Saturday, January 7, 2012

Ready to go

I spent some time this afternoon sorting through and cataloging my seed collection.  This year I even took the time to record the age and, if not many, how many seeds I have of a particular variety. This last bit is important.  How else would I have known that I only have 3 Anaheim pepper seeds in that envelope?!
I made a list of what I/we want to plant in the garden this year and my list of wants/needs and dug through the catalogues.
I've discovered that Baker Creek has everything I want -plus a few extras that weren't on my list ;-)  so I only have to order from one place.  Yeah!!
I've decided that this year, I'm going to grow less variety but try to do it better.  So, instead of the 12 varieties of tomato I planted last year, this year, it will only be 6:  Amish Paste, Polish Linguisa, Amana Orange, Black Sea Man, Crimson Cushion (wasn't thrilled with it last year but it was a bad tomato year- I'll give it another chance) and a hybrid beefsteak.  I'm  growing a hybrid this year because with the garden rotation I'm back in the spot where I had terrible trouble with late blight last time I planted there (the very first gardening year here).  I'm going to try to mulch the heck out of the plants this year as soon as they're planted to avoid any soil splash.  But, this is the low end of the garden and always seems wet.  This won't be a problem if it is a dry year but if we have another wet, wet spring like we've had the past few years I could be in trouble.  I do want to eventually put in raised beds but that's not on the short list at the moment.
For peppers this year, I'll only be planting 4 hot peppers:  Anaheim, Jalapeno, Bulgarian Carrot and Hot Hungarian Wax.  And 3 sweet peppers:  Tolli's Sweet Italian, Purple Beauty (bell) and Ozark Beauty (a red bell).
As always, there will be a couple of eggplants, cucumbers, squash and all that jazz.  New for me this year in the plan are Loofa gourds, fennel and Long Island Cheese squash.  I picked up a Long Island Cheese at the farmer's market last fall and V actually liked it (he's not a big squash fan) so it's definitely one to try to grow.
Some new planting areas for the spring:  the west wall of the barn where I plan to grow the loofas, the west wall of the chicken coop where I want to plant climbing nasturtiums to provide some shade as that wall gets really hot in the summer, and just to the west of the chicken run.  That run gets an incredible amount of hot afternoon sun since it's on the west side of the shop and I'm going to try to plant some sunflowers out of reach of hungry chicken beaks to provide some shade there as well.
So, I've got my plan started.  Now I just need to map out the garden, place my order and WAIT!  With the springlike weather we've been having, that last one is the hardest!!

This year, I hope to finally construct the little greenhouse that V got me for my birthday last year.  It had been on the plan for last spring but the chicken coop took precedence.  Little greenhouse... raised beds... then maybe a hoop house and I'll be really going.

8 comments:

  1. WOW! You are really going to be busy.

    I hope you can wait. I know it is hard as you said. You can do it. :)

    It would be great to get your green house up too.

    We had snow here during the night, about 6 inches, so we are far from planting time.

    Have a good Sunday. Take care, Janet W

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  2. I am working in my orders too. I have one in and one almost done. This weather is really making me yearn for spring too (patience, patience:)

    I asked for Xmas for the greenhouse I received mothers day 2010 be installed this year. We'll see, lol.

    I attended a fruit and veggies grower conf last week (blogging abt it later) and learn Si much. Really making me miss ft on the farm.

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  3. You have a packed schedule, but I suspect you'll get everything you want and need to be done done. I am new to your blog, so I took sometime to browse through your earlier entries. I'm so glad I did that. I really enjoyed the time I spent here and I'll definitely be back. I hope you have a great day. Blessings...Mary

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  4. LOL. You made me chuckle. Wasn't it a few posts ago that you said it was too early to check out the catalogs and now you've got it all planned out!! Actually, that's great! All you have to do now is order!! I'm sure you had a ton of fun deciding what one you wanted. Only Jan, Feb and part of March to go!! Not long!! ...debbie

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  5. You're way ahead of me, Bloggy Friend! I've been thinking of checking my seeds (I think I'm in good shape), but know there are a couple of things I need to order. You've maybe given me the push I need to get at it!

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  6. Janet- I have to wait. It is only January in Iowa. I can't even think about starting early stuff for a couple of more months. We're still waiting on a real snow. As much as I'm enjoying this weather I long for REAL winter.
    Gina- I'm fortunate enough that I've got enough seeds in the stash that I only need to place one order. Of course, I'm still debating on planting potatoes this year. I may have to order those since the little garden place where I used to get them closed down last year. sigh... That fruit and veggie conference sounds so wonderful.
    Mary- thanks for stopping in. I tend to run at full steam. I don't do 'still' very well so tend to keep myself pretty busy.
    Debbie- LOL! That was in December... January is the time for seed catalogues.
    Mama Pea- Hope you can get your seeds sorted. I really only needed a few things but found a couple extras to make the shipping worth it.
    Judy

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  7. Baker Creek always has what I need AND a lot more..LOL! You will be busy this season. You have motivated me to get started on looking at my stuff... I finally have a stack of catalogs worth going through and I'm halfway through "the other stack o'crap" I promised myself I'd read first! Can't wait until I ONLY have seed catalogs waiting for me :)

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  8. I sorted my seeds out last week... I didn't realize I had so much leftover!! I was thinking about not ordering anything extra and just using what I had, but then I got a seed catalog with mostly only tomatoes and peppers. I am so weak! LOL!

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