Slippery Elm Seeds

Every spring I notice something different in the woods.   Probably because things come on differently every spring.   The weather is fickle and a properly timed cool stretch slows things down so that even I can't miss certain things.

These are slippery elm [Ulmus rubra] seeds.   The bark of this tree is often used medicinally, to aid in the healing of digestive troubles.

2014 Vegetable Garden Plan

I love this pepper!   We grew it in 2012.  Food just tastes better when it smiles at you.    Don't you think?

We actually had a thaw here, so it's time to get serious about the garden plan for the year.   

So, here's the plan for the year.   I'll keep you posted about how things work.    For more garden info, see the links in the sidebar and the Garden tab above.




Beans

• Fava Beans:  Broad Windsor 
• Red Chinese long beans - Got original seed from BC.  Now I use our saved seed.
• Green Chinese long beans - Got original seed from BC.  Now I use our saved seed.
• Dragon Tongue [our saved seed]  
• Freshette green bean.  Got the seed from Rural King or Menard's.  I can't remember.

Beet:  Detroit Dark Red.   A rabbit or something got these last year, so I'm trying again - with fencing!
 
Carrot:  These will go in the cold frames as soon as the snow melts.     I'll plant them again in late August or September in the fall cold frames.

• St Valery
• Purple

Cucumber

• Telegraph
• Sikkim Cucumber:  We tried these from a farmer's market last year.  Weird, but good.
• Boston Pickling Cucumber

Eggplant:  Two new kinds for us this year.  I might throw in a few of the Japanese Pickling, too. 

• New York Improved eggplant
• Ping Tung Eggplant

Fennel:  Di Firenze - likes cool weather.   Plant in fall for December harvest and in late Feb for spring harvest.

Flowers:  zinnia (liliput), calendula [and probably some cosmos.  I love cosmos.]

Greens:

• Siamese Dragon Stir Fry Mix.  
• Bibb Lettuce

Herbs, Annual:

• Basil, Genovese
• Genovese red basil
• Basil, Lettuce Leaf
• Cilantro, Slo Bolt.  Got original seed from BC.  Now I use our saved seed. Mostly it self sows.
• Dill.  Self sows.  
• Thai red roselle- new for us this year.    You make a red tea [tisane, actually] out of it.  It sounded fun.

Herbs, Perennial [planted several years ago]

• Lavender:  My favorite is Impress Purple.
• Thyme:  Pennyslvania Tea Thyme is my fave, but we have several others, too.
• Sage
• Horehound
• Chives
• Anise Hyssop:  I love it and need to plant more. 
• Hyssop
• Chamomile [self sows]
• Alpine Strawberries
• Clary Sage
• Winter savory
• Lemon balm:  Will take over.   Keep a tight reign on it.
• Sorrel

Leek:  Autumn Giant Leek

Melon

• Charentais [cantaloupe]
• Uzbek Sweetness Melon
• White Wonder watermelon

Onions

• Egyptian walking onions:  They did not like the cool summer last year. Fingers crossed I still have some out there after this winter.
• Yellow of Parma onion
• Wethersfield red onion
• Ishikura onion

Parsnip:  Half Long Guernsey Parsnip

Peas:   Sugar Snap.  Love these!   Heat tolerant.
 
Peppers -We're shooting for sweeter, meatier peppers this year.

• Golden Marconi
• Red Marconi
• Melrose pepper
• Jupiter pepper
• Golden California Wonder pepper

Potatoes:  Kennebec  [or whatever is at Rural King]

Radish:   Early Scarlet Globe - the regular red kind.  Plant early and late in the cold frames.

Rutabaga: Laurentian Rutabaga  [First time with rutabagas]

Sweet potatoes:  Georgia Jet.  From our own starts.

Squash, Summer

• Zucchino Rampicante - No new seed this year, so we'll try planting last year's seed and keep our fingers crossed.
• Golden Marbre Scallop [pattypan]
• Lemon Squash
• Castata Romanesco [zucch type]:  Early set of fruit. Light.  Striped.  First one, June 30 last year.

Squash, Winter  [The last three are new, the others are from last year's seed.]

