Preparing For The Gardening Season

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(Edited)

Some may roll their eyes to my title as people are preparing for Christmas and there are still at least two month to go till the new gardening season, but the good gardener is already planning, preparing as this is the time. Seeds must be bought in advance as when the season starts, you may not get what you want.

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There's another reason we wanted to buy seeds early. Last year as I've mentioned a few times, due to the lockdown, we could not prepare the greenhouse and plant seeds, but were lucky as our good neighbors took care of it, helped us out. There's no guarantee the lockdown is not going to happen again, so we have to give the seeds to the neighbor in case we get another lockdown. The situation here is bad, but not as bad as in other counties, so no lockdown for now.

A few decades ago farmers used to harvest their own seeds every year and store them till next year. We used to do that and still do with some vegetables. It's a good method to assure your next year seeds. I remember my grandparents sacrificing a tomato or two, spread the seeds on a clean cloth as there were no paper towels then, keeping it in a cold, airy space till it died, keeping it safe till next year.

However, sometimes when plants get diseases you can't use the seeds anymore, it's better to get new, clean and healthy ones to stop spreading any disease.

These are Bulgarian seeds we bought last year as well and are great. We got some amazing veggies out of the seeds, so no reason not to trust them. We still have some left from last year as the season was awful.

So let's see what are we going to grow next year, if everything goes well.

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Pumpkin Viola Gladka - produces oblong violin-shaped fruits. This is a wonderful pumpkin to have during autumn. This year we got nothing from the seeds or maybe one pumpkin or two, better luck next year.

Pumpkin Mammoth Gold - This is for the neighbors as they have livestock and pumpkins can feed a lot of them. The description says the average weight of the fruit is 18 - 27 kg. One year they had an 50kg pumpkin, I saw it with my own eyes. It was the biggest pumpkin I've ever seen, the guy brought it over to be weighed in a wheelbarrow.

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We always have at least 3 or 4 types of pepper, each one for different purpose. Some are good to be consumed fresh, some for sauces and canned. My favorite is the Kapiya, I just love it. Too bad you can't keep it fresh for long. During winter I'm buying it from the supermarket. This time the price is quite accessible but as time passes and spring is coming, the price can double.

Tomatoes are like the queen of all fruits and veggies. Technically tomato is considered a fruit but for me it's a veggie. Anyway, it's No. 1 for me!

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San Marzano is a famous type, originates from the small town of San Marzano sul Sarno, near Naples, Italy. We always have it because it's excellent for eating fresh and canning or juice. The average weight of a fruit can vary between 130g and 140g, compared to the other one is small, but its thick consistency makes it perfect for purees, juices and drying.

The other one, the Tigerella is new, I mean I've seen it before but we have never had it in the garden. The package says it's an early variety and disease resistant, with is not something to neglect. I'm going to be back with the result, so stay tuned :)

These are only two types, we usually have at least 4 or 5. I guess we still have some seeds from last year.

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Cauliflower and beetroots! I love them both, but the first one is pretty difficult to grow in our garden. I don't know why, maybe the soil is not suitable for it but we can hardly get some decent ones. This year was different though as we've managed to get some nice ones.

Beetroots are growing nicely when they grow but we had a few years when we got nothing. This year, just as with cauliflowers, we got plenty and big ones. I love it so much for salad, it's very healthy. These seeds are good so we've ordered more. Sticking to this time as it looks like this is good.

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Celery is not my favorite, we use it in soups and vegetable sauces but if it would be my decision, I would forget it.

Onions!!! We usually buy onion sets, that's the easiest and safest way to grow onions but my dad always plants seeds too, which may or may not grow. This onion looks huge but trust me, that's just some kind of photo manipulation. We're going to buy cloves in the spring as it's way too early for that. Yellow, white and red is what we use, usually. White is very tough and resistant, it's more for cooking, not so much for eating it raw.

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Cucumers have a funny name here, they are called Gherkins Regina F1, don't ask me why. This is the type we like and grow for years, along with others. This one should be harvested early, when it's still small and it's great for pickles too.

Watermelon Mramorna 17, who doesn't like watermelon, right? However, it's not so easy to grow good ones. It's 92 percent water, so it needs a lot of water to grow and you can only do that by watering it regularly. We have the infrastructure for that, but it needs a good soil as well and I'm not sure ours is perfect for it. We've tried before, got some fruits but were not as delicious as those you can buy at the farmers market, that are grown down south. The soil is more sandy there, perfect for it.

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Melon Ananas - Ananas is Pineapple in English, for those not familiar with the term. Why is this called Ananas? Because the fruit is light green, juicy, sweet and has pineapple flavor. This type can weight 2.5 - 3 kg, which is huge for me as we usually have smaller fruits.

This is also called honeydew melon and we have some each year. i love to go out in the morning, take a melon and have it for breakfast, while it's still cold. What can be more healthy? Fresh, organic and healthy from the garden.

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This is for me, for my balcony gardening and I'm hoping to get some lovely flowers out of it. I had to borrow the photo from the website as I forgot to take a photo of my own. I love pansies, have them every second year mostly but black is hard to find. I'll be back with photos.

So this is just a part of the plan, the new seeds but we have about twice as many still from last year. I truly hope we can start the season in time next year, without any delay but who can guarantee that?



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Your post has been submitted to the OCD community curation initiative for some great upvotes! OCD are currently supporting posts in HIVE communities!

Congrats and keep posting great content!

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