A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

They look like unicorn horns! my daughters would love that!

Hahaha, that is the most creative interpretation I've seen yet re: their appearance, certainly much nicer than grubs.

 

[heirloomgal]

I saw this tonight and thought of your salsify post @digitS', I bought seeds from 2 places and this photo is from one. So, it would appear that in fertile garden soil they can get a fair size! Kinda glad I stumbled on that.

 

[heirloomgal]

And on that topic I found this, which I'm also kind of thrilled about because they too seem a really good size - the Blue Fiore salsify. I need to do more research on it because it's a different species and I barely did my homework when I ordered seeds for these. I like the look of 'em! The name throws me, I was calling them 'sol-sih-feye' but I guess its pronounced 'suhl-sih-fee'.

 

[heirloomgal]

One of the hopes for this season is this rhubarb variety will finally catch, 'Holsteiner Blut'. (Ghastly name!) It will be 2 or 3 this year, geez I can't remember, but old enough to be gaining in size - which it hasn't. I have a few kinds of rhubarbs and must say that of all of them, 'Victoria' (which was developed in England), is my favorite. The stems never get huge, but they produce an obscene amount of deep red small to medium stems. Extremely high yields for a rhubarb plant. Really good heat tolerance too.


Year 3 with wolfsbane and I can't quite figure out what's happening with it. All three of the plants I put in are different sizes, but they were all the same when transplanted. Why is one so much bigger? I almost wonder if I need to remove the smaller two. And it still hasn't flowered yet!


This is the beauty of fresh onion seeds, which I got from my garden bestie. I think it's an annual, it's called Red Beard. Pouring the entire packet in 3 small pots was probably a bad idea. I knew they'd spout well, just not this well. But if anything does okay crowded its probably onions.

 

[heirloomgal]

Had some fun planting tonight. Such an enjoyable experience to sow seeds, and I managed some thinning too on my vigorous nicandra seedlings, all the fruits, and the Limoncello basil. The pile of basil cuttings smelled like absolute heaven when I was done, lemon verbena meets...well I'm not sure. But I think I may just pile the thinnings in a dish and put in on the nightstand tonight so I can dream in Limoncello.

Navajo Sunset Hummingbird Mint, Oklahoma Salmon Zinnias, Cherry Brandy Rudbekia (annual type), Celway Terracotta Amaranth (what a rip this one was, barely 10 seeds in the pack for $5 and some of them had this yellow powdery coating, some kind of clay I think) Oakleaf Red lettuce and Tzimbalo.

I decided to regrow it, even though I still have seeds to see what it's like as an outdoor plant. It's the funniest thing, I always grow it in the greenhouse in a window box where it grows to a foot high. But I sent some seed saver friends seeds and they grew it in their garden where they said it got to 5 or 6 feet! And it also never matured fruit that way either. So, in a bigger pot outdoors it's going to go and we'll see what it does. Amazing though how variable it can be in size depending on how big the root system can get!

Until I dug up the photos for this post I had no idea that these were all similar in color.

Another funny coincidence, one of my tomato transplants for some reason is WAY bigger than the others, by a long shot. I keep doubles or triples of each tomato seedling variety until planting time just in case there is an accident of some kind, since I may have only 2 or 3 seeds left of any variety. And the only tomato in this years lot that is my last seed is Damskie Palchiki, that seedling is all have left of that variety. And wouldn't ya know it's that seedling which is towering above the others.

 

[heirloomgal]

Complete weather misery. Awful. So cold I can't even put the transplants outside, aside from the perennial seedlings. And even those I'm bringing in at night to the sunroom. The greenhouse is barely warm enough the last couple days, its not really worth the bother of carrying all the trays there. -2C/28F tonight. Blech. The transplants are starting to suffer not getting out of the house, a waiting game. Good weather now seems to have pushed off to Friday.

I've run out of trays and cell packs having started so much, I cant recall that happening aside from the bean starter pots. The pink skirret continues to erratically sprout, so I'm quite happy about that. Thinned half of the basils and repotted, which felt great. 2 more trays to go.

The weather forecast seems so shifty this year. I really wonder if the Grand Solar Minimum is finally messing with the projections, as the predictions are based on past weather data. Drifting into a cooler cycle seems to be making the collected data less relevant for forecasting.

 

[Decoy1]

In eastern England quite similar so I sympathise. Cold days as low as 13C maximum and a frost this morning, hopefully the last. Rain forecast for the rest of the week which is welcome as the ground is still quite dry.

 

[heirloomgal]

Great news, that has nothing to do with gardening. The entire coffee shop industry here is controlled by the Tim Horton's franchise. It no longer has any meaningful competition. I won't even get into all the problems with the place, but it can be rightly called a national disaster of the highest order. And everyone is addicted to the drinks, including me, lol. I just read today that DUNKIN' DONUTS is returning to CA. Hallelujah! I hear angels singing.

Of course I don't eat donuts, my vested interest is Early Grey only. But I do love a hot cup twice a day and if I could get it somewhere else I'd be thrilled. Been wanting to quit The Earl for many years now, and have done it a few times, but somehow I always wind up back to it again.

 

[Rillowen]

Great news, that has nothing to do with gardening. The entire coffee shop industry here is controlled by the Tim Horton's franchise. It no longer has any meaningful competition. I won't even get into all the problems with the place, but it can be rightly called a national disaster of the highest order. And everyone is addicted to the drinks, including me, lol. I just read today that DUNKIN' DONUTS is returning to CA. Hallelujah! I hear angels singing.

Of course I don't eat donuts, my vested interest is Early Grey only. But I do love a hot cup twice a day and if I could get it somewhere else I'd be thrilled. Been wanting to quit The Earl for many years now, and have done it a few times, but somehow I always wind up back to it again.

Wow really? It's almost all Starbucks here. I only saw a tim Hortons once, when i went to MN. We have a few smaller coffee shops too. I dont go to any of them though, I like my caffeine without sugar and added addiction lol

 

[heirloomgal]

When I planted my 'Celway Terracotta' celosia seeds I was a bit miffed, and didn't think the seeds would sprout because they looked worse for wear with all the yellow powdery protective coating at the bottom of the packet. And 10 seeds, gosh, that seemed so stingy to me considering the packet was $5. But they're sprouting already, so I have no reason to bellyache. It's looking like they're fresh seeds and 10 might be alright afterall. I'm pretty pleased that is working out so well.

The 'Double Red' corn is sprouting in their cups too! Excited to see this corn in the flesh! I'm planting it in the new bed in the front yard so I do hope the foliage might show a bit of the red coloring for decorative flair!

The 'Oklahoma Salmon' zinnias are all sprouting too, I got really lucky with this last batch of seeds. I also planted some little 'Kiku Chrysanthemum' melons, and a variety of cucumber called 'Black Diamond'. It's a type that seems to have unusual keeping qualities, which is a gripe I have with fresh cukes. They perish a bit too quickly for me. This one is an American heirloom from the 1920's, rather rare it seems.

Last interesting thing I seeded this weekend was Aehobak, which a seed trading friend in Spain sent me. I'm quite excited to grow it! One of the problems I always had with regular zucchini plants was their huge bushy mass - not an easy accomodation for a smaller space gardener like me. But Aehobak grows like a cucumber vine, so I can control and/or direct it better. I may have it climb a trellis. It's a Cucurbita moschata , unlike most zukes which are pepo's.