Seeding Has Begun!

You wouldn’t know it by the little snowfall that we had yesterday, but planting time has begun at Rose Haven (my home). This past weekend I got my “seed starting station” set up (a 5-level shelf with fluorescent shop lights attached), and got the first seeds planted in trays. It’s still a bit early for most seeds, but it was exciting to get a few things going. Some have already started germinating! Most of them will be ready to transplant to the outside garden in mid to late March.

- Waltham 29 Broccoli (already germinated!)
- Early Purple Broccoli (already germinated!)
- Romanesco Broccoli
- Long Island Improved Brussels Sprout (already germinated!)
- Late Flat Dutch Cabbage
- Early Snowball Y Cauliflower (already germinated!)
- Violetta Italia Cauliflower
- Italian Parsley
- Cilantro

I also added a couple of fruit trees to the garden this past weekend. One of our local garden centers mailed out their “Member Rewards Rebates” recently, and I couldn’t let it go to waste! :-) I got a Mandarin Orange tree & planted it along with my Meyer Lemon tree in the veggie garden, but right next to the house, where I will train it to climb the wall 2-dimensionally (a technique called “espalier”). This will keep it from blocking the sun from the vegetables below, but I’ll still be able to get fruit from it.

In addition to the lemon & mandarin trees, I picked up a “4-variety” cherry tree. Cherry trees are like blueberry bushes in that you need to have at least 2 different varieties so that they will cross-pollinate. But I found this particular tree which has 4 different cherry varieties grafted into it: Bing, Rainier, Stella, and Lambert. Hopefully it will be happy where I planted it & grow lots of cherries for me! Of course, I probably won’t see much fruit from any of these trees for at least a year or two. That’s ok, in the meantime, I’ll have tons of veggies, and I also have my strawberry & blueberry plants which have been producing increasingly well the last couple of years.

Til next time…