A Great Non-hybrid Seed Source!

Ottawa, Ontario, March 6th, 2011

One of the best places to purchase your non-hybrid seeds is at your local Seedy Saturdays meeting. Seedy Saturdays are seed exchanges where small seed suppliers, gardening clubs and gardeners can buy, sell, exchange and learn all about seeds. It’s a marvelous way to find pure non-hybridized strains of flower, vegetable and herb seeds. We invite everyone to help promote the sustainability of non-hybrid seeds by attending your local Seedy Saturdays seed exchange.

There was a major rain warning in Ottawa for March 5th, so we thought the turn out for this event might be negligible. We waded through the slush and entered a very crowded Ron Kolbus Center. There were about 40 venders selling an assortment of products. As well as seed suppliers selling vegetable, flower and herb seeds, there were vendors selling products like honey, baked goods, and carpets made of recycled materials and organic chocolate. At times the crowds of shoppers were so thick, that we couldn’t determine what items were being sold at a particular booth.

Some of my favorite small venders, like Terra Edibles and Greta’s Organic Gardens, were present. These are both excellent seed companies who sell heirloom seeds as well as organic seeds. Terra Edibles has been an excellent source for non-hybrid tomato seeds like Stupice, Striped German and Moskvich. Terra also features a line of heirloom sweet peas. During our seed search we discovered new suppliers like the Cottage Gardener, where we remembered to get our Romanesco Broccoli. We also discovered La Vie en Rose Garden and picked up Rhododendron seeds for Zones 3 to 8. La Vie en Rose Garden’s specialty is bearded iris and we’re looking forward checking out this supplier in the spring.

As a collector of perennials, we thought that the star of the show was the Ottawa Valley Rock Garden & Horticultural Society! The Society’s booth featured used gardening books at extremely reasonable prices ($1 to $5) and a wonderful collection of rare non-hybrid seeds. We arrived an hour after the show opened, and the book and seed selection was still excellent. Some of the rare seeds we purchased included Magnolia stellata, digitalis ferrunginia and something called, molosperum peloponnesiacum.

Seeds of Diversity, the show’s host, is a national organization of gardeners and farmers dedicated to preserving the heritage, and biodiversity of Canada’s food plants. Food plants include edible grains and vegetables. The organization provides an annual rare seed directory listing over 3,000 varieties of non-hybrid seeds, and cross references this list with Canadian suppliers of food seeds.

Supporting small growers and seed suppliers is an excellent way to promote our seed biodiversity and to sustain the small seed growers. It’s the small companies who really keep our seed heritage alive, promoting and selling heirloom and non-hybrid seeds. We invite all our readers to locate a local Seed Savers or Seeds of Diversity event, to buy a couple of seed packets and to help preserve the biodiversity and sustainability of our seed supply.

Heirloom Seeds Saving Organizations:

USA
Seed Savers

Canada
Seeds of Diversity

Heirloom Seed Sources:
Terra Edibles
Gretas Organic Gardens
The Cottage Gardener
La Vie en Rose Gardens

Coyote Eating Apples

“Coyotes don’t eat apples!” That’s the usually response when we tell anyone about the coyote eating apples in our small orchard. Finally, after a year of fruitless stalking, pure serendipity landed us in the right place at the right time to photograph the coyote eating our windfall apples.

Over a year ago the Farmer told me about “a dog eating apples” in our orchard. We have had gourmet dogs who picked asparagus, or strawberries, but never apples. Later, we stumbled across an article in a respected Nature magazine where the author mentioned that coyotes are omnivorous and will regularly be seen eating apples in the fall and winter.

After that initial encounter, the hunt was on! Last winter the Farmer would catch fleeting glimpses of our quarry, but never enough to clearly identify it as dog, wolf or coyote. I personally never saw a thing, except the dog-like tracks and signs of intense digging in the snow. Every fresh snowfall brought new tracks but never a clear sign of the animal.

About a week ago, we noticed fresh tracks around the apple trees. The tracks circled our trees, reminiscent of some animal on a scouting expedition. The coyote was back and by pure chance we managed to photograph him through the hazy breezeway windows at the back of the house.

The day these photographs were taken was sunny and cold with temperatures of -13 °C (8.6 ºF). The coyote quickly and warily crunched on a couple of apples, and then less than a minute later, trotted off and disappeared behind the barn. Yes, it is a coyote and coyotes eat apples.

