With the pre-germinated seeds potted up and the tray on top of a heat mat, I have been eager to see how long it would take for the seed leaves to break through.
Not long at all! It’s been only a week since the seeds were set up to pre-germinate, and here we are…
The Baked Potato squash have the most leaves emerged. There are some Mashed Potato squash pushing their way, or just visible, though the vermiculite. Even the Arikara squash is just visible through the vermiculate. Nothing visible on the Sunshine squash, yet. Nothing visible in the luffa, eggplant or peppers in the other tray, either.
Oh, and I checked the last luffa seed still in the pre-germination container. I gave it a squeeze, and it was hollow; just the shell left. So it’s 3 out of 4 seeds that successfully pre-germinated.
After taking the above picture, I pulled the winter squash tray out and rotated it on the heat mat, in case there were some warm and cold spots. The silver insulating material I put under it seems to be working; I could feel more warmth than when it was just the cardboard.
I have more of this insulating stuff left and was thinking of putting it around the drain pipe I was trying to clean out yesterday, in the general area where I think the gunk might be freezing. I know the bottleneck starts at about 6′ from the access point.
The problem is, for most of that area, access to the drain pipe is blocked by a heat duct and the frame built around the window on the inside, with a platform to hold a fan. It could be done, but I would definitely need someone else to give me a hand.
I’d also want to clean away the many years of dust, dirt and cobwebs first, too!
Though, now that I’ve looked at it, I am now doubting that ice could be the issue. There is that heat duct in the way. I would think any heat lost through the metal of the duct would be enough to keep things from freezing.
It wouldn’t hurt to have the pipe insulated in that section, though. I haven’t unrolled it, but there’s at least 6 feet of the insulating material left.
This stuff is turning out to be handy for all sorts of things, but insulating pipes is what the dimensions of this particular size of roll was designed for.
It seems to be doing well for keeping seed trays warm in a cold basement, too!
Also, she seems to now be more expecting and accepting of her wet cat food delivery. She didn’t growl at me this morning, as I used the food delivery back scratcher to drop it as close to her face as I could. She didn’t even bother leaving the cat cave while I was doing the kibble this morning, and simply waited, nursing her babies. Once the food was delivered, she didn’t hesitate to start eating, too.
This afternoon, she did leave her babies briefly after I came out with the second feeding of the day, but went back before I was done refilling water bowls. She didn’t growl at me until I stopped to try and get photos and video of her.
My younger daughter has been having a rough time getting sleep (with both cats and high pain levels to blame), so she ended up awake all night. This morning, she was a sweetheart and shoveled the plow ridge away, and cleared the end of the driveway before going to bed for the day. We haven’t bothered to try and clear the rest of the driveway, or the turn around space in the yard to back up to the house. Though our high of the day was just below freezing, it was bright and sunny, and things are melting all over. I considered doing the Costco run today, but decided against it.
I did make a quick trip into town and stopped at the hardware store to pick up a heat mat. Unfortunately, they were all out. I did stop at the grocery store for a few things, but I will do the Costco run tomorrow. There is a Canadian Tire across the street from the Costco I go to, and I’m hoping they will have a heat mat…
… because our pre-germinated seeds need to be potted up!
The first image has the 4 Sunshine squash and the 6 Mashed potato squash. As you can see, their seed leaves are emerging from the shells.
In the second image, with the 2 Arikara squash and the 5 Baked Potato squash, are just going wild with their roots, as well as the seed leave emerging!
In the last image, the luffa now has 3 out of 4 seeds showing radicals.
I have everything ready to pot these up, except a second heat mat. The eggplant and peppers won’t start showing for a while, yet, and those need to be on the heat mat. The luffa will go into peat pots, so they can fit into the tray with them and be warm, but the rest of the squash will be going into the large celled tray. I might have to just hang out in the basement with the heater on and warm things up. I can also use hot water in the tray to help warm up the seed starter mix, too. The basement, however, was at only 10C/50F when I went down this afternoon. That would be really warm, if I were outside in the sun, but in the basement, it feels cold!
Those germinated seeds need to be put into the seed starting mix, though.
I think I’m going to take the chance and just do that today, then go hunting for a second heat mat for them, tomorrow.
Well, it has stopped snowing – for now. We’re supposed to get a brief snowfall again later this evening.
I am so glad we got our first stock up shopping trip done yesterday. I got a call from home care saying there wasn’t anyone to do my mother’s med assist in the evening, due to unsafe road conditions. !!! The problem is, if the road conditions are too unsafe for the home care worker to drive to my mother’s town, it would be equally unsafe for me or my siblings to do it. After explaining the situation to the shift supervisor that called me, she said she would look into things can call me back. Thankfully, they were able to find a home care worker that didn’t have to drive into my mother’s town, and could juggle schedules so she could do my mother’s two evening med assists.
