The garden is slow this year. Very, very slow. A cool and wet spring saw to that. Just now things are really starting to take off, hell, I’ve only just harvested the pods I was saving for seeds from my Slocan Snow Peas this morning! Granted these snow peas actually do quite well in heat, so they had an extended life over most snow peas, but still, they are in fact snow peas.

This time last year I was harvesting tomatoes already. This year my first tomato (a ‘Tiny Tim’) is just on the verge of finally ripening.

You know what? I’m really, really glad to be getting back to a climate where things don’t only start ripening in August.

But back to the Slocan Snow Peas.

Generally I like to let pods go fully dry on the vine before I harvest for seeds (goes for beans, radishes, etc. as well), but there’s a mountain of rain and storms coming our way this weekend, and I want to avoid these guys going all mildewy. Most of them are almost there, some of them still have a good amount of moisture in them, but they’re all past the point of being fully ripened, so germination won’t suffer next year.

I wrote some more on the history of these seeds here at the Populuxe Seed Bank’s website. These will be available (not in huge quantity, but available) through the seed bank later this year or early 2011.

These are one of my absolute, hands down, favourite potato varieties of all time to grow.

Sure, Warba isn’t the fanciest or freakiest variety of potato I’ve ever grown, they’re of small size, they’re a regular old white colour.

But they are amazing.

They are a very early variety, usually ready buy about mid-August (or sooner, if you have a longer growing season then I do), and baby potatoes can be harvested, well, now as indicated by the photo (by the way, they were delicious).

Warba was bred in Minnesota in 1927, and it is an amazing grower. These guys will give you more harvest, earlier then any other variety out there. And they seriously produce. They store really well, they’re excellent for baking and boiling. During the drought of 1936 they were the only crop of potatoes that readily produced any kind of harvest, which is a godsend in a climate like mine that frequently has water rationing and extremely hot, dry summers.

Every time somebody asks me “what kind of potatoes do you think I should grow?” I immediately tell them Warba.

I am a sucker for an heirloom. I’m more of a sucker for an heirloom with a good story. But I’m at my most suckering (yes, I said it) when it’s a local heirloom with a good story.

So when I came upon the seeds at my town’s yearly Seedy Saturday I jumped on them.

Now, I am not a pea person. I actually don’t like peas. I do like snow peas on the rare occasion, but I don’t grow them every year, nor do I go out of my way to purchase them when they are in season. But the story of these suckered me in. I have more information up on the Populuxe Seed Bank’s site here.

The quick and dirty version of their history is that they were brought to the area in the 1940′s by, what the lady who sold them to me called, “Japanese immigrants”. My suspicion is, however, considering it was the 40′s, and considering there was a large Japanese Internment Camp in the area, that these were actually brought by prisoners when they were rounded up and taken from their homes.

I’m very excited about these peas, mostly because, like I said, I’m a sucker for a story, but mostly because I do like snow peas on the rare occasion, and anything you grow yourself always tastes better then something that you bought.

These peas were slow to get going. We had a tough spring, quite chilly, with weird spurts of high heat. I was positive my peas would be doomed, especially considering a few weeks ago the temperatures started going up and my peas were still just tiny. I mean, snow peas are, in theory, a cool weather crop.

But, much to my surprise, the second it got hot, these “snow” peas absolutely took off. When we started hitting the 30C mark, they (finally) started flowering these big, beautiful white blooms you see in the picture above. The plants have got to be growing at least an inch a day now. I was told when I bought them as well that these monster vines grow up to 7ft.

These peas seem insanely heat-tolerant, which isn’t too surprising since they are a local heirloom, and we have hot, hot temperatures here in the Kootenays. But, then again, the whole idea of a snow pea is that they do best in cool weather. These snow peas seem to be a contradiction in and of themselves.

Not that I’m complaining mind you, I’m very excited to see what these peas will do. If they’ll keep producing through a hot, dry summer, and if they will actually get up to that 7 ft mark.

