Wednesday, March 9, 2011

We're Planting!

Jiffy sevens

My greenhouse isn't ready yet but I'm still going to get a jump on my tomato plants this year *grin*. After lunch today I rounded up my youngest little helper and we went hunting for the leftover stash of jiffy sevens that I knew I'd tucked away somewhere last spring for safe keeping. You know, one of those super safe places that are so good you don't even remember where it was!

Soaking jiffies

I love these little things :)
You drop the little discs of compressed soil into a little bit of hot water and they magically puff right up providing a lovely warm home for your new seeds.

Planting tomatoes

My five year old is growing by leaps and bounds and becoming such a great little helper that this year I let him do all of the planting on his own. With supervision of course :)

He carefully opened up the top of each of the jiffy sevens and placed three tomato seeds onto the soil and covered them up very gently. I like to plant in groupings of three. That way if any of them die or don't come up then I've got backups!

Name tags

I planted 9 seeds for each type of tomato and if all goes well I should have 54 tomato plants all together. Most likely I'll loose a few due to poor germination but this will provide a substantial amount of tomatoes compared to the few I did last year. I've got great plans of canning stewed tomatoes and tomato sauce again this year. Normally I just purchase cases of field tomatoes from local farmers for this task but I really want to use my own. They just taste oh so much better *grin*.

Tomato Seeds

I tried to find varieties that were well suited to growing here on the coast or for canning purposes so I went with:

Bonny Best: a strong indeterminate plant with excellent flavor. Especially good for colder climates.

Rocket: medium sized fruit, fast maturing and grow well in the short season of the coastal BC and prairies.

Italian Heritage Roma: abundant harvest of thick walled tomatoes with few seeds, perfect for tomato sauce and paste.

Lisa King: large red beefsteak, good flavor and very productive. This was highly recommended.

Polish Paste: flavorful and meaty, good for tomato pastes.

German Red Strawberry: large 1lb fruits, good producer and canning tomato.

They're all organic, non gmo and some are heirloom varieties so I'm hoping to have a great crop :) If not I'll cull the ones we don't like and pick new ones next year *grin*.

Can't wait until they start to sprout out of the dirt!

Hugs,
Rosina

6 comments:

MJ said...

How cool are those discs!! I am going to have to get some for the kids and I to plant!!

I wanted to let you know you won the drawing for the book giveaway yesterday!! Congratulations!! Please email me so that I can get Animal Vegetable Miracle to you!! Thanks! MJ

Unknown said...

We use those little disk too. We got them that come in a flat with a cover.
I love the photo of those little hands poking seeds in.

Debbie said...

I've never used those disks...but have wanted too. I think I'll grab some the next time we are out.

Today we are sowing our leeks, and kale and some lettuce and spinach and broccoli.

I order my seeds from WCS weeks ago and my order is still in progress. I'm unhappy because I NEED those seeds. :)

Love seeing M helping you out. Isaac would have pushed the seed right down to the bottom. Not the best helper...yet. :) xoxo

ps - Animal Vegetable Miracleis a FABULOUS book. Congrats.

nunu said...

those jiffy things are the coolest! thanks for sharing. i can't wait to grow my own tomatoes again. i hope i can set up house soon enough.

Grace said...

Yum...tomatoes! I want to do some little yellow cherry tomatoes this year.

house full of jays said...

Oh, I am so excited for your tomatoes!!! Yum, yum, yum! I'm dreaming of all the canning you can do with those beauties, too!