Anybody else started on their gardens this year.

[erinszoo]

Ordered our seeds last week. We are waiting on them Heirlooms! Rareseeds.com is where we got ours. I can't believe it's growing season in the south. So disappointing! We are having a warm day today so I'm thinking about sticking my asparagus out. I'm worried it will die out though. The drama of West Virginia's highlands... late April snows happen.

We are starting our seeds when they get here though, which is exciting. Anyone else into heirlooms?

Somewhat. I like the idea but finding varieties that work is like a crap shoot. We've had marginal success with rareseeds.com's stuff. Some of it grows, some of it doesn't, some of it produces what it's supposed to, some of it doesn't. We like Territorial Seed best but also get seed from a few different sources. And I always try to plant a few things that I know will produce without problems, irregardless of what "type" of seed it is. It's pretty disappointing to plant stuff and tend it all season and have nothing to show for it in the end, which is what happened when we went totally heirloom. Since I grow a garden to help feed my family and chickens, it's important to actually get a crop.

 

[MountainMamaHST]

I hate to hear that about Baker Creek. I threw a lot into it and we are the same. We live off this stuff. I hope we have better luck. I've got a few things coming from a local greenhouse too. Hopefully we'll pull something out of our giant garden! Thanks for letting me know about that

 

[Peaches Lee]

I have had great success with Baker Creek seeds germinating and producing. We haven't had the best growing conditions the past two years which stinks but you learn to deal I guess. Haven't started anything in our gardens yet; still crappy, cold winter weather here. I absolutely love Heirlooms. The varieties, the taste, the history, just love 'em!

 

[mlongworth]

I am switching over to all heirlooms. Just got an order in from bountiful gardens a few days ago. I have peas, 10 different heirloom tomato, my heirloom peppers from last year, heirloom cauliflower and the best my heirloom mystery seeds I have about half of them started cant wait to see what all was in the mix they sent. Glad to see im not the only one starting stuff allready.

 

[sandspoultry]

We planted broccoli, cabbage and some more lettuce last weekend and started the tomatoes and peppers inside. Our plum and apricot trees and blooming and the asian pears are starting to bud.

 

[bbuckler620]

I got the last of my seeds in the mail last week.

 

[wyoDreamer]

I tried heirloom tomatoes last year. What a failure! I may still grow a couple of heirloom plants but the bulk of my tomatoes are going to be the hybrids. I figure that it is hard enough to get anything to grow way up here, why set myself up for failure with a plant that is succeptable of disease and doesn't produce as much. The hybrids are created to be disease resistant and bountiful producers. Maybe when I finally get a good handle on how to grow stuff in this climate I will do more with heirlooms, but for now I need something more dependable and disease resistant.
Starting luttuce, spinach, carrots and some flowers this week. In my basement, on the shelves hubby made specifically for me to use for starting seeds. And that I had to move all the canned goods off of last weekend so I can set-up the seed starting mats ...

 

[erinszoo]

I'm with you wyoDreamer on the hybrids producing and being disease resistant. I planted almost all heirlooms last year and spent all that time and effort and got almost nothing in produce. The plants died or just simply never produced. If I was growing just for fun that would be okay but since I'm growing to feed my family, I need things I can rely on.

Just took these pics of my lettuce and potatoes in the greenhouse yesterday.

This is our leaf lettuce in a few varieties. We like the cutting mix from Cooks Garden the best but also buy (speckles trout) Flor????? from Territorial seed too. The cage is to keep our yard cats from digging in the beds.


These are potatoes from the yukon gold we grew last year. I planted these about six weeks ago in the greenhouse and they are now ready to be hilled for the first time. Have another set of russets that I'm going to plant in grow bags I think that I need to get out this week.

 

[MountainMamaHST]

What kind of greenhouse do you have? I'd love to build one this fall

 

[erinszoo]

What kind of greenhouse do you have? I'd love to build one this fall

We just built it out of pvc pipes for the ribs and heavy plastic sheeting. Last year it was only 14 x 10 but too low to stand up in comfortably but it stayed nice and warm all season without too much heating. This year we built it 14 x 20 and 7 feet tall. It's been difficult to heat and to keep from blowing over. We take the plastic off in summer and use shade cloth because it gets so hot. Next year we are going to try and build it with some heavier piping and a little more structure so it doesn't bow under rain loads and will resist dust storms and wind storms a little better. All in all, for $50 it's been great though. I harvested cabbage, kale, broccoli, carrots, lettuce, summer squash, spinach, and tomatoes through Christmas and we're now harvesting some lettuce and spinach already this year so I'd say it was worth the headaches. We initially didn't want to spend too much because we weren't sure if it would work or if it was worth the trouble or not but now that we have proven it's viability, we can invest a little more.