While I know I will enjoy eating these when the pods are finally ready to be devoured, what I am most excited about is, however, spreading them around to anybody else interested in growing them. Especially because I seem to have hit the jack pot with the snow pea that is highly heat tolerant.

I told myself I wouldn’t start going through the tomatoes on the Weekly Flora until I could see them ripening on the vine.

Then I totally went back on that promise to myself, because it was a silly thing to think I could do in the first place.

But that’s okay I forgive me.

This tomato is the first to form fruit for me this season, and thusly, will be the first eaten when it finished ripening. I am so looking forward to fresh-of-the-vine tomatoes. Soon I’ll be swimming in almost more then I can eat (since I have about 40 different plants currently growing). But for now, I have just this one, little guy, chugging along, ripening at his own rate.

I’ve never grown Tiny Tim before, but it’s always been on my “to-grow” list. I love tomatoes that are, you know, “weird”. Dwarf plants, heavily pleated fruit, bi-coloured (or tri-coloured!), white tomatoes (that one freaks people out). If it’s “weird”, I’ll have a go at it.

While ‘Tiny Tim’ might not be the weirdest one ever, it is an early dwarf variety, and it fits very nicely into a one-gallon container, letting me but my bigger tomatoes into the 5- and 10- gallon containers.

‘Tiny Tim’ is a commercial heirloom variety; it was bred for commercial purposes, but is older then 50 years (it was actually bred in 1945 by the University of New Hampshire). This year I plan to try growing it under lights during the winter. I go through serious fresh tomato withdrawal for months at a time, but I’m positive there is a tomato out there that will grow well under my fluorescent lights. I mean, it just has to work, right? RIGHT?

Lord help me I can’t eat those cardboard-tasting things the grocery store calls tomatoes that they trucked in from California.

That’s the problem with gardening – it totally makes you into a tomato snob.

“It’ may not look like much…” seems to be the mantra of the garden lately.

But “it may not look like much” always transforms into a harvest bounty. It might take a little time, but it does. Mark my words.

My tomatoes are having a tough go so far; it’s been cold and rainy despite the fact it’s June, and despite the fact that by now we’ve usually hit at least 30C once. We’ve been lucky to hit 20C here the past few weeks, so the tomatoes are small and somewhat purplish due to the temperatures.

But, even still, my Stupice tomato, one of my superstars, one of the handful of tomatoes I grow every year, is starting to form tiny little buds.

This isn’t my only tomato to be forming flower buds, my ‘Taxi’ and ‘Cherokee Purple’ are doing likewise, and my ‘Tiny Tim’ is even starting to form fruit.

The difference between my ‘Stupice’ and the other three is the fact that out of the four my ‘Stupice’ is the only one that I’ve started from seed. I start most of my plants from seeds, but I always save room for a few starts if I come across something that’s interesting.

So there’s always an extra sense of pride when something I started from seed starts to flower, even after years doing it. You put so much time and effort into something, even the tiniest inkling that it’s all going to pay off is a triumph, especially with a hobby that’s left much up to the fate of nature. Despite how much we might try to control it.

It might not look like much, but this is it; the beginning of the harvest for the summer months.

Or rather, the beginning of the harvest of the non-leafy edibles, as those have been regularly eaten for about four weeks. But there is something about the first non-leafy veggie that really signals the beginning of eating my own home grown food. Not to say leafy greens aren’t “real”, but there’s something extra real about something that is thicker then a sheet of cardstock.

Granted, this little radish is a small. It’s really just the product of me thinning out some seedlings, but it was delicious. You’ll never catch me eating a radish outside of one I’ve grown, so I’ve been looking forward to this ever since I sowed these seeds 44 days ago.

