Long Time No Post 22 May 2009

I’m sorry it’s been over a month since I updated.  The thing about spring is that you’ve got so much to do in the garden that’s it’s often a choice (at least for me) between updating the garden blog and actually being out in the garden!  I have some partially finished posts saved on my computer and hopefully I will be able to finish those and upload them soon.  I also have a lot of photographs to upload, hopefully also soon.  In the meantime, here is a brief update on things here in the past month-plus:

*The shade/partial-shade garden in back is doing really well.  Spring is really its best season, I think.  There have been bulb blooms, woodland phloxes, epimediums, primroses, and violets, and now the columbines and wild native ginger and the alpine strawberries and the last bulb (Silver Bells)  and the new lowbush blueberries and new mourning widow cranesbill are blooming, and the foxgloves and comfrey are budded. The foxgloves I seeded in last year have survived the winter with pretty good germination and most of them are budded (in addition to the foxgloves that I had last year; all but one of those have come back for another year). The comfrey is doing unbelievably better than its sad start when I first planted it last year (if I hadn’t watered it regularly, I think it would have died) – it is huge and has several bud clusters and looks like it is forming new ones as well.

*More improbable winter survivors: In the back garden, the Salvia patens has survived another winter, and this year not just one calla lily has survived, but five (so far)!  In the front, all the agastaches appear to have survived, even the ones that weren’t supposed to be winter-hardy here.  Additionally, the two hardy begonias finally sprouted over the past day, rewarding my belief in them.  That means that all but two things survived in pots in the back garden – the ones that didn’t make it were one epimedium and one sedge.  Even the other stuff in tiny pots did, like violets and lyre-leafed sage.  My incredible experience with this last year led me to take more risks with it this past year, and I know I’m lucky my risking paid off.

*Self-seeding: There has also been some nice self-seeding.  I always appreciate plasnts that are tough enough to be able to self-seed in my harsh front garden.   The sundial lupine (Lupinus perennis), in particular, has pleased me so.  I’ve counted at least five seedlings, some nearish the parent plant but others farther afield in the garden.  Sunflowers have again self-seeded and/or been seeded in by birds.  It also looks like the tovara (‘Painter’s Palette’) has self-seeded this year (something it is notorious for doing, and how I first got my plants – a friend gave me their self-seeded seedlings), and it looks like there may be at least one baby echinacea as well, which would please me so.  The squill, muscari, and glory of the snow have all developed seedheads, but we’ll see if that results in actual self-seeding (I hope so).

*Overwintered plants: I carried out most of the overwintered plants today, another hot and sunny day here.  The brugmansia (‘Charles Grimaldi,’ now with me for two years), Cestrum (‘Orange Zest’), and lemongrass have done the best over the winter, all growing significantly from their size in autumn.  The sweet violet and fuschia (sharing a pot) and the tweedia and snail vine have also done decently.  The bay seems to still be alive but is continuing not to seem particularly happy, still about the same size it was when I got it several months ago.  I saw that the nursery is offering bay laurels that are larger and look more robust than the one I got from them last year, and am considering trying a second plant to see if it does better than the first one has.

*Blooms in front: We are up to the stage where the heirloom irises are blooming or budded.  ‘Eleanor Roosevelt’ was first (as she is well-known for being even in gardens with dozens of irises), with just one bloom so far. ‘Gracchus’ is blooming now, with several more buds spread over two bloom stalks, and there are many buds on ‘Quaker Lady’ and ‘Mme Chereau,’ which were the two irises to bloom their first year here (last year).  My other three irises have yet to show visible bloom stalks, but I haven’t given up hope yet.  All seven are growing more robustly than last year (when I think the trauma of having their roots stomped on, having heavy things dragged over, etc. by the workmen really damaged them), so I think there is definitely a possibility they will yet develop bud stalks. The wild native columbine is also blooming (I planted that this spring) as well as the Mt. Atlas daisies, and there are buds on the (parent) sundial lupine, the false/Carolina lupine, the peach-leaaved bellflower, the dianthuses ‘Rainbow Loveliness,’ the chives (which have been budded since the last heat wave in late April), and one each of the perennial salvias and the cranesbills.  There are also a lot of blooms on annuals I’ve planted – pansies, violas, bacopas, heliotropes, snapdragons, Swan River daisies, stocks, Felicia heterophyllas (that beyond-gorgeous blue-on-blue daisy that I planted last year, not realizing it was a different Felicia than the species I’d grown the year before until it bloomed), an alpine calendula I’ve not grown before, …  Lots of success with direct-sowing in front, as usual.  There are a ton of clarkias (nearly 100% germination, as last year) as well as smaller numbers of many other things, such as California poppy, annual poppy, corncockle, calendula, and love-in-a-mist.