Annie Rose

P.S. Our coyote is not the only one who eats fruit. Here’s an interesting video called Coyotes don't climb trees, of a coyote actually climbing a tree to access the fruit.

Growing Your Own Christmas Trees

“It looks very bare” said my aunt when she first viewed our four acre property. Though we had a surplus of out-buildings, trees were practically non-existent. A few scrawny 20 foot cedars grew to the west of the house and they kept company with four sad lonely maple trees. Besides seven out-buildings and the house, all we really had were fields of grass.

That first spring, with the help of a close friend, the three of us planted 600 spindly little 6 inch trees. We planted the trees about 4 to 6 feet apart as we’d been assured that most would not survive the year. The following year we planted another 400 evergreen seedlings on the east and west sides of the property as wind buffers.

Now 12 years later, we can tell you with confidence that the predications on tree survival were wrong. Most of the trees survived. There is now a small forest in the northeast corner of our property, which is flanked by small evergreens to the east and to the west.

For the last couple of years now we have been cutting our evergreens and have used them as Christmas trees and decorations. Throughout the year, we trim the trees using our hedge trimmer. Trimming them makes the trees bushier and more compact. Its also a way to keep the trees down to a useable size, as trimming tends to cut back on the tree height. Outside the trees always seem to look small and narrow. Once we bring our chosen tree in, it is usually much wider and taller than it seemed to be outdoors. Branches for the stairwell and mantel are cut from low hanging pine branches. You cannot beat the price of using your own trees. Our trees are also super fresh; as they’re only cut on the day we plan to use them. Better yet, we can regularly replant little seedlings, insuring an almost free supply of trees for years to come.

Happy New Year to one and all!

Annie Rose

The Display Vegetable Garden in October

The first hard frost finally arrived in mid-October. That frost finished the growing season for the Black Beauty zucchini, the beans, the tomatoes and the squash vines. So sad to see the last remnants of the once-flourishing garden shrivelled beyond all recognition. With the bountiful harvest of squash, zucchini, tomatoes and beans we’ve been too busy freezing and processing to mourn the loss of our vegetable garden.

Successful Vegetables

The Anna Hubbard squash were the stars of the October vegetable garden. Seeds were sown directly into the soil at the end of May and produced four vigorous plants. A couple of weeks ago, under threat of a hard frost, we harvested 13 very fine looking squash. Each squash weighted in at about 3 to 5 lbs. The Anna Hubbard squash have a very dense flesh. Once baked in the oven for 30-40 minutes the squash becomes soft enough for eating or baking. This vegetable is really delicious when slathered with maple syrup.

Surprisingly the Black Beauty Zucchini continued to producing new zucchini despite the light frosts. The zucchini leaves showed damage but kept right on producing until the first really heavy frost in the second week of October. We harvested about a dozen zucchinis and stuck them in the crisper of our refrigerator. Black Beauty seems to be a very good “keeper” as the larger zucchini are still nice and firm though picked 2 weeks ago.

Carrots continue getting fatter and fatter. They are still producing nice looking and tasty carrots. The October frosts haven’t damaged the carrots at all, though we did cover them twice so far. At this time of year, we usually see some slug damage, but curiously, we haven’t seen any chewed up carrots this year.

Ironically, the parsley, which finally started sprouting in late August, is now lush, green and delicious. Parsley is frost-resistant, so it’s a great fall crop that will hopefully keep producing until November. Chard is still growing though very slowly. Since only one of the four chard plants bolted we still have a decent amount of fresh chard to add to our soups and salads.

October has turned out to be a lovely month with today’s temperatures reaching a unexpected high of 68 degrees (or 19 Celsius) . The color of the leaves was just magnificent this year providing this wobright colorful backdrop to the farm. Frosts have been light enough to allow the hardier vegetables to continue growing, so we’re still eating those fresh salads we’ve become addicted to. That won’t continue for long, so we’ll enjoy every minute while it lasts.

Happy Gardening!
Annie Rose

Footnote: Our Nikon D40 suffered “irreparable water damage” according to Nikon which apparently can happen simply by taking the camera into a “humid environment”. The pictures this month were taken with the Google Smart Phone, the Nexus HTC. It’s a wonderful phone, camera, personal organizer, compass, GPS, toy and in a pinch – like now – a real life-saver.

