Yeah, pretty quiet in here.

Weather has been decent enough for a Minnesota January. Got three inches of fresh snow last night so garlic beds are covered with a nice blanket again. I am looking forward to the gardening season, but do not seem to have any excitement about it yet. I admit that skipping a year right now would not bother me, but I know I would not do that. Something would end up getting planted.

On Feb. 01 I will be starting some leek and an early planting of bhut jolokia peppers in flats. A bit early, but for fun I am also going to attempt to start sprouting a few sweet potatoes. That is it for me until March when the seeding of flats really kicks in. Tie that in with maple syruping season and my March and early April will blow by. Then the real work starts...

-Tom

Hi there! I happened across your seed list. In 15 years of trading online that is the most comprehensive list I have ever seen. Very intimidating :)
Are you starting leeks from seed? I prefer as organic- heirloom as possible. I buy some from Heritage and seed savers. It sounds like you have a lovely farm. I've been wandering through my catalogs all afternoon. We could use some more snow as mine is pretty much gone. It's too dry and I need to coverage too. I am not complaining about the warm weather otherwise. Happy planting~

Winter has always been a slower time for posting on this forum. I am definitely looking forward to Spring, but not sure what I will be doing in the gardens yet, as we are planning on moving.

So depending on when and where, I'll probably just maintain what I have here and then start anew once we are in a new place!

Linda

Minnesotan here!

For me, things start to move in February. I already have overwintered sweet potato cuttings growing in pots from last year started. I'm going to be starting some trays of leeks and onions soon. I am germination testing some old seed right now.

I have a feeling that we should have a good year this next growing season... but eh who knows. I'm stubbornly optimistic.

With the warm weather we have been having here in Minnesota, my rose bushes are sprouting leaf buds now. I couldn't believe it when I checked them in our unheated garage. What a surprise. I hope it wont hurt them cause they have to stay there till I can get them outdoors. In April I guess. Good to see a fresh post here again.

dreamingofmygardens said, "Hi there! I happened across your seed list. In 15 years of trading online that is the most comprehensive list I have ever seen. Very intimidating :)" - I know you followed your comment with a smiley, but I admit the intimidating thing has been a concern especially when I was simply trying to make it a fun list to look at. I thought adding my pics would lend an air of legitimacy, although my feedback thread should be good enough for that. I am sure my list has chased some people away from trades, but that is probably a good thing. I also learned that to get even a chance of finding any of the less common varieties listed, I need to have as much stuff on my list as possible to entice those folks to do a trade.

So far I have made a small trade, four large trades, and one very large trade since I updated my list, and have gotten some wonderful varieties in return. I use trades to augment my seed purchases, to get some things that always seem to get bumped down on my priority list. If I do grow-outs of what I have received I will be adding around 45 new vegetable varieties to my inventory.

Took me two weeks in December to do seed inventory, reorganize, condense, and update my seed bank. Was pretty disorganized from last year yet. Threw out a lot of seed, stuff that was older or extra that I did not need or did not want to bother doing germination tests on. Have a comprehensive list now of what I have to grow out this year to obtain fresh seed, which was the main point of doing the whole project. Putting up the seed list was a bit of an afterthought, but it turned out to be a helpful aid in streamlining my listing system.

Regarding leek, yes I am starting from seed. I would like to order leek plants when I order my onion plants but leek plant prices are too steep for my interests. I just grow the common varieties that I can find in the local retail seed racks, usually American Flag, although I have a couple other varieties that I am going to try this year such as Blue Solaise and King Richard. I learned a long time ago to purchase my Am Flag leek seed one year in advance because stores do not always have seed racks on display when I need to be starting them.

My plants from seed never get as big as other people's plants but that does not matter much to me. I simply plant more and always seem to get more than I need anyway. I like leek, do not love it, but I grew up with it on the dinner table so I miss it greatly when it is not in my fall pot roasts and venison stews. And potato leek soup - my goodness that is a wonderful food. Ambrosia. My mouth is salivating with me just typing those words. :-)

This year I am attempting to winter over two dozen leek plants in order to obtain my own seed stock, which is the whole point of having my own family seed bank.

I mentioned that I purchase onion plants, but around March 01 I am going to be starting from seed some little red and yellow cipollini onions and the red torpedo-shaped tropea onions. I grew them ten years ago, fascinating onion varieties and good flavor. I also start a mess of Granex onions from seed and harvest them as little "pearls" for canning. Granex are not long day varieties but this does not matter for my needs.

Last day of January! Good riddance as far as I am concerned...

Well, got to focus on doing some seed orders. I am also ordering my hop plants today. (YAY!) :-)

Have a great day!
-Tom

I'm a Minnesotan too! Getting very anxious to get started for another year. I have all of my seed ready to go. I think I will get some onions going in the next week or two. I try to start pretty much everything from seed if I can.

