Garden Diary - February 2nd

My seed and plant order for the spring is complete now.  The last item on my January to-do list was to order from St. Lawrence Nurseries (a local nursery that specializes in trees and shrubs that are cold-weather hardy).  I just mailed in my order for the following:

• 10 Manchurian Crabapple trees (a hardy tree that will feed the deer, birds and other wildlife into winter; I planted 2 of these trees along the wood line last year and will plant another 8 there this spring.  The remaining 2 will go into the garden area, next to the new Carpathian English Walnut tree that I ordered)
• 8 Winterberry shrubs for the chicken area (the birds love the red fruit in the winter)
• 10 rugosa rose for the chicken area (a very hardy rose with pink blossoms; it produces large rose hips with a high vitamin C content that can be dried for teas)
• 10 white potentilla (small, flowering shrubs that flower all summer; they do very well in the rock gardens; I already have 10-12 yellow potentilla scattered throughout the gardens)

I thought briefly about adding a few additional fruit trees, but we already have 11 trees (a mix of apples, plum and pear trees) in the young orchard (half the trees are heading into their 4^th year and the others into their 3^rd), as well as 5 mature apple trees.  Once the young trees are producing, that’s quite a bit of fruit for two people to harvest and process, so I managed to curb by need to add more. 

Without going into great detail regarding the varieties, I ordered the following seeds for the vegetable garden:

Vegetables

Green beans (pole and bush varieties), beets (3 varieties), carrots (2 varieties), cabbage, brussel sprouts, cauliflower, cucumbers, eggplant, edamame, leeks, lettuce (3 varieties), onions (3 varieties), peppers, potatoes (3 varieties), peas, spinach, pumpkins (2 varieties), summer and winter squash, shallots, swiss chard, tomatoes (4 varieties), rutabaga, and watermelon 

Annuals

Cosmos, calendula, marigold, sweet peas, morning glories, nasturtiums, sunflowers (3 varieties), zinnias (2 varieties), and scarlet runner beans 

Herbs

Dill, borage, basil, chives, valerian, yarrow, sweet marjoram, oregano, thyme, sage, parsley, lemon balm, chamomile, anise hyssop and mint

Perennials

I will plant some perennials from seed in an attempt to cut down on some of my gardening costs.  This year I'm trying the following: lettuce poppies, larkspur, columbine, campanula, sweet rocket, and hollyhocks.