Friday, May 28, 2010

Tomatoes are in!

Well, yesterday was only a little exhausting. :-)
I planted all of my tomatoes and peppers and eggplants (aubergine).

13 tomato seedlings, 4 bell peppers and 3 Listadia Eggplants. All but the peppers were grown by me from seed saved last fall or the fall before. Some, like the Moonglow are the 3rd generation of these that I've grown and saved seed from.
2 Moonglow
1 Black from Tula
1 Mortgage lifter (maybe 2?)
3 Amish Paste
1 My Neighbor's Yellow/Red (still working on the name)
2 Soldaki (a nice early Russian variety)
3 seedlings that were volunteers in my containers. Who knows what they are and if they'll set fruit or not. Should be a nice experiment.
Observant readers will notice the lack of experimental plantings this spring. It's true, I'm aiming for boring and well-known (to me) veggies, with not much new this spring. I thought moving, combined with starting a new garden from scratch in a new town 1 zone colder might be enough challenge for my spring. I do think I'll try and do some experimenting this fall with extending my veggie production into winter. I want to look into both root veggies and greens, as before I've only done greens. I also want to start experimenting with seed production from biennial veggies. Crops like Cabbage, Carrots, Kohlrabi, Beets, Onions, Kale, Parnips, Leeks, Chard, Parsley and Turnip all need 2 years to produce seed. I have to dig up a healthy veggie in the fall, keep it in damp sand in a protected place (i'm thinking the large mudroom) for the winter, replant them in the spring and hopefully they'll send up seed stalks. So, expect more exciting experiments this fall. :-)

Here's the rest of the garden lineup so far:
Peas
Onions (yellow spanish)
Garlic (hardnecks are still in Des Moines, softnecks are planted here in Le Mars.)
Turnips
Radishes
Potatoes (Red and Yellow)
Carrots (assuming they ever sprout...)
Parsnips (assuming they ever sprout...)
Green beans (Purple bush variety)
Kale
Cilantro
Basil (green and purple)
oregano

Containers:
Kohlrabi
More peas
Morning Glory
Lettuce
Spinach
Borage
Parsley (assuming they ever sprout...)
Chard
Amaranth
Lavender
Night Scented Tobacco (if it survives the transplanting)


Still to be planted: (hopefully this weekend)
Squash (winter and summer)
cucumber
More basil and oregano
Cabbages

It's nice to see that list so much smaller. :-)

Enjoy your Memorial Day weekend. To remember those who have fought and died for this country, I plan to do something to lessen the need for wars. I plan to finish the garden, finish some sewing projects and balance our budget. Hopefully making my little family more stable and less dependent on foreign oil, which is the driving force behind most of our current conflicts.

Goddess Bless.

3 comments:

Brian Johnson said...

I love heirloom vegetables- We both have 6 varieties planted with no overlap. Right now I'm hoping my chilis go somewhere. The slugs really did a number on them.

Jennie said...

Awesome! I tried to grow some of the chili seed you gave me, but yet again I had no pepper love. I had great germination on my eggplant and tomatoes though, so I'm not sure what I could be doing wrong that those two will sprout but peppers wont. *shrug*
We'll have to compare tomato harvests and swap some seed.
I've heard you can repel slugs with crushed egg shell or diatomaceous earth put down in a ring around the plants.

Brian Johnson said...

I've been using diatomaceous earth like mad- it does work very well, but absorbs water quickly, losing it's effectiveness. I did find a pelletized iron phosphate slug bait that dissolves less quickly. I also bought a bottle of crap beer for some good old fashioned beer traps.

Yeah, my tomatoes are ridiculous this year and the cukes are already setting fruit. Not sure why the chilis are so slow to sprout and grow. New and old seed gave me the same results- slow/patchy germination. Fortunately I had some spare seedlings for filler/trade/sell.