This is January?

Darn, the weather has been nice! This is January?

So instead of sitting at my computer, as I should have been doing I've been otherwise engaged. Doing some seeding in the hoop house, cleaning out the chickens, picking greens for sale, walking the dogs.

Fun stuff, outside stuff.

It's true, these are things I enjoy!

So the seed listing has taken a bit longer to come up with. If I was sitting inside on a blustery, snowy day it would have been done long before this. It's hard to resist the temptation to NOT BE IN!

But now it is done.

It will be winging it's way to my friend who is a knowledgeable friend of computers, which I am in not.

And a new website will be introduced...soon, with some cool new seeds.  I'm excited!

A new CSA season, new farm events and some very cool new heirloom tomato seedlings. Lots of them. And some exciting new (old) veggies I'm trying.

But in the meantime, here's a look at the winter farm and what is happening.

Sometimes we rest.

A surprise- a variegated arugula. I'll try saving seed AND propagating. 

So many beans to shell...ain't they pretty?

Tressa's Florence hot pepper for seed.

Sometimes I cover, sometimes I don't. This week not yet!

Sylvetta arugula- a winter hoop house staple

My 2011 Vegetable and Flower Favourites

Happy New Year!
Don't you just know this will be a wonderful year? I sure do.
The turning of that December page on the calendar means a whole new beginning. Symbolic perhaps.
But that's okay. New beginnings are good-clean slate and all that.


And nowhere is the slate cleaner than in the 2012 garden. Time to start anew. Failures last year? Forget 'em. THIS is the year! May your carrots grow straight and sweet and your tomatoes plump and juicy.
Hope always springs eternal and a true gardener at heart is always optimistic.


There are some very interesting things that I'm going to try to grow in 2012, with the emphasis being on try. I don't for sure know I can grow some of these things.
But try I will.
On the list are rice, cotton (again-haven't succeeded previously), and a whole lot more.


But there definitely are some crops that I tried...and succeeded with in 2011. And liked a whole lot.
Here's the run down of a few of them.  Soon, when my seed and plant listings are up on the website, you'll see I am selling one form or another of quite a few of them.

Stupice - As always. Delicious, sweet and early. I'll say no more

Green Envy was a nice surprise and did very well at my "Tomato Bash" in August. People loved the taste. Oh...it is yummy.

This was a fabulous tomato. Orange tomatoes are my hands-down favourite tasting tomatoes. I think. Well, I'm pretty fond of greens too. But this one was sweet, fruity, early as the name suggests and large. A real winner.

 I question the name, but not the tomato. Dingo Eye? I'm not sure what I expected, but not this very handsome, tasty and large pink. The seed came from a country whose language is not my own, and I had no idea what to expect. I'm happy, though. It's a very good tomato.

Thompson Classic Seedless was rated by many people who tasted it this year as the best tomato they had ever eaten. Ever. I grew it in the hoop house and withheld the water. Sweet, spicy tasting and stunning, stunning. Thanks, Tom Wagner for handing me this seed. This is a truly splendid tomato.

 I liked the Lime Basil a whole lot, something a bit different in basils. Lovely and citrus and makes one heck of an ice cream and pesto. Now I have to try lots of other basils this year-I'm aiming for 50. Grow big or go home. (What a thing for a small farmer to say!)

 I would say it is a toss up between Slim Jim and Ping Tung Long for eggplant of the year. Pictured above is Slim Jim. It is a great little eggplant that grows very well in tight conditions or a container. Lovely mild taste and great production.

The Amish Cockscomb (celosia) was without a doubt the standout flower of the year. How many pictures did I take of this? The colour, the texture and ultimately the size, although at Monticello they were even bigger than mine. I now know there are lots of other colours, and I'm going to grow them in 2012.

 This beautiful, simple marigold made my heart stand still. I had such a hard time locating the seed for this one after I saw a picture of it on the internet. Isn't it so lovely? This is Summer Snowflake, an apt name.

And last, but certainly not least is Molly, the bean. This slim little filet bush bean was tremendous. Look at the plants... just loaded. I sense this one would do well in a container as the plants were small. Very fine flavour, and of course a very fine name!  I love it.


I've got more favourites too. And how about you?