The Display Vegetable Garden in August

August was a perfect blend of heat and rain. The vegetable garden has flourished into a tangled jungle. The regular rains made it totally unnecessary to lug heavy hoses around. Since the garden was really overgrown, the weeds never had a chance. Basically all we do now is harvest our bounty of crops.

Successful Vegetables

Our plan to pick only the larger carrots and leave the little ones has worked out fabulously. The remaining carrots are now all a decent size. We pick a couple every day, and there still seem to be a good number of remaining carrots.
My Black Beauty zucchini have gone bionic. The main zucchini plant simply dominates the other two plants, but has steadily produced 5 to 6 zucchini each and every week. I’m very pleased with Black Beauty as even the larger zucchinis tend to be nice and tender .

The beans now have lovely big, fat, tasty and juicy pods. We love the mottled beige and brown color of the pods in salads. Because of the overcrowding the bean plants never reached their expected height, but with this years bounty, it hardly matters.

The first crop of lettuce has been purged from the garden. For our second crop we had planted only Romaine lettuce in early July which has done surprisingly well in the heat.

Vegetables with Issues

The second crop of parsley barely came up, probably due to a combination of too much shade, too much competition and the evil slugs. Lettuce has all bolted now, expect the latest crop of Romaine.

Happy Gardening

Annie Rose

The Display Vegetable Garden in July

What a difference a month has made. The 12 x 12 foot display garden is now producing quite nicely and has begun to look like a bit of a jungle. July has continued to be delightfully warm, with just-in-time rain showers. Though it’s probably a great exercise for me, not having to pull around those 100 foot hoses has been such a relief

Successful Vegetables
The couple of remaining radishes inter-planted among the carrots have now gone to seed to provide next year’s crop. The carrots have graduated to “baby carrot” size. The carrots are still pretty closely planted, but I regularly thin them and add the baby carrots to my salads.

The snow peas stand about 3 feet tall now, rapidly outgrowing their initial supports. The snow pea pods are a lovely yellow, and provide nice color in salads. The pods on shelling peas are starting to get nice and fat, and should be ready for picking any day now.

Zucchini plants do not seem to like transplanting. The untouched Black Beauty Zucchini is doing very well with 3 small fruits, whereas the transplanted zucchini has yet to bloom. The third zucchini, planted from old seed, looks like it’s picked up a powdery mildew problem and will have to be pulled. No beans, cucumbers or squash yet, but lots of leaves, flowers and hints of things to come.

The lettuce is fabulous. The three lettuce types chosen were brilliant and we’ve eaten salads every day since the middle of June. Surprisingly the Grand Rapids lettuce has retained its great taste though it’s just starting to bolt. The Iceberg lettuce still looks and tastes like a leaf lettuce and shows no inclination of bolting. The Romaine lettuce is now just starting to “close” into that lovely core of lettuce. We expect the Romaine lettuce to reach its prime in another week or so.

Vegetables with Issues

It’s tough being green. We lost round one of the tatsoi versus flea beetle battle. Beetles: one – gardener: zero. We’ve brewed up a batch of garlic/hot pepper spray and will let the beetles have it. We are going to try surrounding the new plants with coffee grounds as well, to see if this makes any difference.

Replanting the peanuts was in vain. Some critter dug up all my freshly planted seeds and ate the whole lot. We give up – no peanuts this year.

July has been just lovely, sunny and warm – a great year for the garden and one to remember for years to come.

Happy Gardening to you all.

Annie Rose

Related posts:

The Display Garden in June
The Display Garden in August

The Display Vegetable Garden in June

It’s been a month since we planted the 12 x 12 foot display garden. In the last week of May we hit some record high temperatures for the Ottawa, Ontario region and the garden is now coming along very nicely. In fact this week, we actually managed to pick our first garden grown veggies for our salads.

Successful Vegetables

Tatsoi has been the biggest surprise in our trial veggie garden. We purchased the seeds at an organic growers meet simply because we had never grown this vegetable. The tatsoi grew extremely fast, has a lovely mild chard-like flavor and makes a great crunchy green in a salad.

The interplanting of carrots and radishes worked out perfectly. The little carrots are now setting their second set of leaves and the radishes are ready for picking. In the next couple of days we’ll have harvested the last of the radishes from the carrot patch, giving the baby carrots plenty of room to grow.