While waiting for her to call me back, I checked the road conditions, just to be sure. Our provincial government website for road conditions is notorious for not being up to date, so when I saw it listing our highway was “partially snow packed”, I checked a local highways group on FB. Some people had made the drive on the highway I’d be taking and things were certainly not very safe. Our gravel roads, of course, have not been plowed yet, but I did see cars driving past our place. The danger isn’t so much the snow, but that it’s snow on top of ice from our recent warm weather melting things all over.
So I was very, very happy and thankful when I got the call back saying they’d found a way to get my mother’s med assist done!
What better way to spend my time when it’s too snowy to do anything outside, besides shovel?
Work on garden stuff, of course.
With the basement being as cold as it is, I headed down to get the heater going and seeing what I could do to prepare for potting up the pre-germinated seeds. Premoistening the seed starter mix works great, but it has resulted in the mix being far colder than if it were dry. I set things up so that the heater was blowing right over my giant metal mixing bowl to help warm it up, along with the rest of the room. Then I checked on the seeds.
They are looking great! We have a near 100% germination rate!
In the first photo, we have the Sunshine squash. It’s hard to see on a couple of them, but yes, all four of them have radicals emerging. The other, with six seeds, are the Mashed Potato squash. It’s hard to see with some of them, but they have all germinated.
In the second photo, you can see that all three Arikara squash have germinated. The five seeds are the Baked Potato squash, also all germinated.
Next are the luffa, and so far, two of four have germinated. I would not be surprised if the last two also germinated by tomorrow.
In the last photo, I have a large-celled tray prepared and set up in front of the heater to pot all but the luffa into. That will leave three empty cells.
I might have to invest in another heat mat, though. That little heater can only do so much in such a big room! We don’t have any bigger heaters. The basements are not heated. The old basement is where the furnace is and it actually does get warmer. I considered setting up in there, but it doesn’t have enough outlets available to plug in a heat mat or grow lights.
For now, in the tray I’m using to hold the seed starts now, I made sure to add warm water to the base for the eggplants and peppers in peat cells. With the heat mat, the peat was drying out, which would draw moisture out of the seed starter mix, so I have to made sure those stay damp. The heat mat would also keep the water in the tray warm, which helps. The luffa will be potted up into individual peat pots, since they will be transplanted into large pots in the little portable greenhouse we got, while the winter squash will go into various garden beds. The luffa pots can go back to the tray the eggplant and peppers are in and will stay warm, but the second tray with the winter squash is going to need to be warmed up as well.
I should be able to get a second heat mat in town, but there’s no going anywhere today. Possibly tomorrow, if road conditions are improved. Otherwise, Sunday would be the earliest.
The seeds should be okay in their damp paper towels for now. Even if the first leaves start to emerge, they can be potted up. I just don’t want them to pot them up, only to get killed off by cold!
Well, we’ll see how it works out over the next couple of days.
I was happy to see an envelop from Vesey’s today. These were the part of a larger order I made that could be sent right away. It was just two packets of seeds, and one of them was flowers, but I did want to get the peppers started right away.
With a days-to-maturity of only 70-75 days from transplant, starting the Sweeties Snack Mix this late should be okay. This mix of small sized bell peppers are something I actually see regularly in the grocery store, sold in packages with red, orange and yellow peppers, just like what is supposed to be in this seed mix. I’ve even bought them a time or two, so I know the family enjoys eating them. Which is good, since these are the only peppers we’re growing this year. We still have both dried and frozen peppers from last year!
While I was handling the moistened seed starter mix, I could tell it was way too cold for the seeds. The thermometer I have set up on the work table reads a consistent 10C/50F – which may have felt warm while I was outside, felt cold while in the basement! The container I use to hold the pre-moistened seed starter mix, however, is enameled steel, and it was sitting on the concrete floor.
Oops.
I now have a different set up and it no longer rests on the concrete floor. Hopefully, that will make a difference for the next time I have to start seeds!
I brought down a little heater and set it up to warm things on my work table. Since I had to wait a while, I did some clean up in the root cellar. We didn’t get to the last of the winter squash in time, and a bunch had to be cleared away. I decided not to put them in the compost ring, though. Instead, I spread them out in different areas to see if they would seed themselves. It’s more likely that they will be eaten by critters, but if a few seeds survive, we might have “wild” squash plants growing.
