The clock, the calendar just keep ticking away the seconds and the months. The first day of Spring has come and gone, still finding me mostly indoors working with seeds and databases.
But I did manage to notice some rain and a double rainbow en route to the post office.
The coming and passing of crocuses of promise:
The coming and passing of thought-provoking orchid irises:
The coming and near passing of daffodils of portense:
Fresh new stately hyacinths:
The flaming of forsythia flowers:
With tulips, apricot blossoms, and so much more just around the corner. What is this fascination with the flamboyant display of the reproductive organs of flowers? Maybe there is a butterfly or bee deep inside of me. Reminders of the brevity of life, whether filled with beauty or other things; of connectedness, if we choose to see it.
This weekend I climbed out of my basement cave, out of hibernation, and started doing autumn garden cleanup – yes, the work a conscientious gardener would complete in November. Oh, what a mess I left!
A short couple of breaths for noticing something else, and suddenly a new season of tomato growing is pressing, pressuring.
Already way out of space on my 4′ X 6′ stand with grow lights, a couple of weeks ago I constructed a makeshift cold frame by using lawn chairs, a double layer of thick row cover, and a small electric space heater.
Birdie Rouge, a microdwarf, putting out a few fruit:
Over the weekend I found this on the ground underneath the pots from the microdwarf tomato project of last year, which were left outside all winter.
This is possibly Florida Petite, but hard to say for sure. No, I didn’t taste it! But you guessed it, I’m doing a seed germination test: how well do tomato seeds survive overwintering?
This coming week I will start potting up my first batch of tomato seedlings:
This is about 450 seedlings of extra early tomatoes, mostly for other gardeners and farmers who, like me, hope for fresh ripe tomatoes by early July. Varieties shown here include these 37:
Amazon Chocolate
Andy Buckflat’s Wonder
Bison
Black Sea Man
Bloody Butcher
Bursztyn
Chocolate Cherry
Dwarf Arctic Rose
Forest Fire
Fourth of July (OP)
Gregori’s Altai
Iditarod
June Pink
Katja
Koralik
Maddeline’s Vine Candy
Marshal Pobeda
Mormon World’s Earliest
Moscow
Orange Bourgoin
Orange Paruche
Red Alert
Rosalie’s Early Orange
Rose
Rose Quartz
Santiam Sunrise
Sasha’s Altai
Siberian
Slava Moldovoy
Sophie’s Choice
Spudakee
Stupice
Sunset’s Red Horizon
Sweet Scarlet Dwarf
Totuska
Tsindao
Utyonok
But where will they go when potted up?
A brand new low tunnel, 6’X36′, large enough to cram in 108 of the 1020 trays if needed. Temperature regulation is going to be tricky!
About 52 varieties of peppers, plus ground cherries and a number of other types also up and growing.
Seeds of 128 additional varieties have also been planted for other growers. Send me an email if you would like a copy of the list: dale@gianttomatoseeds.com. These should be ready by early to mid-May.
Now the BIG task – planting tomato seeds for seed saving this year. The count currently stands at 872 varieties MUST GROW varieties, with at least 300 additional SHOULD GROW varieties. Time, space, energy, other resources are so limiting. But ambition is not!! What to do, what to do…
Delectation of Tomatoes, etc. 