Seedling update and more books 1 April 2009

The lettuce is continuing to germinate very well indoors.  ‘Deer Tongue AKA Matchless’ leads the pack with 100% germination of the 12 seeds sown.  Vying for second place (out of the 12 cultivars sown) are ‘Cracoviensis’ and ‘De Morges Braun,’ which each have 11 out of 12 sprouts up.  I got ‘Deer Tongue’ from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange, ‘Cracoviensis’ from Turtle Tree, and ‘De Morges Braun’ from Baker Creek.  I only have a 60 watt growing lamp trained on the tray because that was the only grow light left when I went to the nursery to get one for that tray, but they seem to be doing well regardless.  In all honesty, perhaps the lower watt light is better for sensitive plants like lettuce, since it produces less heat than the 150 watt ones on my tomatoes, tomatillos, chiles, and okra.  Having previously only started lettuce directly in the garden, my only knowledge of indoor growing of it (till now!) is what I’ve read in books, magazines, and blogs/sites, and what others have told me.  So this is an interesting experience for me.

Meanwhile, a true catastrophe struck the seed tray with the rudbeckia sprouts (and some non-rudbeckia flower seeds that had yet to sprout); in a freak incident, the seed tray flipped upside-down and landed on the floor.  I retrieved the soil as best I could, but I am not hopeful about germination chances at this point, since I no longer know how many seeds I successfully rescued, how far down in the soil they are, or how many there are per cell.  I have been strongly considering just starting the whole tray over.   The rudbeckia seedlings were so very tiny that I was only able to succesfully spot & rescue one of them.  I have been feeling very discouraged about the entire thing, as that was an hour’s work (and several seedlings) down the drain.  But, such is gardening; indoors or outdoors, calamities are just going to happen sometimes.   The tray took a few of the pots of herb seedlings with them, but thankfully I was able to successfully rescue the herb seedlings, since they were larger in size.

There are no visible signs of seedling sprouts outdoors yet.  I hope that the fava bean and pea seeds aren’t rotting in the cool ground, but I know that is a possibility; it is part of why I reserved plenty of seeds for a second sowing (the other major part being the aforementioned possibility of catastrophe).  The mustards and other greens have yet to show signs of life either.  I did notice some reddish sprouts at the Japanese chard spot, but upon bending down quickly realized they were perennial.  I didn’t think I had planted the second peony root there last autumn (it’s a spot at the edge of the main crop patch), but it’s certainly possible I was mistaken.  I suppose that if the Japanese chard comes up (and I certainly hope it does!), I’ll have to move it to a new spot.

Speaking of Japanese chard, there is a new book out called Growing Chinese Vegetables in Your Own Backyard by Geri Harrington, which turns out to apparently be an updating or reworking (I’m not sure which) of an older book (How to Grow Your Own Chinese Vegetables, published in 1978) by the same author.  Since I am trying some new-to-me Chinese and Japanese vegetables this year, I recently purchased it for reference.  I showed it to someone I know here who grew up in China and now gardens here in Eastern Massachusetts, and upon a quick flip-through, they said it looked like pretty good basic information (and recommended I try growing Chinese cucumbers, which are featured in the book!).  It is a mix of information on growing and cooking with the produce, which is not just vegetables but also fruits and herbs.  It doesn’t have everything I’m trying this year – no sword beans, no seaweed mustard – but it does cover most of what I’m growing, and so far it seems like it would be a decent introductory book for a novice Chinese produce grower who needs the information to be in English.  I think I would probably still recommend Ethnic Culinary Herbs for a basic guide to growing and using some of the most common Asian (especially) and Latin American (some but not as many) herbs.  Even though it’s geared towards a warmer climate than mine (its authors are Hawai’ian), the information contained within is easily adapted to colder climes.   Anyway, as I consult the new book over this growing season, I plan to provide updates on how useful I am finding the information.

Lastly, one of the spring-blooming Colchicum is finally blooming in the garden now that the sun is high enough to better light the front garden (in a warmer spot, it likely would’ve bloomed a month ago in my climate); I believe it is C. szovitsii ‘Tivi.’  It’s such a lovely sight, a beautiful little tulip-like flower in purest radiant white petals with contrasting deep gold in its farthest interior.  It’s gloomy today so its bloom isn’t fully open, but I am hoping to take & post a photo on the next sunny day.