Once those were out, I took the time to clean and sanitize the shelves before getting back to the seeds. The only things we have left in the root cellar right now are onions and garlic. We keep forgetting that they are there!
As for the peppers, because these are a mix, there’s no way to know how many of each colour of pepper we’ll get. Depending on the germination rate, I might thin by transplanting. They should be fine on the heat mat for now, but once things start germinating, I’ll have to find some way to keep things warmer in there, since I’m not about to leave a heater running unattended in the basement.
Ah, well. We’ll figure it out!
Meanwhile, we’ve started our earliest seeds for now. The net ones I start should be the tomatoes, and those won’t need to be started for at least a week. The seeds set to pre-germinate should be potted up, by then. Hopefully, the bulbs for the other light fixture will have arrived. Not only does that fixture have a built in timer, but it also puts off a bit of warmth. The one that’s down there now doesn’t seem to get very warm at all.
It should be interesting to see how things work out, in this year’s seed starting dungeon!
This is so much later than in past years, so we’ll see how it works out. We’re doing things a lot different this year!
While we are going to deliberately aim to have fewer transplants there year, I did plant extra seeds, just in case some don’t germinate. Of course, pre-germinating the larger seeds will make it easier to know if there are any problems with germination. With the eggplant, I used a 10 cell seed starting tray from last year and just filled it. Each cell has two seeds in it, though I think the very last seed I planted was actually two stuck together. Way more than we need, but we’ll see what the germination rate turns out to be.
I don’t plan to start any other seeds until the first week of April. Hopefully, some of the winter squash will have started to sprout before then, and can be planted. I am a bit concerned about the heat mat, though. It didn’t feel any warmer, by the time I left. I need to check it again later. It might not be working!
Okay, I just dashed down to the basement (… well… “dash” may be a strong word to use for me. 🤣) and checked, and yes, the heat mat IS working! I hope it’s got enough heat. The basement seems to stay at about 10C consistently right now.
This is way different than using the big aquarium as a greenhouse!
Well, we shall see how it works out. Worse comes to worse, I will sacrifice the heater in my bedroom!
While I was out and about today, I found myself standing in line at the grocery store, right near a seed display. So, of course, I went looking.
Yeah. I bought more seeds.
In going through my seeds, I was thinking of what slicing tomato to grow this year. I had decided on doing the Spoon tomatoes, and will make a point of saving seeds from those, but for the family, I wanted a slicing tomato and a snacking tomato. I saw the two varieties of black tomato seeds we grew a couple of years back, and somehow completely missed the packet of Forme de Couer tomatoes (I think it was stuck to the back of another seed packet) that we grew last year. The black tomatoes took such a long time to mature, I figured it was worth getting these to try.
Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes, which need only 40-59 days to harvest, after transplanting outdoors. In the next photo, you can read that this variety was developed in Alberta specifically for our prairie climate, is a determinate tomato and does not need staking.
The “It grows here” guarantee is a nice touch.
Well worth the try. Hopefully, it will even taste good.
After I finished doing my evening rounds early and tending to the new mama in the sun room, I got my daughter to help me take some things to the basement, then we went through the packets of tomato seeds together, so she could help choose one more variety.
We ended up with two.
For a snacking tomato, I’ll start some Chocolate Cherry tomatoes. My daughter, however, spotted the packet of Black Beauty tomato seeds. While these took forever to ripen, and had a tendency to split like no other tomato we’ve grown, she says they were the most delicious tomatoes we’ve grown to date.
So we will have two types of slicing tomatoes. One short season variety and one long season. Depending on how things work out, the Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes should be done and harvested just in time for the Black Beauties to start ripening.
That makes four varieties of tomatoes we will be growing this year, and I will make sure to NOT start too many seeds! With the different places we’ve tried tomatoes before, I have a better idea of where I will transplant these. Most definitely not in the blocks along the chain link fence, for starters! I figure I will shoot for four transplants of each variety. That should be enough for out needs, since we will not be freezing or canning any tomatoes we grow this year.
Either tonight or tomorrow, I will head back into the dungeon and set some seeds up to pre-germinate. The tomatoes will wait until the first week of April, but there are other things I can start now.
I have decided to go ahead and try the luffa again, after all. They will get transplanted into large pots and be kept in the new portable greenhouse we got for the entire growing season.
I will also start pre-germinating seeds for winter squash, but I think I’ll sow the Turkish eggplant right away into seed starting mix, rather than pre-germinate them. I don’t feel like pre-germinating smaller seeds. I will pre-germinate the melon seeds, but not until April.
Today, started bringing seed starting supplies to the basement, and went through some of my seed inventory for potential seed starts.
