More Seeds!

Four more packets arrived today from Gurney's. They had a special offer for $25 off sales of $50 or more so I finally shelled out for a heat mat, and picked out some veggie seeds.
When it comes to purchasing expensive items for the garden, I find it hard to do because it much easier just to be creative with trash and recycled junk I find in the alley. But for the seed mat... ah. I know myself, and seeding is not my forte. I always do something catastrophic right when I think everything is going great, plus in February when I first start sowing our house is lucky to be above 60 degrees Fahrenheit.
You are probably wondering if we are environmental fanatics or something to keep our house so frigid, but alas, we are just poor. Our furnace was upgraded (not replaced... just upgraded) from coal to natural gas sometime in the last century. It might have gone from coal to oil to gas, but judging by all the gas fixtures on the 2nd and 3rd floors I'm pretty sure they went right to gas. If you have never seen a gravity furnace or "Octopus" they are a sight to behold... and chalk full of asbestos! One redeemable quality it has, is that because there is no blower, there is no sound, just warmth. And I guess you have to be a pretty kick-ass furnace to work great for almost 100 years!
So here are the seeds I got today:

• Sweet Corn 'hybrid quickie'
  
• Broccoli 'hyb. colorado crown'
• Radish 'french breakfast'
• Radish 'german giant parat'

I love fresh radishes so so much. Also I have never grown corn before. This will be my first try so I went with an early variety- 68 days to maturity. Since crop rotation is so important and I've put my tomatoes in the same place for the past two years, I've decided to try my hand at a "three sisters" companion planting which is corn, beans, and squash. The corn provides support for the beans to climb on, while the beans provide fertilizer for the heavy feeding corn plants by fixing nitrogen to the soil by way of friendly soil bacteria that live on the legume's roots. The squash helps by forming a living mulch that shades the dirt from the scorching sun, preventing weeds and retaining moisture. I am so excited to try this, especially since it will be 3 crops (or 5 or 6 or 7 depending on how many different kinds of squash I get) in the space of 1! genius!

The photo up top is a Bupleurum from my flower garden.

Fantasy Garden Draft '09

Is it spring yet? Two and a half months of total bordom. I've been surfing the seed catalogs online for weeks now, carefully selecting next year's cultivars...
Last year's vegetable garden wasn't as big as previous years. The mystery vine turned out to be pie pumpkin and not cucumber, and my experiment with volunteer tomato plants gave me store bought tomatoes in my own back yard! The eggplants went in late but I still got enough vegetables to make so amazing pasta dishes.
One tomato I will always have in my garden is the Brandywine. What a champion! Of all the crap tomatoes that sprouted in my compost pile the Brandywines were distinguished by their potato like leaves and even after Aphid Attack '08 followed directly by Neem Oil Massacre '08 they still delivered a hefty yield. Thank you Brandywine!


Ah such fond garden memories.
This year my parsley was host to many Swallowtail butterfly
catapillars. These guys eat a lot and grow really fast. They helped me out a lot though because I cannot eat parsley fast enough to keep my plants from going to seed, but these little guys can. It was always sad to see them go because I can't recall the last time I saw an actual swollowtail around, although with the success of this year's hummingbird feeder I will be starting a Butterfly garden in the back yard wich will include Milkweeds and Parsleys and stuff they like to lay their eggs on as well as pretty nectar filled blossoms. This should be interesting because my older dog likes to eat giant bees that will no doubt come to feast on the flowers.
Well... come February I'm going to bust out the seed mat and the florescent lights and start some seeds. Been saving toilet paper rolls to use as seed cels so I'll let everyone know how that works out. Here are the seeds I have saved from years past and some new ones. I'll be getting more seeds in the mail in the coming months and I'll list those later.
Seeds from previous years:

• Jalapeno Pepper
  
• Sweet Banana Pepper
• Long Thin Cayenne Pepper
• 'Sequoia' Purple Bush Bean
• Brandywine Tomato
• Roma Tomato
• 'Super Sweet 100' cherry tomato
• Eggplant 'black beauty'
• Eggplant 'Apple Green'
• Eggplant 'snowy hybrid'
• Cucumber 'extra long yamato'
• Zucchini 'black beauty'
• Winter Squash 'table ace hybrid'
• Watermelon 'sugar baby'
• random spinach packets
• Okra 'clemson spineless'
• Beet 'tall top early wonder'
• Lettuce 'buttercrunch'
• Brussel Sprouts 'falstaff'
• Carrot 'danvers half long'
• Carrot 'nantes coreless'
• Mammoth Dill

Debo and the Sushi

Crenshaw and the Lemon