our homestead: my uprising seed wish list

Uprising Seeds is my favorite seed grower: a family business and farm up near Bellingham, Washington. They grow an ample selection of organic, Non-GMO and open-pollinated heirloom seeds. I've been buying seeds from them for the past couple years and have always had great success with their seeds since they are hearty varieties already acclimated to the Pacific Northwest. Here's my 2013 growing season wish list from Uprising Seeds. All photos come from their website. 

Perfection Fennel

Anise Hyssop

Bienenfreund

Calendula Mix

Champion Collards

German Chamomile

Echinacea Purpurea

Flashy Trouts Back Romaine Lettuce

Lemon Cucumber

Shungiku Edible Chrysanthemum

Tonda di Parigi Carrot

Cascadia Snap Pea

Marshmallow

our homestead: planting a winter garden on my windowsill

It's that time of year again: the time to start tomato seeds. A Pacific Northwest tomato's life cycle is kind of interesting if you think about it...or at least my and my family's involvement with the whole process. Seeds are started in January, then planted out to the greenhouse in March. From late June through October, fruit is eaten, shared and canned up. The greenhouse goes to bed for the next few months. Then, as soon as the New Year rolls around, it's time to start thinking about tomatoes yet again and the cycle repeats itself. I'm not quite sure what I'd do with myself if I stopped starting tomatoes in January. It's just something I do and hope to continue up through when I'm an old great grandmother with cataracts and a bicycle.

Normally I start and grow at least three or four varieties of tomatoes, but this year I'm scaling back a little since I already foresee a busy summer. I did, however, want to grow my saved tomato seeds from the funky, fruity rainbow chocolate tomatoes I grew unexpectedly this year. It will be an adventure seeing what these babies turn into. I plan to keep on selecting from their fruit to tweak my own variety. Science! Anyway, every year I fill a few simple, black seed starting trays 3 inches deep with Dr. Earth Organic Vegetable Garden Planting Mix. It gets the job done.

Then I mix in some sexy microbes. You can read more about these super heroes here.

Once the soil is good and ready, I gently draw 4 shallow rows across per planting tray and carefully drop a tomato seed every half inch to an inch or so.

Then I smooth over the dirt, making sure to cover each seed with just a little bit of soil and sprinkle all of the trays with filtered water. 

This year I'm also experimenting with growing a tray of lettuce for micro-greens. Hopefully it'll work and my husband and I will be able to enjoy a little bit of a fresh baby lettuce in a few weeks. I get desperate for fresh, local greens in the cold winter. I'm not seeking huge results. No leafy giant salads. Just a few tender, sweet leaves to eat as part of a garnish perhaps. 

And furthermore, I have the best success with starting tomato seeds if I use seed heating mats. I found all of my heating mats at my local hardware store. They gently warm the planting trays to encourage the little seeds to germinate. Tomatoes will grow on a windowsill without a seed heating mat, but it can take up to a month for them to sprout and emerge from the soil. I expect to see tiny tomato starts in about a week or so since I'm using the heating mats. 

 

our homestead: snow and seedlings

Snow on the slough

 It was sunny with blue skies today. Quite a stark difference from the wintery weather we had this past week. We had buckets of snow cloak the whole area...up to 6 or 7 inches at my house and nearly a foot or more at my mom's. My cousin from Spokane is in town right now as well, so she's been my partner in crime these past few days as we've been trying to evade getting cabin fever. I heard they received a few feet of snow on her side of the mountains too. I spent my snowed-in days by walking along the river with my dogs (this was Banjo's first snow), concocting far too chocolatey hot cocoa on my stove, stealthily sledding down my neighbor's hill at night and rolling up giant snowmen with my cousin and watching a marathon of movies while feasting on crockpot stews. 

Even with snow on the ground, I've also been busy taking care of baby tomato seedlings! Yes! I have tomatoes once again growing on my windowsills, except this year I've invested in heating mats to speed up their germination (ooh lala!) and am growing them in some fancy-schmancy certified organic potting soil. These seedlings originate from the very same seeds I saved from the tomatoes I grew last year: heirloom pink brandywine and evergreen. I'm nerdily ecstatic that they are actually growing as funny as that sounds...although that's usually the same reaction I have every time something I plant in the ground starts peeking up out of the soil with its green little nose. Never gets old for me. I'm awaiting some 'cherry fall' trailing tomato seeds to arrive in my mailbox. I'm going to experiment and  try to make some hanging baskets this year with them.

My cousin visiting Mercedes at my mom's house

My cousin's snow man...check out that mustache

Banjo and Oswald playing in the snow

An apple tree peeking over the levy

Baby tomatoes

DIY almanac: upcycled seed starting containers and where to find cool seeds

I nearly have a vegetable garden growing throughout the windowsills of my home: Pink Brandywine and Evergreen Tomatoes, Candy Onions, Merlot Lettuce, Agnes Pickling Cucumbers, African Marigolds, Red Sun and Russian Giant Sunflowers, Mammoth Dill, Long Island Brussel Sprout and more. Soon I'll be hardening off and transplanting my little starts outside, but in the meantime I wanted to write about some of my seed starting methods...mainly in regards to some alternative seed starting containers I've been using and where I find my seeds in the first place.

Anyway, one doesn't need to invest in peat pots or seed trays (though these are certainly handy) to successfully produce baby vegetables- most times there are perfectly functional seed starting trays in your very own household, just waiting to be repurposed. Basically anything that can be filled with a few inches of seed starting mix with good drainage will do. You can use old yogurt and Tupperware containers providing you punch a few holes in the bottom for excess water to escape."Sawed-off" milk cartons work great since their waxy coating helps to retain moisture. Of, if you stop by your local grocery or food co-op you might be able to find tomato, pepper, apple or pear flat boxes which come with a protective plastic or cardboard tray for the produce (with individual grooves for each fruit. These are great because you can easily fill these with starting mix, plant one seed per groove and then easily punch out your start from its container and transplant it, much like a fancier seeding tray. Also, in lieu of peat pots, grab yourself some simple cardboard egg cartons, fill them with your starting mix and plant those seeds (check out my cucumber starts above). When you're ready to transplant you can either push the starts out of the carton or you can simply pull the carton apart (per start) and directly plant the starts into the earth since the cartons will biodegrade quickly. If you directly plant the carton pots, it does help to make sure there's a hole or tear in the bottom of each, to make it easier for your starts' roots to acclimate to the soil.

Now the fun part! Seeds! I get so excited when my first round of seed catalogues show up, right about the time winter is winding down. My favorite seed catalogues come from Johnny's Seed Co, the Territorial Seed Company and Peaceful Valley. Their selection is always astounding, chalk full of heirlooms and organics, and I adore the plant photos and illustrations. Recently I discovered a seed company called the Kitazawa Seed Co (it's funny because they have been around since 1917) that specializes in Asian vegetable varieties. They have all sorts of cool and quirky seeds such as melons, greens, cabbages, gourds, turnips, beans, sesame, eggplant, water peppers, leeks, mibuna, mugwort and the likes. I ordered a few packs of seeds from them including Lunar White and Kyoto Red carrots, a dark-orange winter squash called Uchiki Juri and Harukei Turnips (yum!). I've also had some success searching for seeds at my local Cenex (farm co-op). They usually have a decent assortment of seed potatoes and onion sets. Often I find myself on the hunt for local seed exchanges as well, wherein folks can come and share and collect personal heirloom seeds. I'm considering organizing one myself...