I haven't checked in for quite some time but I'm still hanging around. For the first time I can remember I'm not chomping at the bit to see winter end. Maybe it's cause I have more than enough winter projects to keep me occupied or maybe because I dug up 2 large (approx 6' x 40') perennial beds last fall and moved the plants to my veggie garden for the winter to make room for a new shed and I also need to dig them up again this spring and replant them in their new home as soon as its ready. Feeling just mildly overwhelmed, apparently just getting older.

I'm from Minnesota too! After last winter I feel like we're having a reprieve. I usually start seeds and putting together my grow lights about nowish, but this year I thought I'd try something different by getting already started plants.

I live in southern MN, outside of Nicollet, MN. The lovely sunshine today can't quite overcome the cold wind blowing from the south! We ordered some new varieties of tomato seeds this year, and my favorite melon, Minnesota Midget. Getting the mini greenhouse cleaned up and ready to put up in the living room.

i'm in the metro area and am still a gardening beginner. I'm itching to see green outside! Has anyone had experience in zone 4 with winter sowing? I know I still won't be seeing green (just milk jugs or covered boxes), but I'd like to try it. Any recommendations? Success stories?

I have been meaning to get the first seeds started but I don't want to spend time in the basement with soil and water; it is too cold down there!

My first onions and pepper seeds are starting to sprout on top of the fridge. Grow lights are set up and ready to plug in any day now.

It would be really nice to get an early spring and long season for a change. I suppose we could use some precip, though. Even the snow tomorrow night & Tuesday isn't forecast to give my area very much. It's always something:P

maiselovesme, if you haven't already, check out: http://www.wintersown.org/ I haven't checked it out lately, but the winter sowing forum was always quite active and it works just fine here in zone 4.

you should check out https://www.reddit.com/r/mnchickens/

So ready for spring! Hopefully the gorgeous weather doesn't give way to more snow. I'm enjoying my evening walks full of warm sunshine!

I'm so delighted to find this forum, though it is still tough to relate sometimes. I am zone 3 with occasional fits of zone 2. Though it has certainly been milder the last ten years.

I am definitely in spring now. Have potted up all of my tomatoes and peppers to flats of 50. I have one high tunnel filled already with lettuces, kale, kohlrabi, radishes, spinach, sugar snaps, and mizuna. Onions have had their first haircut. Pepper and tomato tunnels have been planted to oats as a green manure crop. Every day brings something new to do. Really glad I discovered Agsquared to help me stay on track. I used to try to get everything on a calendar but the computer works better. Saves me doing the math.

As you may have guessed by now, we do market gardening; csa, farmers market, two small stores.

Anyone else getting concerned about the dryness? National weather service predicted unusually dry conditions till at least June.

Sorry to have chatted so much. Just nice to share with folks who experience our weird weather.

agsquared. I'll have to look at that I wonder if it could help a home gardener.

I work full time but I love to garden. If I could figure out how to make a living doing it, I'd rather be out playing in the dirt! :-)

I like to try gardening experiments to see how they work out. Last year my garden experiment was to try growing two different kinds of potatoes vertically. (yep. disaster.) This year I'd like to try gravity fed drip irrigation and see how it is that works. The reason I was thinking of drip irrigation as something to try is because I am also worried about how dry it's been this winter, and I was trying to think of ways that I could keep having a veggie garden but utilize wiser watering techniques.

hi a4alice. Nice to meet someone else who still loves playing in the dirt. Agsquared has a thirty day free trial. I pay $99 a year for it but it is one of the best tools I have purchased. For instance, even when I just grew for the family I quickly learned that it was best not to plant all my lettuce at once, but rather start six plants a week so I had six heads a week throughout the growing season. That was easy enough for the family but when I am trying to produce 60 to 70 heads of three varieties every week throughout the season it is really hard to keep up with when to start new plants, when to transplant and when to harvest. The program makes it easy, I just set it all up in January.

I like drip but I find it most useful under landscape fabric. I'm on pure sand and the water sinks straight down instead of spreading. The fabric helps distribute it more. I think you are right to be preparing for dryness, though it was only a couple of years ago we started out really dry, then had an inch a week from the first of June through fall. The only thing you can be sure of is that you can't be sure of anything.

What part of MN are you in?

Central. I think Marc Seeley on MPR was saying that he thought that rain would catch up in April. Hope he's right but not a super wet cold spring like last year.

I agree completely. Long cold wet springs are not what I want. I'm still an hour and a half NW of St Cloud.

Hello !

Im up in Ely mn, this summer will be my first garden. Id like to try straw bale gardening but I'm having trouble finding bales for less that 8$. I had hoped to find someone who used them (straw bales) to bank a cabin over the winter and would just be happy to have me haul them away

zymguy: Any 'free market' type sites/newspaper ads around that area? I would think someone might have some bales that are not good for livestock and would unload some. good luck.........gardening? Gosh, it is getting to be that time. I haven't had a chance to start some seeds but there is still time and I have everything on hand except the energy I guess. Winter doldrums and other issues have kept me busy. I sure would like a week of 60's temperatures so I can clean up the front yard and redo planting areas.....perhaps later in April?