• Australian Butter
• Black Futsu
• Greek Sweet Red
• Golden hubbard
• Honey Boat Delicata
• Musquee De Provence
• Queensland Blue
• Rouge Vif D'Etampes
• Boston Marrow squash 
• Galeux d'Eysinee squash 
• Delicata squash

Strawberries

• June bearing [from May's]
• Ever bearing  [from May's]

Tomato

• Amish Paste
• Amana Orange
• Belize pink heart tomato
• German red strawberry tomato
• Uncle Mark Bagby tomato
• Pineapple tomato

Turnip: Boule d'Or turnip

Starting Seeds in Milk Jugs

Annual re-post:  Mini Greenhouse Seed Starters!   I love these and it's time to get them planted!

My genius friend Sharon told me about these a couple of years ago.    They're milk jugs.    You use them as mini greenhouses to start seeds in.   I use them for my peppers, tomatoes and eggplants.  

Start things early [in February, here] and they can stay all snug in the jugs until it's safe to plant them out in May.   In the meantime they can get big in these.

And they're double protected from goofy March weather because I keep these mini greenhouses inside the cold frames and hoop house where it's not going to freeze.

Genius, right?    I love them!



This is what you do.

Save your milk jugs.   Then cut them like this.  Cut all the way around but don't cut them under the handle.   This gives them a lid that stays on, but that you can bend open if you need to.

I cut them with scissors - just stab the scissors in right there under the handle and cut, cut, cut.

Then I poke holes in the bottoms using a skewer.  Or a screwdriver.   Or Lily's pocket knife because she always has it with her and my pocketknife is always in my purse.   Except for that one time that I took it out before I went on an airplane because I didn't want to be arrested for potential terrorism or have it confiscated because it's a cool little pocketknife. 

Poke lots of holes.  Maybe 8-10.

Usually I forget to poke the holes in the jugs until I have a couple of these full.   I hate that.   That's why I'm reminding you to poke your holes before you put the dirt in.

So don't forget.  

Then I fill the bottoms with this stuff.  From right to left:   chicken dirt, sand, potting soil. 

I love chicken dirt.   You can read about it here and here.

In this order, I put in 2 scoops of chicken dirt, 4 scoops of sand and 4-6 scoops of potting soil.

Or you can use plain old dirt.   It works too.

Then I plant my seeds and put labels in the jugs.

Don't forget the labels.   If you grow 6 varieties of peppers, you'll want to know which one is which.   Or not.   It might be fun to plant a big row and see what's what later. 

I spray everything down really well with a spray bottle full of water and I bend the lids back over to close them up so they stay nice and snug and then I tuck them in the cold frame or hoop house. 

Check them occasionally to make sure they don't dry out too much.    Seeds do not like dry.   Keep them moist.

This will give you a nice head start on veggie production for the season.   That's important when you have a kid whose only vegetable is tomatoes.   

New Seeds!

A few of the seeds I ordered for this year's veg garden.   I ordered from Baker Creek [www.rareseeds.com].

I'm going to try turnips this year among other things.    Last year was not a good year for my garden - poor strawberries, poor tomatoes, poor eggplant, etc.

I was thinking that the best eggplant are probably grown in the south, where it's good and hot and there's a very long season.   Then I heard a rumor that most of the world's eggplant is produced in New Jersey.   I checked the zone map here to find out what zone they mostly are. Most of New Jersey is in zone 6.    Interesting.  Perhaps it was just a good year for bugs last year and not a bad year for eggplant.   Given the cold we've had this year, I'm hoping the bugs are taking a good beating and that my veggies will do better.

Assuming it ever gets warm again, what will you be growing this year?  

Organizing Seeds

I finally found a way to organize all my seeds.   I put them in a photo box and then labelled the dividers for the categories that made the most sense to how we garden.

I use separate dividers for the normal stuff that we plant like peas and melons and squash and tomatoes and peppers, etc.

I combined the onions and leek type stuff.  Also all the greens.    Also the herbs.  Also the root vegetables because I want to try some new ones and they'll get lost if I put them under Parsnips, because seriously, who remembers parsnips??

So far I love the system.  Everything stays contained and I don't have to use rubber bands.  The seeds I save, I just put in envelopes and file with the others.