*Crops: The fava/broad beans have started blooming!  The garden peas are growing like mad now.  Some of the garden peas had poor germination in the first round, so I recently seeded in a second batch of those and they are catching up now (‘New Mexico,’ ‘Tall Telephone (AKA Alderman),’ and ‘Mammoth Melting’ are the ones I can remember off the top of my head).  I don’t know if it was a difference in placement (perhaps different amount of sunlight/different intensity, different texture to the soil, etc.), if perhaps they happened to be more prone to rotting before sprouting than the other cultivars, or what.  The fava/broad beans seem to have had pretty even germination rates amongst them, even though they are planted in a row westish to eastish like the peas are.  The lentils, meanwhile, have had very uneven germination.  (If you forget, this is my first year growing lentils.  See a recent post for more details.)  ‘Spanish Pardina’ germinated first and to date has germinated best (I think it may have had 100% germination).  ‘Black Beluga’ germinated second and has similarly had overall second-best germination.  The other three haven’t done as well, with a handful (‘French Blue,’ ‘Petite Crimson’) to none (‘Urid Dal’) up so far.  I’ve also had no srpouts of the garbanzo ‘Black Kabouli,’ but my beans ‘Yellow Arkiara’ (the earliest garden bean to plant) have sprouted and are growing nicely, and now with the heat and sun, the runner beans and purple-podded beans are coming up as well.  (Purple-podded beans can be planted earlier than other beans because there’s a special chemical in them that both gives them the purple coloring and makes them less prone to rotting in cool, wet soil.)  Aphids turned out to have sheltered over the winter on the fuschias and decimated the majority of my seedlings in just a day.  After they had mostly died out, I started a second batch of seedlings.  I’ve got lots of young plants again now:  26 cherry tomatoes (nearly 100% germination), 20 regular-sized tomatoes, 12 tomatillos, and 2 chiles (the chiles survived the onslaught better than the tomatoes and tomatillos, so I didn’t seed as many new ones in).  I’ve never had aphids on indoor seedlings before, and it’s really a serious pain.  I also got a cherry tomato plant at the living green festival my town held recently.  A non-profit that does gardening work locally was selling them to raise money.  They said it was an heirloom hand-selected by their main grower (and indeed, it appears to be named after him), but the two people staffing the stall couldn’t tell me more about it.  When I tried to ask more detailed questions, they just kept shrugging and saying, “It’s a cherry tomato,” as if that explained everything.  So I figured I’d just grow it and see for myself what the answers to my questions are.  There are also shallots, parsley, cilantro, French sorrel, thyme, and sage growing in front, and the scallions, chives (or as the person that gave me the Chinese leek division two years ago calls them, “American chives”), lavenders, winter savory, and Chinese leek/garlic chives have all survived the winter and are doing excellently.  I also finally planted the bare-rooted highbush blueberries in front since my last post, and after initial shock, they seem to be adjusting well.  In the sifted compost, I found a squash vine, and transplanted it to the main crop area.  I’ve also got melon seeds to sow.  Today’s a ‘fruit day’ in biodynamic parlance, as is tomorrow, so I should do that while the time is right.  Perhaps I should seed in my edamames today too, and give them a chance to get going before the pole beans shade them out (which seems to have been their biggest problem the last two years).

*Compost: Yesterday, in anticipation of yesterday and today’s heat, sun, and wind, I mulched all the back beds and the main crop area in the front bed with compost.  I also top-dressed the front’s plants that I know most like it – the Oriental poppies, peonies, scallions, and chives – plus I added some compost around the blueberries, stocks, and alpine calendula.

*Caterpillars: I found a caterpillar in the crop patch recently, the first I’ve ever seen in the windy, hot, high front garden!  It was so convincing at playing dead I thought it really might actually be dead until I gently poked it with a twig and it freaked out.  I also found a couple caterpillars in the back garden yesterday, one green and hanging out on the sifted-compost holder and the other munching the comfrey.

*New plants: I mentioned some of the new plants above.  I’ve also gotten more new plants from the nursery and mail-order.  I’ve planted some of them and others are awaiting planting. Some of them, particularly much from my Select Seeds mail-order, are meant to go in pots:  a datura, petunias, fuschias, tender (‘zonal’) geraniums.  I’ve also got flowering tobacco, salvias, tender vines,  coleuses, and more from Select Seeds.  I’ve already planted lantanas and some salvias and a double-flowered feverfew and a silver foliage plant from them. I’ve also got some tender “bulbs” to plant – dahlias and gladiolas and a rain lily from Old House Gardens and a few cannas from the local hardware store (Old House Gardens had already sold out of cannas by the time I placed my quite tardy order).

I think that’s plenty for today!  More another day.

