Last week we had some pretty extreme weather. One day the temperature hit 26 and we all shed our parkas and put on shorts and tank tops, and the next day it was -10 and it snowed. So while everyone was catching colds trying to adjust, the crocuses decided they were ready and popped up right through the snow. I thought about what a pretty picture that would be, but by the time I had my camera out, the snow had melted from that part of the garden. Lots of other green things have been popping up despite the temperatures staying on the lower end, though hovering around zero at night the past few days. And with the green things, I found some surprise carrots (with no tops, just exposed orange) and the first slug happy to find an early feast. Slug-b-gone is back on my shopping list. Sigh.
My seeds arrived a couple of weeks after my last post. I have not had time to post, because last week was Passover and I barely had time to plant my seeds, being ridiculously busy cleaning my house from top to bottom, cooking and generally being domestic. I probably should have taken the time to read the fine print on the seed packets, because too late I realized that some of the peppers I bought were supposed to have been planted 6 weeks earlier. Oh well. Some of the varieties mature in 65 days (ring of fire), some in 73 (flame hybrid thai peppers) and some in 80 (mayas). This means that for a decent pepper crop, I will have to plan to have lots of manure in October so they will survive the move inside better than last year's batch. The monkeyface peppers did not even say how long they take, but the recommended a later planting time than the mayas so there is some hope there. I got some new tomato seeds from my mother-in-law called Amish paste, and I planted some of those, the steak tomato seeds given to me by a client at our day centre who knows I garden, and san marzanos, totally forgetting about the Black Krims. Josh reminded me about them a week later and I got some of those planted too. Where I am going to put all this stuff is a bit of a puzzler, especially when I noticed the garlic popping up beautifully (did I really plant that much garlic?!). I will be expanding the garden space a bit to fit it, especially as we are trying broccoli again, which takes up a lot of space.
More on the topic of organic versus non-organic seeds, I had a bit of a surprise when I looked at the packet of Royal Burgandy beans and found that they were treated with captan, streptomycin, apron, thiram, and underneath it says do not use for food or feed. Apron? Captan? What the heck is that? Clearly, these are not organic. I did a bit of reseach: apron, captan and thiram are antifungals, and streptomycin is, as I guessed from the name, an antibiotic. It is used to treat tuberculosis. Beans have tuberculosis? Really?? I went back to the Vesey's web site to see if there was anything which should have signalled to me that these beans would not be appropriate for my generally but not strictly organic garden. I found the error of my order. There were two options, for treated and for untreated seeds. Incidentally, they were identical in price. I am going to contact Vesey's and see if I can make an exchange. I am now going to be more careful when I make orders. I would expect that there should be a big red warning that these seeds contain potent antibiotics, even a pop up saying "are you sure you want to get these seeds? They have been treated with fungicides and other naughty things!" So to add to my last list of things to know when ordering seeds, "treated" indicates definitely not organic.
My last order, for onion sets, has turned up today, but as no one was home for the delivery, we pick it up tomorrow from the post office. They arrive just in time for planting, which meant that I need to finally make some decisions about where they are going to go. As I really do not like doing things in a disorganized manner, this also means I have to decide where everything else is going to go. So I ducked outside after dinner and sketched out some ideas of where I will put things this year. The onions are going into the bathtub, and I will weed out any savory that sprouts. We are pretty sick of savory after discovering how huge it gets and how well it reseeds (oops). Josh liked that idea, but pointed out that my placement of carrots would be too shaded by tomatoes. I am trying to find places where there have not been tomatoes in the past year. I also did not think about where to put broccoli, and forgot completely about potatoes. I have to be careful where to put those because some diseases cross between potatoes and tomatoes. Also, I covered the area where I had the cucumbers with hay bales to try to kill off any cucumber beetle babies, and plan to keep that section undercover this year.
I am planning to add some pics soon. As of yesterday I had three crocuses blooming, one Siberian squill, and a daffodil budding, but not much to photograph. I am waiting for the magnolia which has had buds since sometime in February but is biding its time. I am also going to work on my garden design and post that once it is more advanced (I have learned not to say finalized until at least mid summer!), now that the onions have a designated spot, I have time to plan the rest.