I’ve been stamping my feet (figuratively) and pouting (only somewhat figuratively) after hearing some friends on the other side of Canada talk about how they’re already harvesting their first tomatoes. The weather has not been co-operative for us this year and it’s been chilly – everything is set back and my tomatoes are still in their infancy. So with the idea that tomatoes are still a few months off, the root veggies won’t be ready for just as long, and only my herbs, lettuces, and spinach to keep me going until then, it was a welcome ray of sunshine to pull up this tiny little red dot of a radish and savour it.

So I’m starting a new thing this week. The thing is on every Wednesday, I’m going to wander about the garden (which I already do anyway) and pick a plant that strikes my fancy and write a little bit up about it here. Simple enough, yes?

For the inaugural entry I decided to talk about my Romaine Lettuce ‘Freckles’ that I just happened upon a month or so ago. A pack of six starts called my name from across the street, and when I saw the $2.50 price tag I knew I had to have them.

While it’s name is the slightly twee ‘Freckles’ due to the red speckles that are dominant on this variety, in my home we’ve taken to referring to it at “Zombie Lettuce”.

Anybody who knows me is well aware of my deep-seeded and slightly obsessive love of zombies. Zombie movies, zombie comic books, zombie books… I even have little zombie finger puppets that glow in the dark (oh yes).

So when I saw this lettuce of course the first thing that came to my mind was not “oh, look, this lettuce has little freckles!”, but rather “holy crap, it looks like this lettuce has blood splatters on it”. And in my mind, blood spatters equates to zombie battle. You’re getting a frightening look into my psyche now, aren’t you?

Needless to say, I snapped it up immediately, and since purchasing these six starts it’s been a staple in my almost daily fresh-from-the-garden salad. I love how this lettuce looks. Is it the sweetest, most delicious lettuce ever? Truthfully: no. But it’s not bad or horribly bland either. It has a hint of bitterness to it as many fresh red lettuces do, but it’s predominantly a light sweetness.

It’s an open-pollinated variety, although I have seen it designated as an “heirloom”. But, then again, people also designate the tomato ‘Green Zebra’ as an heirloom, so I’m always a little hesitant to just believe that something is heirloom because somebody somewhere on the internetz says it is. Either way, I can save my own seed and I’m happy. If this is an heirloom I’d love to learn the history of it, but unfortunately I’ve yet to uncover that information.

It’s funny how differences and changes creep up on you in the garden, even when that creeping takes place after only four days.

On April 18th I spotted some lettuce starts for sale at the co-op grocery. They were so colourful I couldn’t resist (not to mention cheap, $2 for six plants!), so of course I grabbed some to get something in the garden. I needed some instant gratification, with the rest of my seeds not popping up that I had direct sown yet, I wanted to be able to harvest something almost right away. So, the lettuce was bought and planted.

I bought two different kinds, ‘Freckles’ and ‘Red Sails’. ‘Red Sails’ didn’t look too red when I purchased it, but after four days of being planted the difference was incredible. The picture above is actually the exact same leaf on the exact same plant. The photo on the left was taken on April 18th, and the one on the right taken on April 22nd. Now I can definitely see why this variety is called ‘Red Sails’.

It’s been very warm and very sunny here, getting up to 25C for the past few days (although today I was greeted with rain, hail, and then a few big fat snow flakes that quickly turned back into rain – all in a day of living high up in the mountains), so the lettuce even though it’s in a part shade bed (four hours of sun a day) has really been reacting to the increase in heat and sunshine.

And just for your visual pleasure, here is lettuce ‘Freckles’.

A little bit more about these varieties…
‘Red Sails’ is a 1985 is an All America Winner (if you care about such things, which I don’t because it all seems to be like being voted most popular of your graduating high school class). Open pollinated variety, supposedly resists bolting in warmer temperatures. It’s early, about 45 days. I can’t find too much history about this one.

‘Freckles’ is a romaine-type lettuce, also supposedly heat resistant. Open pollinated, a bit later then ‘Red Sails’ coming in at 55-65 days full maturity. This is supposedly an heirloom, but I can’t find history on this particular one either.