Seedlings and hoop house 8 April 2009

Much to my astonishment, several seedlings have sprouted out of the rescued soil from the flower tray disaster.  No idea what they are at this point, of course, so we’ll have to wait and see.  Some of the tomato seedlings are getting quite large and I will need to transplant them into bigger pots soon.  I was right that a second eggplant seedling was coming up, but no others have yet.  Outside, there are numerous tiny sprouts in the front flower bed and the main crop bed, but I’m not sure yet what all the tiny seedlings are; most of them don’t even have their “true leaves” yet.

I received the little pre-made hoop house last Friday.  Today is supposed to be the coldest night since I received it, so I thought I’d finally break it out and try to work out how it works.  Figuring out how to un-scrunch it (it was wrapped up into a scrunchy compactness) actually took longer than setting it up!  In just a few minutes, I had looped it around my little crop plot, such that it covered literally nearly every square inch of it (plus a couple of things I couldn’t avoid in the looping, like the sea holly that’s next to the plot).  Since my soil is so rocky (even though I have dug out soooo many rocks [not only is the front garden’s entire border made of rocks, but there’s a pile of at least as many left over], every winter the freeze/thaw cycle heaves new ones, along with fresh glass shards, rusted metal, etc.), the longest part was driving the stakes in to new spots when they hit something in the soil.  The hoop house is MUCH shorter and thinner than the ones you can (and that people typically do) build at home, but it seems like it would work well for young plants.  The metal hoops are very bendy, so I imagine that you could make the house wider & shorter, or taller & thinner, if you wanted.  We’ll see how it works overnight (and if it makes it through the night; I’m still a little skeptical that things like that won’t be stolen here on my busy city street, where I have had people come up into my garden and dig up entire plants, but we’ll see).   The plastic is much clearer than I’ve seen on typical plans for homemade hoop houses, but I don’t know what difference that would make other than not diffusing the light much and probably also meaning it couldn’t be used very effectively while sunlight was shining directly on it.  (I need to do more reading on season extenders to better understand their exact mechanics.)   It does not appear to have slats on the sides (for ventilation), but it is easily vented at the ends.

Update on seedlings and other things 3 April 2009

Oh, look, it’s a day that ends in “-day” in English.  That must mean it’s raining in Boston.

Yeah, so our weather patterns have been pretty predictable lately.   It fogged up (very dramatically, until I couldn’t see the steeple across the street from the nursery) while I was out this morning, turned to mist, then drizzle, then rain.  Luckily for me, I got home just  before it quite abruptly became rain and was just futzing in the garden for a few minutes on my way to the front door at the time.

The nursery still didn’t have viola ‘Tiger’s Eye’ on my first visit in over a week, which I found disappointing.  They did have a large number of new pansies and violas, though, and I bought four more six-packs (my second-favorite after ‘Tiger’s Eye,’ that kind of pansy that’s such a deep purple it looks black in most lights; as well as one that’s nicely colored in different shades of purple, one that’s red and orange, and a viola I grew with ‘Tiger’s Eye’ last year that’s rich purple and dark bronze and difficult to describe but pretty, but unfortunately I am forgetting its name).  So far they have no other flowering annuals, just some potted bulbs that they’ve moved from the greenhouse outside.  (The people down the street planted a potted hyacinth, as their garden went from having no hyacinth sprouts at all yesterday to having fully blooming hyacinths today!  But I am guessing most people who walk by won’t even notice that’s what they did.  They are the same people who, upon having several tulips picked the spring I moved here, put up a sign saying “Please don’t pick the flowers” that featured a sketch of a crying daisy.)  Their herb section also looked about the same as before; it looked like they’d gotten in some more pots of a few things they already had, but that was the only thing that seemed different.  They’ve already almost sold out of the plain culinary sage; there were just two pots left.  I got the Greek oregano and golden oregano I’d been eyeing last trip but had not bought, as well as a third creeping thyme (a big fan of both creeping thyme and general creeping plants [with my retaining wall for them to fall over], I already bought two earlier this spring, in case you forget), this one the kind that’s called ‘elfin thyme’ in English. They had lots of rosemary out, but I didn’t get any yet, figuring I’ll wait till later in the spring.  (Unfortunately unsurprisingly to me, after doing well at the start of the winter, my overwintered rosemary plants abruptly died partway through.  I don’t know why my rosemaries always do this, no matter where I place them nor what new tricks I read about and try, but I’ve come to  accept it as their likely fate and plan accordingly.)

I ran into the owner again and he said he was getting two more deliveries later today, one from the esteemed herb company Gilbertie’s (a New England grower, they’ve been featured on The Victory Garden on PBS).  He said that he had asked them to give him some of all the herbs they already had in stock but he didn’t yet have on the shelves, except the most tender – basil, lemon verbena, and lemongrass.  My lemongrass plant that’s overwintered inside was from them.  It’s about four feet tall now and looks robust as ever, perhaps even more than before now that it’s reaping the benefits of the grow lights being in the kitchen.  Anyhow, perhaps I will stop back at the nursery over the weekend to see what herbs they have in stock.  Gilbertie’s grows a lot more unusual herbs than most of the regional growers; they’re also the grower that grew last year’s garden’s Cuban oregano, sweet Aztec herb (still surviving in a pot inside as well), and culander, amongst others.

