Is it Spring yet?

It may be cold here  but I have visions of spring dancing through my brain! I just placed my main seed order for this year’s garden this morning. Here is a list of what we are planning to grow. I placed the order with High Mowing Organic Seeds.

 

Provider Bush Snap Beans

De Cicco Broccoli

Red Express Cabbage

Luscious Bicolor Sweet Corn

Green Finger Cucumbers

Salad Bowl Lettuce

Moon and Stars Watermelon

Delicious Melon (cantaloupe)

Sugar Daddy Snap Peas

King of the North Peppers

New England

Pie Pumpkins

Partenon Summer Squash (zucchini)

Success Straight neck Squash

Amish Paste Tomatoes

Roma Paste Tomatoes

Waltham

Butternut Squash

 

I also ordered some inoculants for the peas and beans. I’ve never tried using this before but I read that it can bring good results so I decided to give it a try. Last years garden was a complete experiment for us. I have a fair bit of book knowledge about gardening but have never had the opportunity to try my hand at the real thing. I have to say our garden last year was not the prettiest thing – in fact it was one of the ugliest and weediest around. But what we grew did pretty well and the things that didn’t do well we were able to see why and learn from our mistakes. We have high hopes for this year’s garden as you can see from the expanded seed list. Last year all we grew was tomatoes, peppers, beans, zucchini, summer squash, watermelons and pumpkins. I say that’s all we grew but looking at the list typed out it seems like much more than it did at the time. We had so much unused ground last year that just grew weeds and this year I want to fill up our whole plot. Our last frost date around here falls around the end of the first week in April so I am planning to get seedlings started in the bedroom here in the next couple of weeks hence the seed order. I still need a few more things – I only ordered paste tomato seeds from High Mowing because they didn’t really have a slicer variety that interested me. The Romas and the Amish paste did really well for us last year but the slicers we chose didn’t do well at all. If anyone has a favorite drop me a line and let me know – we live in Zone 7 right on the border between a and b.

 

Not a whole lot else has been going on with us – Christmas came and went with very little fanfare especially as I managed to get very sick on Christmas Eve and so I hardly remember Christmas day at all. I think it was okay. I managed to take two weeks off from work by hoarding vacation days throughout the year – really it was only seven vacation days counting the days everyone was off for Christmas and New Years but it sure felt nice. After getting over being sick and going to various houses for the holiday I pretty much stayed at home and vegged out. Sat on the couch and knit. I did some cooking and baking and hubby and I went to see an extravagant number of movies. It was heaven. I wish I could do it again.

 

One of the things I knit on over the holidays was a reknit. I knit klaralund from some silk garden noro ages ago but never wore the sweater more than a couple of times. I hated it because I loved the yarn and couldn’t stand to just let the finished sweater languish unworn. So after the first I spent nearly a whole day unraveling the sweater and winding the yarn into balls. I cursed my careful sewing up as it was so hard to find the ends to unweave. I know I should have probably washed the yarn afterwards but I really didn’t feel like it. I planned a seamless yoke sweater from the Knitter’s Handy Book of Sweater Patterns with the odd purl row thrown into the yoke for a little textural interest. This sweater is flying. Maybe it’s because I really want to wear this yarn or because it is a heavier weight yarn than I normally knit but I am through the second set of decreases on the yoke so I only have about five or six inches of knitting left to do then button bands and collar and lastly the weaving in of ends and blocking. I haven’t even taken a picture of it yet and it’s almost done! It may still be a little optimistic but I might actually finish it up this weekend. We shall see.

 

 

Comments

[mid-life midwife]

Thanks for visiting my blog! Love to see other's seed lists. What are "paste" tomatoes? I've never seen them listed as such. Are they supposed to be good for tomato paste?
I'm envious of you knitting ladies. I've never moved past knitting long, uneven scarves with holes here and there. Most midwives knit at births. Me, I do Sudoku puzzles! :)

[Jennifer Eubank]

Jess - would you consider selling me any unused seeds from your recent order? You will probably use them all, but if you don't, maybe I could defray some of your seed purchase cost and have some seeds to plant in my little plot. We love the Christmas present and are not in touch because we don't have your email address. Please send it to jennifer.eubank@mercy.net.

[Sally Parrott Ashbrook]

Ohhhh, I am so envious of your gardening plans! I dream of having a plot of land--which I might be able to get through a community garden, and I should look into it--but the know-how! That, I do not really have at this point. To be honest with you, in my potted herb plants, I can't even always tell what is a weed and what isn't! Is that sad? But I am really excited about learning how to garden over time. I hope you'll offer posts about your lessons as you go.

I don't know about your zone, but I love brandywine tomatoes: http://www.victoryseeds.com/information/craig_brandywine.html

I also love yellow and orange tomatoes for slicing; they tend to be sweeter. So delicious. Sliced tomatoes--fresh, summery ones--are one of my favorite foods.