Wednesday, May 5, 2010

Seeds, Seedlings, and What I Hope to Grow

A few readers, friends, and fellow community gardeners have asked me what I'm planning to grow now that I have a plot so I thought I would give a break down of the seeds I've acquired and seedlings which will be picked up soon.
1)From Fenway Community Gardeners & The Fenway Gardens Spring Meeting:
Leeks (transplants gifted to us from a fellow gardener), Chive Seeds & Spinach Seeds - The Fenway Garden Society was nice enough to provide some seeds for their spring meeting, I got Chives & Spinach!
2)From the down:2:earth expo Gail and I attended in early April:
Mesclun Mix(planted last week!), Scarlet Nantes Carrots(planted last week!), and Dill seeds were all given out from the different garden & landscaping companies at the expo. Coincidentally all 3 seed packets were from High Mowing Organic Seeds.We also picked up packets of Basil & Sage seeds at the expo, but these come from the farmers of the Cabot Creamery Dairy Cooperative! Gail and I are huge fans of their cheese's and I think their business model is fantastic. They do not seal their seeds, they were giving them out as a gift. I am a proud supporter of their cheese products and will be proud to grow their herbs in my garden.
3)From fellow bloggers:
Daphne over at Daphne's Dandelions was kind enough to send me some delicious looking Ottawa Cranberry Beans(seen here). While Ottawa Gardener at The Veggie Patch Re-imagined provided me with Garlic Chive seeds, some of which were successfully grown indoors over winter, while the rest are ready to be planted in the plot soon!
4) Hometown Seeds:
The kind people at Hometown Seeds saw my blog months ago, long before I had a plot and were nice enough to send me their Survival Seeds package to try out. The Survival Seeds package contains 16 non-hybrid 100% GMO free seeds which are meant to have a shelf life of at least 5 years. The seeds were not in individual packets, but in 5 0z, 5 gram, & 10 gram packages, more then enough for my small plot. From the Survival Seeds package we will be planting Golden Acre Cabbage(planted last week!), Long Green Cucumber, Utah Yellow Sweet Spanish Onions (planted last week!), Detroit Dark Red Beets (planted last week!), Black Beauty Zucchini, Parris Island Cos Romaine Lettuce (planted last week!), & Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans.
5) Natick Community Organic Farm:
The Natick Community Organic Farm is a non-profit certified organic farm just west of Boston. Their mission is to provide farm products, hands on education for all ages, and to foster community goodwill through love of the land. I have visited the farm numerous times since I was a child and am honored to support them in their spring seedling sale. Next week Gail & I will be picking up the following organic seedlings for our plot:
Yankee Bell & Hungarian Wax Peppers. Peacevine, Early Girl & Striped Roman Tomatoes. Diplomat Broccoli and Cilantro.
Along with the above vegetables we will also be adding Morning Glory, Autumn Beauty & Mammoth Sunflowers, and a mix of Nasturtium's
6) Wood Prairie Farm
The prospect of having a garden of my own made me think of Potatoes. I absolutely love them. Wood Prairie Farm has a reputation as one of the best sources of certified organic seed potatoes. Not wanting to limit myself to 1 variety of potato and taking into account the limited space I will have for potatoes I decided to order the Experimenter's Special which allows you to choose 4 different varieties of potato. Each package contains 3 potatoes of each variety for a total of 12 hills. I picked All Blue, Cranberry Red, Russian Banana Fingerling, and Yukon Gold for a nice variety of color, size, and taste. Potatoes were ordered last weekend and shipped out on Monday. They should be here before the end of the week!

Looking back at this massive list of vegetables and herbs I realize successfully growing all of these varieties will be extremely daunting. I don't expect every crop to be a smashing success so I am growing a large variety in smaller quantities in the hopes that the success's will outweigh the failures. My hope is that smaller plantings will allow Gail and I to slowly ease our way into the challenge of caring for all of these(hopefully) delicious edibles.

With research, hard work, and some luck hopefully the season will be full of gardening success and delicious vegetables!

2 comments:

Barbara from Dorchester said...

You might want to check with the garden coordinators before planting morning glories. Some folks consider them a weed, and they are very similar to bindweed and can strangle other plants. We don't allow them at our community garden in Dorchester.

Fred said...

Thanks for the advice Barbara!!! I will most certainly check with the coordinators!