Winter Sewing

 

 

I spent some time today planting seeds for next spring. I planted them in milk jugs and orange juice jugs and put them on the balcony for the winter. They are perennials and require a winter to germinate. This is called "winter sewing". It's a great way to plant perennial seeds that need the cold.

I cut the jugs in half, leaving them connected at the handle. I opened the jugs, poked holes in the bottom and put soil into then about 4" deep, then watered it. I like to water the soil before I plant the seeds. Then I just sprinkle the seeds on the wet soil and top, if needed, with a light sprinkle of soil.

All of these are taped closed and put outside on

the balcony for the winter. I left the little lids off the containers so they could get some rain and snow to keep the soil damp until they sprout in the spring. I put chairs around them to protect them from the wind and possible winter storms.

I have grown things using the winter sewing method before and it works very well.

I numbered each one on the outside and on the inside so the weather would not erase the number. I listed the plants in each jug on a piece of paper with the numbers so I will know what they contain in the spring.

I planted euphorbia donkey tail spurge, red monarda bee balm, husker red penstamon, purple lupins, a lot of berginia, wintergreen, hardy hibiscus, honeysuckle vine, pink alpine grass, fancy feather oriental poppies, peony poppies, indian paintbrush and pink grass together and johnny-jump-up violas for pots.

The indian paintbrush needs another plant from which to get its nutrients. It's roots wind around the roots of the other plant and take their nurishment from that plant rather than the soil. Grasses are good for this so I have planted it with the alpine pink grass. I got the indian paintbrush seeds from the alpine area where I got the pink grass seeds, often growing together. Here's hoping it works!

Winter sewing also gives me a way to play in the dirt in the middle of winter!

Seedlings in the Cold Frame

I have seedlings growing in my cold frame!
A lot of them! 

 

These are my Hopi black squash seeds. They are doing very well. With all the rain and warm weather we have had lately, everything is healthy and growing well! 

 

I also have a couple of striped cushaw squash and about a dozen sweet dumpling plants. 

 

I have 62 tomato seedlings now! I have never planted that many before! They are all organic, mostly heirloom tomatoes. I planted 2-4 of each kind and I have dozens of different varieties!

 

These are purple hyacinth beans. I have several of them growing and doing well. These are a beautiful, flowering 

annual vine!

 

I also planted several nasturtiums coming up. They are annuals so won't go into the ground until the end of May.

 

They are all in the cold frame now. They can go into the garden the first of June. Our last frost date is May 24, but I always wait another week before planting out. 

 

Planting Seeds

I planted seeds indoors this past weekend. I brought up my shelf from the basement and positioned it in front of the south facing patio door. This is where all my indoor seeds grow until they get big enough for individual pots. Then they go into the cold frame. The tender bulbs get planted in the other cold frame. I have that still to do but want to get it done this 
coming weekend.



I like to reuse, reduce and recycle so I use plastic food containers for seeds. They work well if you cut holes in the bottom and put another food container underneath to catch the drip. (We eat a lot of mushrooms!)





Already the 'Love Lies Bleeding' amaranth is up! (see top picture) Wow! That was fast! I also grow 'Intense Purple' amaranth and love them but I don't have to plant those. They self seed all over every year. I might plant a few, just in case...

I am cutting back a lot on what I grow this year. I have just about planted every early thing that I intend to, mostly tomatoes and flowers. The tomatoes I planted this year are, for the most part, heirloom tomatoes with the exception of 'Manitoba' and 'Buckley's 51 day' tomatoes. These are the varieties I have planted: San Marzano, our own Portugal (of course), Black Krim, Terhune, Prince Borgese, Vincent Watts, Livingston Perfection, Rev Morrow Long Keeper, Giant Belgium, Aunt Lou's Underground Railroad, Chocolate Cherry, Azorian Red, Jaune Flammee, Matt's Wild Cherry, German Cascade, Ailsa Craig, Manitoba and Buckley's 51 day.

