Springtime.

Another week has passed since our last post and a lot has been going on out here.  The sun has been shining and the weather has warmed and the snow is melting at a fairly rapid pace.  There is still a lot of snow to melt but every day we are seeing more and more brown.
We have been busy planting, planting and more planting.  We received one of our stock orders this week with all the dahlia tubers.  It took a couple of days to get them all planted, but they are nestled in the warm garage busy sending shoots up out of the dirt.  We will have nine different colours this year, some new varieties and some old favourites.  Will go into more detail about those at a later post.
We seeded all the tomatoes yesterday.  Will have a couple of new varieties this year along with the reliable favourites.  We decided to plant some varieties that mature early, as the threat of the late blight may be a problem again.  The varieties we will have available for spring planting are:
Lemon Boy - low acid, producing yellow fruit, matures in 50 days
Bush Early Girl - compact plants with large fruit, matures 54 days
Prairie Pride - abundant, flavourful, medium sized fruit on sturdy compact plants, developed at the University of Manitoba, matures 55 days.
Tumbler - produces loads of 2" fruit, great for planting in pots, matures 60 days.
Cherry Sunsugar - unique golden colour, producing lots of cherry sized, very sweet fruit, matures 60 days.  Tried this tomato for the first time last year and we love it.
Mama Mia - meatier, firmer fleshed, great for salsa, and sauce, matures 60 days.
Bush Beefstake - heirloom variety, produces lots of 8oz fruit on a compact bushy plant, matures 62 days.
Big Beef Hybrid - our all time favourite, old-time flavour, good fruit size and very heavy yielding, staking variety, matures 70 days.
Roma- bush plant, paste variety, great for salsa and sauce, matures 80 days.
If you are interested in a particular variety, please let us know and we can set them aside for you, as some varieties will be in short supply.  If you experienced blight on your tomato plants last year, plant your tomatoes in another location in your garden, this growing season.
The celery seedlings are doing great.  Have never planted them before so really looking forward to observing them grow this year and harvesting the crop.  Garden grown celery has a strong wonderful flavour unlike anything you buy in the grocery store.

This month we started to consign our hypertufa planters at The Willow Studio downtown.  The address is 148 2nd Ave. N.  They have them on display with their outdoor garden furniture.  If you have never visited their store, I highly recommend to take the time to stop in.  They carry a lot of unique products you won't find elsewhere, to decorate your home inside and out.

Happy Spring!