Busy gardener

[ideasguy]

Nice to hear from you Laurie. Knew you were busy!
Youve put a lot of effort into getting your house at its best for market. It will make it a very easy move for the lucky new owners.

Best wishes for the op, Eric!

[Palustris]

One of the vegetables I would really like to try is Seakale, but no one seems to sell the seed. Leasways none of the seed companies we deal with and single packets are often very expensive.
We did try Skirret this year, but nothing germinated, so may try again next season.

[diegartenfrau]

I finally got caught up with organizing my new computer and office.
My family for a Christmas present gave me 2 weeks off, to not have to do a thing (although I had to point out several times were kitchen things are stored >lol<) so I could just completely goof off, no cooking, washing laundry or cleaning. It was a very well needed and appreciated vacation.
I took the time to work on a spread sheet for planning my vegetable plantings.
Every year I always do the same thing, I go through all my information I have, which is spread over magazine articles, books and computer, to organize my seed planting, some of it I manage to input into IG, but mostly I don't get far.
I know once it is in IG it is a lot easier, but getting it in is a lot of work.
So I got this book which is practically a Encyclopedia for growing your kitchen garden. Mainly a data book with all the important information, all you need to know how to grow your plants, organized by alphabet.
With the information all neatly organized I managed to get my spread sheet done in a week. Now I have all the info for my growing region neatly organized and it will help me also to input this data quicker into IG. Which will be my next project. I like to finally get the IG going to keep better track of what I am doing out there. So far not having all the important data in there it has been a fruitless labor. A bit too chaotic for me >lol<

If anyone is interested in this chart, which is for my Pacific Northwest region, Eugene, OR you can find it on my blog
http://diegartenfrau.blogspot.com/2010/01/new-garden-season-just-around-corner.html

We also had some very cold days in Eugene. The coldest it has been since I lived in Oregon. So my Winter garden, which I finally got going so well this year.....it all froze, even the Brassicas, Kale. All my lettuce....futsch!
So this winter I am not harvesting anything. But on the bright side...it gives me more time to goof off >grin<

Unfortunately the freeze came during my busy Christmas baking and I forgot to bring my 4 year old perennial chili peppers into the sun room. But who would think it would go from one balmy, sunny day to a killing frost day over night? Luckily I always save seeds so at least I can start new ones.

I am getting ready to browse for new seed varieties, one would think I have enough already. I am still on the search for a better producing open pollinated cauliflower and broccoli for this region. My squash did terrible for me last year in the cool summer we had, so I will be looking out for some new squashes to try out, then I always try to find more short season, cool region Tomatoes and Peppers, which sometime will not produce as quick out here.

So I read Palustris is looking for some Sea Kale seeds, I just found some here
http://fedcoseeds.com/seeds/SeedsOrderItem.php?id=3099&listname=Kale

fedco is also one of the companies which is in the process of..../maybe they are done...removing Monsanto connected seeds from their offerings, they have lot's of open pollinated seeds

then here: http://www.bountifulgardens.org/products.asp?dept=66

and in the UK, where it is easier to find
http://www.victoriananursery.co.uk/vegetable_seeds/seakale_seed_lillywhite/

I wish you all a Fruitfull harvest for the coming season

Isabell