My First Garden

As a long time condo dweller (and the shady side of the building at that) I'd never gotten any farther than a few hanging baskets of flowers in the way of gardening... until last year. Last year at this time, I was living on a nice little piece of property, just over half an acre, that BEGGED me to grow something on it. Full of enthusiasm, but very little know how, I proceeded to start digging garden beds. I ended up with several beds, and then I went seed shopping.

The seed companies saw me coming.... every single package sounded sooooo good, so easy to grow. Even veggies I don't especially like sounded good. I bought more than I needed, then went out and bought more. Then I started my seeds on not quite bright enough window sills, and ended up with lots of long, lanky tomatoes and squash plants, and some rather sad lettuces. Most ended up getting sent to Mom's little greenhouse 'til it was warm enough to put them out. They just outgrew my limited windowsill space.

The garden did quite well, I was pleased with it, but I never did find room in the garden for all my seeds, and ended up doing my peppers and tomatoes in pots. The did quite well, especially the tomatoes. The varieties I had last year included Early Girl, Sweet 1,000,000, Brandywine, Pink Ice Cherry, Red Grape, Tumbler Red, Better Boy, and I think a few others that I've forgotten. Many of them were impulse buys at the nursery, not from seed.

Tomatoes have always been one of my favourite veggies, and this year, as I have less space to work with, I've decided to focus mainly on them. Because I have less space to work with, and will have to have all or most of my tomatoes in pots again, I figured I'd better limit myself. So far I have only 17 varieties of tomatoes started, most of the seeds up, and as well, keep looking at Stupice, Cherry Roma, and various members of the Brandywine family. Apparently I'm not very good at moderation.

My currently started tomatoes are Big Rainbow, Roma, Ildi, Yellow Pear, Super Sweet 100 Hybrid, Sungold Hybrid, Red Grape Cherry, Wild Cherry, Ardwyna Paste, Scotia, Petit Moineau, Black Russian, Omar's Lebanese, Dutchman, Djena Lee's Golden Girl, Golden Sunburst, and Aunt Ruby's Green.

Super Sweet 100, Yellow Pear, and Sungold are from a mixed package, so I'll not know what I have 'til they are ripe. The same is true of Black Russian, Omar's Lebanese, Dutchman, Djena Lee's Golden Girl, Golden Sunburst, and Aunt Ruby's Green. The Red Grape Cherry tomatoes were my favourites from last summer, and the seeds are from 2 little tomatoes I found on the back patio a week ago. I have no idea if they'll sprout or not. The Scotia, Wild Cherry, Petit Moineau, and Ardwyna Paste are locally grown, from last weekend's Seeds of Diversity Seedy Saturday in Port Alberni.

At the moment, there are lovely flats of seedlings and seeds in the garage on heatmats, under grow lights, along with all Mom's planting. I'll try to post pictures soon.