Seed Starting 2014

This is my first year starting my garden from seeds. I decided to try it because it's cheaper (factor #1 for me), and I was unimpressed with the selection of heirloom starts locally. (Aka, there were none...)

So many of the big garden/cooking/sufficiency gardeners start from seeds and rave about it...I'll be honest. I wanted to jump on that band wagon.

So jump I did. Without my typical amount of research. Whoops.

Valuable lesson #1
Don't order seeds from the US if you live in Canada. :(

Luckily that was a very small order done as a test...still disappointing but not like I lost all the seeds for this year.

 

Lesson learned. I ordered the rest from a Canadian organic heirloom seed company (incredibleseeds.ca).  and the results so far are stellar. I've only planted about half of the seedlings (stupid Canada's stupid late last freeze dates...*grumble grumble*) but those have done surprisingly well so far.

 

The repotted seedlings (back to front); cherry tomatoes, bloody butcher tomatoes, black krim tomatoes, jalapeno peppers, bell peppers, herbs.

 

Here's a bit of info on what I bought, why, and how it's done so far.

Tomatoes

I chose three varieties to plant:

Bloody Butcher Heirloom

ISC: 55 days. Heirloom Tomato Seeds. Indeterminate. An excellent early variety Bloody Butcher Heirloom Tomatoes start early and produce consistently until frost.  Tomatoes form in clusters of five to nine on vigorous vines. Medium sized tomatoes with fantastic flavour. A good multi-purpose variety, excellent fresh and canned.

Why I picked them: The growing season here is really short (like...REALLY short), so something that starts quick and keeps going is a huge bonus. I also really love fresh tomatoes, I'll eat them like apples...but one of my goals is to can some of my own produce. Since these tomatoes are good for both fresh eating AND canning that's what I want.

 Planting/seedlings: They are doing amazingly. I actually got more than 100% success with them coming up. Clearly I planted an extra few seeds by accident. I'm ok with that though. With luck I'll have 19 well-producing tomato plants this year :)

The plants are doing better now that they've been repotted once. I took some advice from another gardening blog and repotted them straight into fancy containers (*cough* red solo cup *cough*) that should do well until they're ready to go into the garden. I still have more to move, I did the most vigorous 5 plants, and the ones I moved definitely look to be improving quicker. I'm going to need more room in my indoor garden post haste!

Black Krim

ISC: 75 days. Heirloom Tomato Seeds. Black Krim Heirloom Tomatoes are a rare purple-black tomato and is one of the best tasting you will ever try. Originally from the Isle of Krim in the Black Sea of the former Soviet Union. The dark, three inch fruit have a fantastic and intense taste perfect for anything that calls for a tomato. One of the best available.

Why I picked them: To be honest I got this for fun. I'm not expecting loads and loads of tomatoes from it, since 75 days is quite long to start...but I loved the pictures of the Black Krims on the website and thought it would be neat to see how they do. I'd love it if I got enough to can even one jar of Black Krim pasta sauce!

Planting/seedlings: I've gotten pretty good success from these; I planted 9 and 7 came up. I'm happy with that. They aren't as vigorous as the Bloody Butcher or the Cherry...but they're doing ok. I only repotted the biggest 3 seedlings and they're looking good as of last night.

Large Red Cherry Tomatoes

ISC: 80 days. Indeterminate vines. Large Red Cherry is a very prolific producer of one to two inch bright red cherry tomatoes. The deep red fruit are great for snacks and salads. 

Why I picked them: I love cherry tomatoes. LOVE THEM. If I get any of these I'll be thrilled. Again, 80 days is a long start time, but I'm hopeful they'll do ok. I've had a lot of success with cherry tomatoes in the past (well, more than with the regular ones anyways, lol) and since this says it's prolific...I picked this one. We'll see how it does.

Planting/seedlings: These have the lowest germination rate - 6:9 - but the healthiest looking seedlings. They were the first ones to get their first set of true leaves, and were already working on the second set by the time I repotted them! Now they're still ahead of the others, and growing strong.

Peppers

I did plant three varieties, but bought one on a whim at a certain local mega-store...we shall see how they compare to the heirloom plants!

California Wonder Bell Peppers

75 days. California Wonder Sweet Bell Peppers are a top choice for northern gardeners producing very well in our climate. The fruit are large, have thick walls and are very tasty. The peppers can be picked when green or left on the plant until they turn bright red for a sweeter taste. They are hard to beat for fresh eating and also make for delicious stuffed peppers.

Why I picked them: It's like they wrote this just for me! at 75 days they're one of the shortest peppers I found, I'm really hope full I'll get a good set on them. Since one of my goals is to feed both the people AND the guinea pigs in the house these bell peppers were really important to me. (For those who don't know guinea pigs should eat 1/4 of a green pepper, or 1/8 of a red pepper EVERY DAY. Needless to say we go through a lot of peppers.)

