Seedy Saturday Adventures

A note: I am getting back into the discipline of writing a blog; I wrote this shortly after attending the Seedy Saturday event, pressed "save" intending to read it over later, and left it for several weeks. Oops.
Anyhow, better late than never:

On Saturday March 3, I scrambled my stuff together after sleeping late, and drove out to the Britannia Beach Ron Kolbus building to attend a seed exchange and sale called Seedy Saturday. I'd heard about it a few weeks beforehand and decided to go; it wasn't until I told my mother of my plans that I realized the double (and thoroughly unintended) meaning of "seedy". Needless to say, she had a good laugh at that (and at me).

I drove up to the building, noting that I had the correct address, and turned into the adjacent parking lot.
It was full. Several cars had already made the circuit, and were heading back out, so I followed them to a slightly further parking lot, only three quarters full. Neither were small parkinglots.

So, no Mom, the event was not just attended by a few old geezers. And the only seediness involved was that of embryonic plants.

Entered the building to find a small room buzzing with chatter. Display tables for different food-related organizations lined its perimeter, and, closest to the door, a seed exchange table was set up where gardeners could drop off their extra saved seed and pick what they wanted from what others had brought.

It was an organized chaos of every imaginable type of seed envelope, with varieties ranging from cucumbers to wildflowers to squash and tomatoes.
Since I had not managed to collect a large excess of seed from the plants I saved seed from - cosmos, chives, and peas, added to the fact that I'd slept late and rushed out the door, I opted to make a donation (the alternative option to trading).

Leaving the exchange table, I ventured into a gymnasium brimming with people who clustered around the  tables set up by local food vendors, small seed sellers, and various food-justice organizations.

Lessons From Last Year

The first thing any gardener does when faced with the prospect of a new growing season is to look at the previous year: the good, the bad, and the mediocre.

As I recall last year featured a nigh perpetual battle betwixt gardener and squirrels, and several other bugs/diseases. Mostly the damn squirrels. They are a little acknowledged (by the internet) source of urban gardening woes, at least for those of us with a walnut tree in their back yard.

Maybe I exaggerate. Maybe I don't.

Chicken manure pellets seemed to help there a little, but I'm not exactly sure where to obtain more of them (my supply came from an elusive stall in the Ottawa farmer's market the name of which I can't quite recall).
So the search begins.

And then of course there are the veggie variety lessons... 
With great reluctance, I must admit that I cannot grow winter squash in my yard. Reasons:

Things I want to do

As always, my horizons keep on expanding, as I learn more (I've been doing a lot of reading). It is exciting.

I've started a list of things I want to do someday:

• keeping chickens
• keeping bees
• making cheese
• growing most of my own veggies, and preserving them for the winter
• growing stuff in a greenhouse for the better part of the year
• living out in the country

Also, of things that I want to do this year:

Serendipitous straw and copious compost

May is here, and with it beautiful, sunny shorts and T-shirt weather, a reduced schoolwork load for me (yay!!) ...... and 6 cubic yards of compost (+ 3 of mulch.) That is a lot of wheelbarrow loads.

There are different glimpses of things around me that have stuck in my memory - things that speak loudly of spring:

the subtle but stunning iridescent colour of a starling's wing -

the pink waterfalls of apple blossoms shrouding an the boughs of a gnarled tree -

the tiny sky-blue flowers coming out on the forget-me-nots -

the buzzing bumblebee hanging upside down from a bleeding heart -

the pervasive calm and stillness of a clear evening.

My mom, my brother, and I have been working all weekend to get the compost spread over our garden beds, and to get the garden cleaned up and ready to grow.

Of basement garden adventures and too much kale

Due to the all-consuming monster that is the English exam, I haven't written anything for over a week.
The downside to this is that I now have all sorts of unarticulated & partially formed ideas floating around in my head, jostling each other for space, and making my mind feel about as lucid as a muddy puddle.

So, to get back into things, I'll make this a simple update post: what's going on in my garden?

Yesterday I awoke to see white out my window - fortunately spring flowers are designed to take the cold, and they're still going as strong as ever! My mom noticed the beautiful contrast between the snow and the bright flowers and went out to take pictures.

Over the last few days, I've been busy in the basement:

Second planting & seedling updates

My seedlings have been up for about a week now and I'm starting to see their first true leaves.

On Tuesday, I replanted my lettuce (since my germination was lousy - 3 our of 9 cells the first go round) and I filled in the kale seedlings that didn't come up (this time I double planted to make sure I got something).

I also planted cosmos, globe amaranth, and poppies. I probably won't obsess so much about these, as I already have my other "babies" to watch.

