Showing posts with label Hudson Valley Seed Library. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Hudson Valley Seed Library. Show all posts

May 26 Chicago: 44 Degrees, 24 mph Winds

Thursday

Can't recall spring temperatures ever fluctuating this much. After a few temperate days last week, during which I thought it would be OK to plant some SIPs on the roof (erroneously, as you'll see below), today's just raw. Windy, cold, and raw. But I love the radishes up there, pulled a couple days ago from the raised bed. They're Hudson Valley Seed Library Radical Radish Mix and they're sweet.

Here's a tenacious white borage plant pushing up through a crack 
in the cement out front. Our bees love these blooms.

I pulled it to plant in the front window boxes, where we get full south sun and like to have herbs of all sorts, most started this year by Bruce under lights. Talk about through the wars--when I picked up the herb starts last week it was warm, hot even. Then came the winds and the cold and currently many of the basils are raggedy.

We're hopeful they'll perk up

 Also seeded some nasturtium, cosmos, and poppies
in the herb boxes

Yesterday we picked up these robust-looking tomato starts from Bruce, who's been keeping them through all this rough weather. I promptly placed them inside on the second floor, with southern exposure.

While I was up there I clipped some more food from these portable microgardens. Who loves this weather?

 Cool-weather greens

Now to the roof. My ill-advised early planting of a couple pepper starts resulted in their being sheared off by the wind last week. Even though I thought I'd sheltered them effectively by placing them against the greenhouse wall. Clearly they should have been inside. I'll get some more starts in these SIPs once things calm down.

Note the tied-up Jimmy Nardello pepper 
in the foreground. It's hanging on.

Now this I'm not proud of, another weather-beaten example, but it does speak to the resilience of some plants, in this case the lovely patio tomato gifted us by Debbie. Though it won't win any beauty pageant, it's got flowers. Stay tuned.

The peas are up...and flowering.

Here's a beat-up tomatillo whose Earthbox mate got snapped in half last week, and a hot pepper. They make me think of the lyrics to NY NY: if you can make it here, you'll make it anywhere.

Tatsoi from Hudson Valley has been a superb producer, offering a bounty of daily greens for salads. I love this green, round and beautifully formed.

We might be able to plant tomatoes and eggplant this weekend, a full 10 days later than last year. We'll see what Saturday brings.

Seed Sources for 2011: Hudson Valley Seeds

Last year we did go on about Hudson Valley Seeds. Not only did their seeds grow strong and true for us here in Chicago, but the artist-produced packaging seems a perfect merging of beautiful regional vegetables and regional artists too.

Civil Eats just put up a nice interview with the proprietors, who say that choosing "artwork over photographs for our seeds packs...communicates what's important about seeds--that they come with stories."

Do they ever. Bruce started our greens seeds from Hudson Valley indoors early in 2010 and we planted out on St Patrick's Day. We particularly enjoyed the braising greens. Picked in their infancy, they provided endless salads (never did get around to braising them).

...and also the deep green tatsoi, shown here thriving on Bruce's roof.

Somehow I missed this October NYT story on Hudson Valley Seeds. On this wintry day you might enjoy thinking about the seed collection and packaging taking place there. We'll be renewing our membership this year. It's almost too good to be true: for $20,  choose ten seed packs from about 130 heirloom varieties.

We let our tatsoi go to seed this summer, harvested it, and replanted this fall. It's thriving right now upstairs in our unheated (but not freezing) second floor. Art has since hung lights over this SIP line-up, and we'll return the lights to Bruce in a scant couple months so he can start the cycle of seed-starting all over again, getting our spring crop up to size for planting out in March.

For indoor growing this winter, we're using these commercially available SIPs, because the slow-growing indoor crop requires less potting medium and water than our two-bucket SIPs.

HVS is here. Click in the left-hand column to review seed types.

Top 10 seeds to sow now through August

Via the Hudson Valley Seed Library, this morning I spotted a nice list that felt synchronous with my post from yesterday--Successful Succession Sowing Summer Seed Sale, including Doug’s Top 10 seeds to sow now through August.

It's a useful list to scan and includes the same baby bok choy we harvested and replanted in a single stroke this week. We got that seed from the Hudson Valley Seed Library and it was strong and true.

Going to seed,
starting from seed


At the same link, you'll note they have their Garden Packs and Library Packs on sale (and by clicking the link in this sentence you also get to meet owners Ken and Doug, of today's list).

Salut to summer sowing! Bruce, do we have any dino kale seeds left?


 

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