Wednesday, January 26, 2011

Planning Season

Plant carrots in January and you'll never have to eat carrots.
~Author Unknown
No, it's not time for planting. But it is time for PLANNING. This is your friendly reminder that you need to order seeds, plot out your garden plans for this coming growing season. Because pretty soon, if you want to eat those carrots, you need to start some seedlings indoors or in a cold frame.

Happy Gardening!

Saturday, January 1, 2011

Hybrid Seeds, or Heirloom Seeds?

If you're thinking about planting a garden, the winter months are the time to get started planning, plotting, ordering seeds. Browse through some catalogs or look online for ideas.  One question ask is whether you want to use hybrid seeds or non-hybrid/heirloom seeds?

Hybrid seeds are created by artificially cross-pollinating two plants to create an improved plant. Perhaps one that has greater resistance to disease, or tolerates drought. However, a major drawback is that you cannot "save" seeds from hybrid plants because they don't reproduce reliably. Instead, you have to buy new hybrid seeds every year. And, hybrid seed plants often need special fertilizers and chemical pesticides in order to flourish. One other reason I don't prefer hybrids is that due to the time it takes to create a reliable hybrid seed, there aren't that many varieties of each type of plant available, so your gardening choices are limited.

Heirloom seeds, on the other hand, can be saved from year to year, allowing you to save money and also invest yourself more deeply into your gardening. Heirloom seeds tend to adapt to their environments as well - learning to fight off pests, or withstand a drier climate, and so on - they tend to be hardier. Also, heirloom seeds come in lovely varieties, so the choices of colors, sizes, and flavors of your flowers and vegetables is nearly endless. Heirloom seeds can make experimenting in your garden much more fun!

We'll talk more about the benefits of heirloom seeds, and how they can be organically gardened as we go throughout the year.

Tuesday, December 21, 2010

CSN Stores For Kids In The Garden

CSN Stores keeps amazing me. I mean sure, we all know they have 200+ online stores offering everything from leather messenger bags to great cookware, but did you know they feature an extensive supply of gardening tools?

CSNStores.com offers everything for the backyard gardener from hoes and trowels to hand-push mowers if you're looking to save money on gasoline and also get a good work out in:
 I love that they have gardening toys for children too, as we hope to encourage our little one to enjoy the great outdoors (well, in our backyard!). We might get him this cute duckie watering can:
 Or a kid-sized wheelbarrow so he can help daddy cart mulch around!
 And can't you just imagine him running by the butterfly bushes trying to catch some butterflies with this net?

I can't wait to decide what to buy! Stay tuned because I'll be reviewing whatever we decide on!

Monday, August 23, 2010

We've Struck Red Gold! Tomatoes!

It's that time of year again. Putting up tomato sauce like any good Italian mama would do!

Last Saturday we spent 11 hours canning sauce, tomato broth/stock, and tomato salsa. I never feel like it's enough - what can I say, I like to stockpile this "red gold!"

225 pounds of tomatoes PLUS

Piles of Onions, PLUS

Bundles of basil, EQUALS

100 Quarts of Sauce, Stock, and Salsa!

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Spring Bounty

This spring we've had just the perfect blend of sunshine and rain to create a fabulous early season of lettuces, herbs, berries... the perennials have come back thick as thieves and there's no sign of that thievin' woodchuck! We're off to a great start for our gardens!


Saturday, June 6, 2009

The Plant Formerly Known as Swiss Chard

It is with great sorrow we saw the passing of our delectable swiss chard plant this week. Once leafy and promising bittersweet goodness to be mixed with garlic and oil... this magenta and green plant has now been reduced to but a stalk of its former self...

The culprit - Chuckles, the neighborhood woodchuck... vengeance will be served! (Since, obviously the swiss chard will not!)

Monday, May 25, 2009