More Seeds

When we did our seed inventory (here) we also made a list of the seeds that we didn't have but wanted. We were able to pick some up, locally, when we were running errands the other day.

I was happily surprised at the nice selection of organic seeds that we found at Lowe's. All are from Ferry-Morse.

New Seeds In

Organic Broccoli ~ De Cicco (1890 heirloom)

Brussels Sprouts ~ Catskill (1941 heirloom)

Cabbage ~ Copenhagen Market Early (1909 heirloom)

Organic Carrot ~ Rainbow Mix

Organic Lettuce ~ Black Seeded Simpson (1875 heirloom)

Organic Okra ~ Clemson Spineless #80 

Organic Radish ~ French Breakfast (1879 heirloom)

Organic Rosemary 

Organic Sage ~ Broadleaf

Organic Thyme ~ Common

Ultimately, I prefer organic, heirloom, regional seeds. I choose organic seeds because I don't want genetically engineered or modified seeds (GMO). I choose heirloom because I'm a history buff who loves to see and taste the old time vegetables that families have enjoyed for generations. I choose regional seeds because if people were able to grow the seeds in my growing region 100 years ago, then I should be able to grow them just as well now. 

Seeds We Still Want To Get
Hyssop
Anise Hyssop

We used to have Hyssop and Anise Hyssop just off the back porch. They self seeded and came back year after year. I'm not sure when they disappeared, but we don't have them anymore. I'd love to find more.

Root-stock We Still Need
Potato
Sweet Potato
Asparagus

We generally start our potatoes from store bought organics. We just cut them into pieces with at least 2 eyes each and plant them in the garden. We generally harvest several five gallon buckets from just a few potatoes planted this way.

We've tried sweet potatoes once before. They grew well and developed very nice sized roots. However, the mice got to them before we did. We were very disappointed in our luck, to say that least.

As for the asparagus, we should have planted a bed of them when we first moved into this house. We could have been enjoying them for several years now. Unfortunately, that didn't happen and we have yet to start a plot. Crossing my fingers that we get it started this year.

Next up, we have to set aside time to get these new seeds planted so they will be ready to go out into the kitchen garden, once it's warm enough. We've already planted our nightshade vegetables. Here's the link to that post, if you are interested.

I hope all of your gardening plans are going well.
Until next time,

May all your endeavors be a blessing!

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"While the earth remaineth, seedtime and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night shall not cease."  Genesis 8:22

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Fighting Pine Bedding Today

Today's excitement was anything but enjoyable. For years we have been using spent bedding from our rabbits. We usually use rye straw over newspaper for bedding but last year we added pine bedding. This seems to be a major hindrance in the garden.

If you go back and look at the video of how beautiful the first bed turned over this year you will see what I am accustomed to working with. Spent rye straw and rabbit manure compost very quickly into beautiful, spungy garden soil, teaming with worms and is just generally a blessing to work with. We also usually use grass clippings as mulch to keep the weeds down and by the end of the season, the grass has composted down as well.

Last year we started using pine bedding under the rye straw to soak up urine in the rabbit cages. We use solid flooring in our hutches and we don't want our bunnies to be walking on wet bedding. Also the pine bedding was good because it cut down on mites and worked as a much cooler bedding than the straw. Straw is great in winter and we did use it over the shavings. Our bunnies love to burrow in the straw as well as dig around, searching for the rye seeds.

Weekly cleaning of these hutches results in a great deal of spent bedding that we historically use to fill the garden beds. That tradition continued over this past winter and early spring. Unfortunately, we didn't count on how long it would take for the pine bedding to compost down or exactly how much would accumulate. Apparently the rabbit manure and straw compost away leaving my bed half full of slightly composted pine shavings. Not what I was counting on at all.

Pine bedding is terribly hard, next to impossible to shovel. Even raking it didn't do a lot of good. After a great deal of time wasted in trying to turn my bed, I opted to just weed around the edges and use some soil from an old compost area. The 2' by 8' bed had to be amended with two wheelbarrow fulls of soil.

Old Compost Pile

I was finally able to plant lettuce, spinach, and carrot seeds. I also used the rest of the Walking Onions that I harvested earlier in the week. They were pretty sad looking so I trimmed the roots and stems before using them as a dividing row of sorts.

We will probably have to make an order of mushroom soil for my other beds. I'm not really happy about that.

May all your endeavors be profitable,
Jess

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