Quick update: More flowers, more veggies, and more rain 30 March 2009

All but one of the five rudbeckia species/cultivars now has at least one seedling up, and the salpiglossis have started sprouting as well.  The lettuces have already begun to sprout!  Sowing them inside has made a big difference in their germination; I guess the outside soil temperature must still be below 40 F.  The third of five okra cultivars is FINALLY sprouting.  And it’s another cool, windy, rainy day; the garden has gotten quite the soaking in the past 48 hours.   And now I need to stop writing and go back to working on a project that’s non-garden-related.

Work in the garden / Seeds sown / Mustards / Season extenders 28 March 2009

I’ve done a lot of work in the garden in the past couple of days.  Yesterday I did some more clean-up (I will never, ever intentionally plant a maple or locust near garden plots:  the detrit0us is mind-bogglingly huge and very difficult to clean up because of how small it all is compared to most plant refuse) and then planted 60 pansies and violas – 3 six-packs of violas and 7 six-packs of pansies.  I planted two yellow-and-purple violas with a straight-up yellow one, and pansies in clusters of two color themes; three clusters of the white, yellow, mauve, and blue ones and two clusters of the maroon, royal purple, and yellow-with-blushes-of-red-and-orange ones.  Violas bloom so much more readily in six-packs that they were blooming a lot more than the others right upon planting, and they really cheer up the currently low-bloom front garden, and distract the eye from the lavenders behind them, which are currently putting out fresh leaves and looking a bit mangy.   I went out today to take photos of this and my other work, but my rechargable batteries once again abruptly failed.  Unfortunately, while they were recharging it got thickly cloudy, and in my experience macro pictures don’t turn out so well in those conditions with my camera.  (I really need new rechargeable batteries.  My old ones finally lost the ability to recharge a few months ago and I went to the camera store where I’d bought them to get new ones, but they were carrying a different brand.  They turn out to be the worst rechargeable batteries I’ve ever encountered in my life.  Really, they are so staggeringly bad I have no idea how someone could even make such an inferior product, much less a store sell them!)

When I was at the nursery I asked if they were going to get viola ‘Tiger’s Eye’ (AKA ‘Tiger Eye’) in again.  Not only is it my favorite annual viola of any I’ve ever grown, but it got me in-person compliments and has brought a surprisingly large number of hits to the blog entry about it via search engines.  The nursery owner didn’t remember it, but the pansy/viola supplier was making a delivery at the time and said he had it this year, so the owner said he’d bring some in next week.  I’m psyched!  It was the star of the shadiest portion of my spring to mid-summer front garden last year, and even the heat of summer (and believe me, the front garden has heat!) didn’t completely fell it.

Anyhow, today I did yet more clean-up – primarily picking up more detritus and cutting down seed heads (earlier I’d left the seed heads that still seemed to have some seeds because they looked cool and I thought the birds might want them) – and planted the six herbs I bought yesterday at the nursery.  I got sage, purple sage, cilantro ‘Salsa,’ and three thymes – lemon thyme, garden thyme ‘Compactus,’ and a creeping thyme with white flowers.  Thyme (especially garden thyme) and sage don’t do as well in my garden as the other Mediterranean herbs, and I’ve tried some previous theories as to why.  Now I am trying a new theory out:  Planting them early might help them settle in before other plants really grow much.   I’m hoping that the sages will get big and strong enough to not succumb to mildew this year (though I know from other gardeners in the area that for some gardens, sage is just prone to mildew, period) which makes them look gross, makes the leaves presumably inedible, and sometimes eventually kills the plant.  As to the garden thyme, it’s just good to plant thyme early so it has some time to adjust before hot weather sets in.  It doesn’t mind hot weather, but it’s generally not too fond of being put out in it.  I think in the past garden thyme has simply gotten too shaded in my garden as the growing season goes on.  Here’s hoping I placed it in an OK spot this time.  Ironically, without the other plants having grown much yet, it’s hard to say for sure!

