First Snowstorm of 2011

The above photo of my gate to the front garden can be thought of as both happy and sad. I say that because while I can't be outside gardening right now, I know that with this snow there is

already hope and warm thoughts of the spring that is only 3 months away. A lot of what January is about to a gardener is hope. We look beyond the ice and snow and spend the time indoors reading and planning for the spring. Seed catalogs seduce us with their glossy-colored pages that make the spirit stir with inspiration of what will be. Our starry eyes sparkle with each turn of a page, we fill up order forms and wonder why they can't be longer. Ah, yes it's that time of year - and it only gets better!

Temperatures hovered in the teens the last few days as we had snow all day yesterday into the night which ended up being about 8 inches total. This was the first big snowstorm of 2011 - I'm just glad that I was asleep while the bulk of the snow fell last night. By the way, the time on the clock is still set to summer time, it was really 8 AM...

The orchard looks like it was photographed in Siberia - so barren, so bleak... It's hard to believe that these trees could be alive from this scene. One thing's for sure, these trees are protected with white plastic trunk guards below the snow. This is a no mole/vole zone!

I thought this was a nice winter photo of the remaining Mugwort that grows close to my mailbox. One thing that I learned from recent reading is that you should be careful where you plant mugwort because it tends to kill-off any flowers or plants nearby. Once established, mugwort will grow back each year and it's great for making incense or smudge sticks.

I'm glad that I brought the remaining 2 cords of firewood in last week because I sure wouldn't want to have to be digging it out as in previous years. I guess I might actually be getting smarter with age after all!

The big garden can be seen in the distance, dormant as ever, but I'm adding wood ashes to each section on the weekends to help amend the soil for the spring. Some so-called experts say not to put too much in the garden - but I disagree. My soil is starving for anything to be added to it! It's better than doing nothing at all. Besides, I add bags of compost manure in the spring to help even things out.

I placed my first seed order last week with R.H. Shumway. I like their online ordering and rate the site 8 out of 10 for ease of ordering. The only problem I had was that an offer in the catalog was not listed online - yet I was able to get the offer in my cart by using the quick order number from the catalog (it was tricky, I had to open that in a 2nd window) that's why I can't give the website a 10.

There's much more ordering to do and many books to read. January is good for that.

Keep warm!

:)

January 2009

Bye, bye January!

Although winter is in full swing, I’m happy to see January nearly over. February goes quickly, which makes way for March. Wow, March is seed starting month!

As for this January, I’ve noticed that EBay is a new frontier for finding “rare” heirloom seeds. I use the term “rare” loosely here because I’ve seen it used more for a sales pitch than if these seeds are truly “rare.”

Fact is, the more super-tomato websites you find, the more likely you will easily bump into the same variety of “rare” seeds!

TomatoFest.com is a fine example. They offer hundreds of Heirloom tomatoes, is easy to navigate and the man behind it all seems down to earth & honest. He even sends a free packet of seeds with your order. This year, he sent me a gift of Brandywine, Yellow tomatoes - cool!

Which leads me to another problem with the folks pedling “rare” seeds on EBay; seed count.

I’ve seen offers for as little as 5 seeds per order! How do these sellers sleep at night? I’ll bet you they chuckle in their sleep for sure!

That’s not to say that I haven’t considered selling my seeds on EBay myself. In fact, I like the idea of building a virtual seed store. But you won’t see any 5 & 10 count seed offerings from me. I will do 25 to 30 counts per offer.

Photo below shows my saved Debarao seeds. Believe it or not, there are 50 seeds next to that penny. I’ve decided to plant 36 of each variety this year from my own saved seeds. 50 is a good amount to set aside for myself and I'll attempt to sell what’s left over.

Here is a photo of the seeds purchased online from EBay & TomatoFest.com. As it stands now, I am growing 12 of my own saved tomato varieties from 2008. The only variety that was a failure in 2008 was the Great White tomato. It struggled in 2007 and failed in 2008, so no need to keep trying that variety here.


Moving onto other January happenings, the weather sure was winter-like. No January thaw this year. We got it all, snow, rain, ice – oh ya, lots of ice. My weather station recorded a 4 year low of -11.6 F on January 17th and note that the lows were -7.3 F, -9.5 F, and -11.6 F on the 15th through the 17th.

Greenhouse note, in the last week of January, the sun shines over the mountain and hits from 11:40 AM through 1:40 PM. More light begins to hit the west side of the greenhouse around 4 PM to 5 PM as the sun sets.

We had a significant snowstorm on January 28th with about 7” of new snow, but then it got ugly. Sleet followed into the evening then turned into all rain. The result was an 1/8” of ice coating on everything. Check out these ice photos of the greenhouse and a view through the east window looking through to the west window.

I have plans to grow about 35 varieties of tomatoes this year. That’s a huge jump, I know! But I’ve come to the conclusion that certain varieties are eye-catching & interesting such as Orange & red Strawberry-shaped tomatoes, the whole color spectrum of Zebras & Brandywines, and so on.

I believe that getting good seeds from these as well as great photos will make for a good business in January, 2010.

I guess January won’t be so bad in future years to come!

:)
Keith