In past years, I would have had all sorts of seeds already started. Things have changed a lot with our winter sowing experiment. We have quite a variety of seeds already planted, taking up quite a few beds, which I need to plan around. I’m not going to assume we will have any new beds ready to plant in for this year, and will just focus on what we have ready right now.
With that in mind, here is a video I took while going through my bin of seeds that would be started indoors.
I won’t actually start seeds indoors until at least a week from right now, with some things to be started in April. That should give enough time for my seed orders to come in. Aside from a few varieties of winter squash, herbs and tomatoes I want to start, we will have the new varieties of eggplant, mini bell peppers and a honeydew melon I want to try this year. This time, I will not start as many seeds of each for transplanting this year! Last year, I had not expected to have 100% or near 100% germination rates on so many seeds. We had so many things to transplant, there wasn’t much space left for direct sowing.
I have decided I will go to a Walmart tomorrow to pick up a few things, and will pick up some seed starting mix while I am at it.
I forgot that the aquarium light with the timer on it has a bulb that needs to be replaced; this fixture holds two bulbs. For now, I have brought down the fixture with one larger bulb that came with our big tank. Meanwhile, I’ve placed an order from Veseys for a pair of 4 foot T5 bulbs. I’d had a hard time finding the right bulbs elsewhere and, when I did find them, they were shockingly expensive. Veseys had the best price I’d found, even taking into account the extra shipping cost for bulbs, but by the time I was ready to order them, the size I needed was sold out, and then I simply forgot about it. So those are now ordered and should be on their way soon.
The first day of spring is coming soon. I was planning to do our first “garden tour” video on that day, but I will be going to my mother’s. I might just do it tomorrow, before I head out, instead. We are supposed to have a steep temperature drop, from an expected high of 6C/43F on the first day of spring, to -10C/14F the day after. Things are going to be really slippery around the yard after all the melt! It’s already pretty treacherous in places, while I do my morning rounds.
Anyhow. I hope you enjoy the video. I used a new chest harness my husband got for me to hold the phone I was using to record video. While editing, I did find my voice was a LOT louder than typical when I record video, and had to adjust the audio volume down. When I had to sit down to continue recording, I was concerned things were too close to the camera, but I think it worked out okay, in the end. Please feel free to let me know what you think.
Okay, I did say, months ago, that we did not need to order seeds this year.
I also said that I knew I probably would order more, anyhow! 😄
I’ve placed two orders so far. One was with MI Gardener, and I just got the email notification that they have been shipped. I explain what I chose, and why, in this post. Most are “back up” seeds, in case our winter sowing experiment fails.
I also placed an order with Veseys, but this was more for the food forest. The seeds ordered were so that I could take advantage of a promo code to get free shipping. I explain what I ordered there, and why, in this post.
So, why am I ordering even more seeds?
I mean, besides the fact that I just want to… 😄
Well, this order is with Heritage Harvest Seeds. It’s actually been a couple of years since I’ve ordered from them. They are a small heirloom seed company that is even further north than we are, so as far as climate and growing season goes, I know anything I order from there should grow here.
Another reason is, more back up seeds!
This is what I ordered today. (all links should open in new tabs)
At the top of the list is Cream of Saskatchewan Watermelon. We tried growing these last year, and one one tiny little watermelon out of the only surviving transplant. I want to try them again, but this time give them more dedicated space, rather than having it share a bed with a whole bunch of melons. I do still have seeds left, but they are a couple of years old, so I want to have some fresh seed.
Next is the Arikara squash. This is a variety of winter squash I have been eye balling for years. I chose is specifically due to its rarity, with the goal of saving seeds. From the website description:
Originally grown by the Arikara Indians of North Dakota, This squash is oblong with pinkish orange skin and a green star on the blossom end. The Arikara Indians picked the blossoms and dried them for winter use. A very good storage squash that can be used for soup. (90 days to maturity) Extremely rare.
I may not grow these this year, as I have other winter squash we want to grow, and if I’m looking to save seeds, I don’t want to risk cross pollination. We shall see how things work out.
I also ordered more White Scallop Squash. We had issues growing them in containers last year – they simply did not germinate – but did finally get some in one of the garden beds. By then, it was so late in the season, I’m amazed we had any to harvest at all. The last of the seed went into the winter sown bed with all summer squash. These are back up seeds, in case none survived the winter.
In my MI Gardener order, I did order sugar snap peas. This time, however, I ordered Super sugar snap peas! 😄 From the website:
One of the sweetest and crunchiest snap peas available! The 3 inch pods are delicious eaten raw or cooked and are very productive. A favorite of all who try them! Tall vines to 6’ in height.
