One can count the seeds in an apple etc etc...

Part Deux

 

Seeds worth trading for...

The seed swap site we used the most was The Garden Web  They have a forum section with seed and plant swaps, even a specific area for Canucks. However I found most from the USA were more then happy to trade with us and shipping/customs was no problem at all. This is where the diversity of our seeds really went haywire. People are posting all the time things they are looking for or have to trade. The key is to have one or two seeds people will find unique, luckily I grew and harvested seeds from last years patio garden, the Chinese 5 Colour Pepper and an heirloom tomato seed. I put up my list and then went hunting for others who had long lists of interesting seeds. Struck up a friendly conversation via email and a trade was established. I then sit back and wait to see what they send, and those in the garden world are definitely happy to share. Ultimately they don't want to see the seeds go to waste, but the fact we are just starting out and included our personal story info in our bio and emails certainly helped with the generosity factor. I'd set up a trade for 3 kinds of seeds and sometimes people send like 6 or even 10 kinds. It was great, like a mini Christmas every day the mail arrived.

There were two people specifically who were generous above and beyond. One was a guy who grows tomatoes. I read a few blogs about certain kinds of tomatoes and starting a hunt to find some seeds. I sent and email to a guy who seemed to be a guru in the field and he was more than happy to help us out. He ended up sending us like 10 varieties, all with nothing from us in terms of a trade or postage and more importantly, he sent us two strains which he himself created and named just this year. One named for his wife which I cant wait to check out. Doubt I'll tell D about that one or I'll be knee deep in veggie genes trying to make a Danni Squash.

5 Colour Twilight Zone

The next guy, we'll call him Greg. I think he took it on himself to get us in the right direction with a head start many may be envious of. All with barely more then a couple emails with our story and a request for a few top bean choices. This guy was the bean guru as far as I could tell and after we chatted a little he told me to hang tight and he'd send up a little package. Couple weeks later a bubble envelop arrives the size of a grapefruit. When I opened the package it literally burst out onto the table and we both actually said a vulgar version of "WOW!!" In the package was 83 different kinds of snap and dry beans, 8 kinds of tomatoes and probably 20 kinds of watermelon, squash or pumkins. With 5-10 seeds of each variety, all labeled and many with his personal notes pointing out his favs, or little tips. It was amazing really, and a moment that at some point in the future I may Pay it Forward to someone else deserving.

By the way, one of the bean seeds was suppose to be on the Mayflower back in the day and the strain has been kept 'pure' since then.  If nothing else, we can grow one or two plants of the most rare or desirable plants and sell/trade the seeds in the future years. We do value the benefit of heritage seed saving and being anti GMO, so we will do our part.

Something of note to keep your eye out for when checking the seed swapping sites are either;

1. 'Round Robin Exchange' where you mail in 10 packs each of 1 - 5 kinds of seeds to a 'Host', the Host takes your seeds and 10 or 20 other people's who have done the same, then splits them up for all those who participated. You wait patiently and they send you back a package with an interesting mix of seeds. We've joined two so far and just got one back which was exclusively peppers. The number of seeds you get back is usually a direct correlation to how many you send in.  
2. 'Seed Trains' this is where one person takes a box and starts with a few varieties of seeds. People sign up to be a stop on the train and you mail the package to the next person on the list. When it stops at you, you sort through what you want, add a little to replenish your bounty and mail it on to the next person. We are just waiting for now coming from out west. We found this one on The Hot Pepper , again in the forums section. Wish I liked hot peppers more... 

Small portion of the bible...

Keep in mind, when you get seeds from a swap or train, technically you never know what your getting. Might be old, cross pollinated or just the wrong seed. So as they said in the 70's, swapper beware.

I won't bother to get specific with what seeds we have moving into this year, but I will share some overall numbers. Most likely a majority, if not all, will have at least 1 seed planted to test and preserve, but as usual the reality may be different. Some of course will have multiple planted.

  
Final Seed Tally 

 

• Tomatoes: 55 varieties - small to beefsteak, yellow to black
• Beets: 7 varieties - Striped, yellow and a few variations on the standard red
• Peas: 12 varieties - Not much to say about peas frankly
• Broccoli: 5 varieties - Purple heads, some Italian that branches out and an early sprouter 
• Cauliflower: 3 varieties - Super white, a purple and one which is suppose to taste like heaven
• Cucumbers: 10 varieties - Pickling, slicing and a few which may question my manhood
• Lettuce: 15 varieties - These include spinach, romaines, various heads and loose leafs
• Peppers: 45 varieties - Uber spicy, super sweet with every colour and size known
• Carrots: 9 varieties - Rainbow of colours but mainly on the larger size. No minis here
• Beans: 115 varieties - Snaps, dry, rare and some worth 2$/seed. We'll focus on the larger ones 
• Melons: 35 varieties - Pumpkins, squash, melons & watermelons. Anything you could ask for
• Potatoes: 10 varieties - Early, mid and late season, mostly large with focus on long storage
• Sweet potatoes: 6 varieties - Testing the waters, most are early season varieties for our climate
• Asparagus: 4 varieties - Green and purple with half being a male only high producing strains
• Garlic: 7 varieties - From all over the world, mild to pungent. Looking forward to this one.
• Misc: 29 varieties: Corn, celery, onions, kohlrabi, brussel sprouts, radish etc etc

What do you mean that's too many? D wanted me to try mushrooms too... Anyway, I have everything laid out in a computer file and with the help of the software mentioned previously, it should be smooth sailing. This is one of those examples, I hope, where spending some extra time now will make future years less stressful and productive. I'll let you know... 