The first flowers I sowed earlier this week are up now, all the same kind, painted daisy.  Four were up last evening and then the last time I checked it was up to seven.  I haven’t seen any other flower sprouts yet.   Yesterday I sowed greens outside and lettuce inside.  The outside lettuce hasn’t come up yet (not particularly surprising with the wildly swinging temperatures of late) and I thought I’d try my luck inside, plus I read recently that transplanted lettuce is slower to bolt than in-situ-sown lettuce, and it seems the opposite might be true too – that in-situ lettuce might be more cold-tolerant than transplants – so I thought I would do an experiment and see what actually happens.

When I sowed flowers, I ran out of seed trays, so I bought another one this week to sow the lettuce in.  It’s a different shape than the others (and made of much flimsier material), and it lends itself to six holes per variety, with twelve varieties total, so I just followed that inclination.  I picked ‘Eva’s Burgundy,’ ‘Merlot,’ ‘Tom Thumb,’ ‘Craciovensis,’ ‘Red Tinged Winter,’ ‘De Mourges Braun,’ ‘Gotte Jaune D’Or,’ ‘Oak Leaf,’ ‘Deer Tongue AKA Matchless,’ ‘Blushed Butter Oaks,’ ‘Brown Dutch,’ and ‘Spotted Aleppo.’  (For descriptions of all the lettuces I soewd outside, including these, see my recent entry “Lettuce and Spinach.”)   I sowed two seeds in each hole except for ‘Eva’s,’ which had fewer seeds in the packet, and got one per hole.  No action yet, but it’s only been 24 hours.

Outside, I sowed the hardiest Asian greens I got in my Kitazawa Seed box (which actually covered most of the greens; there are many fewer frost-intolerant ones) plus the Chinese celery.  I’ve never successfully grown celery, but this one is supposed to be super easy to grow, so we’ll see.  I smartly sowed each in a little patch and labelled it, which I also should have done with the lettuce and spinach.  I sometimes just don’t think through how this little crop patch is nothing like my old garden’s and does not lend itself well to scattershot things like flicking lettuce seed onto bare ground.  Space is by necessity so much more economical here.

Anyhow, here are Kitazawa’s descriptions of the greens and celery:

Chinese Celery ‘White Queen’ This very special Chinese celery has a flavor and aroma that is stronger than Western celery. The long white stems are considerably smaller than those of Western celery, and the jagged green leaves, more delicate. This easy to grow variety prefers cool temperatures. A must for many Chinese dishes, this celery makes a delicious addition to stews, soups or stir-fries. Include both the stalks and leaves. Maturity: Approx. 60 days / Planting season: Spring or late summer

Mibuna ‘Early Mibuna’ This traditional Japanese green is cultivated in Mibu, in the Kyoto prefecture. An early open pollinated mibuna variety, this vigorous grower is tolerant to both heat and cold. The leaves add a mild mustard flavor to a fresh green salad. They are delicious lightly steamed with a soy dressing, and are also commonly used for pickling. Maturity: Approx. 30 days / Planting season: Early spring or late summer to early fall

Japanese Chard ‘Umaina’ Umaina is a tender Japanese Chard. The leaves are deep green slightly waved and smooth. The mid-rib is pale green with short stalks. This variety is can withstand warm and cold temperatures and slow bolting. It is prepared like pak choi and very similar to spinach. Maturity: Approx. 55 days / Planting season: Spring to fall

Molokeyhia / Egyptian Spinach ‘Molokia’ This Middle Eastern super green, known as Egyptian spinach, has a high vitamin and mineral content. Prepare raw or cooked. Harvest young shoots and leaves. Use in stir-fries, soup or salad. Maturity: Approx. 60 days / Planting season: Spring

Mustards

‘Garnet Giant’ The solid, rounded leaves of this baby leaf are deep purplish red color. Leaves produce their color early in the growing season and retain it through summer. With its mild but distinct flavor, Garnet Giant complements any collection of greens.

‘Golden Streak’ This fast-growing baby green mustard has a bright spring-green color and a delicate, lacey habit that contrasts strikingly with dark green or red salad greens. Its mild spicy taste adds interest, as well. Use the Golden Streak to perk up a salad or sandwich or as a perfect little side garnish.