If we have the space, I’d like to try both varieties of sugar snap peas we’ll have this year. If we end up with space for only one variety, I’d like to try this one, first.
Last of all, I ordered two packets of Yukon Chief corn. Last year, we had two short season varieties to choose from. Yukon Chief and Orchard Baby. We did Yukon Chief first, due to it’s super short growing season. This year, we will be trying the Orchard Baby. Hopefully, if we can keep the racoons from eating them first, we’ll be able to save seed. We did really like the Yukon Chief, though, so I ordered two packets this time, for next year, and plan to save seed again.
One of the changes at Heritage Harvest is that they now have a $20 minimum order. We’ve never had problems with having our seeds shipped with regular mail, but apparently, others have. Solving the problem meant to have expedited mail with a tracking number, but the extra cost of that only makes sense with orders of at least $20. That brought our final cost to Cdn$36.50
Except it didn’t cost us anything. At least, not anything out of budget.
One of the payment methods is PayPal. This year, we actually got payment for ads on this blog (it took 3 years!), which was sent by PayPal in US dollars. It went into my personal PayPal account, and I left it there, so I used that to pay for this order. Which got converted to US$26.45 at the current exchange rate.
Which worked out quite well, I think.
So that’s what I got today; a combination of things to plant this year, and next year, and back up seeds, if the winter sowing didn’t work.
I have to admit, I had to mightily resist ordering more. They have the Tropeana Lunga onions that grew so well for us when we tried them a few years ago. I was also tempted by the Amish Bottle Onion, simply because of its rarity (and the shape, which I find easier to cut when cooking). I even seriously considered the Yellow of Parma onion, for its excellent storage and up to 1 pound size. We have so many of our own onions seeds, though – as well as seed producing onions – that we may never need to buy onion seeds again. I also want to try the Red Mangel, though that would for a time when we have animals, to grow as feed. There are just so many things I want to try!
This will do for now, though. We have more than enough seeds for this year, and years to come!
We just need to keep expanding the garden beds for now, and grow what we can in the beds we have available now.
Okay, I wasn’t really planning to buy more seeds this year. Not exactly.
With our winter sown beds, which are detailed in the video below, we actually have a lot already planted for this year’s garden…
… that’s IF they survived the winter.
If they didn’t, then we’re not going to have a whole heckuva lot at all, because I finished off seed packets in doing this method.
There are a few things that I am thinking to start indoors – especially now that we have the portable greenhouse – but other things I will likely buy as transplants in the spring. Decisions will be made in the spring for that.
In the end, though, I broke down and made an order with MI Gardener. I’ve been looking at Canadian seed sources but, in the end, it came down to price. I’ve been really shocked by how expensive some seeds have gotten, even with very low seed counts in the packages, at a number of the sites I’ve bought from in the past. Plus, some of the things that interested me were either sold out or no longer available.
I didn’t even make a large order. Just a few things, some of which I probably won’t even plant this year.
The first item in the list is red noodle beans. We tried growing these a few years back and ended up having a drought and heat waves that year. They grew, but I only found a single pod when I was cleaning up for the end of the season, and it was the saddest, skinniest little thing! Along with the bush beans I have winter sown, I want a pole bean and a shelling bean. We have plenty of bean seeds, but no red noodle beans, and I’d really like to try those out.
Next is Winter Giant Spinach. I winter sowed all our spinach seeds so, if they don’t take, this will be our fallback planting.
Next is Turkish Orange Eggplant. We grew Classic and Little Finger eggplant last year. This year, I want to try a different variety. I’m not sure we’ll grow them this year – we’ll see if the order comes in early enough to start them indoors – but it will be an option. If nothing else, we can try the portable greenhouse to extend the season.
I got a package of sugar beet, but don’t expect to plant them this year. I want to actually try and make sugar with them, so this is going to be one of those “fun” things I like to include in my garden every year.
We have more than one variety of carrots winter sown. We still have more Uzbek Golden carrot seeds, if the winter sown ones don’t take, but it would be nice to have another variety as a back up seed.
We did the Summer of Melons mix last year. This year, we still want to grow at least one variety of melon. My younger daughter prefers honeydew types over cantaloupe types, and this Green Flesh Honeydew variety seems to have a short enough growing season to make it worth trying. We have other melon and watermelon seeds already on hand we can try this year, but we will definitely be scaling back from the number we grew last year!
Next are some basic sugar snap peas. I have shelling peas already, and want to have both types.
Last of all…
Yup.
I’m going to keep trying!
I ordered some luffa seeds.