The lettuces are doing great inside, and this week two of the three heretofore unsprouted okras sent up one sprout each, the two from Baker Creek, ‘Pitre’s Short Bush Red Cowhorn’ and ‘Vidrine’s Midget Cowhorn.’  In the same tray as the okra (though planted much later than the rest of the tray), the first eggplant seedling (‘Kamo’ from Kitazawa) is up as well, and it looks like a second one is just poking through the soil today.   The non-traumatized flower tray is also doing pretty well, with at least one sprout now of everything but the perennial dianthus – the previously mentioned painted daisy and salpiglossis (already up some days ago); two mixes of annual phlox; a mix of petunias; and a mix of snapdragons.

In my last entry, I discussed the new (well, technically revised and retitled, but anyhow) book Growing Chinese Vegetables in Your Own Backyard.  I wanted to mention the one book I already had that touches upon the same subject.  It is called Urban Gardening: A Hong Kong Gardener’s Journal and is by Arthur van Langenberg.  Despite the title, it’s not exactly a journal, and yet at the same time, it’s not exactly a how-to book.  Here’s a sample of the page on eggplant (which features two lovely photos of a long eggplant plant, much bushier than I could ever hope to attain in my cooler climate):  “The pendulous fruit are a magnificent rich purple.  I never fail to marvel at this colour, especially in the young fruit, when there may be several shades of purple.  Grow in summer, sowing the seeds from April to July.  The seeds are very similar to those of capsicum and may take up to two weeks to germinate.  Place four seeds in a small 5-cm pot and when the seedlings have put out their second leaf, thin out to leave the strongest plant.”  (‘Capsicum’ is a primarily British English term for chiles/peppers.)  The start dates are definitely Hong Kong oriented; I’d never get fruit if I waited till July to start an eggplant seed.  Unlike the other book, it is not just about produce but has a lot of information on flowers and shrubs as well.  The book is organized in a way that doesn’t make the most intuitive sense to me (but then, I am an American, not a Hong Kong resident), but there is an index at the back to make finding things much easier.

The biggest reason the book charmed me in the first place was because its entry on kohlrabi starts, “This is a vegetable that deserves far more attention,” which, as you likely already know, is my opinion as well.  (It continues, “It is grown for its light green, swollen globular stem which appears just above the ground and which resembles a leafy turnip.  There the resemblence ends because kohlrabi is far superior in flavour and texture.  A purple variety is also available.”)  I read another source recently that suggested using kohlrabi as a spring crop and turnips as an autumn crop.  I thought that was an interesting idea.  Many people seem to be of the opinion that incoming hot weather tends to make spring turnip crops risky in hot-summer regions.  Kohlrabi aren’t as sensitive and can typically be harvested more quickly than turnips anyhow.  Speaking of kohlrabi, I really need to move my remaining seedlings to bigger pots.  Maybe I will sow some more greens in their cells when they move.

Since I’ve been inside, it’s turned from a steady rain to an outright downpour, and it looks like the wind has picked up even more.  Well, at least the wind will likely blow away the fog!  I guess there will be no garden work for me yet again today.

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.

Rain and seedlings 29 March 2009

It’s raining, real heavy rain, the heaviest rain we’ve had since winter set in late last year, the kind that makes a rat-tat-tat on widow panes.  Hopefully it will nourish the new plantings and the perennials, and help the seeds outside germinate. The weather reports have all been atwitter over the idea that we’ll get thunderstorms this afternoon (despite being in the low 40s F), but so far I have heard nary a crack.  If we do, they will emphatically be our first of the year.  Hence the twittering state.  (You know, ‘twitter’ just doesn’t have the same ring in everyday English now that it’s also a social networking service.)

Today is a ‘fruit day’ in biodynamic parlance and I am aiming to transplant the okra seedlings and the biggest tomato seedlings into individual pots.  Unfortunately I have been feeling quite ill today so I don’t know how much I’ll actually be able to do, but if I am up to it, I’ll start out with the okra since they are in the tray with the smallest holes and their roots are probably about to reach the bottom of the tray.  If I can manage to do the tomatoes too, that’ll be good, but if not, they’ll be all right for now.  There’s no way at all I’d be able to do anything on the porch besides sit on a wet surface getting myself and the plants and their new homes all soaked, so I’ll have to set it up inside again.  After all this porch-unfriendly weather, by this point I am rather regretting deciding not to buy a little indoor potting station when I mail-ordered my seed trays.

