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Fernie Seed Library Update

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From the Seed Garden Journal

By Mary Cosman

 

Introduction

We call it the Brenner Road Garden – three 350m long rows, each 1.5m wide, turned out in the rich river bottom soil in the Elk River valley in the southeast corner of BC. The landowner has allowed us to work on this property free since 2021. We have clear and cold well water (good) at the north end of a windswept (not so good) hayfield. A little creek runs along our northwest border and the great river is just shy of a kilometer to the southeast as the magpie flies.

We have cultivated a market garden in this space for three years, selling produce at our stall at the local farmer’s market. Gradually I worked toward growing out more seed crops. This year we stopped selling at the market and I worked it solely as a seed garden, with excess produce donated to the food bank. With generous funding from the provincial government, we haven’t needed to make this project economically self-sufficient.

 

May

Cold and rainy weather as nighttime temperatures hover around zero. Seedlings started indoors under grow lights were moved to the greenhouse with an old ceramic heater on from midnight to 6am. Seed carrots were moved from fridge to 4-litre pots outdoors. When finally transplanted to the garden they never really flourished and died before setting seed. Next year I’ll skip the intermediate transplanting and move those carrots straight out to the garden as soon as the soil can be worked.

Garlic is poking through the mulch, and volunteer greens are abundant. First plantings of lettuces were in mid-month, as weather continued cold, wet, and windy. Two tomato varieties planted out under plastic hoophouses at the end of May suffered as the wind beat the plastic so violently that it damaged the plants. Only a few survived to the end of the season and ripened fruit. On the other hand, plants under the remay had a gentler experience and flourished. They produced bumper crops of tomatoes, most of which ripened on the vines.

A dozen or so of each variety of beans were started indoors in mid-May and planted out on the 28th, alongside direct sown beans. The Polestar runner beans from the SoDC seed library were direct sown and most of them showed up in 20 days despite continued cold and wet weather.

With a mind to our mandate of improving food security in our remote valley, I grew out some test plots of cereal varieties that can be grown in this climate and might work on a small scale for home cultivating and consumption. I’ve been growing golden flax and buckwheat for years, and this year expanded to include quinoa, amaranth and a black hull-less barley from the BC Eco Seed Co-op. All these crops produced well and matured before frost from plantings at the end of May.

 

June

The hayfield has a soft white haze:  the wild carrot is blossoming. I covered the struggling seed carrots with fine netting to avoid cross-pollination with their wild neighbours. Fierce winds and heavy rain battered seedlings, but survival was generally good except for the poor tomatoes. Beans direct sown suffered in the cold, and those that germinated were slow to establish; a few of the seedlings were munched by insects (but amazingly survived to produce), and a magpie pulled up a few. Magpies aren’t common here, but occasionally some will wander through the Crowsnest Pass from Alberta in search of farmers’ fields to play in. This one delighted in pulling up onion sets and cabbage seedlings as well as the beans.

The beautiful Purple Plum radish thinnings were delicious. The remainder went on to branch out and produce many, many seedpods from their baseball-sized mature roots. I planted another radish, Hailstone, at the opposite end of the garden a few weeks earlier. I counted on this strategy to avoid crossing of the two. The Hailstone pods matured and were harvested in September. The Purple Plums were finally dry enough to pull in late October. Next year radishes will be corralled – they flopped everywhere, and totally covered some neighbouring carrots.

I used the same strategy of time/distance with two varieties of arugula, Astro and Adagio. Sadly, the Adagio succumbed to flea beetles, but happily the Astro produced a good crop of seed. Most insect damage in the garden was apparent in the north end, so I will work on some soil treatment with diatomaceous earth and whatever other solutions some winter research will provide. Freezing nighttime temperatures hovered around the Solstice. It finally began to warm up and dry out after that and summer did indeed begin. I covered the Scarlet Frills mustard with netting once the prolific wild mustard presented its cheery yellow blossoms.

 

July

Spinach pollen is in the air. But it seemed the male plants were way ahead of the females. I worried if there still would be pollen around when their flowers bloomed. Not long after I harvested the dried stalks, I discovered a blanket of tiny spinach seedlings in the soil, so it seems they managed their unique way of procreation just fine. Sturdy stock fencing supported beans and peas this year. Amidst the jungle of runner beans, Hinkelman peas, and purple pole beans I found a wee bird nest with one egg in it.

 

August

The zucchinis are round, oh no! The Black Beauty zucchini patch is a write-off for true seed this year. I had used seed collected from my community garden plants last year, not surprised they were a cross, despite my vigilance. I did like the egg-shaped young squashes though, so allowed some to mature to save some ersatz seed. The plants were semi-vining and produced vigorously. The folks at the food bank happily received all I couldn’t eat. All my squash varieties flourished in the weeks of sunshine and heat. The same conditions had me wilting and arrested the flower development of the lettuces as well. I thought that planting lettuce in the shade of the tall climbers would help; it was the extreme heat, in the mid-thirties, that was too much.

 

September

Just waiting for everything to dry!  With over 120 varieties of vegetables, herbs, and flowers it’s been a challenge to keep track of everything that grows in this seed garden. The crazy planting scheme was an attempt to supply our Seedy Saturday with as wide a variety of seed as possible, as we don’t have seed vendors venturing out to our remote valley in mid-winter for the event. The dry weather held all month, so most plants dried in the field. Dan from Tourne-sol Farm suggested cutting the pole beans at ground level so the plants would stop growing and start drying. I did that, and I think it helped speed the process in the race to dry mature pods before they froze. 

I loaded my little SUV with large paper garden bags full of whatever was ready to process and met Farm Folk City Folk’s seed cleaning trailer when it visited Cranbrook, an hour’s drive down the valley. Enjoyed a fine day chatting with Siri and delighting over the equipment as we made quick work of what I’d brought.

This season wrapped up with a balance of successes and failures, as there is every year. Judging from the number of bags and bins of seeds and dried plants littering my living room, though, my guess is that we’ll have plenty to offer local gardeners at our next Seedy Saturday.

 

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