It’s been raining since Sunday, three days now. Which has put a cramp in my plans, a bit. But it has allowed us to get some things done inside that needed doing. Like going through all the seeds and sorting out what needed to be planted now, and what will be planted later in the ground. Once that ground dries up a bit and I can get a rented rototiller to work it up. On Sunday I planted five flats of seeds. At seventy-two plants each, that’s 360 starts. I’m being a little overambitious, yes. But those starts are veggies, herbs, flowers, and some oddments I really wanted to try. And we do plan to have a big garden and sell some and put a lot up. With 7 people to feed here on the Farm, and more in the shape of friends and family nearby, a big garden can go a long way. We have three shoeboxes full of seeds, and that’s not counting the old seed I tossed. Anything from the 1990s went in the pig bucket. I have come to the conclusion that gardeners collect seeds. All year long, Dad and I pick up packets of seeds, saying either, we need that, or hmmm… that would be interesting to grow. Which would explain the packet of Stevia seed. We don’t usually plant half of what we have stashed, so this year I wanted to get a good chunk in the ground. I planted several different kinds of melon, for instance, including some heirloom varieties we’d picked up. Hopefully they will do well, everyone here loves melon and will eat as much as I feed them. I paid three dollars for a honeydew melon today. It would be lovely to just get one in the garden.
Unrelated to gardening, but related to the rain, I have been spring cleaning the house. Both kid’s rooms are clean now finally. We’ll see how long they stay that way!
I did go out to the greenhouse in the rain and planted the next lot of greens. The lettuce Dad started a month ago is ready to harvest and looking good. It was nice to be in the warm greenhouse with the rain plinking on the plastic. The tomato starts and strawberries in hanging baskets are beginning to bloom. We will be selling them for people who want to have some sweet produce but don’t have the space we do to garden. The everbearing strawberries will start to fruit next month, and continue through October with minimal frost protection. Then they will come back next year bigger and better if overwintered in a sheltered place!
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5 responses to “Rainy Day Activities”
put them under the lights. 🙂
Aye, aye cap’n. They are up on the shelves, lights aren’t on until I see sprouts!
Oh boy, do I ever know the seed thing! Seed catalogues are expensive packaged dreams. And all the new one and heirlooms… I’ve found some very disappointing – the strawberry spinach, the cossack pinapple are two I won’t try again. Salify and scorzonera are two that have worked really well for us.
What’s this about ever-bearing strawbs?
Around here we refer to seed catalogs as plant porn… all pretty pictures, nothing like real life. Doesn’t keep us from buying seeds!
I’ve harvested strawberry spinach as a wild plant in Alaska. But what is cossack pineapple?
Everbearing strawberries differ from your more popular June bearers in having smaller berries, but they aren’t day specific, so they will bear all season. http://urbanext.illinois.edu/strawberries/growing.cfm
cossack pineapple is rather like an insipid cape gooseberry. Like Tomatillo I proved I can grow them, but I didn’t find a lot of use for them. Like radicchico that no-one liked it won’t go in next year. If it volunteers, well and good, the fruit is usable, just a little bland and sweet.