Seeds

It's the later half of February and most of our seed orders have arrived -- right on schedule.

The largest order was from Johnny's Selected Seeds (Albion, ME). We ordered onion sets, sweet potato slips and other seed from Burpee (Warminster, PA) and a few special items from Thompson & Morgan (Lawrenceburg, IN).

Well before we start planting, our 2012 crops list is already looking presentable.

The seed companies continue to expand their organic selections, so we were able to get an even higher percentage of organics for the garden this year. Another reason to be cheerful.

We're also experimenting with a more complete botanical reorganization of our seed box.

On January 28th at 10 AM, the Robbins Farm Gardeners will gather at the Community Safety Building (112 Mystic Street) to begin the gardening season by selecting seeds and crops. From artichokes to zucchini, all are invited to share in our excitement about what we'll be growing (and eating) this year!

To help save money when buying vegetable seeds, check the viability of seed varieties and order larger packets of seeds that are long-lived.

Assess your remaining seeds from last season. If you liked a particular variety, continue to use the seed. Because seed can remain viable for years, if properly stored, it is often economical to buy larger packets at reduced prices.

Here is a general list of seed viability for some common vegetable crops:

Short-lived seeds (1 – 2 years)

    * corn
    * leeks
    * onion
    * parsnip
    * spinach

Medium-lived seeds (5 years)

    * squash
    * pumpkin
    * peas
    * eggplant
    * parsley
    * beans
    * carrots
    * celery

Long-lived seeds (over 5 years)

    * broccoli
    * lettuce
    * collards
    * cabbage
    * cauliflower
    * brussel sprouts
    * kale
    * tomato
    * radish
    * cucumber
    * melon
    * peppers
    * turnips

Last year was my first experience growing turnips. We planted Purple Top White Globe, a standard American variety. They grew quickly and the greens were beautiful, tasty and nutritious. Sadly, I didn't like the actual turnips.

In a quest for a turnip I could (willingly) sink my teeth into, I discovered that there are two turnip types: cooking and salad. Purple-tops are the cooking type. Though they could be eaten raw when small, these turnips are meant for the cooking pot.

We replanted Purple Tops this spring and they're growing furiously. The small mustard-like leaves harvested in today's thinning provided a spicy salad garnish to accompany our bumper crop of lettuce. For variety, we will also be planting a green-top from Britain called Manchester Market.

Salad turnips are relatively new to US gardens, but they're a staple in Asia. The seed catalogs claim that these turnips are sweet, crisp and appealing in salads raw. Wow! We just planted a white variety called Oasis. There are red varieties as well (some with red stems, similar to Swiss Chard). I look forward to more experimenting...

 Yesterday there was so much to do in the garden that we split into teams to address different issues.  The peas are getting tall enough that we need to start worrying about a pea trellis.  A park neighbor donated the use of bamboo that is growing in his yard, and a pea trellis was built out of the bamboo stalks.  Some sort of string will be run between the stalks that the peas will climb.

Meanwhile, there were vegetables to harvest!  We planted 2 kinds of radishes, and many of the early radishes were able to be picked.  These radishes are growing in the bed that will be taken over by squash.  By the time the squash is big enough to impact the radishes, the radish season will be over.  More radish seeds were planted in this same bed to provide another crop.

Our first lettuce was planted from seedlings, and many of these seedlings were ready to be picked.  These lettuce heads are amazingly beautiful- green, red, and romaine lettuce.

After we picked the largest lettuces, we transplanted some of the lettuce seedlings we had planted from seed.  This is a problematic procedure, as the sun was brightly shining and there was a good chance the seedlings would not survive the stress of being transplanted.  We decided to give it a try, however, as we would just have thinned the transplants.  We came up with a creative way to try to give them some shade by using the leaves from the bamboo stalks that were being used for the pea trellis.

We planted some more lettuce seeds to grow another crop.  The remaining seeds (beans, cucumber, and squash) that needed warmer weather to germinate were planted.  It seemed like we had gotten a bit lax in our watering and it had an impact on the swiss chard and the beets in particular, so everything got a good soaking.  This got a bit overenthusiastic at times, with the hills of the potato patch being watered rather than the valleys where the seed potatoes are actually planted, and the box containing the seeds getting a drenching.  The seeds were able to be rescued, fortunately.

We nibbled on some of our pickings-

Arugula thinnings:

and radishes:

Our chief gardener called a meeting to discuss the looming problem of deciding which of the tomato plants we have bought or have been donated to us we should plant.  We can't plant them all, and each type of tomato seems to have a constituency.  We reached a compromise, with about half the tomatoes being cherry, grape or smaller than the usual, and the other half being of normal tomato size, with an emphasis on lots of different kinds of tomatoes.

Finally, the professor subjected us to one of his little Veggie School lectures -- this time on the history of radishes -- and "gently" reminded us about keeping apace with our community commitments homework on this project, which I'm sure we will all take to heart.

All in all, a very good day.