If they come in early enough, I might try them this year. I’m not completely decided on where we will set up the portable greenhouse but, once we do, I will try growing the luffa there in pots, rather than transplanting them into a garden bed.
That’s it, that’s all. A whole 8 items.
All of these together came to a grand total of US$23.50, including shipping. Granted, with our Canadian dollar tanking so much right now, it will probably be closer to Cdn$50, but that would still be less than if I’d try to order these, or similar varieties, anywhere else.
[update: the order was processed, and it came out to Cdn$34.82]
The other things we will need to order or buy for this year’s garden will be things like potatoes and fruit trees. They wouldn’t be shipped until closer to our local last frost date of June 2, so we have time. We just have to settle on what we will be getting this year, first.
I have never ordered from MI Gardener before, but have heard nothing but excellent things about them, so I look forward to getting and trying out these seeds this year!
It’s cold AF out there, which means I’m thinking of the garden!
We are doing things very different this year, though.
The first major change is that I winter sowed a number of garden beds in the fall. You can see what and where, in this last garden tour video of 2024.
In previous years, I would have already at least started onions and shallots by now, and possibly some peppers. With the winter sowing, however, I have – hopefully – a head start on all these. I combined old and new seeds in various combinations into shakers before scattering them onto prepared beds and deep mulching them.
This is what I’ve got already sown.
Garlic – saved cloves
Seed combo 1: root vegetables Carrots: Uzbek Golden and Napoli Beets: Bresko, Merlin, Cylindra and Albino Turnip: Purple Prince Radishes: French Breakfast, Champion, Cherry Belle and Zlata Onions: saved seed (mix of red and yellow bulb unions) Note: left over seeds from this mix were planted in a final bed with saved Jebousek lettuce seeds added in
Seed combo 2: Summer squash mix Sunburst pattypan White Scallop pattypan Magda Green zucchini: Endeavor Yellow zucchini: Goldy
Seed combo 3: Kitchen Garden mix Swiss Chard: Bright Lights and Fordhook Giant Spinach: Space, Lakeside, Bloomsdale and Hybrid Olympia Kohlrabi: Early White Vienna and Early Purple Vienna Bok Choi: Hinou Tiny (saved seed) Shallots: saved seed Onions: saved seed
Seed Combo 4: tall and climbing (mostly) Sunflowers: Mongolian Giant and Hopi Black Dye Peas: Dalvay shelling peas (not saved seed) and King Tut purple peas (saved seed) Bush beans: Royal Burgundy Corn: Montana Morado (saved seed) Onions: saved seed
Flower Combo 1 Nasturtium: Dwarf Jewel Mix Butterfly flower: Orange Shades (milkweed) Forget Me Not
Flower Combo 2 Western Wildflower Mix
Perennials: Strawberries: Albion Everbearing and an unknown variety of small strawberries, plus whatever survives in the asparagus bed Purple Asparagus Sunchokes Onions for seed
So that is quite a lot of stuff that’s already been sown!
In theory, because they were heavily mulched, plus have an added layer of snow to insulated them, these seeds should start germinated as soon as the soil warms up enough.
In theory.
There are two things that I expect will reduce the germination rates.
First, I used this as an opportunity to use up some older seeds. Most of the summer squash, for example, is seed that’s 3 or 4 years old. The white scallop squash were new for last summer, so those should have a higher germination rate. Considering how many seeds were scattered in one bed, having a lower germination rate is not a bad thing. It would have me from having to thin them.
Second, these polar vortexes we’ve been hit with. While all the beds were mulched, the temperatures got so cold, it’s entirely possible a lot of these seeds have been killed off. I still expect some to come up – the onion and shallots, beans and peas are, I think, most likely to survive the cold. At this point, however, I will be amazed if we get anything. In fact, I’ll even be surprised if our Liberty apple tree survived, for all that we made sure it was planted in a well sheltered microclimate.
In the spring, once the snow starts melting away, I will need to remove the mulch so that the soil can warm up faster. With some beds, like the one in the old kitchen garden, I am hoping to be able to put one of the covers over them with plastic to warm them up faster. With the summer squash bed in particular, I’m hoping to arrange enough hoops or something so that it can be covered for its entire 18′ length. That bed will also need extra protection from slugs.
Aside from these winter sown beds, this is the space we still have available.
In the main garden area.
There is the low raised bed that will eventually be paired with another bed, yet to be built, to form a trellis tunnel. Right now, one half of that bed was cleaned up and replanted with onions that we gathered seed from, last year. I was able to do all red onions along one half, and all yellow onions along the other. The other side of the bed is where we had melons last year, and that half is still open for planting.