I don't plan to plant peppers this year at all. I still have many bags of them chopped in the freezer from last year.

One more thing I do want to plant are 'Collective Farm Woman Melon'. I have to plant something with a name like that! It's just too interesting!

I have one planted container on my shelf with no label. :-( I'm going to have to think about what that might be! lol! I might recognize it when it comes up, maybe.

I planted a few castor beans for the flowerbed, the 'love lies bleeding' amaranth mentioned above, and some broken coloured four o'clocks. I have some special honeysuckle vines coming up in a cold frame, as well. 

I am going to enjoy my gardening this year, without the pressure of previous years when I grew way more than I needed and spent way too much time in the garden!

A Wintersewing Success Story

Back in January, I posted about this year's wintersowing. You can read that post called, "Wintersowing". (I'm not big on fancy, complicated titles...)

That project was a success! I only got around to planting one thing in pots, the echinacea "Double Decker" and it's up! I did plant a lot more seeds in a cold frame. I will have to check those today to see if they have sprouted, as well!

I'm so thrilled!

The echinacea "Double Decker" looks like this.

OK, now that I know it does work, I will be trying other things next winter.

I have done wintersowing before but never had much success with it. I think it's because I used shallow trays (top picture) that dried out too quickly. This year I used a soda pop bottle cut in half.

Wintersowing

Well, winter is here, sadly. It's been winter here for about a month now. We probably won't see the ground again until spring. The only way a hardcore gardener like myself can survive this, is to plant in the winter too. I know it's not the same, but at least I am playing in the dirt and sorting through my seeds, dreaming of spring.

"Wintersowing" is a relatively new thing, as far as gardening goes. I first heard the term about 15 years ago, and that is new for gardening terms. It refers to someone planting seeds in containers and putting them outside so they get the freezing winter temps they need to germinate, but are up off the ground and enclosed. These wintersowed containers will warm up and thaw faster in the spring than the ground and the seeds will germinate much sooner.

You could plant these same seeds in the ground in the fall and get the same, eventual result, but wintersowing is faster. It also gives gardeners a chance to plant and garden in the middle of the winter.

Wintersowing is better done in deeper containers. The more shallow ones, as in the top picture from a few years ago, dry out too fast in the spring. Plastic pop and clear plastic juice bottles work well.

Here is one I did today. This is echinacea 'Double Decker'.

I drilled a few holes in the bottom center and cut more around the outer edge with a knife. Then I cut it almost in half, just enough that I could lift the lid to fill and plant but not enough to take the lid off completely. I want it as securely attached as possible outside.








I filled it with storebought potting soil, since our ground is frozen solid, and planted the seeds. Echinacea seeds need a winter to germinate and they also need a little sunlight, so they get covered very little, if at all.



I stuck in a label and put it on my south facing deck with a block of ice behind it to hold it in place during winter storms. I don't have many of these seeds and would be quite frustrated should it blow over and be destroyed. I planted about half of the echinacea 'Double Decker' seeds that I have, saving a few in case these don't germinate. (It's a foolish gardener who plants all of his seed!)
I have a few more seeds to wintersow this year. This is just the first one. I'm looking forward to these special echinacea seeds for the flowerbed. As far as the herb uses go, it doesn't matter which one I have since they all have the same properties. I have single purple ones and the 'White Swan'. These flowers look like this:
Almost anything that needs a winter to germinate can be wintersowed. I plan to do a lot more this month, if I have the time.

Blue Corn

This year I am growing blue corn also called Hopi maize! What I have is called 'Six Nations Blue, Long Eared Variant'. It's not really a new thing. Blue corn is a very old heirloom, grown by the Hopi and Aztec natives for hundreds of years. Isn't it amazing how the old things are coming back and they're better than the new generation foods!

Heirloom organic blue corn has 20% more protein, less sugar with a lower glycemic index. The blue colouring is due to the presence of anthocyanins in the corn. These are the same health promoting compounds found purple berries and red wine. It is ground into flour and used as feed for animals. It doesn't have the sweet, tender taste that we are used to in the new corn hybrids. Is that a good thing? The new hybrids are all sugar.

