PSNH Power Line Presentation

Here is a LINK to PSNH's Power Point presentation to the Newington Planning Board.

New Year New Seeds

The first day of the New Year is when I like to start planning the garden.  This year I've abandoned some old favorites like Dr. Wyche's Yellow (which I still love) in favor of some new items from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  You should be able to click on the links below.

This year will be a new challenge as I will have to plan the garden around the chickens, who are likely to take a keen interest in seedlings.  However, on the positive, I am going to have a ridiculous amount of compost to add into the soil in the coming years and may not need to buy fertilizer anymore.  It's great how having just a few chickens can close the loop on gardening.  The garden goes into the compost.  The chickens eat the compost and add nutrients.  The compost goes back into the garden, and we get eggs as a byproduct.

That is something to look forward to in 2015!

	Tess's Land Race Currant Tomato Item No: TM156	1	$2.25	$2.25
	Gezahnte Tomato Item No: TM238	1	$2.50	$2.50
	Meraviglia Di Venezia Bean Item No: BN166	1	$3.00	$3.00
	Miniature White Cucumber Item No: CU167	1	$2.25	$2.25
	Cherokee Trail of Tears Pole Bean Item No: BN134	1	$2.75	$2.75
	Blue Curled Scotch Kale Item No: KA101	1	$2.00	$2.00
	Calabrese Green Sprouting Broccoli Item No: BR101	1	$2.50	$2.50
	Mammoth Grey - Sunflower Item No: FL735	1	$1.50	$1.50
	Monstrueux De Viroflay Spinach Item No: SP104	1	$2.00	$2.00
	Muncher Cucumber Item No: CU174	1	$2.50	$2.50
	Cosimo Red-White Cosmos Item No: FL250	1	$2.50	$2.50
	Lavender Item No: HB112	1	$2.25	$2.25
	Orange Banana Tomato Item No: TO104	1	$2.00	$2.00
	Tall Telephone Garden Pea Item No: GP106	1	$2.00	$2.00
	Wethersfield Red Onion Item No: ON127	1	$2.25	$2.25
	Carouby De Maussane Snow Pea Item No: SN111	1	$2.75	$2.75
	Merlo Nero Spinach Item No: SP105	1	$2.50	$2.50
	Ailsa Craig Onion Item No: ON122	1	$2.50	$2.50
	Zucchini Golden Squash Item No: SSQ118	1	$2.50	$2.50
	Cut and Come Again - Pumila Mixed - Zinnia Item No: FL866

March can be so seedy!

Yes that is a double entendre.  But here are this years seed order.  Let me know if you are interested via facebook or email.  

Onions.

Ailsa Craig.

Jaune Paille des vertus.

Flat from Italy.

Liege Winter Giant blue leeks.

Tomatoes.

Hartman's Yellow Gooseberry.

Slava (red cherry)

Amish Paste

Dr. Wyche's Yellow (orange actually)

Beans

Dragon Tongue Bush

Beurre de Rocquencourt (yellow wax bush)

Caruther's Purple Pod Peas

Calabrese Green Sprouting Broccoli

Caserta green-yellow striped summer squash (zuke).

Patissons Panache Jaune et Vert Scallop (patty pan squash)

Middle East Peace Cucumber

Bozeman Watermelon

Hamburg Rooted Parsley

Fennel di Ferenze.

Purple of Romagna Artichokes

Susplendid Animation: rareseeds.com order!

It's absolutely frozen outside.  Everything is shut down, waiting for the snow to melt and spring's return.  At least there is football, and the hope the Patriots make the superbowl. 

But spring is not that far away as we get closer and closer to the equinox and the feeling that each day is longer than the one before it surrounds us.   My first order is from Baker's Creek Heirloom Seeds, probably the largest heirloom seed company in the US.  It's a family business but their seed collection is tremendous.  They also publish a magazine, Heirloom Gardener, that is worth checking out.  I bring my old copies to the Langdon Library, if interested. 

Unfortunately, this year I won't be growing any cucumbers or squash because of the cucumber beetles and squash vine borers.  I am going to take a year off and hopefully their population crashes. Not sure it will work, but that's good news for the farmers at the market. 

I also plan to re-order from Adaptive Seeds which offers one of the best watermelons, Bozeman, and a few other plants that can't be found anywhere else.  But more on that later.  Here is my list of seeds for the garden in 2013!

Calima Bush Bean

Dragon Tongue Bush Bean

Gold Marie Vining Pole Bean

Five Color Silverbeet Swiss Chard

Ching Chang Bok Choy

Cosmic Purple Carrot

Crisp Mint Lettuce

Rouge Grenobloise Lettuce

Noir de Carmes Melon

Ailsa Craig Onion

Jaune Paille Des Vertus Onion

Wethersfield Red (accidental order)

Red of Florence Onion

Dr. Wyche's Yellow

Brandywine Tomato

Riesentraube Tomato

 

Merlo Nero Spinach

Lilliput Mix - Zinnia

Fennel, Bronze "Smokey"

Season of Melonmania!

A month ago, summer seemed to hold its greatest promise in abeyance as I watched green tomatoes sit idly in the garden, seemingly doing nothing whatsoever, day after day, hour after hour.
Of course June is not to blame.  It is mostly a month of spring, not summer, and the cause for my complaints is impatience overfed by long expectation:  in January, I wait for seed catalogs to be published; in February, I imagine the new plants I will grow; in March I germinate tiny seeds by the window; and in April and May I guard the fragile seedlings in cold frames against frost and heat.  No, June is not to blame at all!  It is simply the month when the cruelty of expectations bears its fruit. 



But no longer!  This years volunteer sunflowers are in bloom.   Tigerellas, Black from Tulas and Caspian Pink (above right) tomatoes are all coming into ripeness. 

This years biggest excitement is Sweet Freckles (right), a crenshaw melon that turns orange with brown freckles when fully ripe.  There is only 1 company (Adaptive Seeds) that sells it in North America.  On the left is Petit Gris de Rennes which, due to a year spent in the city of the same name, holds a special place for me.  It is a soft-ball sized french cantaloupe.   Will it recall days spent playing soccer by the Seiche river, or bicycle rides where the hay in the fields seem to shine mysteriously, as if invented in this location?  Perhaps not, but it just may, as the catalog notes "have orange flesh that is superbly sweet, flavorful and perfumed.... the favorite melon of the French melon expert and author Bruno Defay." 

Last but not least of all are the watermelons that hold their secrets the longest and best of all.  When are they ripe?  You can tap, you can search the vines for clues, but you will never truly know until a day in mid or late August when, unable to endure waiting any longer, you cut the vine and bring it into the kitchen.  The greatest moment of expectation for any gardener.