I particularly like that they can be picked green or red, the more versatility the better.

Planting/seedlings: The peppers are all a little slower than the tomatoes, but they're still looking good. These germinated out at 7:9, which is great, and they're just working on the first set of true leaves. The 2 I repotted are doing well.

Jalapeno Peppers

73 days. The standard for nachos and salsas! Jalapeno Hot Peppers are 3 ½ inch long and have a spicy addictive flavour which has made them such a popular addition to so many recipes today. The vigorous 26 inch plants bear early and abundantly and are very easy to grow, ensuring a bumper crop. They are ready to pick when the peppers are dark green.

Why I picked them: Again, things that I love. Versatile in cooking, easy to grow, produces lots. I have a few jars of amazing pickles jalapenos I made last year...I bet they'll be even better with home-grown peppers! YUM!

Planting/seedlings: The jalapeno peppers didn't germinate as well as the bell peppers... 6:9, but they are healthier looking. The leaves look very different from the tomato starts, and I'm really interested to see how they do. I repotted 2 jalapeno peppers.

Habenero Peppers 

Why I picked them: These are the ones I picked up from Wal-Mart. They are organic (or claim to be...), and I purchased and planted them late, so they haven't come up yet. I only planted them a few days ago, so we'll see what happens. If they don't work I won't be upset, but I'd like to compare them to the heirloom seeds.

Other

I thought I'd try a few new things this year...'cause starting my own seedlings wasn't enough to take on, lol.

Rosa Bianca Eggplant

73 days. Heirloom Eggplant Seeds. An Italian variety, Rosa Bianca Heirloom Eggplants have pink and white, rounded fruit. A very unique and beautiful variety, it does need heat and warmer nights to fruit well. If you have a warm spot in your garden along a wall, hot summer weather or a greenhouse it's a nice variety to try.

Why I picked them:I haven't eaten much eggplant...but I know I'm more likely to eat it if I grow it and these are just so darn pretty! I'm not holding out high hopes or anything, but I'll be happy if they do ok. I have a plan for where I want them to go :)

Planting/seedlings: They all came up! 6:6! I was thrilled to see they came up at all, since they were a good week behind the peppers and tomatoes. I haven't transplanted any of them yet, they were still too little...and I didn't have room. Something that will hopefully be remedied in a week or so.

Utah Celery

Utah celery is widely grown and disease resistant. It has tall stalks that are sweet and smooth with leafy tops. It is cold tolerant and long lasting.

Why I picked them: I'm a sucker for cold tolerant plants. I wanted to try celery last year, but without anyone selling seedlings I was out of luck. I've heard there's no comparison to store bought, so I'm curious to see how this works out for me.

Planting/seedlings: I've got 5:6 seedlings up. They're the tiniest little seedlings I've ever seen! The seeds were miniscule, so it makes sense...but I'm hoping the grow quick because at this point I'm a bit nervous about having planted them too late!

My set up is very basic (VERY basic), I have one short shelf, two three foot long fluorescent fixtures (too long for the shelf...whoops), and two seed starting trays. One is empty, the other holds the seedlings I haven't repotted yet.

I should have some things (visiting pets) moved out of my hobby (guinea pig/visiting pet/seed) room by the end of next week, so I'm planning on rigging a way to hang the lights and putting in a table. That should give e enough room to keep the seedlings all happy until spring gets here (whenever that happens....) and they get to go outside!

In a month I'm going to start worrying about setting up an easy hoop frame for the tomatoes, eggplants, and peppers. I want well producing plants, so I'll need to trap what little heat we get here. I'm also hoping to be able to rig up something so I can harden the plants off outside...without having to tramp up and down three flights of stairs with cats underfoot and delicate seedlings in my arms - twice a day! Not going to work.

Other than the herbs that's all I've got going on so far. Yay, long updates! XD

I'm Back!

Alright, alright, it's been a while.

In my defense I've been crazy busy. Here's a brief update of my flurry of activity the last few months:

-New jobs! 2 of them since the beginning of January! (A non-profit group, and a library, YAY!)
-House guests, in the form of snakes! (They'll be here until the end of this month, and have been with us since the end of December.)
-I registered my business with the city :D This was especially big for me, as it makes my business (pet sitting, dog walking, and pet training) much more official.
-Setting new gardening and self-sufficiency goals. More on this below.
-Starting a bunch of house plants from cuttings (pictures to come at a later date ;) )
-Seed starting!

So I've been quite busy, as you can see.

Now, however, I want to write about self-sufficiency and what that means for me and this blog.

I feel like calling what I'm doing 'self-sufficiency' is a bit like cheating. I'm very much in the baby steps portion, but I am trying to work towards being a bit more reliant on myself and the items I can grow and make (preserve), as well as eating healthier and more locally.