After meeting that person yesterday who told me they were definitely moving in to the building while they were on the way to meet its owner, they (much to my surprise) haven’t actually signed a lease.  So who knows whether I will be sharing the yard with another gardener after all.

Edit a short time later I did the main daily water check on the seedling trays, and a second set of flowers is sprouting, the black-eyed susans (the straight species, Rudbeckia hirta, not a cultivar).

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.

Seedlings and flowers and books 24 March 2009

I didn’t count it all up yesterday:  The ground cherries have finally sprouted, as I said; so far one ‘Horning’s Farm’ has sprouted, and several ‘Cossack Pineapple.’  The alpine strawberries, ‘Red Wonder’ and ‘Yellow Wonder,’ have also finally sprouted, with ‘Yellow Wonder’ having higher germination so far.  (Unfortunately I didn’t read about cold stratification improving alpine strawberry germination until after I’d already sowed them.)  By now, every chile/sweet pepper finally has at least one sprout as well.   There are still no sprouts of either type of tomatillo ‘Purple,’ though, nor of the three okra cultivars that hadn’t sprouted yet last time I mentioned them.  It is still frigid and windy out, so not surprisingly, I haven’t seen any new sprouts in the garden.  The kohlrabi are starting to develop true leaves finally, and I think it’s time to thin them.  I wouldn’t have even thought of eating them if I hadn’t read recently in a catalog that they are now being offered in some so-called “microgreen” mixes.  (I’m still not completely clear on how “microgreens” are all that different than sprouts, but who can tell with fancy restaurant trends.)  But now that I’ve got the idea, I think I will use them to top a salad, or maybe as greens in a sandwich or a garnish for a noodle dish.

Yesterday and today were/are ‘flower days’ in bidynamic gardening parlance – the best days for sowing flowers (especially) and also doing other flower-related activities – so today I am planning to sow the flowers that need to be started the earliest indoors.  There are a few that I actually should’ve already started, but hadn’t sorted the flower seeds thoroughly enough to remember.  So hopefuly starting late will be OK.  Those are the two mixes of bloodflower/scarlet milkweed/whatever you want to call it – the main tropical milkweed, Asclepias curassavica, which has naturalized in much of the Southern US.  (More information on it here.)  My nursery does sometimes carry them, but man, is it expensive here, so I figured that it would be cheaper to try growing it myself, plus I’d get more variety (as my nursery typically only sells one variety of it, and not many plants at that).  So I have two mixes, a straight-up mix from Monticello and a named cultivar mix (‘Silky’) from Select Seeds.  I also should have already started the petunias and salpiglossis I got from Turtle Tree.  Also on my seed-starting agenda:  Rudbeckias (several species & cultivars from various sources – some annual, some short-lived perennials), snapdragons (1 mix from Turtle Tree), 1 mix of perennial pinks as mine have started to decline as pinks unfortunately do, cleome (1 standard garden mix from Select Seeds and a species I haven’t grown before from Victory Seeds, the one that Lewis and Clark found according to their description), 2 annual phlox mixes, 1 didascus (annual), 2 Tithonias (the common “Torch” and 1 that appears to be the straight species), 1 echinacea ‘White Swan,’ and 1 mix of annual daisies.  I picked up a packet of ‘White Swan’ because I noticed as I was cleaning up the front garden that the birds had nearly picked the white echinacea seedheads clean (it’s the one that was just labelled “white echinacea” at a plant sale two years ago and so I don’t know more about it than that) while leaving a decent portion of the seeds of the standard purple echinacea, so I thought I’d try to grow out more of the white ones, and starting them early inside is supposed to make them more likely to bloom their first year.  I’m also hoping to start some stuff inside that hasn’t produced the greatest germination results outdoors (perhaps due to squirrel & bird eating), in particular sunflowers and Four O’Clocks (that’s also why I’m starting the Tithonias inside), but they grow so fast I’m going to wait till closer to last frost to do that.  (That should also help with space because some of the hardier stuff should have been moved outside by then.)  The okra are growing so fast in my warm and bright kitchen that I think I started them too early, so I don’t want to repeat my mistake. Usually I set up a seed-starting station on the porch, but the porch is open to the air and recent weeks have taught me that on a cold, windy day such as this, I’m likely to freeze as the wind whips the top layer of soilless mix off the trays and tips over the little pots.  Consequently, this time I think I’ll spread some old newspaper out on the floor and just do it inside.