‘Mizuna Red Streak’ This pot-herb mustard strongly resembles Ruby Streak. Its ornately fringed purple and green leaves deliver a peppery flavor that is milder than arugula and packed with nutrients. The thin green stalks are tasty, as well, making Mizuna Red Streak a perfect baby leaf salad green. Mature leavescomplement stir-fries and soups. Sow seeds in spring to fall and suitable for growing throughout growing season.

‘Ruby Streak’ Arguably the prettiest baby leaf mustard, the Ruby Streak adds a delicate spice and colorful elegance to a salad plate. Stems are green, with airy, thread-shaped maroon leaves. If left to mature to full size, the leaves take on the jagged shape of a dandelion leaf or Mizuna mustard. Still tender enough for salads, full-grown they are also great in a stir-fry.

‘Osaka Purple’ This broad-leafed mustard has reddish leaves. It will tolerate cold weather. Grows fast in warm weather. Both leaves and stems can be pickled, stir-fry, steamed or added to salad. The younger the leaves are picked, the milder their flavor will be. Individual leaves or the whole plant may be harvested.

‘Red Giant’ This deep purplish, large, broad-leafed mustard has a mustard-like pungency. Use in soup, salad, stir-fry or pickled. Harvest the leaves when young for salads or layer into sandwiches instead of using prepared mustard. The leaves can be cut from the plant, which will rapidly grow new ones. Make your own prepared mustard by letting the plant go to seed. When the pods turn yellow, harvest and place the seeds in a blender with vinegar, spices and water.

‘Serifon’ This winter-hardy mustard has green leaves with jagged margins and a slightly pungent flavor. The spicy flavor increases with age. Sow seeds in early spring for summer harvest or late summer to fall for winter harvest. Used in stir-fries, salt pickling or salad. This mainland China native is popular preserved in salt and fried with pork.

‘Gai-Choi’ This is a popular Chinese mustard green that is easy and quick growing and tasty raw or cooked. The mild flavor is appreciated in soups, stir-fried or pickled. A specialty of Northern China, the root is boiled, peeled, sliced and served with soy sauce and sesame oil.

‘Hatakena’ A popular Japan mustard leaf that is bright green in color. Its leaves are hairy with slender stems or petioles. Mustard pungency increases as plant size increases. Harvest at your desired flavor. The mild pungent leaves can be used in soup, salad or stir-fry and commonly pickled in Asia. As with other mustard greens, Hatakena is a wonderful source of vitamins, fiber, calcium, iron, and other minerals.

‘Oka Hijiki’ Also known as “seaweed on land,” this variety is considered to be one of the healthiest greens eaten in Japan. Loaded with vitamins, it is usually sold in Japanese markets in very small packets. The green stick leaves are 2″ long. Oka hijiki is used in many Japanese dishes and is excellent simply steamed for a few minutes and eaten with mustard or vinegar.

As you may be able to tell from the list, I love mustard!  However, locally mostly mizuna is available, and I don’t know if it’s mizuna generally or the specific cultivars grown, but I tend to find it a bit tough and often somewhat bitter.  So I wanted to devote a portion of my plot to growing out some other mustards, focusing especially on ‘baby leaf’ types (the first 4) and others you can pick as young leaves for salads.  I’m also fascinated by the idea of “seaweed mustard” (the catalog’s category for the last one) which I have, as far as I know, never had, and am excited to see what it is like (knocking on wood that it germinates OK).

I wanted to provide an update on my quest for a good season extender.  I discovered this week (through a gardening catalog’s e-newsletter) that there is a little pre-built hoop house available on some American websites (a Google search turned up more sites carrying it).  It is under $20 (how much under varies from site to site), and a search for reviews turned up some positive comments/reviews and only one rather ridiculous negative one (someone was bitchy that they needed to remove it during the day so their plants didn’t get overly hot – um, are you aware of the concept behind “season extenders”? Even greenhouses are opened sometimes!) so I decided to give it a try.  Building my own hoop house here seems impractical and like it would cost at least that much anyhow since I’d need a fair amount of materials for a small amount of space.  I also feel like having a hoop house that I can easily completely remove is helpful since I will be putting it in the front garden, in easy view of the multitude of pedestrians and vehicles that go by on the busy street.  I’m continuing to gather information on them for when I move on to a larger garden where I will once again have enough space for sowing lettuce at random to be practical instead of rather silly.  Working in the front garden, I have realized just how cold the soil is there since the sun still isn’t up very high or very long (it makes more of a difference in that garden than any other I’ve ever been in), so hopefully starting to put the hoop house out on cool nights will help things germinate faster and get a better start.  I just hope nobody steals it on a cold night.  Such is life in a city garden on a busy street.

