Life in Cowtown

One of the neatest parts of the year is upon us – browsing the gardening catalogues for next seasons’ seeds. Now, I’m the last person to get all excited by catalogues (I have weird Sears associations), and gardening too (it’s a lot of work people), but on a damp and chilly February day there is nothing better than to day dream of summer, sunshine and fresh veggies.

There are several reasons I garden – one is the need to maintain the beautiful flower beds I inherited from the previous owners, two is the desire to learn to grow my own food and increase my independence, three is the desire to learn something new once in a while, four is the incomparable taste of produce straight off the garden bed, and five because I love to eat.

While preparing myself for the first forays into gardening I read a load of books, websites and the like. The great Gardening When It Counts was an invaluable guide into the fascinating world of seeds, from the seed growing market to seed trials which reputable companies perform. I learned seed quality, the many assets of fine seeds and how not to fail at growing them. All of this was not as boring as it may sound as Steve Solomon is an excellent writer and storyteller. He sold me on searching out fine seed varieties NOT the wee plants from your local garden centre and taught me to ensure success.

I turned to Salt Spring Seeds for a vendor because of the great variety of heirloom seeds that they carry and because they provide real taste descriptions not just the catalogue jargon that larger companies have. Then we were hit with the worst summer in history and all my yields were off, but that’s beside the point because my fewer than expected tomatoes kicked the pants off my pro gardener father-in-laws tomatoes. His were fine, but average – like very good supermarket tomatoes. Mine were a revelation. This year I am browsing their site yet again, and suffering from analysis paralysis while I do so, because their offerings are larger than ever.

How do you decide between the ‘taste surprise of 2009’ and ‘picture perfect fruit with rich sweet flavour’? Do I want rich and fruity with some zest or unsurpassed acid but unique and complex flavor? That’s like asking a mother to pick her favorite child. I wish I could grow them all, but in all seriousness I guess I’ll just order way too many seeds and frantically try to find room for the huge plants they will inevitably become.

** By the way the beauty above is Valencia – one of the best tomatoes I’ve ever tasted.

*** Also check out the wonderful idea on organizing your seeds by when they should be started from Old House, Old Garden.

Recently I was asked to contribute a recount of my adventures in the dirt by a wonderful site www.meadowwoodgarden.com.  I found it looking for some information on tomato growing, and found a great informative site, with lots of tantalizing pictures of how-to’s and veggies. In a great show of support they’ve asked me to write a series of articles about my first garden in a northern climate, and I was too happy to oblige.

Please check out www.meadowwoodgarden.com for the first in this series, and a big welcome to all the Meadowwood readers!

A tiny garden

My seedlings have miraculously survived and thrived despite my tender loving care so far. They are getting their first and second sets of leaves and their roots were spreading way past the peat pods and intertwining in the vermiculite below. I figured it was time to start thinning them and repotting into bigger pots. I had a dozen or so peat pots and several plastic pots for plants that I was giving away to friends and family. Provided they all lived of course. I don’t have extreme faith in my gardening skillz given my past history.

For this project I mixed very roughly 1/3 seed starting mix, 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 potting mix. Why? No reason other than I had all three items on hand. I mixed them all in a huge mixing bowl by hand, moistening loosely as I went. Note to self: mix all dry matter first THEN add water.

Then it was just a matter of filling up the pots about half full, inserting the peat podded seedling inside, handling very gently so as not to damage the fragile stems, fill up with more mix and water very gently. I screwed up at least two plants – one by tearing off a very long root when I was lifting it from home base, and a couple by repotting them too early – they still had only the cotyledons up, not any true leaves. However, their roots were escaping the pods and entangling with other roots so I figured they’re better off getting their own pots, but both books are silent on this subject so I can’t begin to guess. If they make it it’ll be a miracle.

To help them deal with any shock to the system I left the blind slats open but down to give them a more filtered light than the full beams, but it turned out it doesn’t matter as it’s cloudy and snowing today anyhow. Calgary rocks.

While I was replanting the seedlings, I thinned all the pods (all tomatoes) where all three seeds germinated. Steve Solomon suggests that when a plant has a set of true leaves thin the seedlings down to two, and when they get two sets of leaves leave only one plant. You want to choose the healthiest survivor – the one that’s the most vigorous and bushy. I just used scissors to chop off the stalk at the base and let me tell ya, it felt like murder. I had no idea how protective I felt of each little plant and to thin felt so cruel. They made it! They grew! To snip the tiny little stem was incredibly hard, and the only thing that allowed me to do it was Steve Solomon’s admonition that in order to do right by each plant you cannot have them competing for resources in any way. That stresses the plant and affects it’s future health and productivity. Nature does the same thing he says, only more so. A wild plant will produce thousands of seeds to compensate for all the ones that won’t make it whether eaten by birds or scattered in a hostile environment. When humans signed on to growing plants we made them a deal: you grow what we need, i.e. bigger roots, tops and fruits, sweeter and more fragile produce, longer harvest, and we will ensure that you will grow stress and competition free. So in order to hold my end of the bargain I sighed and thinned.