North of 54: May 2019

Ahh, SPRING! Here I sit with my back aching, an ice tea in hand, and the majority of my garden planted. There’s not a cloud in the sky and the winds haven’t held still for days, stirring concern for wildfires. Moisture, we need more of it ... never satisfied. But today it’s 18C and climbing - it was the first day my husband and I felt like having our morning coffee outside. And in the late afternoon, well it’s gin and tonic weather once again. Yippie!

I love the seasons. The cold and snow of winter make you ever so grateful for the warmth of summer, and by the end of summer you are so tired of preparing for winter you’re happy to see the snow falling! Gardening and preserving occupies much of my time in summer (along with BBQs, music jams and bottle feeding a few lambs) so early spring finds me checking my seed stash and buying the ones I’m low on. Have any of you noticed what’s happening in the seed market? Some packets have only a few seeds in them, others seem to have less than before and the prices are higher. So this is the year I am determined to save my own seeds.

Every year I ask myself, “Why in the world don’t I save seeds for the upcoming season, at least the ones that are easy to save?” I tell myself to remember to mark off a never-pick section of peas and beans to retain for seed, these being the easiest plants to save seed from. You just need to let them mature well beyond the point you would normally pick them. And cucumbers - just let one or two grow big and begin to turn yellow. Zucchini, squash, peppers, tomatoes and many flower seeds are easy to keep as well. It’s a matter of taking the time to dry and store them. I started my own tomatoes this year simply by keeping the seeds from a nice vine ripened one. I kept quite a few flower seeds too (columbine, poppy, marigold, scarlet runner) and have discovered that the sunflower seeds you feed the birds all winter germinate just fine. I find sunflowers growing all over the place, not necessarily where I’d like them to be. Some plants are incredibly accommodating when it come to producing seed, spinach and some lettuces go to seed before you want them to!

The difficult seeds to save are the ones that take two years - carrots, beets. I don’t grow the brassicas (cabbage, turnips, Brussels sprouts, broccoli, radish), those wee worms that always seem to find their way into them, along with garden space, deter me. I buy the odd veggie in that family at a farmers market or the grocery store now and then and that seems to satisfy my culinary desires along those lines. But I have tried to make carrot seed before. I got carrot flowers but the seed did not mature. I’m trying again this year, planted 5 carrots from the cellar that had growth on top. We’ll see what happens.

2019 will be the year I keep seeds. I have a “How-To” book I got at Lee Valley in the city on seed saving. I’ll dig it out and see if they overcomplicate things the way books sometimes do. If you come to my garden to snatch a fresh bean or a few of those yummy fresh raw peas, just make sure you stay away from the “DO NOT PICK” sections.

Let the rains come, I’m ready, spring is singing it’s let's-get-to-work tune. Plans are made and some, at least, will be fulfilled.

I’ll conclude with the chorus of a song I wrote several years back, called “Talking About the Weather”.

When country folk all get together

They always talk about the weather

And if it’s dry they’ll ywish it wetter

And if it’s wet they’ll want sunshine.

They all remember years gone by

When it was cold, or wet or dry,

When lightening creased the southern sky

And snow lay deep among the pines.

Waiting for this....