The Triumph of Seeds

-

 

 
 
Tomato seedlings are everywhere! I think my compost pile didn't get hot enough to kill the tomato seeds that were deposited there this summer from our abundant harvest of tomatoes, and tomato seedlings are coming up in every little pot that has compost in it. I gave some jalapenos to a neighbor, and some tomato seedlings also.

The tomatoes that I intentionally grew from seeds are doing well, and the vines are loaded with tomatoes that we will begin harvesting pretty soon. 



A couple of years ago I read a fascinating book, The Triumph of Seeds, by Thor Hanson. It's an amazing story of the fortitude, strength, resiliency, adaptability, and persistence of seeds. I'm learning about that fact in the garden. Hardly any of the seeds I planted in the fall garden have germinated. I still have a lot to learn about fall gardening.

 

The tiniest of the seeds, however, did germinate, and I harvested a pretty little handful of radishes yesterday, which ended up in our Easy Thai-Style Asian Salad last night. (Thanks to Jamie Oliver for the recipe.) 

 The lettuce mix I planted is doing well also.

However, there are a lot of things that planted themselves that are growing well in the garden. Those little seeds must have been really strong-willed.






 



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

East of Eden

-
Image
  We have been struggling with what to do after the fall of the garden and before the fall of the season. As you know we unintentionally poisoned our big garden out front this spring. That was devastating. This summer we have endured record-breaking heat and drought. Nothing is growing well, except the trees, and even they are looking a bit droopy.  We are re-thinking what it means to have a garden in this kind of climate. We've come up with some ideas, but it's too hot to implement many of them yet. We don't know how long the garden that we poisoned with manure compost that had residual herbicide in it will be unhealthy for plants. Grasses won't be bothered by the herbicide. So we are planning to convert that garden, the one in front of the Bee and the Clover into a grass and native plant demonstration garden. We plan to irrigate it so that folks will be able to see what the grasses look like when they have enough moisture. We hope that we will also be able to harvest
Read more

Mrs. Goodkind's Advice

-
Image
I have a sad story to tell about Lil’s Garden. After a disastrous year of gardening last year, we were determined to make every effort towards a successful garden this year. We drew a garden plan, reformed the raised beds, made a special trip to David’s Seeds to purchase seeds, grew 80 tomato plants and other things from seeds, and set up trellises for the tomatoes, beans, and cucumbers.  To enhance our soil, we got three truckloads of manure compost from a neighbor who was mucking out her barn after 10 years. We worked the compost into the beds with the tiller. We planted the plants and sowed the seeds and waited. Many of the seeds didn’t germinate.  The potatoes were very slow to come up, and when they did the leaves were cupped and curly. They just didn’t look right. I got on the internet to diagnose the problem. It appeared that the manure compost may have contained herbicide. I contacted our rancher friend and asked if they had sprayed herbicide on their pastures. She said she tho
Read more

Shades of Green

-
Image
We did complete the construction of our new garden. We made six raised beds and filled them up with winter greens. We are in the process of adding more gardens around the fence to grow tomatoes. Here are the many shades of green that we are enjoying,   Shallots, onions, sugar snap peas, and mustard greens   Spring onions, sweet peas, and mustard green Turnips, cilantro, spinach, parsley, bib lettuce, and dill Broccoli, Brussell sprouts, Swiss chard, mesculin mix, and carrots Kale, red and green cabbage, beets, and romaine lettuce Poppies, spinach, Crawford lettuce, and radishes Romaine lettuce Cilantro Dill Spinach Bibb lettuce Romaine lettuce Sugar snap peas Mustard greens Second growth of broccoli Red cabbage Beets Green cabbage  
Read more