Fri, Mar 08, 2013 · Filed under Indoors, Planning, Tools, Winter
For the record, this year’s seed catalog! It arrived in late December, and I’ve been thumbing through, but it’s still not well-worn—I pretty much know what I’m ordering. It’s as exciting as always to get the new catalogs, but a bit more symbolic now, start of a new season and all that, than it used to be at the beginning, when I pored over it for hours. Like anything else, do it for a while and it becomes…easier. Also once again for recent years, almost all of my seed will come from just this one place, William Dam, a family owned company not too far from here, that carries only untreated seed. Selection does the trick, service is great, and I like talking to them on the phone. High Mowing and, of course, Johnny’s, both relatively close (Maine and Vermont, to my Ontario), have a lot more in general, and High Mowing is 100% organic seed, but at the moment, I’m fine with Dam! Everyone’s farming has its flow!
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Wed, Apr 25, 2012 · Filed under Seed starting, Spring, Tools
Measuring seed for lettuce and Asian greens mixes, using a digital gram scale from the local headshop. It works well, except I wish the auto-shutoff didn’t happen so quick. I was quite amazed by the selection of digital scales available, starting at, I think it was $20, and going up in $5 increments for a whole slew of models. Didn’t realize so many people were into making their own small-batch seasoning blends and custom salad mixes. Wow. Hahaha. The mixes are basically trial and error. For salad mix, it’s about color and texture at this point: frillier, greener, redder, crisper (baby Romaine is nice in there)—check the results, adjust the percentages for next round. For the Asian greens, it is more about taste, which so far has mostly come down to how much mustard to put in. Of course, how quickly they each grow is quite critically important, all varieties should grow at the same rate, in a fairly wide range of conditions. The lettuces are easier, and I started with some varieties recommended for baby leaf production for just that reason: fast-growing. The Asian greens, all brassicas at this point, are trickier. For example, tatsoi was included in our first runs, but it consistently grew lower than the rest, the leaves were a nice size, but when cutting, they tended to fall halfway below the blade. So, out goes the tatsoi, for now. It’s all about simple experimentation and adjusting things a bit as you go! (BTW, the knife is there just to slice open seed packs; for no real reason, that’s how I always do it…)
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Mon, Nov 28, 2011 · Filed under Autumn, Planning
[From Nov. 24, 2011] Well ahead of the pack, Veseys takes first new seed catalog of the year. They’re a pretty marketing-oriented company, they get their stuff out early—this actually arrived a while ago, but I only got my hands on it now! Which is fine by me. I haven’t been this, well, EXCITED with that new-catalog feeling in a couple of years. That’s good. There is a lot of proper, well-ahead-of-time planning to do, expectations for 2012 run high! Whatever the weather!!
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Fri, Sep 09, 2011 · Filed under Cooking & Eating, Summer, Veggies
Here’s a fairly unusual heirloom tomato: Yellow Stuffer. The name pretty much says it all, it’s an almost completely hollow tom, ready to be stuffed! As you can see, there are very few seeds in very little gel. I’ve grown these for a several years—this season, only maybe half a dozen plants—mainly for fun, all from the same original packet of seed. In a good year, they’re quite…striking: big and blocky, looking like a bell pepper. This year, they were just OK, not really sized up too big. I haven’t done much with them besides taste—they taste like…tomato—but I imagine with their thick walls, they’d be perfect to stuff with just about anything, and left raw or baked. Interested? Yellow Stuffer is indeterminate and late, about 80 days, and the seed is easy to find. There are quite a number of other stuffer varieties out there as well—here’s a
good article all about ‘em. And that’s that!
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Wed, Aug 31, 2011 · Filed under Fieldwork, Summer, Veggies
Almost missed this time around, last seen here four years back: a few of the Yukon Gold potatoes have fruit this year. These are poisonous little, green tomato-like fruit with seeds that you can grow into…potatoes. You can find out more about ‘em in this POTATO FRUIT blog post from 2008, when I first ran into then (it’s the most commented post on Tiny Farm Blog!).
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Tue, Jun 21, 2011 · Filed under Fieldwork, Spring, Veggies
Next up in our crazily extended and seemingly neverending SPRING planting schedule: potatoes. We have what’s become my standard line-up: Yukon Gold, red Chieftan, and russet Gold Rush (above). Still haven’t decided how we’ll plant them this time around, trenched or shallow, but they should go in soon! This season’s nerveracking tiny farming adventure continues…
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