Saturday, January 10, 2009

Planning the garden for 2009

The beginning of the year always brings with it a flurry of seed catalogs. I think I have received 8 already and expecting a few more!

I started planning this summers garden since there isn't much else to do this time of year. Thanks to the generosity of friends, my seed buying will be reduced this year. I have an amazing variety of heirloom tomatoes and beans, as well as some popcorn seeds, arriving in the mail soon, all from fellow gardeners looking to share and exchange seeds.

Some of the more interesting plants for 2009 include:
Grosse Cotelee tomato
Hog Heart tomato
Chocolate Stripes tomato
Purple Queen beans (can't wait to try these, purple beans will be so much easier to see when picking, and then they turn green when you cook them!)
Tiger Eye beans
Turkey Craw beans (supposedly the original bean was found in a turkey's craw by a hunter and planted, back in the 1800s)

Been looking at the the hatchery catalogs as well, trying to pick which kinds of birds we'll have this year. I really want Buff Orpington chickens, and maybe some Plymouth Rocks, but we will see what happens. Here's what a Buff Orpington looks like, they are supposed to be good layers:







Not much else happening on the farm, bitter cold temperatures are expected for next week, a HIGH of 6 below on Thursday, makes me wish I could just hibernate.

2 comments:

grove said...

Ducks? Last I heard you couldn't stand them. Now Chickens sound like fun. And the pic of the one in your blog looks sweet, but you have to get a rooster too. I mean really what self respecting chicken farmer doesn't have a rooster? How are your bunnies doing? If you need help harvesting some when the weather breaks I'm just a phone call a way.
Grove

Anonymous said...

I'm so excited you are going to have animals for me to hang out w/ when I come for the next Farm Fantastic! You really should name one of your animals Boober...:)