By the way, the comments I read used the little hoop house for things that make more sense than the people who gave the lecture – many people used it to start out and transplant everything in spring (starting from the very earliest things, though I would imagine probably earlier in the season than the lecture-givers), but tomatoes were mentioned frequently, though perhaps just because what extender to use to transplant tomatoes early is such a common question on garden sites.

When I got home today, one of the regular/semi-regular pedestrians who follows my garden was walking by and stopped to talk with me about what’s coming up so far.  I’ve often thought it would be fun to have fan type pages for gardens like there are for blogs and other websites –  e.g., “People Following This Garden–”  with a little box like on some blogs.  I know from working out in the garden that there are at a minimum several people who live in the area and track it.  There are some who track it because they know me, and others (like today’s visitor) who only know me because they started tracking it and stopped to tell me when they saw me out working in it.

One of the apartments in my building has just rented to someone who wants to garden too.  I only met the other person who will be living there, who made it sound like this one is a novice gardener, but I am not positive on that.  It will be interesting to have two gardeners in one building, though the back yard certainly seems big enough (for a city) to accommodate two gardeners.  I have no real interest in doing much more in the back yard besides continuing to plant the beds I dug up two years ago (which still have a good amount of room for new plants, unlike the front garden), taking my tender plants back outside, and putting pots of vegetables in it.  Hopefully that will leave enough room for the other person to do whatever they want.  Hopefully they are strong enough that they will not mind the back-breaking work involved in attempting to dig anything in the back yard – you cannot believe how big and thick and strong and close to the surface tree roots can be – and/or are flexible about growing things in pots.  Well, we’ll see either way.  And whatever happens, at least it means that if I move out and they are still here, hopefully there will be someone interested in continuing to care for the garden instead of it becoming abandoned like several other yards in the neighborhood that were gardens various numbers of years ago (I judge how many only by how far gone they seem to be, which may be inaccurate) but are now a mix of the hardiest garden survivors, weeds, and saplings of trees or shrubs.

A surfeit of tomato seedlings! / Work in the garden / Lettuce and spinach 19 March 2009

[I wrote most of this yesterday, and compiled the greens list today]

The tomatoes are going crazy now! I’ve lost count of how many have come up; a couple times a day I count them and write the list down in my handwritten garden journal.  Last time I checked, ‘Paul Robeson’ was the only full-sized tomato that had yet to show a single sprout.

I spent a couple hours in the garden this morning [which is “yesterday morning” by time of posting], mostly doing further clean-up, especially cutting things back and collecting yet more leaves (one of the down sides of having a very windy garden is that there’s rarely a lack of things to blow into it here in the city).  The garden looks so different now than it did at the start of the day.  I also sowed the spring lettuce and spinach, and was glad I waited till this warmer day to do it instead of pressing my health yesterday.  I’ve never grown Monticello’s Prickly-Seeded Spinach before, at least as far as I recall, and am curious to see how it differs from other spinaches.  They were serious about the “prickly-seeded” – the little seeds have prickles sharp as thorns on them, and I was pricked several times just sowing a handful of them.  What an interesting adaptation for a plant to develop!   I was preparing to sow ‘Dark Lolla Rossa’ (free from Peaceful Valley) when a stiff wind knocked the packet upside-down into my lap and then blew the spilled seeds into the garden patch, where they co-minged with the other white-seeded lettuces I’d already sown, making them impossible to pick out.  So I guess I will likely have a lot of that one.  The oddest thing is that the same thing happened to regular ‘Lolla Rossa’ (though to a lesser degree) but not to any of my other seed packets.  I guess the Lolla Rossas really wanted to be in my garden this year! At the bottom of this entry, you will find a list of what greens I sowed today, pasted from the sources.