Now that I have this and the seed viability lists, I can toss out the old stuff that won't last and know exactly what I already have so I don't re-order any more than I really need.

Old Seeds

I have loads of old seeds.   Loads of them.    I never know which to keep and which to pitch.   Turns out a lot of other people have the same question every year and there are these wonderful charts to help me remember.

I found this chart at  http://awaytogarden.com/estimating-viability-how-long-do-seeds-last/

So.    I'll be pitching my old onion, parsnip and parsley seeds for sure.   And I'll be getting all new spinach seeds - maybe that's why we've had a problem growing spinach.  I was trying to use old seed...

When I was going through my box of seeds, I realized that I had a bunch of herb seed that was aging as well.   Here's a list of herb seed viability rates from The Herb Gardener:  http://theherbgardener.blogspot.com/2013/01/seed-longevity-herbs.html

• Angelica - 6 months (21 - 30 days)
• Basil - 5 years (14 days)
• Borage - 4 years (14 days)
• Caraway - 3 years (18 days)
• Catnip - 3 years (30 days)
• Chamomile - 3 years (18 days
• Chives - 2 years (10 - 20  days)
• Cilantro - 2 years (21 days)
• Coriander - 4 years (21 days)
• Fennel - 3 years (18 days)
• Lavender - 2 years (21 days)
• Lemon Balm 3 years (21 days)
• Marjoram - 2 years (15 days)
• Mint - 3 years (30 days)
• Oregano - 4 years (30 days)
• Parsley - 2 years (30 days)
• Rosemary - 3 years (14 - 28 days)
• Rue - 2 years (21 days)
• Sage - 4 years (28 days)
• Summer Savory 2 years (28 days)
• Thyme - 3 years (21 days)

It's nice to have these lists on one page now.   I hope they help you plan a great garden this year!

Uzbek Sweetness Melon

This year I tried two new melon varieties [new to us, that is].  Charentais and Uzbek Sweetness.  

I got both types from Baker Creek  and if you've never perused their melon selection, go there now and check it out.   A. May. Zing.

The cat dug up the Charentais.  Twice.  [Yes, I threw a fit. Plus,  I swore at him.  He was completely unmoved.  Except when I caught him in the act and threw him bodily out of the garden.  Then he moved plenty.]  I planted them again but by the time they came up, there was a lot of competition in the bed from the other stuff in there.  They stuck it out and I do have one tiny fist-sized baby Charentais in there now.  We'll see if it does anything before frost.   It's the traditional French melon, supposed to be the mother of all muskmelon.   I'll try these again next year.



The cat left the other melon alone and the Uzbek Sweetness did just fine in spite of the cooler weather.  I got three nice melons.   It turned bright orange when ripe - I love that color!   Definitely an Eat Me Orange. 

And eat it I did.  

When I bought the seeds, there was no picture, so I was going on faith and I was interested to see that the insides were white with a peach tinge around the seeds. 

These babies are seriously sweet.   SWEET.  The flesh is firm.

I read later where some people consider these sort of like a honeydew but I'm glad I didn't know that before because I don't like honeydew.  I would never have tried it, and I'm so glad I did. 

Uzbek Sweetness is my new favorite melon!   I saved some of the seeds and I'll definitely do these again.

Seedpod

One of the things I love best about spring garden cleanup is all the cool stuff I find on the plants. 

This is just beautiful.  

It's a seedpod from a daylily, 'Stella D'Oro'

You couldn't plan something that gorgeous.    [At least I couldn't.]

I think the black seeds still inside make it even better.

Peas Planted

I soaked these seeds [from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds] for a few hours in warm-ish water while we prepped the beds.   I planted loads of these this year.  And then it rained.  Mother Nature's seal of approval, no doubt. 

This variety is our favorite.   They were very heat tolerant last year - we had them even until the middle of June in all that heat.   When these are done, I'll rip them out and plant basil.   Mmmmm.

Mini Greenhouse Veggie Starters

My genius friend Sharon told me about these a couple of years ago.    They're milk jugs.    You use them as mini greenhouses to start seeds in.   I use them for my peppers, tomatoes and eggplants.  

Start things early [in February, here] and they can stay all snug in the jugs until it's safe to plant them out in May.   In the meantime they can get big in these.