I'd love to hear from other folks about their 2011 or all time garden favourites. Give me some ideas - I'm willing to grow as much as I can!

Merry Christmas!

 

Wishing you all a Merry Christmas.

If you bought seed, plants or veggies from me. Or didn't.

If you read my blog. Or didn't.

May peace and love surround you and hope encourage you

Whoever you are,wherever you are and whatever your circumstances,

All the best for 2012. 

I hope our paths cross.

Here...or there!

TAKE TIME…

Take time to work, it is the price of success.

Take time to think, it is the source of power.

Take time to play, it is the secret of perpetual youth.

Take time to be friendly, it is the road to happiness.

Take time to love and be loved, it is the privilege of the Gods.

Take time to share, life is too short to be selfish.

Take time to laugh, laughter is the music of the soul.

Love from the farm,

Linda

Eat in the past and live there too!

Years ago at the height of my fanaticism for heirloom vegetables I coined the phrase "Eat in the past".
And yes. It's still there on my website, and will be carrying over onto the new website in 2012.

Clever? Maybe. But maybe not.

Some people might look at it and think "hmm, what is this? Eat expired food? Spend all day in the kitchen and forego modern conveniences?"

Well, of course it really only means try heirloom vegetables. Grow them, eat them and keep them alive.
Because as long as people are growing them and eating them, the seed continues to be in existence and in demand.  Considering 90% of our vegetable varieties have disappeared over the past hundred years this is pretty important.

In some ways living in the past is important too.
My parents lived through the depression and although they were very young, it clearly had a huge influence on how they lived their lives and how they raised my sisters and I.

They didn't buy things they didn't need. When they shopped they looked at quality and price.
We weren't poor, middle class I would say. But "a penny saved is a penny earned" is how we lived.

My mom gardened on a big scale and canned and froze much of her produce.

No food was ever wasted. My whole life I didn't see (or do I see now) food in our garbage can.
One tea bag made two cups of tea, everything was made from scratch and you ate everything on your plate.
And yes. If I didn't like something I sat at the table till I ate it. Not how things are to be done now I know.

But most people were the same.

I remember every summer after my dad had harvested the wheat, taking a bushel full of the beautiful golden grains to our elderly neighbour. It was his morning cereal for most of the year. He would soak a portion overnight, then cook it up for breakfast,  and add a bit of sugar and milk.
For some reason we didn't do that. Maybe mom figured that was more than she could get away with. Kids and all, you know.
Our breakfasts were oatmeal porridge, Red River Cereal or Cream of Wheat.

I was reminded this summer of how simple our life really was by seeing a branch in my elderly friend's yard.

This branch, propping up her laundry line nearly made me cry as a memory came into my head. She must have wondered as I stared at it.
That's what my mom did. With a nail hammered in the top to hold the line, that branch held up that line for nearly 40 years. It's funny to think about it. It was good enough, and did what had to be done. No gadgets, no purchases. Nothing shiny and new. It was just a branch.

Many these days would have you believing that being environmentally friendly is also about buying products that are labelled as such. And sure. If you have to buy something, I guess that's the way to go.

But I think lots of times we're still buying things we really don't need. Buying stuff fills some strange vacant spot inside us.

A few years back I went to a big "green" event in Toronto and came out with my head spinning. "Green" was interpreted as buying more stuff and there was a whole massive building full of it for sale. Maybe the stuff was more environmentally friendly. But with "greenwashing", maybe it wasn't.

I'm not sure buying more stuff we really don't need is the way out of this environmental mess we've gotten ourselves in. Even if it is (supposedly) environmentally friendly.

Maybe it is buying less. Making do with what we have.

I don't want to relive those childhood years.  (Well, actually maybe if I could, I would. They were really good years.)

But clearly, here we are today and this is where I want to be.

It all comes back to tomatoes.

Maybe we should be a bit more like the tomato.  A tomato that is overfed and overwatered simply doesn't taste as good as one grown with a bit less attention. The best tomatoes I ever grew were ones which grew on my hard-to-manage clay with water withheld for the season. They thrived on less.

If we had a bit less maybe we'd appreciate what we do have a bit more. We might even see that all that stuff isn't necessary for us to be the very best we can be.  And the residual effects of less consumption might be good for the bigger picture.

It might not be that bad to live in the past.