It was a beautiful sunny crisp day for our first Salish Seed Garden gathering. A group of core organizers and friends came together for the first initial planting of few seed beds.
A group of about 9 gathered a give a blessing to the first event of the season for the new Salish Seed Garden project.
We planted three beds of crops. The first two were biannual plants that Krista had grown out last year and over wintered in storage. This year they are planted out and allowed to continue their cycle of growing on to flowering to produce seed this season.
Onions and beets are biannual. This means that they do not go to flower until the second year of growth. Sometimes you can leave the roots in the ground and let them over winter and continue growing the following year. While this is the easiest thing to do it is not always the most reliable. There is always the risks of them being eaten by critters of freeze so hard they rot in the field. It is safer to harvest them in the fall and store in a root cellar type situation to be planted back out the following Spring. So this is what we did to ensure we get a good seed crop this year of these two items.
We also direct seeded a bed of Fava beans. This is one of the few bean seeds that can germinate in the cold wet Spring soil we have this time of year.
While one group was working on planting these beds another group mixed up a wheel barrow of potting mix using on site compost, horse manure sand and some amendments of lime, rock dust and inoculated biodynamic biochar.
We sifted this mix into flats and planted tomatoes, basil, fennel, onions and leeks. These flats are now germinating in the house on a rack in the warm laundry room.
It was a good day with fun folks who love to play with soil and seeds.
We got a lot accomplished, had fun, and dreamed and schemed of how to proceed with the the Salish Seed Guild Garden Growing.