While trying to photograph these in a very strange and awkward position, all I could think of were magic beans.

Granted, these beans aren’t actually magic, and there isn’t some symbolism behind them about pissing my money away on flights of fancy, but the fact that I have five with no more ability to get any more if these don’t germinate made them seem extremely precious.

I’ve always been a huge fan of tomatoes, with all their deliciousness, easy-to-growness, and vast array of shapes, sizes, and colours; but my love of beans is a brand that really just came to be last year.

I’ve always grown beans, but I’ve always just kind of grown a random selection of bush beans and left it at that.

Then, last year, I discovered ‘Mr. Tung’s’ beans at the local Seedy Saturday, and my newfound love of beans was forever cemented in my psyche.

About a month-and-a-half ago a lady contacted me about some beans she had. She actually lives relatively close to me, but doesn’t benefit from the same micro-climate I do that gives me longer summers and slightly milder winters then pretty much everybody else around me. She found me in the Seeds of Diversity exchange directory, and in there of course I put that I was interested in swaps. In her possession she had some beans, some ten seeds of an old family heirloom, and that was it. Not having quite as long of a summer as me she needed somebody to grow them out and steward spreading the variety around to prevent its extinction. I’m a sucker for a family heirloom so of course I said I’d be happy to.

Here’s the history I have on them:

Ken Conners was born in Ireland in 1898. His family immigrated to Boston, Massachusetts in 1900, and then again moved to New Brunswick, Canada in 1907. They made their way out west and settled in the Vancouver, BC area. The family is still around, but in the interior of BC now, where they run an antique store and still to this day grow these beans that followed them around their journey in North America.

The colour of these beans, while not the crazy spray of colour like some varieties, is a wonderful rich chestnut-brown which I’ve never seen on a bean before. Just looking at them makes you feel warm.

So I’m very excited about these beans this year, and just like with Mr. Tung’s beans last year I’ll be saving a lot for seed and spreading them around to anybody who’s interested in growing them.

I love Seedy Saturday. I think it’s fairly safe to say I look forward to it all year. I attended by first Seedy Saturday event seven years ago, and since then it’s always been the indicator for the first day of spring of me. Doesn’t matter if that day has already come and gone (this year it just happened to fall on the same day), Seedy Saturday really means spring is here.

This year I did have something specific in mind, with the funds raised from selling seeds on etsy I decided to do a lot of acquiring this year for the bank at Seedy Saturday.

I walked away with 12 tomato varieties, one pea variety, shallots, and some curly cress (well, that one was just for me). A lady had an amazing selection of interesting tomato varieties, and it was really hard for me just to pick six from her incredible selection. I am happy with what I got in terms of tomatoes, I kind of wish I had left a little room for myself to start some of the varieties that I collected this year, but unfortunately I’m already pushing it with the amount of tomatoes I have going. I mean, I could convert all three gardens to tomato beds, but quite frankly, I would like to eat some other fresh produce this year then just tomatoes (I love tomatoes and all, but I have preserving plans that require all sorts of room for tomatillos, peppers, cukes, beets, and squash).

The tomatoes I got were:

I started a new tradition last year as well to obtain at least one local heirloom variety per year for preservation. Last year it started with Mr. Tung’s pole beans (which are now a favourite of mine), this year it continued on with Slocan Snow Peas.

To tell you the truth, I’m not a huge fan of peas, but I do like snow peas as long as they’re fresh. The lady who sold them to me told me that these peas were brought by “Japanese immigrants during WWII”. Now, this is just entirely my speculation, but I have an inkling that they were actually brought by Japanese Internment Camp prisoners. There was a sizable internment camp in the area, and considering the timing of these peas arrival in the area, I imagine that this was how they were brought here.

I’m a huge sucker for a local heirloom, so I’m excited to see these grow, especially since I was told vines get up to 7ft.