Peas, beans, cucumbers, zucchini are all up and doing well. The snow peas are now about 6 inches tall, and will need to be supported. Supporting poles for our peas, cucumbers and beans are already in place, so it will be a simple job to staple the netting in place. Curiously, the squash plants that grow with a companion squash right next to them seem to be doing much better than squashes growing alone.

Vegetables with Issues

The peanuts and parsley never came up. Both sets of seeds were about 5 years old. I really should have run a germination test on both sets of seeds. The birds love sitting on the bean supports, but the ingrates nipped the leaves off 1/3 of my baby bean plants. Their thinning job is a bit erratic, so I’ll replant in the spare spaces in a couple of weeks for the second bean crop. The flea beetles seem to love my tatsoi just as much as I do. We are going to try a row cover on the tatsoi to see if that will discourage those little gourmets.

We had a spot of cool weather around the first week of June, so delayed planting the tomatoes until around June 12th.

Happy Gardening to you all.

Annie Rose

What’s Up : Spring Flowers in the May Garden

With the mild winter up here in Ottawa, Ontario, it seems that most of our plants have survived this year. The current dry spell is a bit of a challenge to new growth. Seedlings, with their shallow root systems, are really struggling. Here in the valley, it keeps looking like rain, but at the end of the day our accumulation is less than 1/8 inch of water over the last week. Time to connect the hoses and start watering, me thinks.

One of my favorite flowers, the Virginia Bluebell, is now out in all its glory. Most spring flowers tend to be yellow, which contrasts beautifully with the blue of these flowers. We split the main plant apart last fall. Because of the mild winter, the new Bluebell plants have really taken off. I’m just fascinated with how the flowers start off as a delicate pink, and then change to a delightful shade of blue as they mature. I’ve seen this transformation a thousand times, and it still captivates me every spring.

A plant that never ceases to amaze me, Corydalis Noblilis, is now in full bloom. With delicate stems,

fragile foliage and delightful yellow flowers, speckled with black, this plant is one of the first bloomers every spring. This delicate plant is a lady of iron, pushing through layers of leaves that would choke and stifle lesser plants (and hopefully weeds). We acquired the moist packed seeds from Gardens North about 8 years ago, and managed to get three plants to grow. Now, with an abundance of seeds and wet summers, I have another dozen baby plants pushing up all over my shade garden. The lovely golden blossoms brighten up a normally dark corner of the yard.
Sadly, the cherry bushes are just about finished blooming. Delicate pink flowers fill our two bushes late each April. The larger of the two bushes is now about 6 feet or two meters high and provides a nice landscape impact when fully in bloom. The branches make lovely and elegant cut-flowers that I usually place in a tall dark colored vase. The pink flowers also work well with my Ikebana arrangements by providing structure for delicate white daffodils.

The shade is keeping the flowers blooming a bit longer than usual. The daffodils and tulips are both up, and I’ll cover those in the next article.

Happy Spring to you all!
Annie Rose

Grow Carrots in Your Boots! Book Review of: Growing Stuff

Growing Stuff  An Alternative Guide to Gardening will charm anyone with a sense of fun and a love of gardening.  The book contains creative projects on growing vegetables, herbs and flowers.  Most gardening projects in this book require few tools, are easy to do and inexpensive.   Both novice and experienced gardeners can discover numerous innovative ideas in the short and original articles.

The Projects

The projects presented are extremely creative and will delight experienced to novice gardeners.  Northern gardeners will find a wide variety of projects that can be used for indoor winter vegetable gardens such as growing carrots in boots, growing vegetables in containers and raising herbs in teapots.  For teachers there are easy classroom projects like “Cartoon Cress” and “Mini Window Garden”, using recycled containers and fast sprouting seeds like water cress or sprouting seeds.   Instructions are short; one or two pages, easy to understand and nicely illustrated.

The book begins by offering a basic explanation of soils, plants, containers and composting. A third of the book is really a vegetable gardening planting guide on starting a vegetable garden indoors.  The balance of the book touches on growing herbs, flowers and unusually plants like living stones and carnivorous plants.

Conclusion

Growing Stuff is one of the most enjoyable gardening books I read in years.   This book is a standout in terms of creativity, layout and illustrations.  Its simplicity is refreshing.  The ideas presented are practical and can be used for gardening indoors, on balconies and in containers.  Flipping through the projects, I kept thinking “What a great idea, now why didn’t I think of that?”   And… it’s a lot of fun – especially with the two feet of snow at my doorstep.

Planning a Vegetable Garden