It's Growing to be a good year!

After cleaning out and organizing my Seed Case, I have come up with a list of seeds that I will be planting in my 2015 garden.

It is so hard not to be sucked into all those tempting seed catalogs in depths of winter...

I have many  Heirloom seeds on hand and will use up what I have, but  to subdue my gardenitus, I've ordered a few new varieties too!

Here's a look at what will be growing in my garden this year...
* new varieties added

Beans 

Calypso

Provider

Blue Lake

Tongue of Fire *

Scarlet Runner

Beet

Chioggia *

Crosby *

    Sugar *
                            

Broccoli

Bellstar

Cabbage

Golden Acre

January King

Carrot

Pusa Asista (Black) *

Pusa Rudhira (Red) *

Tendersweet*

Cucumber

Boston Pickling

Corn

Early Sunglow

Corn Salad-Mache'

                                   D Etampes                               

                           French Delight                        

Kale

Dwarf Blue Curled Scotch

Scarlet Kale *

Leek

American Flag

Summer

Lettuce

Forellenschluss

Four Seasons

Paris Island Romaine

Red Salad Bowl

Tom Thumb

Tomato

Black Krim *

Kellogs Breakfast *

Rutgers

Sicilian Saucer

Sungold

Onion

AilsaCraig

Parsnips

Harris Model

Peas

Alaska

Cascadia

Little Marvel

Pepper

Alma Paprika *

Hungarian

Kalmans Hungarian *

King of the North *

Sweet Banana

Summer Squash

Black Beauty

Winter Squash

Jarrahdale

Flowers

Echinacea- Tiki Torch

Pansy

Nasturtium Whirlybird mix

Marigold Hero Mix

Sunflowers

Zinnia Cherry Queen

Saving Seeds

The Peas that were planted this Spring, provided us with a bountiful harvest. As the harvest slowed, and Summer temperatures soared...The Pea vines have all dried up. Allowing the remaining pea pods to dry on the vines nicely. 

Harvesting dried Peas is rather simple... Once your peas have dried thoroughly and are brittle, pull each vine one by one and pick them clean. 

Once all the dried Peas have been picked, we throw the vines in the compost, and place the peas in a bag. Any bag will work, we used a random oven turkey bag that we had on hand, but even an old pillowcase would work just fine.

Give the bag  a vigorous shaking... smashing....and then, a little more shaking! 

This helps break open all the dried pods.

Hand pick, out the dried pods and double check for any that didn't open on their own. The dried pods are put into the compost pile too!

Dump the dried peas into a colander to shake and sift any fine debris that might remain.

We like to put our dried peas into a sealed glass jar and save for replanting in the Spring.