Spring is coming...

 It is still very early in the gardening season here so you can imagine my pleasure when I spotted 3 plants up from the  Catawissa walking onion topsets I was gifted this past fall.  This is one of three places I planted them so there is now hope that some more will pop in in those beds.  And now I need to check the beds that I put garlic bulbils into at the same time... 

We managed to get over to the city compost facility and have the back of the truck filled with compost to work into the garden in the back yard this weekend IF the weather lets us.  They are calling for snow showers and/or "breezy" weather that translates to only 10 to 15 mph steady but some gusts could be as high as 30 mph...    I still need the topsoil/compost blend the city sales but they were out and can't make more until the winds let up...  So I will be calling daily to see if they have managed to make some (the high winds affect their ability to use their machines to make the blend).   That is what will go in the lovely metal beds so we can use all of them this year. 

My apple trees for the back yard will be shipped sometimes in the next 7 days so we need to get their space ready for them.   And also a place for the serviceberry bush that will be in the box with them.   

Seed potatoes are here and have been set out to chit, potato seeds are sprouting, and I will be starting to harden off my seedlings which include tomatoes, peppers (both sweet and hot) brussels sprouts, marigolds, rosemary, and a single baby rhubarb plant from the one seed I found :).

New information and new plans...

 I recently stumbled over a video on putting in a Grocery Row Garden that sent me hunting for more and more information.  

Upshot of all this hunting was me buying two kindle books "Grocery Row Gardening" by David the Good and "Grow a Little Fruit Tree" by Ann Ralph.   

Seriously look the videos up they are really interesting.  Now mind you David the Good does say this is more an idea then a proven concept as most of them are currently in the southern part of the US.  So in a more ways then one we will be breaking new ground and adding to the information about this style of gardening but everything he does makes such perfect sense. 

In his system the beds are 4 ft wide with 3 ft walkways between them.  You include small fruit trees (hence the book on growing little fruit trees) and bushes or cane fruit IN THE BEDS in fairly specific places then plant around them... producing a garden that does double duty as annual veggie garden and as a very small orchard.    LOVE this idea and Toli loves the idea of growing his own fruit...  

When it warms up we will go out and measure out the place I am thinking of converting to this method and hmm maybe a single row in the front yard...   

It is still winter so garden dreams abound, check back in a few months to see what really happened. 

What was I thinking?

 I have spent the last few years learning about permaculture and land races and other not quite mainstream gardening ways.  And I have been learning a whole new language and way of thinking about growing vegetables.    

So this year I took the plunge and got some of these grexes, landraces, and some packets of  seed mixes that are all the same species.  The thing with all of these type of seed is to plant as many as you have room for, select the ones that do the best in your garden to save seeds from.  Of course for most of us taste is as important as how well it grew.  So this is a very different type of seed saving then I have been  doing for my tomatoes.  And really does take a huge shift in attitudes to be able to go yep that makes sense.  

For this year I have 

From Going to Seed:

Kale - blend of seeds from gardeners all over. 

Corn - blend of seeds from gardeners all over

Potato seeds (yes they can make seeds) - blend of seed from gardeners all over

Summer Squash mix - lots of different types of pepo and some hybrids with other types of squash. This should be interesting to grow out. 

From the Experimental Farm Network:

Maxidiwiac' (Buffalo Bird Woman) Summer Squash - a mostly bush squash breeding population that has been selected for squash that you can dry for winter use. 

Maggie x Provider' Bush Bean Breeding Mix - this is a breeding population of a string bean and stringless snap bean.   The eventual goal is to find a pink podded snap bean with no string. 

Wild Garden Chicory mix - this is for a friend to help give her some fresh flavors in her salads.

From Wild Mountain Seeds

Speedy Dry Bean Grex - grown on the Western Slope at over 7000 ft altitude so should work well here. 

Ping Tong shaped Grex - this is an eggplant grex that produces long thin eggplants that should grow here.  Looking forward to some fresh eggplant.,

Plus I got a couple of their tomato varieties they have been developing to grow in their growing conditions. 

From Quail Seeds

Vibrant Joy Bok Choy Mix 

Cottagers Kale

And sigh I have no idea where I am going to put all these things PLUS my tomatoes and flowers.  

Wonder how many of my friends and family will let me grow things at there place... 