Finally, what we did with the seeds was to preserve them not only for safety from natural disasters but also for ease of identification. When the seeds first started coming in I knew the small envelopes they usually come in would be hard to maintain, difficult to sort through and ultimately a recipe for mix-ups and seed errors. To eliminate these pesky issues I went to a friend who has a company shipping Chia Seeds coast to coast. If you don't know Chia seeds, I'll give him a free plug: Chia Seeds

The Larry, Moe and Curly of seed safety

Anyway, to carry the seeds around they have a small hinge top air tight container and I grabbed a hundred of these and proceeded to place each type of seed in one. If the seed was bought commercially I'd actually tape the label or pertinent information on it, to the container. If it was a swap or direct trade seeds I make a label myself or tape the label they included to it.  I recently found mini versions of these at the dollar store, 6 or 8 in a pack and perfect for small seeds, or those of only a few. They can seem to get lost when you only have 5 tomato seeds in a 'large' container. After buying a cheap tool box, the Seed Bank Project is in full effect and frankly I enjoy bringing it out to bore people with. Most people's eyes haze over if I do, but we'll see this fall what they think...       

Seed Bank vault rare opening...

All in all I am happy with the overall outlook. Total cost to us so far is about $500 which includes the seeds, the potatoes, asparagus crowns and a few different trees and fruit bearing bushes. In the next month or two we will buy a bunch more fruit trees for the back plot and then that's it for this year. If we can grow some good seeds worth saving and selling, next year will be much easier. Worse case scenario, we can always eat Cooper...

I'll see you sooner then you think...

Life Lesson # 559b - People, like seeds, need good companionship. Be near those who will help you flourish and bloom. Otherwise you might as well plant yourself under a black walnut tree, alone...
   

The irony wouldn't be lost on Dr. Pavlov...

Meanwhile, back at the farm... Christmas is approaching quickly and we've just passed 2 months since we moved in. We thought this would be a good time for a catch up as to how things are going in general. not sure how much detail to put in, I always battle with having so much to share but not writing just to read my own words. The last post about Jamaica could've been 3 times the length with what happened but... 

|Great time of day for a tea/coffee...

In terms of the farm; things are progressing as much as can be expected. Montego has been cleared and graded for water run off. The amount of contamination from the previous owner is more than we hoped for but basically what we expected. If this was the 70's, a Native Indian would be standing on my back plot with a tear running down his cheek. It'll be constant battle over the next couple years to get that plot 'clean', but I get the impression the rest of the land should be relatively clear of garbage and what is there, is large chunks of stone and old interlock bricks so nothing poisonous or radioactive. I had a neighbour skim off the topsoil of next years plot and pile it in the corner. We'll either have it screened or just add it to the 'get to it later' pile located over near the 'some day I'll deal with that' stack.

We've started looking for the seeds for our first years harvest. It will be a menagerie of test items and general interest edibles. The choice of seed suppliers is a little over whelming and somehow not unlike mattress stores. They all seem just different enough in what they offer, it's difficult to truly compare. In the end we've decided to choose our suppliers based on a very elaborate scientific equation including factors of:

• zone location
• variety offered (heritage, heirloom, non gmo, organic)
• quality of review 
• bulk price enticements 
• bell curving for specialization of specific items grown.         

We'll end up ordering from 7 or 8 different suppliers at least, most within southern Ontario and all within Canada. Our sweet potato supplier will be on the east coast, and our asparagus is coming in from the Niagara area. We are getting potatoes from a couple different places. Just gotta make sure we can keep them organized for when it's time to reorder. We already have some from last years test growing and family gifts. Total variety count so far even before we have ordered anything: 32. We'll post a full seed list once the final orders are in.

There are 2 ponds just behind our house, between us and the farm plot. One is fed by a culvert running from our neighbour to the north and the other, the larger one, is only fed by only rain and animal sweat. D is a great figure skater, training kids in her past and a brush with an Olympic dream which was dashed after the great Canadian figure skating scandal. That's when they started testing for steroids and licorice. She had to retire before the media got word of her need for Twizzlers. The point is, she loves to skate, so I put a sump pump in the culvert fed pond to fill the larger one which will almost double its surface area when done. Plus it will drowned out the amazon of bull rushes the owners let grow over the past few years. I'll let you know if anyone falls through the thin ice, unless it's a neighbours kid...

