Seed Trades Part II

I had a few more trades arrive the last few days so I thought I would share them this evening:

From Alex @ The Corner Yard came Black-Seeded Simpson & Iceberg Lettuce. I also received a bit of a surprise with a jar of her homemade apple conserve and a hanging froggy! The conserve tastes great and the frog will find a spot in the spring garden.

From Carol @ Annie's Kitchen Garden came Quadrato Rosso Pepper, Golden California Pepper, Kellogg's Breakfast Tomato, Vanilla Ice Sunflowers & Giant Tetra Snapdragons.

Today brought a package from Thomas @ A Growing Tradition. He sent Minutina, which is a hardy green and Italian Red of Florence Scallions. He also included a very nice card.

Again many thanks to everyone that has traded seeds with me so far this season :-)

Seed potato order

After ordering seed potatoes last year I was planning on having my own seed this year. Then we had the whole blight problem which ruined that idea. So this year I reordered from Eagle Creek Seed Potatoes. They are a Canadian company that offers a very good selection and at fairly reasonable prices. This year I will be growing the following varieties:

8 Pacific Russet's

4 Purple Viking's

4 Alaska Sweetheart's

There will be a total of 16 potato plants this season. They will be grown in real soil from the yard, with a little amending and traditionally hilled. No potato bins again! Given a conservative yield of 1.5lbs per plant the potatoes will cost $0.66 cents per pound, I am hoping for better yields though. Also with any hope this growing season will be blight free so next season my potato seed will be free.

Some snow finally

Woke up this morning to our first true covering of snow. It's been a long time coming, no snow in November and only a few dustings in December. We received about 2-3 inches which is just enough to fire up the snowblower. I am still waiting on the first big snowfall of the year, then I can shoot snow 40' in the air :-)

I have not checked on the winter veg for a while. The last time I looked everything was quite frozen. Saturday is supposed to bring -15c (5f) weather which should really freeze things up. The good news is late next week it is going about freezing so maybe I can harvest something finally.

First Seed Order Arrived

I was googling Opal Creek Golden Snap Peas and came across Adaptive Seeds. They have a good selection of interesting things in addition to the snap peas so I ordered a few things.

• Opal Creek Golden Snap Pea - golden coloured, fleshy pods
• Ear of the Devil Lettuce - Deer tongue shaped leaves with red tones, Slow to bolt.
• Red Fennel - Danish variety, hardy
• Pustagold Pepper - Sweet hungarian pepper, starts out cream coloured and turns from orange to red when ripe.
  
• Elefantenrussel Pepper - Yellow cayenne pepper, long slender fruit.
  

I still need to place a few more orders which I am hoping to complete soon to beat the rush. There is a few things to order from Pine Tree, a couple things from Seed Savers Exchange if they every come out of back order and the seed potato order. Planting is really coming up soon, the onions will be seeded late January. The cycle starts again...

Long time no post

I have been on a bit of a blogging break lately. For the past two and a half weeks we have been doing a lot of exploring with the camera which means lots of garden and blog neglect. Today I am breaking the cycle with an overall update of the winter crops. Some doing well and others not so much.

Bright Lights Chard, the older leaves have flopped but the inner ones are looking alright

Leeks, looking rather floppy. Will be interesting to see if they are any bigger by April.

The wee Tatsoi, it is growing more leaves but not necessarily getting any bigger.

Scallions, not looking very nice but still harvestable.

'Little Gem' Romaine, looks like we will be getting our New Years salad.

Mizuna, doing very well. Not much has been eaten yet though.

'Sugar Loaf" Chicory, it is taking the cold well but not producing like it should.
It is supposed to form a tall narrow head, It was started much to late I think.

Wong Bok (ie napa cabbage), again like above doing well but
not producing like it should. It needs an earlier start as well.

Red Celery, Most of it was harvested 2 weeks ago. What's left is still
doing really well though. We have had a few really cold nights, about
-15c(5f) before windchill and they have taken it well.

Spinach, this needs to be harvest soon. Lots of big leaves in their prime.

Mache, This also needs to be harvest soon. I am hoping
to make some nice winter salads over the next few days.

Lastly, here is the covered oak barrel. It contains four full heart batavian and

an assortment of over wintering herbs. Everything is looking rather freeze dried,
I think I need to get my water can out.