Last year I had made a goal for myself that I was pretty nervous about, to tell the truth. I wanted to not buy any tomato sauce/canned tomatoes between August and January. Now, that seems like a teeny tiny goal to reach compared to some of the other bloggers and self-sufficiency buffs out there, but since I was working full time and canning only in my free time AND it was my first year making canned tomatoes...I felt it was going to be tough.

Well, good news. It's the middle of march and we STILL haven't bought any sauce or canned tomatoes! I am absolutely thrilled. Overall, it cost me about $40 ($1/lb tomatoes, I bought $30 lbs, plus cheap/free jars of kijiji, plus some lids) to make 5 jars of delicious salsa (definitely a recipe I'll be re-using. YUM!), and 8 jars of pasta sauce. Plus the FREE (my favorite price ;) ) 5-6 jars of tomato paste made from the waste products of the salsa and tomato sauce.

The only thing I would change is that I wish I'd made more canned crushed tomatoes. They were sort of an after thought (which means I bought them from the grocery store rather than the farmer's market) and I made about 4 jars...and I wish we had a LOT more than that! Not only was it much easier than the sauce and salsa, I could use it in so many more things.

Other fun things that I did last year include the fridge pickles. Another recipe I'll be going back to this year. They were absolutely amazing, even if they did need more salt (I added more than the recipe called for, but it turns out we just like our pickles saltier!). Especially the single jar of jalapeno dill pickles. I don't know what it was, but man those were amazing. One jar was not enough, and the four big jars I made total barely made it into December.
That makes me want to look into a mini fridge to go in the basement so I can make many many more jars without having to worry about where to put them in our constantly over crowded main fridge! Anyone know where I can get a free mini fridge?

Unfortunately I have no idea what the cost of the pickles was, since I've completely forgotten what I paid and how many pickles I bought. Oh well. I am planning on keeping track better this year (yay blogging! lol) and since I have a lot of things I want to try that'll be important.

For my birthday I got something I've been oogling for YEARS. A pressure cooker! I know most of my friends would have unwrapped that and promptly smacked their significant others for such a gift...but I LOVE it. I haven't gotten to use it yet (maybe some cherry jam is in my future if I get a day off...) but I'm really looking forward to being able to make meat sauce for our spaghetti, non-fridge pickles, and a few other things. I just can't wait for spring!

My goals for this year are:

-Seed starting: Check! (Well, partially. The tomato seedlings are poking up, and eggplants and peppers are planted. I have to wait another few weeks before I can get the squashes and zucchinis started. Because Canada. That's why.)
-Growing enough to can some of my own produce
-Canning

• tomato meat sauce!
• plain spaghetti sauce
• crushed tomatoes
• non-fridge pickles
• fridge pickles
• meal-parts (aka Things We Will Use - rather than boat loads of jam and jelly which we don't go through all that fast...)
• Canned peaches? (Costco has moved into our town...I'm hoping I can get a good enough deal on peaches this year to make this feasible)

-Freezing (rather than canning)

• peas - home grown (shucked?)
• beans - home grown
• fruit (Why did I can so much fruit when I could have been canning veggies!? Can more veggies and freeze the fruit for later!

-Eating more locally, specifically buying local (and ideally organic/heritage breed) meats. With 4 local organic chickens in the freezer and 15lbs of local heritage pork, this is well on the way :)
-Improving the garden

• BIG window boxes under the front window? It's such a sunny area, and completely wasted because of the crappy soil in the front bed :(
• Improving the soil in the front bed (Composted horse manure? Sounds like a plan.)
• Improving the soil everywhere (just can't get too much organic fertilizer :))

-Learning more about cold storage and cellaring. We've got some good spaces where we can store food, but I'll need to learn how to store everything I grow and can glean (free fruits and veggies? *fingers crossed*) so I can stretch our local/home grown stores further into the winter. I'd like to have potatoes, apples, carrots, onions, and garlic until January. And a few odd squashes too.
-Home made bread! I need to get back into this. I'm in the process of reinvigorating my starter (which I killed through neglect :( ) and once I do that I want to bake a loaf per week. Freeze what we don't use immediately for weeks when I just don't have time. (*cough* like this one...lol)

My goodness what a list!

I should add that I also want to blog about all these things. I originally intended to blog about books, my pets and animal behavior, and some gardening/preserving...but in my eternal search for more blogs to follow I've found there are none about gardening and preserving the harvest HERE. Where I live. Near Edmonton, AB.

There are a few out East in Ontario, but our climate here is so very different that it's not a ton of use. I find myself chuckling at the 'hard' winters in the states. You know, where they can still grow broccoli, kale, and other brassicas into February...when we're at -40 here?

I know a lot of places had completely ridiculous amounts of snow, I'm not trying to down play that. But you all still go to start your seeds in January. I planted mine this week. Mid March. that's a pretty serious climate difference.

So, as I bumble through, reading books and trying to gain knowledge I hope you'll follow along with me. Whoever else is out there in internet-land ;)

-Becky