My Peaceful Valley package finally came yesterday (hence the ‘Dark Lolla Rossa’ lettuce seeds) so there are now blueberries, strawberries, and rhubarb living in the kitchen with the overwintering plants and the seedlings.  It’s been so long since I planted a rhubarb root that I am having a little trouble even remembering when they should be planted, though I am guessing it should be soon.  Much to my surprise, the purple artichoke roots weren’t in the package.  I had received two detailed messages from them about my order – one on email just after I placed it, a second on voicemail a couple of weeks ago – and neither had said anything about the artichokes, but they weren’t even listed on the packing slip.  I wrote them yesterday to ask what had happened, but have yet to hear back.   [While I was writing this post, they called me about the spring trnasplants I ordered (which will be coming in a month or so) and I asked them about the artichokes.  They said they had sold out of them and didn’t know why the person who called shortly before my box shipped didn’t mention it.  Well, that’s disappointing, but probably for the best, since I’m doing so many other experiments this year anyway.]  The blueberry bushes look robustly healthy, and the rhubarb root looks like a rhubarb root, but the strawberries aren’t looking the best as they were all bundled into one bag, though they are already leafing out in the kitchen.

Peaceful Valley sells Horizon Herbs’ seeds, and I used to order from them regularly back in my old garden, so I got a few of their seed packs, including seeds for one kind of aloe (!), which will be interesting to try as I’ve never grown aloe from seed.  It is Cape Aloe, Aloe ferox.  My other Horizon Herbs seed packs are Mexican tarragon AKA Mexican marigold (Tagetes lucida, perennial in warmer climates than mine), Roselle Hibiscus (Hibiscus sabdariffa, same as above) which is the hibiscus whose fruits are used to make hibiscus water in authentic Mexican restaurants (more than you probably ever needed to know about Roselle Hibiscus over here), and lemon bergamot (Monarda citriodora).   They also give you free seed packs (your choice, unlike most other companies) based on your order total, so in addition to ‘Dark Lolla Rossa’ I got lettuce ‘Ruben’s Red,’ bean ‘Royalty Purple Pod’ (which I’ve grown before, and adore), sweet basil, and a couple of mesclun mixes.

Below, find the list of lettuces and spinaches.  I told you I find lettuces difficult to resist in catalogs!

Lettuces

Lollo Rosso [AKA Lolla Rossa] (Leaf) 50 to 70 days — The leaves are a beautiful magenta color with a light green base, deeply curled with a very mild flavor.  It can be sown in spring or fall in most areas and is a “cut and come again” type. (Victory Seeds)

Dark Lolla Rossa Hardy Annual – This leaf lettuce has incredibly frilly leaves and make a great garnish or addition to salads. The plant forms small 6″—8″ looseleaf heads with beautiful magenta leaves, and light-green bases. It is slow bolting, has a mild flavor, cut-and-come-again. (Peaceful Valley)

Ruben’s Red 60 days. Romaine lettuce, very full smallish heads, deep-red somewhat savoyed outer leaves and bright-green hearts. (got free from Peaceful Valley, but they don’t have it listed on their site, so I pasted a description from Turtle Tree)

Brown Dutch Brown Dutch was the most frequently planted of the approximately seventeen lettuce varieties documented by Thomas Jefferson in the kitchen garden at Monticello. Seed was sowed twenty-seven time between 1809 and 1824, primarily in the fall for a winter harvest. Mentioned as early as 1731 by British botanist Stephen Switzer, Brown Dutch is a loose-headed variety with large, floppy, blistered outer leaves that are tinged reddish-brown. (Monticello)

Spotted Aleppo This 18th-century Romaine lettuce was sold by Philadelphia seedsman, Bernard McMahon, in 1804. The leaves are speckled with a bright reddish-brown variegation that is highly ornamental. (Monticello)

Deer Tongue (AKA Matchless) 54 days. This unusual, fine quality lettuce is formerly a popular garden variety, now rare. Brought back by request. Forms an upright, loose head of excellent sweet flavor and crisp texture. Has slightly savoyed, triangular, round-tipped leaves with a succulent mid-rib. Moderate bolt resistance. One of our favorites. This strain exhibits more vigor, deisease resistance, and uniformity than the commonly available commercial strain. (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)

Oakleaf [AKA Oak Leaf] 45 days. [Introduced about 1771, at one point known as ‘American Oak Leaved’.] Forms tight cluster of oakleaf- shaped leaves. Bolt-resistant and bitter-free longer than many other varieties. This old standard is often undervalued but is a proven performer and essential in the summer lettuce patch. (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)