20% more protein is amazing! So much better for egg production in chickens, meat building in pigs and cows, milk production in dairy! It's also better for us! With less sugar and more protein it can be part of the diet of someone with blood sugar problems.

Here are some more facts that I have discovered when researching blue corn:
Blue corn has 20% more protein and 8% less starch. It has more lysine, zinc and iron than today's yellow hybrids.

Cooking with blue corn:
Blue corn meal is milled dry blue corn. Blue corn masa harina has been roasted before milling.

Blue Corn Pancakes
Yield : Makes about 25 small pancakes
Ingredients
1½ cups blue cornmeal
½ cup all-purpose flour
1 teaspoon salt
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon baking powder
2 eggs, lightly beaten
1½ cups milk
4 tablespoons melted butter
Unsalted butter, for the griddle
Directions
Sift the dry ingredients into a mixing bowl. Add the eggs, milk, and butter and mix thoroughly. Cook the pancakes on a hot, buttered grill or skillet, using 2 tablespoons of batter for each pancake. Keep the pancakes warm in a low oven until ready to serve.

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Blue Corn Cornbread
Original Recipe Yield 1 - 9x9 inch pan of cornbread

Ingredients
1 cup blue cornmeal
1 cup all-purpose flour
5 teaspoons baking powder
1/4 cup white sugar
1 pinch salt
2 eggs, beaten
1 cup milk
1/2 cup butter

Directions
Preheat an oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Grease a 9x9 inch baking dish.
Mix cornmeal, flour, baking powder, sugar, and salt in a bowl. Sift 3 times.
Stir the eggs and milk into the cornmeal mixture. Place the butter in the prepared baking dish, and melt in the preheated oven. Mix hot, melted butter into the cornmeal mixture. Transfer cornmeal mixture to the prepared baking dish.
Bake on center rack in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until the edges of the cornbread pull away from the sides of the dish, and a toothpick inserted into the center comes out clean. Let cool 10 minutes before cutting.

If all goes well, I will have these heirloom, organic blue corn seeds for sale this fall!

Planting for 2011

Most of the planting has been done for this year! I still have some tiny seedlings too small for the garden yet, but on the whole, most things are out there. The seedlings that I still have potted are mostly herbs and baby grapevines for the upcoming vineyard and a 
few perennials.

We have cut back on the vegetables we are growing, wanting to use that time and space for other, more interesting things. We've added a lot more berries this spring and more herbs too and will soon be installing a vineyard for our new 'Valiant' grape vines.

Here is a comprehensive list of what we have planted this year. I am sure there are a few things that I have forgotten. I will be writing future posts throughout the summer to introduce you to a few rare and new things on this list.

Squash:
Hopi black (our favourite)I planted 14 of these plants!
Hopi pale gray
Turk's cap
Sweet dumpling
Upper ground sweet potato squash (Grows in the poorest soil and conditions!)

Tomatoes:
Our Portugal beefhearts
San Marzano
Ailsa Craig
Manitoba
Rev Morrow long keeper
Gordon Graham original world's largest tomato seeds (Only 1 plant growing)

Beans:
Yellow wax beans bush
Kentucky Wonder yellow pole beans
Scarlet runners
Stringless blue lake green pole
Gold of Bacau yellow pole
French Duet pole
Dow Gauk yard long green
Gradma's Mushroom beans pole

Peppers:
Bells red, orange, dark purple
Mixed mini bells
Giant green bell
White Habanero hot
Red cheese sweeet
Feherozon
Lipstick Sweet
Jimmy Nardello
Corbaci sweet

Only the bells are big enough for the garden yet. Hopefully I will get peppers from the others this year. We need some heat! I want them for seed sales!