My package of books containing my replacement copy of Four-Season Harvest came this morning, which makes me happy.  That book does indeed have information on hoop houses (he calls them “high tunnels,” the most common alternate name for them), which I hadn’t even remembered – probably because the shape of my old garden made fitting a hoop house impractical – so I am looking forward to reading his take on them.  In the same box I also got a replacement copy of my favorite rose culture book, Growing Roses Organically (inexplicably renamed in the paperback version to the much more generic Growing Beautiful Roses), as well as copies of The Mother Earth News Handbook of Homemade Power and a book I read about on a website by a homesteading woman, called Country Women: A Handbook for the New Farmer by Jeanne Tetrault-Sherry Thomas.  The former was priced at $1.95 in its mass-market paperback state back in 1974, and the latter larger book was priced at $6.95 in 1976.  I wonder if they had any idea back then that their books would sell for triple the original price as used copies over thirty years later.   The worn edges to the cover of the former, and the coffee stain faintly visible at the top of the cover of the latter, speak to their well-used status in their old homes.

Photos, mostly of seedlings 23 March 2009

Photos of varying degrees of quality (taking photos inside in the lower light months is often frustrating):

…

Tomato seedlings coming up on the 18th:

tomato seedlings

Kohlrabi (left) and okra seedlings on the 18th:

kohlrabi and okra seedlings

Kohlrabi (in back) and okra (foreground) seedlings today, just after a watering made the kohlrabi sprawl:

kohlrabi and okra seedlings

Again: kohlrabi and okra seedlings

One more shot of kohlrabi and okra

The ground cherries and alpine strawberries finally started sprouting over the weekend!  Here is a terrible shot of ground cherry ‘Cossack Pineapple’:

Ground cherry seedlings

Herb seedlings:

Herb seedlings, clockwise from upper right: Bronze fennel 'Smokey'; two pots of basil (four cultivars); sweet Annie; scallion 'Hardy Evergreen White'; scallion 'Ishikura'

Basil seedlings, two pots (four cultivars)

My, how you’ve grown! –

Tomato seedlings!

Tomato seedlings!

Tomatillo (foreground) and cherry tomato seedlings

Chile and sweet pepper seedlings

The nursery got their first order of pansies and violas!  I found them today and brought some home with me.

New pansies, indoors

Another shot: New pansies, indoors

Having been living the high life in the shelter of the greenhouse, I’m waiting for a warmer day to actually plant them outside.  It’s below freezing today!

But the thing about wintry weather in New England is that a peek out a window often fools you into thinking it’s warm!

The sky

Doesn’t it look like a great gardening day from inside?  It’s only when you actually go outside that you realize how cold and incredibly windy it is.

The rhubarb ‘Victoria’ root, still awaiting planting (I dampen the sawdust in the bag every day or two):

Rhubarb 'Victoria' root, awaiting planting

It looks to me like a mythic creature from a Miyazaki film.  I keep expecting it to jump up on its hind roots and start running around the kitchen.

Seedling Extravaganza! / Basils / Fava Beans AKA Broad Beans 19 March 2009

The indoor seedlings are coming up like mad now!  Not only are there more tomato (including cherry tomato) and tomatillo seedlings, but late yesterday I finally spied my first chile seedling, and today I noticed that the basils and bronze fennel are finally starting to sprout!  Even late bloomer “Paul Robeson” tomato is finally up.  Today I also noted that there are four more seedlings of the first chile, “Cochiti,” bringing the total to 5 before any of the others have sprouted at all.  In terms of tomatoes, two of the first three to sprout still lead the pack – “Myona” tops the total with 6 out of 8 seeds sprouted, followed closely by “Manyel” with 5 of 8. “Toma Verde,” the first tomatillo to sprout, still leads the tomatillo pack by a wide margin.  For the herbs, there are a handful of bronze fennel seedlings up (“Smokey,” from Renee’s Garden Seeds), and three “Red Leafed” basil plus one in the same pot that may be a “Red Leafed” or may be a “Mrs. Burns’ Famous Lemon” (it’s slightly tinged in red, but not nearly as red as the others), and then there are a few coming up in the second pot of basils, but it’s harder to tell what kind those are because I sowed “Eritrean” and “Mayo/Yeome” in the same pot and I believe they are the same color as seedlings.  (See below for a list of the basils.)

We’ve had so little rain since the snow melted that yesterday as I was working in the garden I saw a strong gust of wind pick up dirt/dust from the street and gust it down the boulevard with litter, as if this were the Southwest.  And yet we had such a good snow/ice season that the ground is saturated anyway and the broad-leafed evergreens look their healthiest at springtime in a few years.  Today it is finally thickly cloudy (after days upon days of brilliant sunshine) and sporadically sprinkling; it is allegedly going to outright shower this afternoon, but we’ll see.   This morning I went out to sow the peas and fava/broad beans, as it is ‘fruit days’ and I wanted to get them in before the possible-rain, plus tomorrow is supposed to be colder and today is already crisper than yesterday, the temperature having peaked around dawn this morning.   The ground is so wet that all I had to do was press my thumb into it to create a hole deep enough for planting a legume seed, as if I were working with dough or sliding a warm knife into butter.