And they're double protected from goofy March weather because I keep these mini greenhouses inside the cold frames and hoop house where it's not going to freeze.

Genius, right?    I love them!



This is what you do.

Save your milk jugs.   Then cut them like this.  Cut all the way around but don't cut them under the handle.   This gives them a lid that stays on, but that you can bend open if you need to.

I cut them with scissors - just stab the scissors in right there under the handle and cut, cut, cut.

Then I poke holes in the bottoms using a skewer.  Or a screwdriver.   Or Lily's pocket knife because she always has it with her and my pocketknife is always in my purse.   Except for that one time that I took it out before I went on an airplane because I didn't want to be arrested for potential terrorism or have it confiscated because it's a cool little pocketknife. 

Poke lots of holes.  Maybe 8-10.

Usually I forget to poke the holes in the jugs until I have a couple of these full.   I hate that.   That's why I'm reminding you to poke your holes before you put the dirt in.

So don't forget.  

Then I fill the bottoms with this stuff.  From right to left:   chicken dirt, sand, potting soil. 

I love chicken dirt.   You can read about it here and here.

In this order, I put in 2 scoops of chicken dirt, 4 scoops of sand and 4-6 scoops of potting soil.

Or you can use plain old dirt.   It works too.

Then I plant my seeds and put labels in the jugs.

Don't forget the labels.   If you grow 6 varieties of peppers, you'll want to know which one is which.   Or not.   It might be fun to plant a big row and see what's what later. 

I spray everything down really well with a spray bottle full of water and I bend the lids back over to close them up so they stay nice and snug and then I tuck them in the cold frame or hoop house. 

Check them occasionally to make sure they don't dry out too much.    Seeds do not like dry.   Keep them moist.

This will give you a nice head start on veggie production for the season.   That's important when you have a kid whose only vegetable is tomatoes.   

The Official 2013 Planting List

Here's a list of the seeds I've got for our 2013 veg garden.

Notes:  Seeds come from BC=Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, unless indicated.  I've listed the exact variety of each plant, where I know it.  There are some that I've lost or never knew.   I saved some of my own seed from 2012 and I've noted which of our own seeds we're trying this year.  

Beans 

• Fava Beans - Broad Windsor
• Red Chinese long beans - Got original seed from BC.  Now I use our saved seed from 2012.
• Green Chinese long beans - Got original seed from BC.  Now I use our saved seed from 2012.
• Dragon Tongue [our saved seed from 2012] 

Beet

•  Detroit Dark Red - this is my first year trying beets.  Wish me luck!

Cucumber

• Telegraph
• de Bourbonne [tiny ones]

Eggplant

• Japanese Pickling:  Very heat tolerant!
• Florida Market Eggplant

Fennel:  Di Firenze

Flowers:  zinnia (liliput), calendula [and probably some cosmos.  I love cosmos.]

Greens:  Siamese Dragon Stir Fry Mix

Herbs, Annual:

• Basil, Genovese. Water seeds daily until they sprout.
• Basil, Lettuce Leaf..  Water seeds daily until they sprout.
• Cilantro, Slo Bolt.  Got original seed from BC.  Now I use our saved seed from 2012.

Herbs, Perennial [planted several years ago]

• Lavender
• Thyme
• Sage
• Horehound
• Chives
• Anise Hyssop
• Hyssop
• Chamomile [self sows]
• Alpine Strawberries
• Clary Sage
• Winter savory
• Lemon balm
• Sorrel

Leek:  Autumn Giant Leek

Melon

• Charentais [cantaloupe]
• Uzbek Sweetness Melon

Onions

• Egyptian walking onions 
• Local starts:  red and yellow 

Parsnip:  Half Long Guernsey Parsnip  [First try at parsnips.]

Peas

• Sugar Snap:   Hardy and prolific.  Heat tolerant. 

Peppers -We're shooting for sweeter, meatier peppers this year.