Others: (Up and growing)
Sweet peas
Blue native organic corn (For ginding and fodder. Has 28% more protein!)
Tobacco Virginia Gold
Cantaloupe (14 of these plants. Wine!)
Giant watermelon (Only 3 came up :-(
Large globe onions
Ground cherries
Spinach
Lettuce
Basil
Parsley
Catnip
Thyme
Lemon balm
Cilantro
Oregano
Celery
Rosemary
Flax
Quinoa
Chia
Lavender Muntead
Stevia (Only one came up)
Impatiens glandulifera

Planted but not up yet:
Haskap honeyberries
Cranberries
Blueberries
Hostas mixed
Lupins
Sea Buckthorn
Black currant
Jacob's ladder
Rugosa roses
Stevia
Purple leaf sand cherry
Amaranth intense purple
Amaranth red
Chichiquelites (Garden huckleberry)

Perennials and herbs still growing in our gardens: (not ornamentals)
Rhubarb
Strawberries
Raspberries
Blackberries
Gooseberries
Haskap honeyberries
Black mulberry
Black elderberry
Saskatoon berry
Black Currant
Green onions, scallions
Thyme
Oregano
Chives
Garlic Chives
Mint
Lemon Mint
Hibiscus
Comfrey
Red Bee Balm
Echinecea
St.Johns wort
Wild Evening primrose
Red clover
Motherwort
Feverfew
Chicory
Lappa Burdock (Close relative of the artichoke. Taste like them too!)
Heal all
Boneset
Yarrow white and red

Many of the medicinal herbs at the end of the list are not grown in the kitchen herb garden, but are planted in a space to themselves, where I leave them to do their own thing most of the time. The grass and weeds don't seem to bother them. They actually do better if left alone to grow wild, so I don't coddle them.

This is a fairly comprehensive list. As you can see, we have little room for much in the way of plain old ordinary vegetables! No zucchini this year. We just don't eat it often enough to grow it. No garlic either. It is always on my list of things I want to grow, but in the fall when it needs to be planted, I am busy and tired of gardening. Maybe this year, in October, I will plant some. No potatoes or carrots. Both of these grow on local farms nearby so are cheap and plentiful in the fall. No sweet potatoes this year. I grew them last year but decided that they weren't worth the time and effort.

Rhubarb Blooms

My rhubarb is blooming! I have been waiting for this. :-) What comes with blooms? SEEDS! I will have hardy rhubarb seeds for sale this fall!

It's ready to start cutting now too. I'm going to start today, chop it freeze it and then make wine out of it when I have time. I also plan to make pies, cobbler and maybe jelly and so forth. I have a lot of rhubarb!

















Looks like the strawberries are also blooming! Hmmmmmmm... Those don't look like strawberry blooms to me. Who put forget-me-nots in the strawberries!

Our Favourite Tomatoes

Over the years we have grown a large variety of tomatoes, more recently sticking with heirloom or organic types. We don't want to grow or eat anything that has been genetically modified.



Although we have tried all shapes, sizes and colors, we prefer the normal, round, red tomatoes. Of all the tomatoes that we have tried, our favorite tomato is grown from seed that I got in a trade years ago, from a fellow gardener who's ancestors brought the seed from Porgugal. We just call them our "Portugal" tomatoes. We never did know the actual variety, if there is one. These may have been handed down through the family for generations. We just don't know.




I have had them too long for them to be GM seeds and I know they are not hybrids, as they breed true year after year.


These tomatoes are MASSIVE! Some as big as my hand. They are meaty, sweet and a great size for sandwiches. One slice is all you need!






These are a large beef heart style tomato, which is hard to find. There are a few more out there but I don't know how they compare to mine.
We love this tomato and nearly lost it last year! The tomatoes did so poorly and had so much blossom end rot, I feared that we would not get any ripe enough for seed. Fortunately, I did have some seed saved from the year before. (The smart gardener never plants all the seed.) I also managed to salvage a few of the ripe "Portugal" tomatoes and collected the seed from those, but not a lot. I do have some, now, on my seed site for sale. This year we will do better :-)



Another favorite tomato is the 'San Marzano'. It's our only paste tomato and is touted to be the best in the world. It's from Italy. We grow these every year and they do make great sauce!

