Plenty o' Peppers

This is my third year growing peppers and, not surprisingly, my collection of varieties keeps expanding - from 2 (2014) to 10 (2015) to 16 this year.  Of course, I only have a limited amount of space for peppers in the garden – this year I’ll be squeezing them all into one 8'x4' bed – so I’ll be growing only 1 or 2 plants for most varieties.

Pepper Seedlings - 5 weeks old

Allium Troubles

Onions are always the first seeds of the year to get sown in early February and this year, leeks joined the mid-winter party as well.

Four of the storage onion varieties I’m growing are repeats from last year – Copra, Rossa di Milano, Red Wing & Ailsa Craig.  The Ailsa Craigs are a large, sweet(er) onion that only store for a couple of months so those are always used up by late fall.  The other three, including Red Wing which was a new variety last year, are storing very well - I still have several bags & braids hanging in the basement.  So far, only a couple..as in literally two...of the onions have sprouted/gone bad on me.  Hurray for netting that kept out (most of) the onion flies last year!

Every couple of weeks I refill the onion basket in the kitchen
with a selection of onions from the basement
 

2016 Seed Orders

March break is in full swing.  This year, we decided to have a staycation…and it’s been exhausting, in a good way :)

Nature Trail at Guelph Arboretum
 

2016 Garden Plan

One of my favourite garden tasks is completed in the middle of winter, while the garden is fast asleep - Planning.

Each year, the garden provides us with a fresh start and seemingly limitless potential – pests, diseases, and wacky weather are optimistically thought of as “possibilities”, not certainties.  In my plan, the weather is perfect, not too cold/hot/wet/dry/windy, all my sowings are perfectly timed & every seed comes up, my netting keeps out all of the cabbage white butterflies, the slugs are kept at bay by my liberal and consistent applications of diatomaceous earth, and I am able to pick off every single Japanese beetle from the plum tree.   As the snow flies and the temperatures outside are well below zero, such is the optimism that I feel while working on my plan for the coming season, .

Old plans, new plans & current seed listing