Fresh and tasty food grown with love on the Saugeen/Bruce Peninsula
Preparing for a local Seedy Saturday today has me thinking about my journey as a gardener. On reflection, I realize that I am entering my 27th year of growing veggies, herbs and flowers. Wow. 27 years!
Growing in downtown Kitchener, then growing in small-town Wiarton paved the way to growing on our rural property and finally growing for market. I guess I might have a little to share with budding enthusiasts, after all.
Spring is here. No really. I think this time it’s going to stay.
Not like all those other times we had our hopes dashed. Don’t even talk to me about April when the most snow we saw all season fell. Of course, we had taken the snow blower off the tractor.
As the snow piled up, I watched all of my precious crop planning get backed up further and further. The temperatures stayed too cold to work in the unheated green house. And it continued to snow. Continue reading “Spring – It Is About Time”
Garden centres are getting better at providing more variety when it comes to vegetable seedlings. Last year I found a surprisingly nice selection of hot peppers at a nursery in Owen Sound. Still, I prefer to grow vegetable varieties that have the characteristics that are most important to me; whether that’s days to maturity, colour or disease resistance. I’m a bit of a control freak that way.
This year my priority is buying organically grown seed. I’m still using up seed from previous years, but most new seed I purchased this year had to be organic. One exception was a package of blight resistant tomatoes – ’cause who knows when blight is going to strike and wipe out your entire crop. Better safe than sorry.
This is only my second year to grow pepper plants from seed, so I have a lot to learn. Last year it took the seeds almost a month to germinate in our less-than-tropical house. The sweet pepper seedlings I put in the ground were embarrassingly small compared to those hotties from the garden centre.
This year, I did some research into pepper growing so I had a few germination tricks up my sleeve. First, I started the seeds two weeks earlier than last year. Then, whenever I watered, I used warm water instead of cold. Finally, I set the black tray near the patio door on sunny days to heat up the soil.
All was going well until one sunny day about a week after I seeded the peppers. Continue reading “Peppered with Seedlings”
So, maybe having a hoop house went to my head.
When it came time to order the tomato seeds last winter, I really didn’t think I was going overboard. Just enough variety so I could sell small baskets of multicoloured fruit. A sampler of REAL tomatoes for people who only have eaten those pasty cardboard varieties in the supermarket. That’s what I envisioned.
And that’s what we got. Seventeen varieties, all different shapes and sizes, grown on our property this summer. On St.Patrick’s Day, my daughter recorded them in the notebook as we seeded them: Alicante, Black Krim, Camp Joy, Garden Peach, Jaune Flamme, Longkeeper, Matt’s Red Cherry, OSU Blue, Red Speckled Roman, Red Zebra, Stupice, St.Pierre, Thai Pink Egg and Yellow Pear. Later additions were: Coeur de Boeuf, Sugary and Black Cherry.
At this point in the season, we’ve had a chance to observe, pick and taste all the varied fruits of our labour. Some old friends like Stupice and St. Pierre didn’t disappoint, even in the new environment. We discovered some new favourites like orange-hued Jaune Flamme and near perfectly formed red Alicante, an heirloom greenhouse variety. Continue reading “Variety is the Spice of Life”
There is only so much room inside the house, under the lights for seed starting. As the heat loving tomatoes, tomatillos and peppers need more space, the cold tolerant vegetables get turfed out. They are living life on the edge out in the cold frame.
Running a cold frame takes hourly attention in this land of ever-changing weather. Sunny days are lovely, but tender seedlings quickly fry if the lid remains closed. Ask me how I know. Think solar oven. Other days bring their own dance of lid up, down or slightly cracked. Laying a piece of frost cloth over the open frame to block wind or bugs adds another move to the dance.
Today is a lid down, no cracks kind of day. It’s cold enough for there to be snow in the air. Continue reading “Picture a cold frame”