New year new dreams and hopes

 Those metal beds from last year are looking very pretty but many still need bales of dirt and compost in them.  Of course the bottom half in most of them is filled with wood chips which mean we are only putting about 6 to 10 inches of dirt in any of them.  We will need to top them off each year for a while the chips breakdown and settle but still saved us lots of funds for now.  As you can see those beds have made  huge change in our yard. 

The square bed to the right will have corn in it this year.  There is a smaller round bed to the left that will hold squash bushes.  My tall blue one will have trailing vines and hanging basket tomatoes.  That leaves me four 3 by 6 ft beds for my tomatoes and beans.  We are talking about putting an arch over the sidewalk and putting pole beans and scarlet runner beans in there with lettuce and greens on the side away from the sidewalk. 

 I am limiting my tomato plants this year and most will be dwarfs which don't need staking  I will have 3 vining tomatoes, Velvet Red a fuzzy red cherry, Marbled Mystery a bi color tomato and something called Extravagante Rouffiange a fuzzy brown with green stripes from Belgium.  

The dwarfs will be Dwarf Mandurang Moon an ivory/white cherry. Wooly Kate an indet dwarf with fuzzy yellow tomatoes with  blueberry colored shoulders,  Gandalf a bi color dwarf with yummy heart shaped tomatoes (late but very prolific) and probably Large Barred Boar or similar large fruited tomato.   Hmm what was I saying about limiting my tomatoes...  I count 7 varieties and those are the outside tomatoes...  I do hope to have a lot of my little micro dwarfs in the 1 to 3 gallon grow bags scattered around the yard.

Garden 2023? well maybe....

 The front yard is looking pretty with all the new, still need to be filled metal beds... back garden is cleaned up but the fence is still not fixed  so I keep having to let Lani out as she can get into but not out of the garden area.  LOL She reminds me of Jazz when she was still very little and could go through the holes in the fence wire but couldn't figure out how to get back out the same way.   Of course little Duchess knows how to got both into and out of the garden through the fence... 

However the potatoes and onions have been sitting in the house for a few weeks now waiting for those beds to get ready. Last week I picked up a few seedlings from the Fort Collins Nursery and from the local Master Gardeners plant sale which means I have 7 tomato plants and 7 cauliflower seedlings to get into the ground also.

Then this weekend Makaila was over and climbed over piles of things to reach my seed starters for me and I managed to clear a path to my growing table so while they are 2 months late I did get some tomato and pepper seeds planted.  Now comes the wait to see how many of those make it outside but I still have until June right?

Peas...

 While looking for information on something else I discovered that pea seeds don't have the same longevity as tomato seeds.  In fact 3 years is about what most folks say... and looking at my pea seeds from the swap I realized I really needed to test the germination and get to growing them.   I have 3 types.  Dark Seeded Early Perfection from 2016,  Thomas Laxton from 2017 and Salmon Flowered Crown Pea from 2018.  

I let my peas soak over night then moved them to damp paper towels to see how many would germinate.  My loser was Salmon Flowered Crown Pea with only 4 of the 20 seeds germinating. :( Of course this was the variety I wanted to raise the most.   Dark Seeded Early Perfection had 7 of 11 seeds germinate. Thomas Laxton blew me away.  All eleven of the seeds I had germinated! Looks like I need a bigger pea patch... 

I still need to go though my beans and see if there are any that really need grown out but mostly I am looking at fresh seeds that have properties I want to put into my bean collection.  Like a fast, tasty, productive dry bean...  

First potting up day for this year...

 And I am pleased with most of my numbers...  Normal procedure for me is to plant 3 pellets with 2 to 3 seeds per pellet.  Move the seedlings to a cup soon after they show signs of growing a real leaf...  

This year I am not sure what I was thinking but Big Hill was planted in 6 pellets as was Micro Tom Gold.... and then there was Lucinda OMG I don't know what I was thinking but I planted 12 pellets with the seeds for this variety and have ended up with a large number of these to hand out...  Lucky me these may go as a novelty as they are carrot leafed and very distinctive.  Also very distinctive is the bright green of the Cherokee Tiger Black.  This one also was planted in 6 pellets and I ended up with 9 plants.  

Sadly there were a few failures...  Melon Ball only gave me one seedling out of the 6 seeds planted.  Large Barred Boar has not come up at all but I will give it a bit more time... and some varieties I really wanted to plant got misplaced and started very late