Seed List 2009

Due to encouragement from my husband, Victor, when we put my new garden in last spring I made it much larger than I'd originally planned. I am so thankful. As it was, I felt crowded and short on space. This year I am expanding my growing areas into some other spaces I have scattered around our yard. For two cents I could pick up and move to a 10 acre farm house. We've joked about it, but how could I leave my asparagus, rhubarb and strawberries? My blueberry bushes, pear, apple, peach, cherry and apricot trees? They are like my children! Plus, we are settled here, have wonderful neighbors and who wants to sell a home in this market? Not I. 

This year I am going to down size my perennial garden -- which everyone loves and compliments -- however, you can't eat a day lily. Well, even if you can, I don't want to. I'm not going to get too radical, but I am going to downsize a little bit. I want to plant more herbs and thanks to Raingarden I am going to try growing my own Chamomile Tea. Next year, who knows?! I might even get Victor going with the chainsaw and push back into our woods, just a little bit. 

The other area I plan to plant in is our side yard. Our side yard is a wooded area. There are all kinds of beech trees scattered throughout with wood chips underneath to cut down on weed maintenance. But on the edge where the wood chips meet our front lawn, I have full sun in the summertime. In this location I plan to plant vegetables that take up large areas like squash, pumpkins, watermelons and cantaloupes. I am going to make mounds all along our side yard in which these plants can grow. There is plenty of room for them to roam without taking up my precious garden space. Isn't that a clever idea? 

The other thing I would like to experiment with are extra places to grow potatoes. I understand that you can grow potatoes in old tires. Anything stackable. I need to do some more research on this. All in an effort to gain more growing area! 

Here is a list of things I learned last year and hope to improve on this year:

1. Better utilization of garden space. I am amazed when I see pictures of city and suburb gardens jammed into small spaces and producing enough to feed their families of 4-6! 
2. I don't have room to do too much experimenting. 
3. Only grow those things that your family LOVES to eat and plant lots of those things. 
4. Learn more about succession planting and take advantage of the additional yields this practice will give you. 
5. Obscure vegetables are fun and all, but be sure the majority of your space is used planting things you know you will get lots of use out of. 
6. Start seeds earlier in the winter. I don't have a good window to put my seeds in to grow them (we only have one window on the south side of our house, and it's in Ripley's bedroom), so I rely on florescent lighting in the basement to grow my seedlings. It's cooler down there, and florescent lighting just isn't a good as the Sun God created. So when I brought my seedlings out in May to plant they were literally 2 inches tall. Friends were planting enormous "seedlings" they'd purchased at Home Depot and I was left praying over my microscopic dwarf crop. It all worked out more or less in the end, but my sweet peppers didn't have the opportunity to mature for the most part. So most of them were picked green and small. My tomatoes brought forth a great crop, but ripened later than my Home Depot friends' tomatoes.
7. Cut back on weeds using layers of newspaper and straw (thank you Raingarden, again). This was a huge time saver, after I finally learned about it.  

Benjamin took an inventory of last year's seeds, from that list I ordered new ones and now have created a list of all that I have and plan to plant this year. It's so exciting! Keep in mind that many of these things I have only a few seeds left over from last year. But, enough to grow a few plants with!  

Here it is:

Winter Density Lettuce

Barcorole Lettuce

Ruben's Red Romaine

Gourmet Greens Arugula

Arugula

China Choy

Mesclun Salad Mix

Bloomsdale Spinach

Siberian Kale Mix

Escarole

Nutri-Bud Broccoli

Broccoli Rabe

Heirloom Cauliflower

Cascadia Bush Snap Pea

Sugar Pea

Tendergreen Bush Bean

Stringless Green Bean

Cannellini Soup Bean

Bluelake Bush Bean

Tavera Bush Bean 

Italian Pole Bean

Edamame Sayamusume

Black Beauty heirloom Eggplant

Black Eggplant

Brandywine Heirloom Tomato

Yellow Pear Cherry Tomato

Yellow Perfection Slicing Tomato

Roma Paste Tomato

Martian Giant Slicing Tomato

Peron Sprayless Slicing Tomato

CA Wonder Sweet Pepper

Sweet Bullnose Red Pepper

Sweet Sunrise Orange Bell Pepper

Serrano Chile Pepper

Cayenne Pepper

Thai Hot Pepper

Black Beauty Summer Squash

Butternut Winter Squash

Hopi Orange Winter Squash

Small Sugar Pumpkin

Howden Pumpkin

Dakota Rose Watermelon

Harvest Queen Muskmelon

Cucumber

Italian Dark Green Parsley

Slow Bolt Cilantro

Dill

Lettuce Leaf Basil

Genovese Basil

Chamomile

Russian Mammoth Sunflower

German Butterball Potato

Bintje Potato

Yukon Gold Potato

Red Sangre Potato

Kurota Chantenay Carrot

Riverside Onion

Siskiyou Onion

Celebration Celery

Still to order: 

Yellow Summer Squash

More Cucumber Varieties

As you can see, our selection is pretty straight forward. This year, I hope to have more to store away for the cold months. As it is, I am almost completely through my supply from 2008. Sniff. Sniff. The other thing I would like to try more of is saving seeds. Last year I only tried a few things. 

May is coming soon, before you know it I will be harvesting asparagus! 

Be well.

Go ahead, start your own garden. Take back your food!