I remember having seen artichoke starts. There were none left. There was this weird gravitational pull toward a rack of Ed Hume seeds. These are seeds designed for the Pacific Northwest's climate. Score!
Suddenly, these "Cosmic Purple" carrots were in my hand. Then the orange carrots. Oh, and parsnip seeds! I love parsnips.
Whoa. Check out the tomatoes. "Oregon Spring" was designed for the cooler climate here and has a quick maturity cycle. Nice! And here's a good mix of heirloom tomatoes that will mature at different times. Aren't they pretty? Check out those colors. Don't my summer canning recipes call for Romas? Those did well last summer. I should grab some more.
Next, I called Gene. I can't remember: did he like radishes? No? OK good, me neither. Did he want anything? Lettuce: check. Oh, look cabbage! Gene loves homemade sauerkraut so I'll get that. Chard is so yummy in stir-fry and it's still early enough to start some.
Gene said that he wanted broccoli and beans. Pretty! Purple! Beans! Whu wait... ohhh, leeks! Gene doesn't like those but I do and they're expensive. Last year's tomatillos did well, so I should pick up more. And artichokes for sure. I'll start those in the house right away and plant those out front, too.
Oh man... I hate paying for parsley and cilantro in the summer. The cilantro will be tasty in a salsa verde. And the basil will get planted in the new raised beds Gene said this morning that he'll build for me. Yeah yeah. Homemade pesto! I'll make a huge batch and freeze it in ice cube trays.
I fondled the celery and spinach packets but remembered that I had some celery seeds at home. The only spinach seeds are hybrids, and since I'm going to try to save my own seeds this fall I returned the spinach to the rack. Hybrid plants don't produce reliable offspring from their seeds.
Dreaming of how my garden will grow, I drove home.
Where I discovered these:
You're as bad as James with the Territorial catalog in hand. Yikes. But ... yum! I planted artichokes from seed last year, and the plants did quite well, but you don't get chokes off a plant until its second summer, and the plants didn't survive the cold snap this winter. I'm thinking about planting them in containers that I can move inside if it gets too cold..! (My parents have 10+ year old plants, and get at least a dozen chokes off each in the summer, but they're also better about covering them when it's cold.)
ReplyDeleteI'm looking for a cheap source for cloches to cover tender plants for this very reason. Unfortunately, the cut crystal cake dome I found at Goodwill was so heavy I couldn't lift it, taking it out of the running.
ReplyDeleteThis will be my 3rd attempt at artichokes. Attempts 1 and 2 were foiled by weather and chickens, respectively.