In terms of Cooper things are ok. He's still a pain with the nipping and house training is proving to be a continual challenge. I'm sure the issue is us not him, and we just aren't getting the right tricks down to get in the proper rhythm. The bonus is he learns very quickly everything else and we have signed him up for some basic training. It's with the local Petsmart, which I'm not too happy with after the first class, but these are just for the basic tips. I'll get into a full review after a couple more classes. If it comes down to it I will ship his a$$ off to a boot camp for a couple weeks to have him reprogrammed, but I don't think that will be necessary. He comes when called 90% of the time, knows the basic tricks and we recently taught him to ring a bell hanging at the door when he wants to go out. The issue being he only rings it when he can see us. He hasn't figured out we can hear it even when we aren't looking at it, but its a start. Dr. Pavlov would probably find it amusing the dog is ringing a bell for us to react. If I start to salivate the dog is out of here...

Life Lesson #82: If you're always trying to be like someone else, who's ever going to try to be like you...  
 

  

Call it what you wish, it's still home...

Week 1 of the move is now complete and we have started work on the first planting bed for next season. An advantage of the fall move is plenty of prep time for the growing season. On the other hand its a full winter of busy work which may or may not become a Shining situation. We have no red rum in the house at the moment.

We have decided to name our planting locations based on different places we have been to, or would like to visit. So far we only have two,

1. Montego: Name significance: First place we ever met while on vacation. Farm Significance: the initial planting location for next years first crops. It's a 60 ft-ish by 80 ft-ish plot of land right on the front corner of our overall garden lot, closest to the house and the only spot without a forest of trees and stumps.  
2. Eden: Name significance: The place everyone would want to live. Farm Significance: the back 2.5ish or so acres of our property separated from the front section by a creek and some trees. Ultimately it will be where we plant an orchard of various fruit trees. Probably 2+ each of apples, cherries, plums, apricots, peaches etc etc. Anything we can get our hands on will be grown and tested there. Most likely also the beehive hangout...

 Why name them you may be wondering?

• A just for fun 
• B for easy reference when discussing any given location
• C in case one has to look for the other it would be an easy find 

After 1 hr with a shovel? really...?

Anyway, we will have a heck of a struggle trying to get Montego ready for food planting. As mentioned before we were happy that the previous owner ran a landscaping company. Now we're seeing a negative side effect of that, tons of debris and stones mixed into the soil. After an hour of plain shovel digging I found way too much garbage to be optimistic about the whole ordeal. So for the time being we are focusing on the garlic patch. We have about 180+ cloves consisting of 8 different strains and a handful of garlic bulbils as a test. The bulbils won't pay off for about 3 years but economically it much better than plain bulbs.

Semi Interesting Factoid: Bulbils are small garlic seeds that grow in the flower of a mature garlic scape. A scape can have 60 to 400 bulbils, the average garlic bulb has 6-8 cloves.    

 

Garlic slave at work

On to the planting. The old owners still have some items left here he has yet to clean up. We're being patient with them for various reasons. So after my hour long wrestling match with their garbage in Montego, I flagged down one of the workers he has cleaning up the mess. Following a quick chat, I picked a spot at the NW corner of the Montego plot and he drove his bobcat over and cleared me a 6 inch deep plot 5ft wide and about 15 ft long. Just enough space for the garlic patch. It's got full sun and it's enough out of the way I can prep the rest of the plot over the next couple weeks for next year. As you can see from the pic on the right, it's all a nightmare of weeds, but the potential is there. Main priority is getting the garlic in the ground and once I have the 3 yards of special soil dropped tomorrow, Sunday becomes planting day. And not a moment too soon. Good thing D got me the farmer overalls with leather knees...

Life Lesson # 104: Don’t mess too much with your hair, or by the time you're 40, it will
look 85.

Oh we get puppy tomorrow too... can't wait. Overheard a helpful clerk at the TSC Store saying for a puppy you need a ticking clock and hot water bottle in their bed to help with mommy separation. Got one for puppy and for myself. I'll let you know how it goes. 

If you've never been in over your head, how do you know how tall you are...

With only 4 days left before we move into our farm and start our adventure, we happened to catch a documentary this morning on the CBC. Sometimes coincidence has a way to give you a little nudge in the right direction or at least to give your head a shake to reality. If you ever get a chance to, see the film To Make a Farm

Basically it follows 3 sets of young farmers in Canada who have chosen to grow and sell their own food. Each at a different stage and financial support situation, the film was not only moving but inspirational, scary and in many ways enlightening. Horticultural classes are now on the horizon, style of greenhouse and seed starting has been altered and even the way in which we'll offer our products has been improved. You have to be able to adapt to survive and an expert I am not, so if I can stand on the shoulders of genius before me, I can see that much better.

I have to be honest, the film scared me a little. Not so much the workload, that I can handle. I worked carpentry outdoors in January so I'm no stranger to pain, it's more the unpredictability of nature. It's hard to wrap my head around the fact that no matter what you do to prepare for any circumstance, nature can at anytime drop and say, "na, I don't think you have enough heartache" then blamo, rain, pest, drought, sickness etc. If not for the fact D is going to keep working while we get this off the ground, I'm not sure going from 0 to 100 would be a smart move. Only time will tell, and it starts in 4 days...

Oh and Happy Thanksgiving to you and your family... not that anyone is reading this... ;o)

Life Lesson #761:  Life is not fair -- get used to it...