I puttered in the fading light last night to plant Bleu de Solaize leeks and Rossa di Milano onions (from the Tilth sale a couple weeks ago). In the foreground you can see that the poppy seedlings have come up — I will transplant them once they have true leaves.

I puttered in the fading light last night to plant Bleu de Solaize leeks and Rossa di Milano onions (from the Tilth sale a couple weeks ago).

In the foreground you can see that the poppy seedlings have come up — I will transplant them once they have true leaves.

28 Mar 2013 7
#leeks #onions #tilth #poppies #seedlings #starts #planting

We went to the Seattle Tilth March Edible Plant Sale this weekend, which, for the first time (in our experience), was in Georgetown, our sister neighborhood across the Duwamish River (thanks, Tilth!). The March sale is not nearly as insane as the May sale (staid onions, kale, & herbs vs. sexy tomatoes, peppers, squash, eggplants…), but it was still busy enough to warrant wrist bands.

We, of course, failed to stick strictly to our shopping list (onion & leek starts) and bought nine sets of starts:

  1. Fennel bulbs (I’ve added them to the area where I planted the fennel seed — it hasn’t emerged)
  2. Bloomsdale Spinach (those seeds have emerged, but I added these to the row to stagger things)
  3. Miner’s Lettuce — a native edible that I tried last year, but it got crowded out, so I’ve stuffed it in the planter with the chives
  4. Mizuna
  5. Endive
  6. Red Baron Scallions
  7. Bleu de Solzaize Leeks
  8. Walla Walla Sweet Onions
  9. Rosso de Milano red onions

The onions and leeks are supposed to go in the back bed, in front of the new bean trellis, but now that we have four varieties, we need more room! I have no idea where to stuff the endive and mizuna. (Pity the over-zealous gardener.) 

16 Mar 2013
#favas #fava negreta #flowers #rosemary #blackcaps #leeks #onions #scallions #mizuna #endive #spinach #lettuce #fennel #tilth sale

On May first we went to the Spring Seattle Tilth sale and bought the starts we hadn’t grown ourselves — Little Finger eggplant, sweet peppers (Beaver Dam and Hungarian), hot peppers (Thai, king of the north, long cayenne), crookneck squash and New England pie pumpkins, a couple tomatoes (Red Fig and Sungold), summer and winter savory, sweet corn, chinook and cascade hops, moroccan mint, red shiso, cipollini onions, and a male and female kiwi plant from one of the nursery stands.

A week later we went to the WNPS spring native plant sale for the first time. Our big score was a flat of 4″ pots of Deer ferns. Usually ferns are in gallon pots, which makes them pretty expensive, so this was a great deal –18 ferns for $4 each. We also scored aVaccinium membranaceum, the native blueberry (technically, “Black Huckleberry”) I brought from the Capitol Hill house and is hard to find. The guy next to me took the second-to-last one, so I could only get one of the five I needed.

I planted the natives from the sale in the front and back, along with 32 Lupinus albicaulisthat I had started from seed last fall.

11 May 2010
#WNPS sale #blueberry #corn #deer ferns #eggplant #hops #kiwi #lupine #lupinus albicaulis #mint #natives #onions #peppers #savory #shiso #tilth sale #vaccinium membranaceum #veggies #plan #notes #garden