All ready

Seed orders are complete.  I'm 99% sure i have everything i need for this year.

Product #: 3201-BOLTARDY BEET (46 days)
Price: $1.25
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $1.25

Product #: 35-RUBY QUEEN BEET (60 days)
Price: $0.95
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $0.95

Product #: 48-MAJOR BROCCOLI (F1 hybrid 43 d
Price: $1.50
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $1.50

Product #: 13201-GENERAL LEE CUKE (F1 hybrid 66
Price: $1.35
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $1.35

Product #: 136-NATIONAL PICKLING CUCUMBER (52
Price: $0.95
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $0.95

Product #: 139-DIVA CUCUMBER (58 days)
Price: $2.25
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $2.25

Product #: 146-BOSTON PICKLING CUKE (heirloom
Price: $0.95
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $0.95

Product #: W482-MINOWASE RADISH (55 days heirl
Price: $1.25
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $1.25

Product #: 371-EARLY BUTTERNUT (F1 hybrid 82
Price: $1.50
Quantity: 2
Subtotal: $3.00

Product #: 41602-MORTGAGE LIFTER TOMATO (77 day
Price: $1.35
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $1.35

Product #: 41204-MATTS WILD CHERRY TOMATO (55 d
Price: $1.65
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $1.65

Product #: 428-MARTINOS ROMA TOMATO (heirloom
Price: $1.35
Quantity: 1
Subtotal: $1.35

Product Total: $17.80
Discounts Applied: $0.00
Tax: $0.89
Shipping: $3.95
Special_Handling: $0.00
Order_Total: $22.64

I have my seed starting soil, plenty of plastic pots from last year,  though i might get some square peat pots for the cukes and squashes later on. I would like a seedling heat mat,  but i don't have the $20-$40 to spare right now.  I will need something to warm my pepper seeds.
 I'm going to try one more year (did i say that last year?) to grow peppers at home,  this will use up the rest of the seeds i have this way.  I don't have much luck with them,  germination or growing. If they do germinate well,  they don't produce much in the summer or the earwigs get to them.  Same with eggplant.  But....  i am planning to use black plastic mulch this year.  It might be just the thing.


Oh,  boy.  I got some serious sticker shock the other day. 
I get tons of catalogs every spring and i will flip through some of them if i have time.  The last 3 years or so,  i really haven't done much browsing in other catalogs.  Well,  the nice, shiny Burpee catalog caught my eye and i started paging through.

Holy. Moly.
There are some insane prices in there.  Average packet price seems to be about $5.  See above prices from Pinetree and why i almost choked.
Ok,  in Burpee's defense,  i'm sure there are more seeds in their packets than in Pinetree's....  30 from Pinetree to Burpee's 50....  but if i only need  5-10 seeds each year and can save my own seeds,  that is just crazy.
I'm ok with buying the occasional $4 packet of seeds for something unusual or unique or perennial but at those prices i could not fill my garden. 

There.  That is pretty much it for buying,  just have to wait on things to arrive.  Meanwhile i'll find the time to clear off my seed starting spaces, sort through things and get organized.

Maybe i'll actually get some pictures to post instead of these pure text entries.

More grapes

Grapes came in finally a little after 1:00 this afternoon. I'm not terribly impressed. I know that "dormant" can look awfully dead....  but when one is snapped in half and the broken part is just dry and brown with no green, its not usually a good sign.  The other grape plant didn't look much better, when i clipped away a bit off the tip there was some green but it didn't look like a live green color.
Burpee guarantees their plants for a year, and in a few weeks i'll know if they are even alive, but it will be too late to replace them before the replacement plants will be acclimated enough for winter.  If they do survive but are off to a bad enough start that they will be too weak for this winter and i find that they have croaked in the spring, that might be a better time to turn to Burpee to honor their guarantee and send me replacements. I think it is a one-time replacement.

My other alternative is to take a refund and reorder next spring, putting me a year behind on growing.
If one of the plants lives (the order was a package of 2 though i only needed one) i'll ask for a half refund and go my merry way and maybe root a cutting from the live one for insurance.

It was raining out when i got the package and when i planted them so i didn't take pictures. But i will later and edit the pics into this post.  They had great looking roots. I'm not sure how to tell if the roots were alive, their packing wasn't very moist but i think it was maybe damp enough to keep things just ok.

I wish Burpee was like Stark's.... Stark's sent my stuff in a big, long box and not a paper bag. It was a sturdy paper bag, but a paper bag is a paper bag..... my ground cover fabric was sent in a box... and the paper bag probably would have been fine for the roll of cover. Funny how things work like that.

But far and away, my Stark's order was superior to my Burpee order. My grapes from Stark's are just about to break buds.  I can't wait till my blueberry plants have hardened off enough to plant out. The leaves are coloring up nicely.



Ok, here's pics.

The Edelweiss that looks bad...  this was broken in two when it came.

This one might possibly get somewhere:

Compare that to the Marechal Foch and Reliance from Starks' (Frontenac is taking its sweet time but looks like its about to get moving so i didn't photo it)

I tend to fret over things, so i hope something happens with my Edelweiss soon or i think i'll burst.

But here are the blueberries, getting used to full sunlight, Patriot on the left and Blueray on the right.

Oh, since i took the cover off the brassica row, i took a picture

The Red Russian kale is pretty looking, a couple dried right out a week after planting, so i put a couple cabbage seedlings in to replace them.

Since this has turned into a picture post, here is the poor little fig plant .  It has started to regrow some leaves in its joints and it looks much better now than it did out of the box:

It will live, but its going to look pathetic for a while.