• Golden Marconi
• Red Marconi
• Ozark Giant
• Quadrato D'Asti Rosso
  

Potatoes:  Kennebec.   From May's [local]

Radish:

• rat's tail.  Delicious!!  Fun, very prolific.  Heat tolerant.  
• Early Scarlet Globe - the regular red kind

Rutabaga: Laurentian Rutabaga  [First time with rutabagas]

Sweet potatoes:  Georgia Jet.  From Bloomingfood's

Squash, Summer

• Zucchino Rampicante - No new seed this year, so we'll try planting last year's seed and keep our fingers crossed.
• Golden Marbre Scallop [pattypan]
• Lemon Squash
• Castata Romanesco [zucch type]:  Early set of fruit. Light.  Striped.  First one, June 30.

Squash, Winter

• Australian Butter
• Black Futsu
• Greek Sweet Red
• Golden hubbard
• Honey Boat Delicata
• Musquee De Provence
• Queensland Blue
• Rouge Vif D'Etampes

Strawberries

• June bearing [from May's]
• Ever bearing  [from May's]

Tomato

• Amana Orange Tomato
• Amish Paste: 
• Brave General Tomato
• Black Cherry Tomato
• Hillbilly [Flame]

Seeds for next year's garden!

I kind of jumped the gun this year.    I already bought the veg seeds for next year - even before I got the catalog in the mail.

Ridiculous, I know.    I couldn't help myself.  

Then the catalog came!   This is the new Baker Creek catalog.  It's beautiful - and everything in it looks delicious.  

It's hard to decide what to get - Hard!, I tell you.   And truthfully, for me it's really a matter of deciding what not to get.

Sigh.

Here's a pic of a few of the things I got for the veg garden next year.  

Because I needed four different kinds of peppers.  And eight different kinds of winter squash.  And five different kinds of tomatoes.

What's on your garden wish list? 

Garlic Chive Seeds

This is why the garlic chives spread so well.   Blow the pic up to see how gorgeous these seed heads are.   And notice the number of seeds.

We started out with one plant. 

One.

Now they're trying to take over.   

I'm kinda happy about it.

Bush Beans and Pole Beans

These are my beautiful bean vines.  [That's the morning sun hitting the trees behind them. And you can just see the chicken coop on the right.] 

Last year I saved some seeds from the beans I grew.   I saved some dragon tongue bush beans and some kentucky wonder bush beans.  

And when I planted them this year, they came up!

I was so excited.   Seeds are kind of a whole different ball game from just watering a plant.

Seriously.

Anyway, my beans came up with 100% germination rate, which was really great and which meant that I had planted way too many because I do that, just in case, and so I had to pull out every other baby bean plant. 

It's good for me to practice thinning things.    I tend to over crowd things and they just grow better if I thin. 

So I thinned. 

And I still had a lovely row of each kind of bean. 

And then something interesting happened.   The green Kentucky wonder bush beans got awfully long. 

And then they got longer.

Some of my bush beans threw seeds for pole beans.   Also, some of my green beans had flat pods like the dragon tongues, but green. 

Even though beans aren't supposed to interbreed accidentally like that, these beans must have had a lot of genetic diversity and also been highly suggestible.    I'm thinking the dragon tongues talked them into the whole flat pod thing that one weekend last year when we were in Michigan. 

At any rate, we put some fence posts in the row, laid some strong twine from post to post and tied our beans up.   About half of them are happily climbing higher and higher.   The other half are still bush beans. 

The heat has meant that they've been spotty setting bloom and seed.   The dragon tongues seemed to tolerate the heat a bit better, but there are a lot of blossoms on all the beans now, so I'm hoping we'll get a second late harvest.  

Seed to Seed

photo: amazon.com.

I've been looking over this book trying to decide if I need to buy one for my own library or just borrow the local library's copy when I need it.


I decided I need one for myself.


I find the book practical and friendly.   It'll be on my bookshelf before harvest time next year. 

The book is divided into plant families.  There are clear instructions for when and how to collect and store seed.   There is a great description of how to pollinate squash plants yourself to prevent cross pollination with other types of squash.

Persimmon Seeds

I am going to try to grow a persimmon tree [Diospyros virginiana] so that I don't have to bother the neighbors to get some off their tree  the ground under their tree. 

So the last few persimmons that K2 brought me from the neighbors got saved. 

Saved and washed.   Washed and rinsed.   Rinsed and dried. 