That leaves three other 18′ beds that are available. One has the logs to frame it, and those will be permanently joined once things thaw out in the spring. The other two have no log frames, yet. We have some dead spruces that are either cut down or have fallen down that we can use for that, but that will be worked on throughout the summer, or until whatever we plant in the beds are too big to work around.
There is also the bed with the Albion Everbearing strawberries in it. Those should survive the winter. Given the trouble we had with deer eating them, what I will probably do, once the ground is thawed out enough, is transplant them into the old kitchen garden – more on that later. Once that’s done, the bed will be available for something else.
As we are able, we intend to add many more beds to this area, focusing first on the trellis beds to the East, then reclaiming what has been a squash bed for the past few years to the West. This will require harvesting more dead spruces for materials, so it may be slow going. Last year, we got very little progress done, largely because of the weather!
In the Old Kitchen Garden
There is just one rectangular bed in the old kitchen garden that is winter sown. That leaves the tiny raised bed, the retaining wall blocks and the long, narrow bed against it, and the L shaped wattle weave bed.
For the long bed at the retaining wall, I will be doing some changes. Along the inside of the bed, it is bordered with a couple of logs to make it a lower raised bed. The top log is too crooked, so we can’t raise the soil level any higher, as it ends up falling through the gaps. I’ve decided I will remove that crooked long, but keep the straight bottom log, and then harvest willow branched and coppiced maple to wattle weave on top of it. This bed also has some short logs on the ends of the retaining wall blocks. The vertical sticks we used to hold those in place have started to break up, so I will probably replace those with a wattle woven wall, as well. Once this is done, we can add more soil to make it a slightly higher raised bed and not have soil falling into the path anymore.
The short side of the L shaped bed is where I am thinking of transplanting the Albion Everbearing strawberries. Considering how well the strawberries we grew from seed are doing there, I think that will work out.
As for the strawberries that we grew from seed, in the long side of the L shaped bed, while they are doing very well and are very prolific, they aren’t that good of a strawberry. Those will be transplanted out, but I haven’t decided where, yet. It will be somewhere that they can be left to grow wild and spread naturally.
That bed also had thyme we transplanted in, and chamomile that self seeded, in it. It’s unlikely the thyme survived the winter, but it’s possible the chamomile self seeded again. We shall see in the spring.
The tiny raised bed needs no work on it. Just the cover needs some maintenance from the cats using it as a hammock.
Then there are the retaining wall blocks. A lot of them have mint in them that we expect will come back. The ones with chives in them will come back, for sure. As for the remaining empty ones, they don’t get a lot of light and the growing space gets overtaken by an invasive flower that comes in from below, very quickly, so we will need to give a lot of consideration over what can be planted in there.
Chain link fence
We have a similar issue with the chimney block planters at the chain link fence, except it’s elm tree roots, not flowers, that have invaded those blocks! These need to be treated as a container garden, when it comes to what gets planted in them. Nothing really seems to do well there. Partly because of the invading roots, but also the blocks themselves would also be making the relatively small amount of soil they hold more alkaline. We will need to make sure to continue to amend the soil with sulfur granules or other acidifiers, more than other areas (our soil is already quite alkaline).
The other chain link fence bed is winter sown, but in the fall, I’m hoping we can finally redo the bed with permanent walls. Right now, we have scrap boards against the chain link fence to hold the soil in, and bricks around the other side and the end that are simply resting on the soil. I want to make this bed higher – to make it easier on my back, if nothing else! I need to come up with something better to go along the chain link fence; the old boards I found were already starting to rot, so they won’t last much longer. For the rest of it, I wouldn’t mind doing more wattle weaving, but that needs a LOT of long, straight, narrow, flexible branches, and we just don’t have that. What we do have will probably be used up this spring when I add wattle weaving to the narrow bed in the old kitchen garden.
The next area at the chain link fence is the asparagus bed and the sunchokes. The sunchokes should be fine, and need almost no maintenance. The purple asparagus is likely a lost cause. We should have been harvesting asparagus for the past two years and, while some are coming up, spring flooding has really set them back. The strawberries interplanted with them try to do well, only to get eaten by deer, in spite of protective measures. There is nothing we can do about the spring flooding, even though it doesn’t flood there every years. We could try making a higher raised bed but I really don’t think it’s worth the effort to dig up the asparagus, build a higher bed, and replant them, in this location. Especially with elm trees so close, as their roots are so invasive. I still want to grow asparagus. We’ll just have to find a better place to do it.
