First Seeds of Spring

My Jung Seeds came in the mail yesterday.  Today I sat in my sunny kitchen with new seeds, old seeds, and a cup of coffee.  An annual inventory of seeds is a must.  Usually I do this prior to the first order.  This year I took a quick look in my seed box and knew what was left without a written list to refer to while ordering.  I still have two more catalogs to order from, so anything I missed with Jung would go on Pine Tree Gardens or Select Seeds.  My daughter/bride-to-be and I will sit down with the last two for cut flower choices.
I thinned out the oldest of my varieties and put them in the Jung shipping box to take to work.  There is always someone willing to throw them in and see what happens.  I cleaned out the worst of them last year, so this year's discards will be a nice addition to someone else's garden plot.  

Some of the new seeds I look forward to getting in the garden:

BEANS!  I had a couple filet type beans last year and loved them!  Maxibel was one of them.  I have added Velour (purple) and Fortex (pole).

Onions - Going back to Copra to get a longer storing onion.  I have had luck with Alisa Craig and Sweet Spanish in the past.  Last year's hot weather may have had an effect on last fall's storage issues.  I had used most of the 30# in recipes for canning and also shared with my daughter and sister, so not too much onion flesh was lost to early sprouting.  I also am going to make sure I sun cure them at least two days.  I thought the intense heat may have been too harsh, but I think the sun is what is needed when curing onions for storage. Just putting them in the garage was not enough.  The new onion I want to try is Red Marble Cipolini.  Both will be seeded by the end of the week for mid-April planting.

Cabbage - A small hybrid of Pak Choi and a triple variety mix of small head cabbage (white, red and savoy).  I am going to do an early sow under lights to get these set in April for an early crop.  I am also going to use a cover of row cover to ward off flea beetles.

Radishes - Refreshed my French Breakfast seed supply (this will be in my garden every year) and also bought Red Meat aka 'Watermelon'.  This is a long keeper.  If you go to the grocery store, you will find it with turnips, parsnips, and other winter root vegetables.  It has been suggested that this is good in a stir fry.  If you have never cooked a radish, try it.  You will be surprised at the delicious transformation of this tangy root crop.

Cucumbers - Rocky Hybrid, a small snack size cuke that is parthenocarpic (all-male flowers).  This is what Jung's has to say about this type of plant:

Parthenocarpic cucumbers - Plant this type if you want to get seedless fruits without pollination. You can plant a single plant of this type and still get fruit. Many of these cultivars were developed for greenhouse culture where there are no bees or other pollinators available. However, the parthenocarpic varieties we offer and that are generally offered by other seed companies are suitable for outdoor planting in home gardens. 

I have a couple other cucumbers to try as well, but this is definitely the most unique one I have in my basket this year.

Peppers - Cajun Belle, sweet with a bit of heat. Ancho San Martin, sets a bit earlier with better production. I was disappointed with the inconsistencies of last year's ancho peppers, poor set and ancho pepper plants that weren't ancho peppers.  If you like a stuffed pepper dish with a South of the Border taste, ancho is your pepper.  Mucho Nacho Jalepeno promise to have a larger pepper with good set.  I let you know how much of these promises are delivered.  I am going to leave the farm market growers to provide me with regular green peppers this year.

When I get my flower order done, I will put in type my hopes and dreams for beauty in the garden.  This year I hope to add annual flower space around a patio in time for planting this spring.  I added a week of vacation on to my years of service.  Those five days are going to be taken as garden days this spring.  I always thought leaving the greenhouse and nursery would mean that I could now take mid-spring, warm weather vacations and it has.  I realized that breaking my garden chores up into single days would also be a good use of spring vacation.  I will see how much I get done with the extra time this year.  Here's to garden dreams!

A Whole Day of Rain

We got 1.5" of rain in the rain gauge during the last 24 hour period!  It was a nice slow rain that took to the dry ground.  It is (amazingly) still dry out there even with all that moisture.  I loved being woke up by a rain storm outside the window.

We had cloudy skies this morning which brought the sunshine in by mid-morning.  With it came wind.  I stopped at the lake front during lunch and watch the waves crash over the breakwater at South Shore Marina.  The air show is this weekend, so we had a little overhead entertainment as well.  There were a handful of people who chose this little spot to enjoy some water watching as well as enjoy the company of strangers.

I bagged up my onions tonight and hung them in the basement.  I weighed them and found that I have 30 pounds of onions! I thought I was being optimistic saving so many mesh bags, but I filled three large orange bags quite easily.  I will be able to share my bounty this year.  I sliced up one with eggplant and zucchini and fried the whole slices dipped in egg and flour on the griddle with butter.  The results were like having a lower fat, less batter onion disc.

Tomorrow, I will have to pick green beans and soy.  I had a handful of soy which I cooked up and put in a tomato salad for lunch.  Edamame is a nice addition to salads or just eating with a bit of salt.  (August 3, 2011) http://gardeninggwen.blogspot.com/2011/08/soybeans-aka-edamame.html I grew half of my soy beans from new seed and half from seed that I ripened on the plants and harvested dry last fall.  Both plots germinated and grew equally well, so I think that seed saving was successful with this crop.

My neighbor has shared his early tomatoes with me as well as enough to share with the other neighbors.  His garden is quite large even after shortening it 20' or so this past year.  He grew a row of beans the full length of the garden which is well over 40' long.  They have already canned and frozen all they will use.  I passed the word on to others and offered the suggestion to donate to Harvest for the Hungry as they were opting to rip out the plants to stop the harvest.  Several soup kitchens and food pantries are also nearby, so I think they have abandoned the thoughts of pulling the plants.  They also have several cherry type tomato plants which are producing heavily.  I took a bag to work and put them on the basket on the corner of my desk.  My coworkers did a good job of eating them all.

I am thankful for some cool weather as it is time to can some French beans this weekend.  I will eagerly share the results of that job.