As yet another winter storm is bearing in our direction, what a beautiful thing to find this morning.  And a wonderful reminder that this too, shall pass, and spring IS on the way.

Well, actually, I’m pretty sure today it was Postwoman, but Postman rolls off the tongue much easier, and always reminds me of the Kevin Costner movie that totally tanked in the theaters, but which I happen to love.

Oh! The package! That’s right.  Today I got my package from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  I had to smile, when I opened up the package and found a little note tucked in that said something along the lines of “Sorry it took so long to get your seeds to you, we’ve had more business than usual this year, and some storms that have delayed shipping as well. Our apologies, and thanks for your business.”  First, I think it’s fantastic that they are so busy- their care in preserving heirloom fruits and vegetables is first rate, and I think it’s wonderful that people recognize that.  It’s also a sign that more people are gardening- that is also fantastic.  But what really made me smile was that it didn’t even take two weeks for my seeds to get to me.  And they were apologizing. It’s so cute!

Additionally, they were out of one of the varieties of radish seeds I ordered, and when I opened up the invoice, there were two one-dollar bills stapled to the invoice as a refund for the seeds I paid for online.  I just love their service, their care, and their attention to detail.  Last year when they were out of cucumber seeds I had ordered, I had asked them to go ahead and substitute something else.  Now that I think about it, for some reason, that wasn’t an option at checkout this year. Hmm.

Anyway, this completes my seed shopping for the year. (I know, if I tell myself that enough times I’ll believe it!) I ordered Huckleberries, two varieties of radish (well, three, but one was cancelled), bok choy, spinach, red orach, two varieties of cucumber, and serrano chilies.  Baker Creek also always throws in one packet of free seeds.  Last year they sent me the patty-pan squash, but this year they sent a packet of Thai Yellow Egg eggplant.  I hadn’t planned on doing eggplant this year, but now I’m very tempted to see how this variety is.  The real gold in this order though was the order of heirloom tomato seeds.  After last year’s success with the heirlooms, I will never go back.  Flavor wise, there was no comparison, they were so much better than the tomatoes I had from the garden center.

So without further ado, these are the new tomatoes I’ll be trying this year, their color in parenthesis afterwards:

• Malakhitovaya Shkatulka (green)
• Grace Lahman’s (pink)
• Black Krim (purple)
• Pantano Romanesco (red)
• Reisentraube (grape tomato)
• Golden Monarch (yellow)
• Yellow Pear (yellow)

IN addition, from last year’s tomato seed stock I’ll also be doing:

• German Red Strawberry (red)
• Dr. Wyche’s Yellow (orange)
• Green Zebra (green)
• Roman Candle (yellow)

I’m on the fence about the Fox Cherry tomatoes I did last year.  Mine didn’t produce for some reason, but the ones I shared with friend grew, and they were delicious, but I may have enough other varieties to keep me busy- no?  That’s eleven varieties of tomatoes in my small square foot garden.  Lol. I cannot wait.  If you’re curious about the varieties at all, you can check out the descriptions at Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  Of all the plants I grow, these are my favorite.  I loved the tomatoes last year, and I can’t wait to get them going again.  I want to have plenty for in my garden, and plenty to share with others for their gardens.  Heirloom tomatoes.  There’s nothing like them.

On Saturday the Post Office dropped off a little bundle of goodness from Seeds of Change.  This order has my herbs, as well as a few odds and ends I wanted.  My green lettuces are in here- my trusty standby romaine-type, Jericho, and then a Verte Mar to give a try.   You can also see a packet of butternut squash… I really don’t have room for squash, but I really would love to grow them, so as long as I have the seeds, I can always decide to make room.  The Swedish Brown Bush Beans are a dried bean.  I have no idea if our growing season is long enough for beans to grow and then dry on the plant, but I’m really excited at giving it a shot.  I love dried beans, and would love to find a few varieties that I can grow myself.

For herbs, I have some new ones to try out this year.  I bought Chervil, Lovage, Summer Savory, Cilantro, and Marjoram.  Oh, and Borage.  The lovage was highly recommended to me by a few people on Gardenweb.  It is a perennial, and the leaves are very much like celery- and it grows really well supposedly.  I’m looking forward to trying it out.  The borage I’m not so sure is really edible, but it can be used to make tea, and has medicinal purposes.  On top of that, it’s an attractor for pollinators, so I think it would be a nice addition to any garden.   The cilantro is a slow-bolting variety, but I have my doubts.  I’ve never had much luck with cilantro, so we’ll see how this one goes.

One more package of seeds to come- this one is the tomato seed order, and I expect it any day now.

It is February here in the Frozen North, so even though we had some gorgeous weather over the past week or so, we’re back to normal cold winter.  The last few days though, I have to say, it’s been looking really gross out.  All brown and dirty and yucky, so it might as well snow some more right?

Ah well, if it’s not going to be spring, there might as well be fresh snow to keep it looking nice.

We had a bright moment yesterday afternoon though! The first of the seeds came!  My order from Johnny’s Seeds came yesterday, and going through them, I felt all giddy with excitement.  Mostly I ordered my beans, scallions, and my cole crops from them.  I went with a rainbow of beans this year, green, yellow wax and royal purple, and then I went with a fantastic speckled variety that says it’s great fresh or dried- Tongue of Fire, I believe they are called.  This year I’ll also be doing a blend of pole and bush beans, as I haven’t had great luck with poles, but love the idea of the pole beans being prolific.  I also purchased some inoculant, and this will be my first time using it.  The inoculant kind of gives beans and peas a boost. It’s completely organic and safe to use, and while I’m not entirely remembering what it does, I have heard that the yield on the beans is much better with the use of inoculant.