Buttercrunch 55 days. [Introduced 1963. AAS winner developed by Cornell.] This versatile heat-tolerant lettuce has proven itself to be a reliable variety for garden, market, and greenhouse use. Dark green leaves and compact heads. Holds well under stress and has good bolt resistance. (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)

Tom Thumb 48 days. [Pre-1850.] Space-saving miniature butterhead. Apple-sized head can be used whole in individual salads. Tender leaves are medium-green and crumpled. Popular in some restaurants. (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)

Red Tinged Winter Extremely hardy spring, late fall, and winter lettuce. In our trials, late sowings still made full heads that held up well through hard frosts for two to three weeks later than any other variety. Early spring transplants also weathered hard frost much better than other varieties and could be put in 1-2 weeks earlier. Over-wintering seedlings are hardy to -5°F. Sow mid-fall for gorgeous, full early spring heads. Doesn’t do well in summer heat. (Turtle Tree)

Cracoviensis 47 days. HEIRLOOM from eastern Europe pre 1885. Extremely vigorous fast-growing, hardy, early lettuce. Produces huge, loose rosettes of large, long pointed wavy maroon leaves with green veining. After bolting the fat flower stalks can be peeled for the juicy cores called “celtuce”. (Turtle Tree)

Merlot 60 days. By far the darkest red we’ve seen in a lettuce. Deep burgundy red loose-leaf type. A good cut-and-come-again variety. (Turtle Tree)

De Morges Braun 65 days. Very rare romaine type with upright, rounded leaves, applegreen in the center and pink-to-bronze outside. Tender and sweet, holds well in the garden, and is one of the last to become bitter. A good choice for early spring or fall gardens, as it tolerates cool temperatures very well. Makes a lovely salad! From Switzerland. (Baker Creek)

Gotte Jaune D’Or This 19th century heirloom is also called Golden Tennis Ball. It produces very small, light green, loose heads that are very tender and produce very early. Makes a great spring variety that is sure to delight your taste buds. (Baker Creek)

Eva’s Burgundy Lettuce (Amishland Seeds) – 5 Generation HEIRLOOM – This is an extremely rare heirloom lettuce. This is a winter hardy green with burgundy tips lettuce that has a shimmering, almost metallic sheen on the leaves. I believe this protects it from the cold. I have the only source of this seed available to the public. I got my original seeds from my 89 year old neighbor and friend, Eva, who just passed away this June. I truly miss her and all her stories and gardening knowledge she passed onto me. This lettuce has been grown on her family farm, in the same fertile valley here in Amishland, for 5 generations at least! It is a gorgeous ruffly, Romaine/Cos crisp type of lettuce. It is totally winter hardy. Eva said the best time to plant it is in the falltime and it will grow a little, then overwinter, no matter what the weather, with no cover. Mine was thriving and green under the snow every season.Extremely beautiful lettuce (see photos). The cooler the weather the redder or deeper in color it gets. In warmer weather it is greener. Very tasty and sweet and crunchy, and keeps on producing and almost never bolts (goes to flowering) or gets bitter. You must let lettuce go to flower in order to save seeds. This one got bigger than I have ever seen – 6 feet tall. All my neighbors kept asking what the huge, tall plants were in my garden!
This lettuce seed has never been offered to the public before. Only Eva’s relatives and a few lucky friends (like me) have ever grown this lettuce. She has sold this as a cut lettuce at a local outdoor farmer’s market here in Lancaster county for over 50 years. I feel that the special attributes (its wonderful taste and ability to overwinter, plus late bolting qualities in summer heat) should be shared with more people. You will love this lettuce. It is very easy to grow,and it makes a great early spring lettuce too. Plus it resists bolting in the heat of summer and last longer (actually all 12 months if cut regularly!) than any other lettuce I have grown or that you will ever find, believe me! Very limited amount of seed available. The seed is a very dark brown/black color. I acquired and grew another rare heirloom lettuce which had a similar look, called “De Morges Braun” but that was white seeded. I grew it side by side with “Eva’s Burgundy Lettuce” and is not the same lettuce at all. I gave seeds of “Eva’s burgundy Lettuce” for identification to my fellow seed saver, William Woys Weaver. He is a famous foodways historian and author of my favorite gardening book: Heirloom Vegetable Gardening. He grew it out and confirmed it is unlike any other lettuce he has found, and he felt it was a totally unique, formerly unknown heirloom lettuce.

