Let's Get Planting!

It's that time of year. The days are slowly getting longer, the sun is peaking out a wee bit more and I feel the bloom of spring just itching to burst forth from the soil *grin*.

I know, it's barely the middle of February and we could get snow and frozen temperatures at any minute but I can't help myself but want to will spring to come now. So to fill the time until it finally does appear I pulled out my box of seed packets to see what I had, what is needed and to sort out all of my tomato seeds because it's time to get planting :)

Our growing season is wet, cool and rather short so anything I can do to help things speed along a little quicker before it's time to get things in the ground outdoors is always welcome. Last summer you probably remember that Hubby built me a little greenhouse and it will be perfect for growing an early crop of tomatoes in. So I pulled out what I had left of my little jiffy seven peat pots and soaked them in some nice hot water to puff them up for planting.

I planted Bonny Best, Italian Paste, German Red Strawberry, Polish Paste, and Rocket so far but I also need to start some Black Krim which is a wonderful meaty heirloom variety that we love for sandwiches.

You can find some of them in my favorite seed catalogues like West Coast Seeds, Seeds of Victoria, Salt Spring Seeds and of course all of the wonderful ones I find every year at the various Seedy Saturdays (click for listings) scattered over the island :)

With my little seeds tucked away in a nice dark spot itching to sprout they will be all ready to harden off in the greenhouse nice and early so we can make the most of this summer. I can't wait!

Hugs,
Rosina

We're Planting!

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!

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.

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!

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*.

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