Persimmon seeds are quite beautiful when they're clean.   They're not so pretty when they show up elsewhere.   But they're really pretty when they're washed and ready to be sprouted. 

Eric looked up what we have to do to sprout the seeds and this is what we learned.

1.  Gather the seeds in the fall.  
2.  Stratify the seeds at 40 degrees for 2-3 months.  [i.e. keep them cold during the winter]
3.  Sow in the spring.   they prefer 70-85 degrees for germination. 
4.  Plant at a depth of 2 inches and mulch the seedbeds.  
5.  Seedlings will have a strong taproot.  Since taproots do not like to be disturbed, the seedlings should be planted where you want them to be at the end of the first season.


This means that we're going to put them in a plastic bag in the fridge until spring.    Then I'll plant them at the same time I plant the melons, which also love warm soil.    After the first season, we'll decide where we want them permanently and plant them there.  

Then my persimmon trees will burst forth with growth and in about twenty years I'll have my own persimmons.

I can't wait. 

Bean Seeds

I saved some bean seeds for next year.    

I learned from Caleb Warnock's new book that beans breed true, even when you're growing a bunch of different kinds in the same garden.   [Not true of squash or corn or beets....].    I feel pretty confident that when we plant these next year, we'll get the same kinds of beans.  

This is what I learned from my experience.   Let the pods get crispy dry on the vine before you bring them in.    They'll finish drying inside, but they'll be most of the way done.   The soft pods have good seeds, too, but it will take a lot longer to get them completely dry.   Let Mother Nature do as much work for you as possible.

Here are the dragon tongue beans, striped just like the pods are.

And here are the red long beans and green beans.   I'll let you figure out which is which.

If I'd had a lot more space and patience and dry weather, we could have saved enough to use in soups.   However, since it's so hard to dry things at all here, we're only saving enough for next year's seed. 

Onion Seeds

I'm working on saving a few seeds this year.   Not an easy task here where the weather gets so humid. 

I can't tell you how many times I've 'dried' seeds, only to find them growing mold 3 months later.    Clearly, I'm not doing something right.   

The remedy is to practice, practice, practice.     This year I'm saving onion seeds.

I planted onions from sets in the Spring, and I got a lot of great onions.   One of them sent up a gorgeous flower and I enjoyed looking at it so much that I didn't cut it.    Later, I realized that I could let it go to seed and then save the seeds.  

Here's a close up of that gorgeous flower in July.

How perfect is that?!   

Now, it's matured and set seed.    I left it in the garden until it turned brown and the seed pods started opening on their own.   The seed is good and mature now, ready to start out on its own.

So, I cut it down and shook the seeds into a bowl.    In a week, I'll put them in an envelope, clip it closed and label it with variety and date. 

I've heard rumors that you can put seed in the freezer to keep it good and dry.    Does that really work?   It won't kill the seeds?   Please comment if you have some experience with freezing seeds!

I"ll likely plant these onion seeds in the cold frame this fall to let them grow all winter.  I hope that they're mature enough to use as sets in March or April.

Melon - Sweet Passion

They're starting to get ripe!    This is what they looked like last week.....

And this is what they look like when we open them...

These are an heirloom melon that I grew from seed I got at Baker Creek.   I highly recommend these!   They're delicious - very sweet, just like the name says.   They're not too big [about a 6" diameter], so if you get a bumper crop, you'll be able to eat them all.  

Pick them when they turn tan and when the stem starts to detach from the fruit.  

I'll be doing these again next year.

Seeds -Vegetable

Seed buying is my favorite part of gardening season.  All that anticipation and potential, no failures.  Until the ground thaws, all those seeds have to do to succeed is just stay in that cute little packet.   All I have to do to succeed is let them.    I can do that.

This is my favorite seed company:  Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  Their catalogs are full of descriptions that make my mouth water and which make for great reading-aloud while my husband fixes dinner.  They make me want to try new things.  And we have!   Last year we discovered how wonderful Dragon Tongue beans and Purple Okra are. This year, we're going to try growing our own tomatoes and onions from seed. [I'm terrified.]  We're also going to try zucchini rampicante and a couple of new melons.  I spent an obnoxious amount of money on seed this year, but I am confident that I'll more than make up for it in great food.

What are you going to plant this year?