I planted the favas in the front of the crop patch, since that worked well last year, and planted a long row of most of the peas behind them (in a row just because it makes it easier to trellis them), with the two definitely dwarf peas off by themselves.  I reviewed the pea list I compiled here in a recent entry before planting to check on sizes and to arrange them by type of pea.  I planted the row from shelling peas, to the pea that can be shelled or used as a snow pea, on to snow peas, then peas that can be used as snow or snap, and finally the snap/sugar pea.   I should’ve compiled a fava list before I did so for this post (see below for list), as I’d forgotten “Iant’s Fava” is so much bigger than normal fava plants, and would have planted it behind the others if I’d’ve remembered.  I planted the two dwarf peas by themselves in the southeast corner of the patch, but I don’t know if that’s the right place for them, so we’ll see.  I planted five of each fava, except for “Purple Guatemalan,” as I was so charmed by the purple fava seeds in my hand that I planted an extra one.  I planted six of each pea, except for “Capucijner’s Blue Pod,” as I only received ten seeds of that very rare (in the US) cultivar and didn’t want to plant over half the pack only for disaster to strike, so I planted four of those instead.  See my recent entry “Spring and Peas” for a list of the pea cultivars.

It was cool and gusty with very damp air, and by the time I finished sowing the seeds, my pants, bare ankles, and bare hands were all caked with mud and I was cold and stiff, but I knew that my reward was going into a heated home for a warm shower and a hot mug of tea, so it was all good.

While I was waiting for the tea to steep, I thought I’d check the seedlings for watering needs, and forgot that – I know this will shock you – recently used gas burners are hot.  So I, not surprisingly, accidentally burnt a few small holes in the bottom of one of the seed trays.  The good news is that it appears that it was just the main tray holder that was damaged, and those are extremely cheap & easy to replace (in fact, I have some extras in my home at present).  Plus, I learned my lesson, and hopefully will not do something so dumb again.  And it also speaks to the high quality of my seed trays that so little damage was done despite sitting on a hot burner!

Basils

Mrs. Burns’ Famous Lemon This variety has been grown for 60 years in southeastern New Mexico. It is an Old World introduction and readily self-seeds. (Native Seeds/SEARCH)

Mayo/Yeome A strong smelling medicinal plant commonly grown in Sonora, Mexico. Good for cooking and flavoring vinegars and oils. The white and pink flowers make it an attractive garden plant. Do not grow with other basils if saving seed. (Native Seeds/SEARCH)

Eritrean (O.GRATISSIMUM) [Family heirloom from an Eritrean Exchange student] Compact plant with beautiful, purple-tinged green foliage, stunning in flower. It has a strongly attractive and spicy odor, and is much used in African cuisine. (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)

Red Leafed (Ocimum basilicum) Annual. Beautiful, deep burgundy-red throughout; adds color to salads and soups, with the same great basil taste as green leaf varieties. Start indoors and transplant outside after frost. (Turtle Tree)

I also have three more basils that I haven’t sowed yet because I didn’t have them yet during my last basil planting.

Broad Beans / Fava Beans

Broad Windsor 85 days. Plants grow 24 to 36″ tall and produce 1″ wide, 6 to 8″ long pods containing 5 to 6 large beans. We love to substitute this bean for chickpeas in hummus. (Southern Exposure Seed Exchange)

Iant’s Fava Originally introduced by Alan Kapuler of Peace Seeds. A large-seeded Guatemalan variety that reaches 6 feet tall! The bright yellow seeds are reputed to contain elevated levels of dopamine, and may have benefits for those at risk for Alzheimer’s disease. A fine plant for improving garden soil. Abundant production of delicious fava beans (Baker Creek)

Guatemalan Purple Large deep purple colored seeds from Guatemala. Produced well in our winter grow-out in Tucson and a spring growout on our Conservation Farm (4000ft). (Native Seeds/SEARCH)

D’Aquadulce a Tres Longue Cosse Beautiful black and white flowers attract many beneficial insects. Well-filled pods to 8’’. Beans have a warm nutty flavor, meatier than lima beans. Edible leaves. Very disease-resistant.  (Bountiful Gardens; leftover seeds stored since last year’s planting)

I ordered one more fava bean this week that I will plant as soon as it arrives; here is its description:

Nintoku Giant This variety’s yield is heavy. Most bean pods have 3 large seeds in a pod. Sow seeds in late spring in cold winter climate areas. For warm and mild winter climate areas, sow seeds in fall and harvest in spring. These sweet, tasty beans are especially prized in China and Japan, where they are parboiled and then stir-fried in oil with garlic. Boil beans and serve cooked as an appetizer or add to salad. Broad beans are extremely high in nutrients, including protein, iron and potassium. Maturity: Approx. 90 days  (Kitazawa Seed Co.)