June 15th deadline

I guess that is the traditional day to have 'everything' in if you want a summer crop. I heard it reiterated somewhere that things planted early in June will catch up with things planted around Memorial Day by the first week of July. I'm not sure, if that is so, why plant around Memorial Day? 
I have a good chance to test this theory out this year. My dad and i managed to get those extra seedlings into his garden yesterday.  We must have planted about 18 tomatoes, 4 peppers, 3 eggplants, all the winter and summer squashes and cucumbers-  i think they have 6 of the Sundance yellow summer squash - This is an extra-prolific summer squash in a class of plants known for their prolific production. They will be up to their ears soon! lol

The blueberry plants are adjusting well it seems, we have had gray skies for the last 3 days so that actually helps.


The UPS tracking on my Burpee order says my plants are 'out for delivery' so  by 11am they should be delivered.

I bought "The Grape Grower: A guide to organic Viticulture"  for my Kindle for PC  I don't expect to adhere purely to  the Organic culture of my grapes until i see the reality of actually growing them in my yard and see my setup in actual practice.  I'd like to, but the beginners' learning curve could prove too steep for the first few rounds.  But the book got great reviews and the reviews convinced me that it has enough cold-climate info for me as well as information on so many other aspects of grape growing, i decided to get it.  I am only a few pages in so far though.

I need to decide when i am going to rip out the flowerbeds in the front of the house. The Iris didn't bloom hardly at all this year, which means they need to be divided anyway. I think i might do things 3' square at a time. Hopefully when i get into it, i will be able to separate the bulbs and tubers and recognize which are tulips and which are daffs, then i can bag and box them up and set them in the basement to rest until i can put down the weed barrier and put back just the things i want to keep. 
I can't decide if i want to start in the next week or so or wait until later. The weather is only going to get hotter, but the greens off the bulbs and roots need to get sunlight for a bit longer. 
I'm also not sure what to do about the garden at the edge of the yard that the nice neighbors are on.  When we bought the house a fence was there. It got rotten within the first year we moved in so we removed it.  When it was installed by the former owner of this house, it was put slightly within the planted part,  so on the neighbor's side of the fence was a 2' strip of  "escaped" plants which they tended.  When we removed the fence, i assumed the plants were theirs and left that strip alone, and they continued to tend it a little so i left it alone.  They also put their bird feeder stakes just on the outside of it....  but hubby said he thought the whole thing was ours and the survey we had done seems to confirm that.  But where it was 'shared' for so long i don't know if they have anything in there that they'd like to keep. I haven't seen much of them lately so i haven't been able to ask.

There are raspberries that i think belong to them that are taking over the parts that i  know are mine. They are coming up all over. That is going to be a pain to clear.


I think i might take the row covers off by the end of this month.  I would have gotten better advantage from them if the garden was ready earlier and the spring wasn't so warm. I probably will take off the one over the brassicas but leave on the tomato and corn row. The brassicas don't need to be warmer. I'm wondering about the bugs, but i don't want my broccoli and cabbage to bolt.
 I'll be ble to play with things more next year. This year the focus was to just get things planned and executed. I'll arrange the plant placement better next year, grouping things that need heat with other things that need heat or cover from bugs.  I think the covers will go back on in late August tho...  safe from frost, it might extend the production a bit longer.

So, the last planting of grapes today and some weeding will do it.

Well, i'll be....

I just got my email notification from Henry Field's. My Fig plant has been shipped.  Yay.  On a Friday.

Its funny cause i just checked into my account on Wednesday (i think) to see what was up. Last i knew it was supposed to be shipped around a week ago. I'll have to check to be sure,  but anyway, last time i checked the ship date was for the middle of this month and i was too irritated to even bother saying anything about it.  But this morning i get a ship notification.  I have not gotten a tracking number yet, but a number appears on my HF's website account... but its the number for my already-delivered citrus assortment.

Well, hopefully all goes well and they are sending me a nice plant.
So far the Meyer Lemon and the Key Lime are looking good, the Venous Orange is struggling... The leaves that were curling when it arrived have fallen off and the wind actually blew it out of its pot the other day, so i plunked it back in and put a small bamboo stick against it to prop it up. It seems to be no worse for the wear due to that. It seems to be simply hanging on.

My Big Hip Roses should be delivered today, i got them from one of Oikos Tree Crops' eBay auctions. Five plants for $20, shipping included.   The tracking page states that the package is out for delivery.

My Stark's order is scheduled to be shipped this coming Monday.  That has my grapes, blueberries and lingonberries.
Burpee has not sent me a ship estimate yet. They have my Edelweiss grapes and that weed barrier fabric.

I finished the "Food Drying" book. It was quite useful to read, many recipes for using your dried items and of course, the instructions on how to dry them.
I was particularly interested in the dry soup mixes. Soup is so convenient when you have a bunch of things on hand that need to be used, but not a lot of time to babysit a frying pan or an oven.  You can put anything in a soup.  I have.  Radishes and lettuce work surprisingly well in soup.

I'm also wondering if i slice eggplant into long strips and use them in a casserole (without rehydrating them) if they would make a great noodle substitute in a lasagna.  I have tried doing a low starch lasagna  using savoy cabbage or fresh zucchini slices in place of the noodles, but it ends up being watery and the cabbage and zucchini have no cling or body.  I hope dried eggplant will absorb juices and stay just a tad firm through the cooking process.  Hopefully my Slim Jim plants will do me a favor and produce a lot so i can experiment.

I am going to plant corn today. I have to.  I have to do some real weeding too and direct sow some herbs.
And lay out some cardboard.