Garden Plants Spring 2020 - Germinating at the Winsted Farm Greenhouse - Physical Distancing

Happy Spring 2020.  Here are some of this years options for planting.  Looking for more social connections with plants and nature this year.  Physical distancing with nutritional and tasty connections right in your own yard, garden and planters.  Sending seeds to my farming greenhouse partners Jules and Gray this year..They asked for social distancing.  And they are growing many of the usual varieties of brussel sprouts, broccoli, big red and purple slicing heirloom tomatoes, yellow pear and small yellow cherry tomatoes.  Feel free to call me or email me at tomw@ wopida.com. of any interests.  Let us know how many of what you want this year. Best regards for health and balance in 2020.......Tom W in BC  PS, Also if you need roto tilling or have neighbors that are interested this year, love to get more roots into the ground with our plant relatives....

Shifting our Food to generative Practices --Free Video The Need To GROW

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Garden Plants 2019 for your consideration May Planting!

Here are some of the options that I planted from seed out at the Winsted Farm in Early April and just transplanted the seedlings into 4 packs to be ready in mid May.  Here are some of the numbers...and call me or email tomweaver7747@gmail.com. if you want to reserve some.
Dino Kale  48 + , Gold Nugget 1" fruit cherry tomato --24 plants, Rainbow Chard 12, Hon Tsai Tai (Chinese) Flowering Broccoli, 26 plants, Bull's Blood Beet 48 plants, Matt's Wild Cherry Tomato (3/4 " vining plants works well in hanging basket 50 plants..Watch for other options and hope to hear from you----BlondKopchen is a small cherry tomato favorite

March - Time to think about Garden Plants - Thanks Blaine --Kale Varieties and how to use!

Just talked with Blaine who enjoyed a kind of kale, that I grew last year  -----Found an online description of the kind he likes,  the lacinato or dinosaur kale ---

This Italian variety of kale was grown by Thomas Jefferson in his garden at Monticello, according to Berkley Wellness. The dark blue-green, slender, long leaves have none of the curls and frills common in kales. Rather, the leaves are rumpled and puckered like savoy cabbage and curled under along the entire margin, DeJohn says. The leaf texture also looks a bit reptilian, so the coolest nickname for this kind of kale goes to the dinosaur. Lacinato is used for Tuscan soups and stews, but you could use it in salad too. Try Lacinato in our Kale and Cannellini Bean Soup recipe.

Ultimate Guide to Using Different Types of Kale

An ancient member of the Brassica family, kale is the sometimes spicy, others times a bit sweet, usually slightly bitter ancestor of broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, Brussels sprouts, and kohlrabi. “Kale has roots deep in the horticultural soul,” says Suzanne DeJohn in her report for the Gardening Association of America. The most common variety is deep green, but other kales are yellow-green, white, red, or purple, with either flat or ruffled leaves, according to Berkeley Wellness at University of California, Berkeley’s School of Public Health. The colored varieties — sometimes called salad Savoy — are most often grown for ornamental purposes, but they’re edible.

 

https://www.chowhound.com/food-news/177634/ultimate-guide-to-using-different-types-of-kale/

 

 

 

Contact me if you want to reserve some plants to be planted in May!  tomw@wopida.com or 612 281 5230 in the oral tradition

Plants ready for May Planting with Tom Weaver 2017 Wopida Group

In 2016, I had good success in my Crystal garden with greens and friends/customers seemed to want more leafy greens to harvest throughout the season, for sandwiches, smoothies, stir fries, so voila' I found more greens to plant this year  - check out some of the options below  - and contact me, soon!  Hope you can enjoy them throughout the season --

 On May 4 I transplanted seedlings from germination trays at the farm near Winsted into 4 chambered "cell packs' germination rates  --Spinach 11 out of 36 (less than 1/3) ,  Mustard Blend 32 of 36, Matt's Tomato  36 of 36, Romaine Lettuce 36 of 36, White Kale 36 of 36, 100%, Bulls Blood Beet 8 of 24 - 1/3

Many shades of green, here on May 4, as I counted the seedlings and labeled the trays - 18 trays each with 48 seedlings - 864 plus others of heirloom tomatoes I got from Gray Schmidt 3 1/2 more trays ---over 1000 plants to find homes for! 

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May 4 germination numbers Mesclun Greens Blend (Mesclun is a salad mix of assorted small, young salad green leaves, which originated in Provence, France.) 36 of 36 100%, Curly Vates Kale 36 of 35 100%, Collards 33 of 36, Ping Ling Asian Eggplant 36 of 36, Marigolds 36,  Yellow Sweet Pepper

 Blondetropchen Yellow Sweet Cherry Tomato  36 of 36 

 Okra (my first time) got seeds from a New Hope woman, Stephanie,who had a garden in Minnetrista and had good luck with them ---more from wiki https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Okra

Also planted Santee brocolini, brussel sprouts and more  ----

 

Also some black cherry tomatoes and 

Weaving connections through Story Telling -----The power of connection and relatiionships for healing

How import to tell our stories, in a good way  ---- loving to tell stores ---thanks to a fellow Rosen Worker, Marjorie Heubner  for the share

In Charlie’s Space and Time: NYC Historian and Irish Genealogist Charles R. Hale

 

https://vimeo.com/40589641

Karen Anderson's Minnetonka Garden Transformation Buckthorn woods to balanced landscaping

 

Yesterday morning was a  idyllic Sunday and I was breathing into my taking a stand for the beauty of Nature....and called my friend Karen, who since 2002 has allowed me to contribute to what she remembered yesterday as we walked "A lot of where we are standing today was a buckthorn grove back then.  Many of these plants, pulmonaria, ligularia, are the babies of the plants we liberated removing the buckthorn."   Fun to see the Bee Safe Garden signs, as I arrived to share in a relaxed and peaceful walk. Looking north with my automatic lights of my green pony with the yellow bee sign. Still sweet smelling lilacs here at the end of May in Minnesota.  

 

South looking from the driveway, where Karen remembers mostly buckthorn between the trees 10 -14 years back.  Fun to see the many colors, especially the pink-purple Japanese primroses....

 

Another view south with the pink and yellow of the flowers with the trees where there was once a lot of buckthorn. 

 
Steps down in front of to the east of Karen and Eric's home.   Still some purple from the heart leaved red bud down below.