They have a thick wall and very little water, which is why they make such good paste.

We also grow: Matt's Wild Cherry, 'Ailsa Craig' and the 'Manitoba' tomato, recently developed to grow big in the short Manitoba prairie season. It is not a GM seed nor a hybrid, so I am growing it for a few years on a trial basis.

I have just today put the seed for our 'Portugal' tomatoes for sale on my seed site, after determining that I do have a few left that I can spare, but not a lot. So many people have asked for it. I felt like I had let folks down by not selling any of this rare seed. Fortunately, there are now some available, after doing some germination tests. I would like to spread it around so that it does not get lost in a bad year. Anything can happen and I would hate to lose this one completely from our heirloom seed pool! Save those heirloom seeds!
The 'San Marzano' seed has always been there, as they did well enough last year for me to collect some seed. Not well enough, unfortunatley, for me to make tomato sauce or paste. I do not have the other three seed for sale due to such poor conditions last year. I am planting only these five this year and hope to have some seeds for sale this fall.

Let's hope for a great tomato growing season this year!

Nothing beats a juicy, ripe tomato fresh from the garden!

Early, Early Spring Seeding

By this time of the winter, I am usually waiting impatiently for spring. I so want to be digging in the dirt, smelling it and planting things in it! One thing that helps me is planting a few very early seeds. Even though I am still indoors, at least I get to play in the dirt!




Last year I got so impatient that I planted all my tomatoes in February. Big mistake! This year I will wait until April to plant the tomatoes and the peppers.I did plant a couple of small tomato plants just for early in-house tomatoes for us to eat. We are getting tired of paying for those store bought tomatoes! This is the 'Ailsa Craig' tomato that I planted a couple of weeks ago. It's doing well under lights. By the time it gets too big for the lights and the window, we will have enough sun for it to grow in front of the patio door.

At that time I also planted some catnip for the kitties. It is doing well under the lights.


I am using styrofoam cups simply because I have them left over from a summer pup party. I don't like using them as well as I like My Newspaper Pots and I don't really approve of using styrofoam at all. I don't think I am going to continue using them for pots as they are tippy and I can't get as many into a container. The newspaper pots work much better.

My helper was right there with me, as she always is. Regardless of where I am or what I am doing in the house, Abby is near, unless she is sound asleep somewhere in a box or basket. If I am sitting down, she is in my lap. I paint with a cat and a canvas in my lap, I compute with a cat and a laptop in my lap. She is fully grown at 1.5 years old but small so she is an indoor cat. Being a tabby, she rules the roost around here and we love her dearly! Even with her small stature, she takes no guff from Buck! lol! She's definitely a "daddy's little girl"!

I am using horizontal blinds, cut into small pieces, as markers. I have done this for more than a decade and have been happy with them. The marker fades outside, but it fades from anything if left out in the weather. I have yet to perfect a long lasting outdoor marker that is easy and affordable. I have used styrofoam cups cut up and they work ok outside if you use a pen and make the letters indented into the material, but the ink still disappears.

For planting trays I reuse those hard, clear plastic food containers from the grocery store. I plan to use these to grow our own sprouts, as well, which will probably be another post soon. The bottoms need to be water proof and all labels removed from the top so the light can get in. They make excellent seed trays for the newspaper pots. I like reusing "garbage"!


I am not growing as many vegetables this year as I have in years past. We just don't need the food now that there are only the two of us to eat it and my time is so short, with working, gardening and all.


I am growing more of our own grains. I have planted chia, red quinoa and white quinoa already since they have a longer growing season and need the extra time. They are all sprouting now!

The quinoa is the tallest, which is good because it has the longest growing season. I will be offering these seed on my seed site soon, now that I know they germinate well and quickly.


I love setting up my "grow" room and planting things in winter! It was -20c last night and is still -17c this early morning! Will spring never come??