Well it’s been a shamefully long time since my last post. Happily, during that time we managed to get the 2o12 catalogue sorted and off to print. It’s now back from the printer and just starting to ship. I’ve also managed to review the website, and bring everything up to date. I’ve finally had a chance to bring our selection of wild bird feeders and seeds up to date (and correct!) on the web site, too.
The growing guides in the catalogue are now more uniform, and have a little more information. I tried to make them a wee bit more concise for this year. We shrunk the font size by half a point and reduced the “leading” (the spaces between lines of type), which offered more room for colour pictures. I tried to include as much history as I could track down for the heirloom varieties. Some of them have rather good stories.
We brought back The Three Sisters this year due to demand. It’s a great summer project for kids. There are a couple of new certified organic lettuces in the 2012 catalogue, including some of the ones I mentioned in the 2010 lettuce trial. And a new lettuce called Jester that is grown by our friends the Mortons down in Oregon. It looks fantastic.
We tracked down Claytonia, as well – the Miner’s Lettuce that’s such a good winter vegetable. I highly recommend this one with next winter in mind. Our onion growers will be pleased to hear that yes – both Kelsae and Ailsa Craig will be available this year – really. We’ve had a very hard time bringing these two varieties in over the past couple of seasons, but they’re in the house this time. I also recommend the beautiful little Italian heirloom onions, Rossa di Milano, for very long storage capacity.
I am looking forward to the arrival of Pasilla Bajio and Scotch Bonnet chile seeds. The former is mild and full of flavour, the latter is devilishly hot and belongs in jerk paste for summer grilling.
And then there are the new squashes… I still have squashes around the house from the trials this summer. I was fascinated to see that Galeux d’Eysines actually gets wartier in storage! I am a complete sucker for oddball squashes, and this season we’ll have Pink Banana Jumbo, Triamble, and Queensland Blue pumpkins on offer. I’m going to have to get some of the Pink Banana Jumbo seeds to Mr. Singh! I grew Snack Jack pumpkin this summer, which is the one to grow if you like eating the seeds. The seeds were a big hit, and kept Jeanette and myself sustained during many, many long hours of catalogue work.
And some new flowers are coming for 2012. With the popularity of our Alternative Lawn Wildflower Blend in 2011, we saw that people really like low-growing, self-sowing annuals. Both Plains Coreopsis and Baby Blue Eyes are perfect for this use.
And on the garden gadget front, I am really looking forward to the arrival of soil blockers. I think these tools are essential for the small organic farm. They allow you to literally create a block of soil into which you can plant seeds. They are available in various sizes, so as your seedling grows, it can be “potted on” into larger and larger soil blocks. This eliminates the need for all that plastic, and allows the tender young roots to grow unimpeded as they await transplanting to the garden. Our soil blockers will be arriving in January, and I’ll make another mention of them when they show up.
Those are most of the highlights that I’m excited about for this coming season. Check out our New Products page for a more comprehensive listing. I hope everyone enjoys the new catalogue, and savours it over the dreary months of winter… Spring is not that far away.