The first tomatoes are up! [with new update at end] 17 March 2009

That’s right, the first tomatoes are up!  Three seedlings had appeared between my last check of the stove-fan-topping seed trays in midafternoon yesterday and my regular morning check.  There is one each of ‘Moyna,’ ‘Purple Dog Creek,’ and ‘Manyel.’  I added my last grow light to the seedling tray so that they could have consistent light while the other fan-topping grow light is lighting the two trays with no sprouts as yet (the peppers/chiles, cherry tomatoes, and tomatillos).

There are also more okra seedlings now – 5 of the 6 seeds of ‘Dwarf Green Long Pod’ are up, and 3 of the 6 ‘Burgundy’ seeds.  None of the other three okras have yet to sprout at all.  One of my favorite vegetable books, the out-of-print The Complete Vegetable Gardener’s Sourcebook, describes ‘Dwarf Green Long Pod’ as “prolific” and ‘Burgundy’ as “Ornamental as well as useful. Produces well even in cooler weather.”

I am fighting off a wannabe-cold, but yesterday I went out to do the first sowing of arugula, and today I hope to sow spring lettuce and spinach.  We’ll see how I’m feeling.

The tomatoes that have sprouted, as described by the source company:

MYONA PASTE TOMATO (Turtle Tree) 80 days. Semi-Det. HEIRLOOM paste. Given to us by seed collector John Rahart. His father got it from an Italian market gardener and found it so good he went back to ask what variety it was. The answer: “”It’s-a my own-a.”” Medium-to-large sized paste type. Delicious flavor and excellent yields. As we continually save seed and it adjusts to our climate, the fruits have increased in size. We encourage you to save your own seed!

MANYEL TOMATO (Amishland Seeds)  This just may be the prettiest and most perfect little yellow tomato I have ever grown. Prolific beyond words! It is purportedly a Native American heirloom. The name translates as “many moons” . Each and every fruit on this rather short vine with wispy leaves, was absolutely gorgeous and flawless. Not only is it a true lemon yellow color but it actually has a sweet lemony flavor, kind of like lemonade in a tomato! Very thin walls and creamy.They make a great golden yellow tomato sauce or salsa. The tomatoes grew in little clusters of up to 6 or 8 on tresses. Each 6 to 8 ounce fruit is about 2″ by 3″ or a bit larger as the season went on. This one started out very early and is still pumping out perfect little orbs of sweetness even today in late October in my Zone 6A garden. I never got so many tomatoes from such little plants! You can’t go wrong with this little lunar beauty as the fruits glow on the plants like small moons.

PURPLE DOG CREEK TOMATO (Amishland Seeds) – KY HEIRLOOM – This super big deep pink tomato was the biggest surprise of the season. Not only are they huge and everything wonderful in a tomato, but there is also truly heartwarming story about where they came from. This tale is what makes hunting for heirlooms such fun.”Purple Dog Creek” is a very rare family heirloom tomato from the tiny community of Dog Creek near Munfordville, inn Hart County, Kentucky. At a picnic supper given for a Martinsburg, West Virginia preacher and members of his church, these were served as a ”thank you” gift. They had gone there to help do some home improvements for the low income elderly people in that area. The tomatoes were such a hit that the preacher asked if anyone had seeds to share. One of the men at the church supper said he had grown those tomatoes and he went home to fetch the seeds. He gave those seeds to this preacher. They were then passed along to a friend of someone in his WV congregation who had heard about the Dog Creek charity work. And they continued to be passed along until I received them from my southern tomato collector friend, N.M. They are without a doubt one of the best big pinks I have ever had the privilege to eat. And trust me, I have eaten my share of wonderful big pink fruits. Indescribably delicious, I can’t come up with enough superlatives to cover their taste. Meaty and lovely and oh so large. Complex blend of sweetness with a deep purplish pink hue. (I am sorry that my photos don’t due justice their color, my camera tends not to get the purple/pink range of colors decently). These fruits were 1 pound (lb) or more and this was a very bad growing season here in Amishland with severe drought and unseasonably cold weather. I bet that in a good summer they would go up to 1 1/2 luscious pounds easily. I can’t suggest a new to me heirloom tomato with higher regard. Very scarce and hard to find.

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Update in afternoon

I checked the seedling trays again for watering needs and there are several more seedlings up!  There is a second ‘Myona’ tomato up as well as first seedlings for tomatoes ‘Graham’s Good Keeper’ and ‘Hartman’s Yellow Gooseberry.’  There are now also seedlings in one of the two other fan-topping trays!  There are three seedlings of ‘Chadwick’s Cherry’ cherry tomato and my first tomatillo seedling, ‘Toma Verde.’  Yay!