Spinach

Prickly-Seeded Jefferson sowed Prickly-seeded spinach in the Monticello kitchen garden in 1809 and 1812 for both a spring and fall crop. Mentioned as early as the thirteenth century in Germany, this smooth and triangular-leaved spinach is named for its thorny clusters of seed. In 1806, Bernard McMahon of Philadelphia said it was “the hardiest kind” of spinach and recommended it for overwintering by planting seed in September for early spring use.  Directly sow the seeds into the garden in mid-winter for an early spring harvest because the plants tend to bolt in hot weather. Plant in late summer or early fall for autumn harvests and for overwintering. (Monticello)

Giant Nobel 50 days – The plants are very large and spreading in habit.  Plant in late spring (it is slow to bolt) for heavy yields of giant, thick, dark green leaves.  Excellent variety for canning. Developed by inbreeding a monoecious plant found in the ‘Gaudry’ variety and released by Zwaan and Van der Molen, Voorburg, Netherlands in 1926.  An “All-American Selection” winner in 1933. (Victory Seeds)

Bloomsdale 47 days. [Pre-1908.] One of the most popular spinach varieties, favored by chefs. Crinkled glossy dark-green leaves. Withstands heat or cold and is slow to bolt. (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)

Winter Bloomsdale 47 days. Adapted for late summer/early fall plantings and overwintering. Slow bolting plants are resistant to blue mold, blight, and mosaic. Dark green, well-savoyed leaves. (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)

Butterflay 45 days. Vigorous early spinach with medium dark-green leaves and a full rich flavor. Quick-growing and late-bolting. This is proving to be a popular and dependable open-pollinated variety for both home and market gardens in spring and autumn. (Turtle Tree)

Seed starting, finally almost here! 4 March 2009

I finally organized my year’s seeds today!  I was rather ridiculously proud of myself, particularly since it took a lot longer than I was expecting.  Tomorrow I will, will, WILL finally actually get the indoor seeds started.  I’ve now got my seeds organized into the following categories:

• Seeds to sow immediately indoors:  Chiles, tomatoes, tomatillos, ground cherries, the eggplant I ordered and wrote here about and then forgot I had gotten (oops)
• Seeds to sow indoors closer to last (expected) frost:  e.g. sunflowers (as part of my experiment to try to decrease birds eating the seeds), four o’clock
• Seeds to sow outdoors as soon as the snow melts (which should be soon–it’s supposed to be in the 50s F again this weekend!):  e.g. poppies, love-in-a-mist, California poppies
• Seeds to sow as soon as the ground can be worked:  e.g. calendula, garden peas, sweet peas, fava/broad beans, and greens and radishes (though  those last two likely in pots)
• Seeds to sow outdoors closer to last (expected) frost:  e.g. cilantro
• Seeds to sow outdoors after last frost: e.g. zinnias, nasturtiums, garden beans
• Seeds that I am not sure when to sow, and am going to check on them before putting them in another pile

I realized a couple of things as I was sorting the seeds.  One is that I ordered more garden peas and lettuce than I’d really consciously realized!  (My problem with lettuce seed has always been catalogs’ whimsical and/or delicious descriptions and their beautiful color photos, leading me to think, “I’d like to try that one.  And that one.  And that one…”)  Another is that in addition to ordering more tomato seeds than I’ll be able to grow out (that’s OK, I like giving seeds to friends and will give at least part of the excess of each cultivar away [probably keeping some in reserve for unforseen disasters], in addition to giving away my extra seedlings if I have a high germination rate; I’m used to this what with being in a small urban garden), I got two free extra packets of tomato seeds.  I’m not sure why companies love giving me free tomato seeds, but they do, as I also got a free tomato seed packet last year, and I didn’t even order any tomato seeds that time!  I also got a free packet of (mixed color) California poppy seeds, which makes me very happy, as I love California poppies, and they love my sunny, windy, rocky front garden.  I like to think it reminds them of home.