First plum blossoms
Really nice weather at the moment, so things are happening in the garden. Time to start thinking about what vegetable varieties I'm going to grow this year. I usually go with some tried and true things that I know will do well ("Ilam Hardy" potatoes, "Russian Red" tomatoes) and some "fancies", varieties that I haven't grown before. I like the Italian seed company Franchi Sementi, whose products are available in NZ on-line, and a NZ company called King's Seeds, who produce all kinds of weird and wonderful stuff, (spaghetti squash, foot-long purple beans) and are stocked here by a local garden centre. I spent a half-hour today teasing out some little red onion plants from their baby-tray and putting them into larger, deeper 12-packs. I had a very good strike rate from these, as they were from a plant that I let go to seed last autumn. I also had good success with chives, also from my own seed plant. It's an odd thing - plants from seed grown here on the property are always more successful, even becoming weeds. It's as if they somehow imbibe the terroir of the place, and acclimate themselves by the second generation, a sort of adaptation to existing conditions (soil, climate) that is patterned within the seed itself. It seems as if something else is going on besides mere natural selection. Or is it just that the seed is absolutely fresh?
Lovely! We've had the coldest winter in 20 years! My camellias are still tight buds and not many daffs.
ReplyDeleteHow beautiful. Much further advanced that we are. We have daffodils - and more each day, but the tulips are only just poking through the soil.
ReplyDeleteUnlike librarygirl, our winter has been mixed. Some cold days and quite a lot which weren't. And spring is definitely nearly here.