Seedlings emerge

I was sitting on the bus on my way back from my English class at the University of Ottawa, wondering rather glumly what I could write about.
Since the weather has decided to be consistently Aprilish, there wasn't anything much to do in the garden - freezing nights aren't wonderful for weeds - or digging.
And of course I wasn't expecting my seeds to germinate until Thursday (a week from when they were planted). Tuesday at the earliest. I was being determinedly patient.

So when I ambled down to the basement to check on my seed trays *again*, I wasn't expecting much of anything - just some more agonizing about whether they were too damp or not and were they warm enough?
And then I saw it.
Green!
First I thought - well, that's a strange looking piece of potting mix.
No, it can't be a seedling. I'm certain I didn't plant any that close to the edge.
They're not supposed to be up yet anyhow.
But upon further inspection, there was one kale seedling:

And then another:

Planting Seeds

I knew before I opened the crisp, pretty white packets that seeds are both nondescript and marvellous.

What I didn't know before was that each type of seed has its own character - each is a little bit different from all the others.

And when you look closely, quite beautiful.

See for yourself:


Tomato seeds are dried versions of the ones what you see in all tomatoes.
They are also tiny. Not quite as bad as carrot seeds, but handling them well requires a certain level of finesse & fine motor skill which I sadly lack.
When my fingers operate on the level of a tomato seed they seem awfully blunt and unwieldy.

Kale seeds are tiny black bouncy balls. They like to hop and bounce about & they just don't want to stay put.

Garden prep - of bleach and dug treasures

With my garden, the things I do aren't usually big and climactic.
Usually they're small. Sometimes rather tough work. But I like it that way.

Over the weekend - on Sunday when I was going through the birth-pangs of finishing my essay, I decided to tackle the rock border to my new front-yard garden.
Because I just could not stand one more minute of editing without self-combusting.

Soon in my digging my shovel hit something hard where there should have been soil.
I stuck it down a few inches over, thinking I'd hit a little rock.

But this one wasn't little.

No this - and the others I found (perhaps 7?) - were quite respectably sized. Hefty, even. Rocks that would hurt if dropped on your toe. In fact they'd probably break your toe. I'm guessing at least 1 square foot, and 2 inches thick.

They were extremely satisfying to dig up one after another.

There must have been a nice rock-border there before the junipers took over the space. I wonder what it looked like 10, 20 years ago. If the old and prickly-snarled junipers that we shed so much sweat wrestling out were ever nice to look at? If there were other plants growing there?
I doubt I'll ever know. But I'm glad to have my rocks, though they still aren't quiet enough for a border.

Here are the products of my hard work:



The other recent gardening adventure of note involved bleach. And holey gloves.

Heirloom Seeds - what I'm growing this year

Sometime back in the fall, by serendipity I suppose, I must have discovered for the first time what heirloom veggies are... and decided to plant them.

So what did I learn? I found out that they're old varieties of our common garden vegetables that have been passed down from posterity. Many of them are disappearing, being out-competed by hybrid seeds from big seed companies. Heirlooms have been selected not for shipping or storage potential, but for delicious taste. There are so many beautiful, strange, or colourful varieties. I can't wait to try them!

I've ordered seed packs online from The Cottage Gardener, a local Ontario farm which sells a wide & tantalizing variety of heirlooms.

Here is what I'm growing:

• Colourful Carrot Mix (purple, yellow, white, and red - how cool is that?)  
• Cosmonaut Volkov & Jaune Flammee Tomatoes (both varieties are indeterminate - i.e. vining, and the crazy Maddster is trying to grow them in pots, albeit big ones. I forsee vigilant pruning in my future.)
•     
• Five-colour Silverbeet Swiss Chard (multicoloured stems, need I say more?)

Garden gets going

It is Friday March 23. We're just on the tail end of an unseasonal burst of summery weather.
My garden plans have been incubating in my mind since sometime last fall, and now they're up and sprouting.

I've been hard at work on an English essay (due Monday), and in between productive work time, I have finished loosening the soil in my new garden space with our gardening fork.
Where there have been ugly old junipers growing for years, there is now destined to be a veggie garden.

As a cure for my springtime fever I have been:
Digging in the earth.
Pulling weeds.
Putting together compost.
Reading seed catalogues & gardening websites.
Planning my garden.
Dreaming.

Soon I'll be starting my first vegetables: Tomatoes and Kale get the honours. Only they'll have to wait until my essay gets done. Which is just as well, 'cause it's still a good 7 weeks (I think!) until May 11, purportedly out last spring frost date here in Ottawa.

I'm excited for this year.
Coming next: what I'm planting.