:

Yikes!  It was a cold, wet, hail-ey, no-good day.  I did manage to sell some tomato plants – they were priced to go.

The Kemptville Farmer’s Market runs on Sunday from 2 – 4 PM.  I hope the weather gets better for them.

I was in Seattle last weekend for the Northwest Folklife festival and managed to get my garden on.  First stop was City People’s Garden store:

This place was huge and completely gorgeous!  If I lived in Seattle, I definitely would go to this garden centre.  Of course, I had to check out the seed selection and promptly made my way over to here:

Ed Hume, Renee’s Garden, Territorial Seed Company and Abundant Life Seeds were on the significantly-depleted racks.  I picked up some White Russian kale, Marian rutabaga, Early Jalapeno hot pepper, Black Cherry tomato (can’t have too much of this), Gala Mâche and a Sensitive Plant seeds.

Like I said, everything was gorgeous:

They even had a Northwest Natives section:

This is just a small selection of the variety of tomatoes for sale, many of them heirlooms:

Well tended and well watered – a gardener’s dream!  We also went to Magnolia Garden Center where I bought some Flashy Trout’s Back romaine lettuce (completely for the name!) and some bio-degradable bamboo pots for me and my mom.

Touring around the city we saw lots of interesting things:

Anyone know what this tree/shrub is called?  We saw lots of them in full bloom:

Gorgeous!

At Northwest Folklife I stopped by the Seattle Urban Farm Company to check out their display:

You can see a humongous bay leaf plant in that 5-gallon blue bucket.  They also had some raised beds and chickens:

Seattle was very nice – sunny days and cool evenings.  The rhododendrons were in full bloom in a wide variety of colours, shapes and sizes.

All you Seattle-based gardeners are pretty lucky!