We went to the Qualicum Beach Seedy Saturday last weekend with our friends from Yellow Point Country Home. Events included a seed swap, seed vendors, plant vendors, Seedy Café, garden products, speakers, Farmers’ Market. Keith went to the seminar on GMO 101 with Arzeena Hamir as the speaker. He said it was well done and there were many good questions from the audience. Its so inspiring to be around all the plants and seeds for sale and the room was very crowded. I bought a bay tree from Turley’s Florists and Garden Centre from Nanaimo.
We also bought a dozen raspberry canes named ‘Saanich’ from Metchosin Farm. They told us that the plants were rescued from an old farm in Metchosin before it was cleared by developers. The plants are everbearing and very hardy. We managed to get these in the ground on Sunday before the cold snap came.
Outside the arena we talked to Denman Island Heritage Apples. Keith has been arranging to buy root stock from them so it was great to meet them and have a good chat about the trees and make arrangements to pickup the whips. We also bought a Braeburn apple tree and got it planted on Sunday. We are now officially out of room in the orchard.
Back in December we attended the 1st Annual Winter Solstice Local Food Celebration put on by the Farmship Growers Co-operative that operates in Cedar. I was lucky enough to choose a tray of seeds as door prize.
I can’t wait to get these seeds started and am really happy they come from a local source.
We have already ordered and received the rest of our seeds we want to try from West Coast Seeds. There is enough here to last us 2 or 3 years.
One of our friends was moving and was nice enough to gift their seeds to us since they won’t be having a garden this year. There are several varieties of nasturtiums, sweet peas and different veggies in this mix so we definitely have enough seeds to last us for a while. And hopefully we can share the bounty!
We also bought 2 soil block molds from Lee Valley and will be mixing up our potting soil according to Eliot Coleman’s recipe. Here is a short video showing how he creates his potting soil and how the soil blocks work.
I follow Margaret Roach at A Way To Garden and will use her seed start calculator to know when we are safe to start seeding. We could start onion and leeks this weekend and keep them in a window in the garage. I know from experience that it is better to wait until the right time rather than waste seed and our hopes of healthy transplants.
With all the primroses perking up and the trees budding and colouring up outside, its pretty hard to sit on our hands and wait. Don’t you agree?