My cabbage didn’t come though, and I’m thinking I might pick up some seeds at my garden center, because it’s on backorder, and will be shipped a full three weeks after I should have had them started.   Next Saturday, in fact, I will be starting the cabbage and the broccoli, provided I have the seeds.   I’m striving for a spring garden with the cole crops, to see if I can avoid those horrible cabbage moths.

My leeks also didn’t come, also on backorder.  I still have some leek seed though from last year, so I’ll start those and see if this other variety comes in with time to plant.  I loved having leeks in the garden.

Over the next few weeks I’ll be giving my garden plan a thorough going-over.  I have an initial layout which I used to order seeds with, but I think it will need some tweaking.  I’ll share that as it comes.

Last fall I picked up a real gem of a gardening tool in preparation for this year.  I picked up a portable greenhouse, so that I can start my seeds and plants inside the house earlier.  This is far preferable to me than using electric lights.   Last year I placed my seeds in totes and then covered the totes with plastic wrap to create a micro-climate conducive to seed germination.  It worked, but it was kind of tedious working with the plastic wrap.

Not so much with the portable greenhouse.  Now, I wouldn’t use this outside, simply because I think it would topple over in a gust of wind very easily.  But it works fantastic in front of a south facing patio door that we never use.  The plastic cover zips and also removes easily if I don’t need to use it.  Today I got to put my greenhouse into action.  No, I didn’t start any seeds yet, although that’s coming at the end of this month.  What I did do was plant a whole lot of bulbs which are sprouting.  In a few weeks I hope to have dozens of tulips with which to usher in spring.  Many of them will be planted in the yard, but I suspect because there are so many that many will actually end up being given away.  All told, I think I planted about… 80 bulbs?  It will be fun to see if they all take.

While it’s too soon to give a full report on the success of the portable greenhouse, I happen to be optimistic in thinking that it’s a fabulous tool.  I placed the pots into totes for watering purposes- I have to say, the plastic totes are also a gardener’s friend.  It felt fantastic to be working with dirt again, and I’m counting the days until I get to plant my broccoli and cabbage seeds.  I can’t wait!  It’s just 19 days away!

I just have to share this today.  I’ve been carefully selecting the tomatoes I want to grow this year, and as I’m doing that, I’m thinking about how wonderful the tomato harvest finally was when it started coming in.  At the time, this past year, I was regretful though that there wasn’t enough tomatoes at once to can a whole bunch of them.  Oh, I have a few jars, but I never seemed to have a whole ton of tomatoes at one time.  The one time I did have a plethora of tomatoes, I didn’t have the time to can them, so I put them in the freezer.

And I’m here to tell you that I will likely never can tomatoes again because of it.

See, when you can tomatoes, it’s a multi-step process.  First, you core the tomato and then you blanch them. This quick blanching enables you to peel the tomato.  So you peel.  And then you plop your tomatoes in a sterilized canning jar, and once it’s full, you make sure you have all the air bubbles out, and then you go through the canning process.  For tomatoes, that means a full 45 minutes in the boiling water canner- that’s a long time!  And while one of my favorite things to see is a shelf lined with home-canned tomatoes, I found a process that’s even easier.

When I froze my tomatoes, I only took three steps, instead of a whole myriad of them.  First, I washed and dried them, then I cored them, and then I popped them in a gallon freezer bag.  That’s it.  When the freezer bag was full, I sealed it up and put them in the freezer to freeze whole.   Now as I’ve needed canned tomatoes for a recipe, I’ve been heading to the freezer.  I pull out the freezer bags and fill a measuring cup with frozen orbs of tomato.

Then this sits on the counter for a few hours, or in a pinch, goes into the microwave for a defrost. Once thawed, they are very squishy, and the peels slide right off.  Then I simply give the tomato a squeeze or two with my hand to crush them a bit, and voila, I have tomatoes to use for whatever I need. These happened to be destined for a pot of chili.

My one bit of advice is to make sure that you don’t discard any juices the tomatoes give off as they’re thawing.  That’s tomato juice- and flavor.  I’ve already determined that next year I’m freezing tomatoes, as long as I have the freezer space to do so.

I received my Johnny’s Selected Seeds catalog over the weekend, and this morning I find the Seeds of Change Certified Organic Seeds in my mailbox.  It’s certainly exciting, considering this seems to be the norm around here:

My garden is pretty much completely under snow, with more on the way. But I’m planning away and dreaming of spring.  Last year I ordered from Johnny’s and was very pleased with their service and the seeds as well.  I have not ordered from Seeds of Change yet, so I can’t speak as to how they actually are.  Considering that  they’re still going strong after 20 years, I have to think that says something.

Catalog alert!  The Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds catalog is out.  It’s absolutely stunning and beautiful! They have so many new seeds to pick from, and a good deal of news about what’s going on with them.  I’ve been very slowly digesting it and going through it, and all I can say is that it’s a shame I don’t have more space to plant in!  It’s the first seed catalog I’ve received for 2009.  I’ll be sure and update as they come in- although this is my favorite to order from.  I had excellent results with their seeds last year.  Even the ones that they said had low germination did fabulously.  I only had problems with one of the cucumbers I ordered, but I think that was my error, not theirs.  They put out a magazine too if anyone is interested, I’ll be subscribing to that this year as well.

It’s only the second official day of winter…