The day after I returned from France I got my light garden started and planted seventeen different vegetable varieties. Mostly heritage varieties and open pollinated, no GMO's here. I have been surprised to discover how many sources there are for these old varieties which are no longer commercially grown, all the way from seed companies that specialize in heritage seed to individuals that save seed from a favorite vegetable and share it through internet discussion groups. I have several more vegetables that I will be starting a little later on as well as several that will be direct seeded in to the garden, this is a list of the seed planted so far:
Italian flat leaf Parsley
Lettuce Gotte Jaune D'Or
Lettuce Merveille des Quatre Saisons
Cayenne Peppers
Brussels Sprouts Oliver
Cabbage Perfection Savoy Drum-head
Ground Cherry Golden Husk
Tomato Black Cherry
Tomato Buckbees New
Fennel Solaris
Swiss Chard
Broccoli Diciccio
Kale Toscano (Palm)
Red China Eggplant
Golden Beets
Deacon Dan Beets
Guardsmark Beets
Within 48 to 72 hours of planting both lettuce varieties had germinated.
As you can see I have gone heavily into beets this year, they are one of my favorite vegetables and in the past I have had great difficulty growing them. I plant them the germinate and are starting to grow nicely and the next time I go out to the garden they are all gone. I think my problem is the bunny rabbits or some other pest so this year I'm starting them under lights and will plant them in the area of the new square foot garden that is surrounded with rabbit fencing. In case it is some other pest I'm also going to use floating row cover until the plants are well established. Most seed packs say that beets are hard to transplant so this might be a problem but all I keep remembering is my grand father always transplanted all of the beets that he thinned out of the rows into additional rows of beets, they would wilt for the first few days but as long as they were well watered he always had good success with them. Mine are seeded into individual one inch cells so it should be easy to pop them out and transplant then without too much disturbance to the roots.
Today is day four since I planted my seeds and there are things coming up everywhere Swiss Chard, Brussels Sprouts, Ground Cherries and Savoy Cabbage. Things are off to a good start and I think the next item to be planted will be peas directly into the garden, they can be safely planted in the garden 4 to 6 weeks before the last frost date and right now we are about 4 weeks from our last frost date in late May.
The date on this video should be April 21, 2010, too late to change it now.
Wednesday, April 21, 2010
Square Foot Garden April 21, 2010
Versailles Hall of Mirrors
Versailles Hall of Mirrors, originally uploaded by Campobello Island.
Home safe but not so sound. Two days after I got home I came down with a bad cold, sore throat etc. I guess I'm improving but it hasn't been fun.
Took this little video clip in the hall of mirrors at Versailles the day before I flew home. Ivan and I spent the afternoon at Versailles and had a wonderful farewell dinner at, "Au Chien qui Fume".
I had no idea of the ash problem from the Iceland volcano until I arrived in Moncton and Christina told me about it. Just as well I would have worried about it throughout the whole flight.
Evidently I was on one of the last flights out of Europe. By the time I arrived i n Moncton all European flights had been canceled.
Last Monday I managed to get on the Batobus and take this little video of Paris from the river.
Well that concludes my little trip and camino walk. Thank you for following and for all of your comments. The blog will continue and for the next few months it will mostly be focused on my Square Foot Garden a new gardening project that I started last fall.