The East garden beds
We currently have one winter sown bed in the East yard. That leaves two more 9’x3′ beds, plus a new 4′ square bed, available.
The compost ring is in this area, and I fully expect lots of things to start growing out of there this year! One year, we had lots of mystery hybrid squash show up. Last year, it was almost all tomatoes, though some potatoes (which never got harvested) also showed up. With what we’ve been tossing in there after preserving the harvest, I wouldn’t be surprised if more tomatoes, squash, melons and even bell peppers started to grow in there.
Those are the areas we will have available to plant in this year, right from the start.
There are a few things that I will want to start indoors for spring transplanting. Others, I will probably buy transplants, instead. Here are some things I’m considering.
Tomatoes: We ended up growing a lot more tomatoes than intended, and way more than we use. For this year, I’m thinking we will just grow a cherry or grape tomato for the family to snack on. We don’t need to do paste or sauce tomatoes again this year. If we do grow a slicing tomato, it will be just a couple of plants. We do have tomato seeds we can start, but are severely limited in space for starts this year, so I might just buy transplants. We shall see.
Peppers: we’ve been experimenting with short season varieties to figure out what the family likes, which had us growing away more than needed. We’ve saved some seed but, again, we don’t have a lot of space to do starts. If we grow peppers again this year, I will probably buy two, maybe three, transplants and that’s it.
Corn: last year, I tried a super short season variety. This year, I have seeds for another short season variety to try. Just enough to see if we like them. This year, I will see what I can to do set up supports around the corn before they get big, as we have a real problem with the stalks being blown over by high winds. We also need to find a way to keep the raccoons from eating them!
As for the Montana Morado corn that was winter sown, there were very few seeds. I’d collected the kernels from what plants survived when we grew them a couple of years ago, and we were intending to test them out as a corn flour. Before we could do that, the cats knocked the container over during the night, spilling it all over the floor. I’d swept them up and threw them away, not thinking that they could still be used as seed. Over time, I would find a few kernels here and there that got missed and saved those. If any of these winter sown seeds survive, I am hoping to use them to collect more seed. We shall see.
Peas: we have the shelling peas winter sown, but I would like to grow some edible pod peas, too. The family likes those better.
Beans: we have bush beans that are winter sown. I would like to grow at least one variety of pole bean, and one variety of shelling bean. We have lots of bean seeds to choose from.
Melons: we do love our melons, but this year, I think we will plant only one variety of melons, and one variety of watermelons. These would need to be started indoors, in late April.
Winter squash: last year, we tried the Wild Bunch mix and had such a high germination rate, we didn’t have the space to grow any others! Two 18′ beds were filled with winter squash. Last year, we also bought two varieties of winter squash my daughters wanted to try, so I want to try those this year. They will need to be started indoors around the end of March or mid-April. I’ll have to check the seed packets again to be sure.
Potatoes: normally, I would have ordered my potatoes by now, for spring delivery, but just haven’t done it. We do want to grow potatoes – and a lot more of them. I’m just not yet sure where we could plant them right now. If worse comes to worse, we can buy our potatoes from stores in the spring, instead of ordering them online.
Salsify: we got seeds for these a few years ago, but never got around to actually growing them. This year, I’d like to finally do that! I’ll have to double check the packages to see about starting them indoors or not.
Herbs: I have quite a few varieties of herbs. I need to check which ones need to be started indoors. The long term plan is for things like herbs, greens and other things we use in the kitchen frequently, to be grown in the old kitchen garden, since it is closest to the house. The problem is, we keep forgetting to actually use them!
Flowers: my daughter particularly want to grow flowers but, in my seed cache, I have a packet of Crego Mixed Colour Aster seeds. These were given out in the memorial cards of an old friend that passed away suddenly, last year. I would like to find someplace to plant them in her memory, this year.
Wheat: a few years back, I got a rare, heritage variety of Marquis wheat seeds. If we have a free bed, I would like to finally plant them. I only have a couple of packages, so we won’t have enough to use them for anything. I will be growing them solely to save more seed for future planting. At some point, we hope to reclaim enough growing area to plant a small field of wheat and have enough to actually use to make flour, and still save seed. Mostly, though, I want to keep a heritage variety alive.
So that’s the general plan for now. Very little is going to be started indoors this spring.
If the winter sowing doesn’t pan out, we’re going to have a much smaller garden!
It will be a few months before we will know of they survived these cold snaps. Hopefully, we’ll be able to tell early enough to know what seeds or transplants we’d need to buy to replace them, before it’s too late in the season.
For now, we have reached our high of the day; -20C/-4F, with no wind chill.
Time to warm up the truck and go to the post office!
