Welcome back. This week Itake a break from gardening (at least writing about it) to share some bird photos from the Winter and also this Spring. As many of you may know, I participate in Project FeederWatch which runs each year from November through April. It is a large and important citizen science project in the US and Canada. I also participate in the Great Backyard Bird Count which is a worldwide 4 day count each February.
I enjoy capturing bird photos. It is challenging and requires patience for sure as birds are on the move constantly. Sometimes we get lucky as they will seem to stay still for a few moments, almost posing for the camera.
I have included several highlighted Amazon links for your shopping convenience if you are interested in a new camera. I am currently using a Nikon Coolpix L830 which I have been very happy with thus far. It is easy to use and the photos are good quality. There are many other point and shoot cameras as well.
Enjoy the photos:
Hairy Woodpecker
American Goldfinch
Brown-Headed Cowbirds (Male/Female) and Mourning Dove
Welcome back. As promised, I am writing a post about heirloom tomatoes. About a month ago I started some from seed. Before I delve into the details of planting, lets take a closer look at heirloom vegetables. Exactly what is a heirloom? I have included 3 highlighted links to Amazon products related to this post for your convenience.
Heirloom Vegetables
According to most sources, an heirloom is an old, open-pollinated variety that is of high quality and easy to grow. As far as how old, some authorities say those vegetables introduced before 1951 qualify as heirlooms, 1951 being the first year hybrid vegetables were developed. Some gardeners prefer even older varieties, as some heirlooms have been passed down for hundreds and even thousands of years.
Open pollinated means that seeds from the vegetable can be grown and will come back exactly the same as the parent plant. A vegetable can only be called an heirloom after proving it remains true year after year. On the other hand, the same is not true for hybrid plants. Therefore seeds from heirlooms can be saved and passed down from generation to generation.
But why are heirlooms so popular? One of the reasons I think is the nostalgic factor. Growing varieties that your parents and/or grandparents grew certainly has an appeal. I enjoy growing vegetable varieties that I remember my parents and grandparents talking about.
The main reason though is the flavor. These old varieties have the true flavor that vegetables should have. The more modern hybrids sometime lack in flavor and studies have shown that in many cases they are also less nutritious.
Hybrid varieties were developed over the years to produce more consistent looking, disease resistant, and higher yielding vegetables, which provide a much better mass appeal in grocery stores ,etc. These are much easier to grow in large quantities with consistent results.
Another advantage to growing heirloom vegetables lies in the ripening process. Hybrids are bred to ripen uniformly, thereby making it much easier to commercially harvest them all at one time. On the other hand, heirlooms tend to ripen more unevenly, which can be advantageous for the home gardener.
With the information I have provided, you should be able to decided whether or not you want to grow heirlooms. I highly recommend it, however I also grow some hybrid varieties as well. They both have their advantages.
Heirloom Hybrid Tomatoes
Heirloom tomatoes are relished for their great flavor, but for some favorites, like Brandywine and Cherokee Purple, there’s a disadvantage. When compared with modern hybrids, heirlooms are not necessarily the most productive or problem-free plants to grow.
Now there are heirloom hybrid tomatoes. No longer true heirlooms, these crosses between two heirloom parents offer the best of both worlds: higher yields, increased disease resistance, often earlier ripening than their parents, plus all of the great flavor of classic heirlooms. So we are back to hybrids, but not as far back as to compromise flavor.
This year I have decided to try some of these heirloom hybrids to see if they are in fact an improvement over just regular hybrids.
Planting Heirloom Hybrid Tomatoes
About a month ago I planted my tomato seeds. I ended up planting 3 heirloom hybrid varieties that I purchased from Seeds 'N Such.
Cherokee Carbon
From the Seeds 'N Such website:
To capitalize on the current craze, our breeders crossed Cherokee Purple with Carbon to create a robust purple beefsteak with intensely rich flavor. Big, 10 to 12-oz. fruits with a pleasantly sweet taste are the essence of delicious summer eating! Indeterminate. 78 days.
Big Brandy
From the Seeds 'N Such website:
The largest member of the Heirloom Marriage series at 12 to 15-oz., featuring gigantic, meaty, pink beefsteaks. A cross between Brandywine and New Big Dwarf. Flavor is sensational and perfect for fresh salads and sandwiches. Indeterminate. 75 days.
In addition to these varieties I also planted the following: Amish Paste and San Marzano (heirloom paste tomatoes), Black Cherry and Matt's Wild Cherry (heirloom cherry tomatoes). These seeds I had leftover from last year. I also planted an experimental tomato which I received with my order from Seeds 'N Such.
Today I transplanted the tomatoes into individual Jiffy peat pots. This can be done once the plants start developing the second set of leaves. This is an important step in the hardening off process which will be complete once the tomatoes are planted in the garden, sometime around late May. You can see the original seed starting tray on the left in the photo. I planted about 6 seeds per cell, then of course separated them for transplanting.
When starting seeds, it is not necessary to have them in the sun to germinate, but keeping them in a consistently warm area is important. The container I used has a plastic dome with vents to maintain moisture. Once the seeds sprout, then sun is important. When conditions allowed, I moved the plants to my outdoor greenhouse at least during the day to soak up the sun.
As always, thanks for visiting. In my next post, I will take a break from gardening and will share some more bird photos.
Welcome back to my blog. I posted many posts here on Blogger for about 5 years. I hope you have enjoyed my posts where I talked in length about gardening and bird watching, and many related topics. Photos are a large part of my posts and I hope you have enjoyed them also.
For the last year or so I have been posting on steempeak.com. It is a very interesting platform that deals in cryptocurrency and has a large community of bloggers. However, it has become unstable and I am not confident that it will remain viable. In the meantime, if you want to visit and read my posts from the last year I would appreciate. You can just search for "dansgardening" on this site to view all of my posts.
Since I have already posted in steempeak regarding some of my Spring plantings, I will recap here to get you up to speed.
Winter Sowing
This is a great technique which I have written about quite a few times on Blogger. Since I am not sure how much longer steampeak will be available, I will reference you back to a post here on Blogger regarding Winter Sowing from 2018. It is a great technique which really does work.
This year I used this method to plant Romaine and Iceberg lettuce, and also several varieties of kale, and Swiss Chard.
This photo is of the Iceberg lettuce which has germinated very well and is growing quickly. The Romaine, Swiss Chard, and Kale (see photo below) are also growing nicely. I strongly recommend the Winter Sowing technique, although it is too late now to start seeds using this technique since Spring has sprung in most areas of the US. However, if you live in a region of the world where there is still a month or so of Winter remaining, go ahead and give it a try.
In this photo you can see the kale on the far right started using Winter Sowing. If you are new to gardening, I would recommend growing kale since it is easy to grow and is extremely hardy, It will grow non-stop all summer, and can withstand quite a few frosts in the Fall.
On the left in the photo in the white containers, that I started from seed, are Sweet Spanish onions, American Flag Leeks, and Evergreen Bunching onions which are scallions. I love to grow onions and leeks, and Sweet Spanish is one of my favorite varieties, as they are large sweet onions that also store fairly well. Some onions are available as sets such at Stuttgart (yellow) and white onions. Sweet Spanish, however, are only available by seed. You may be lucky enough to find Sweet Spanish onion plants at your local garden center if you would rather not start them from seed.
I have also started some heirloom tomatoes from seed, and they are progressing nicely. In my next post I will fill you in on the details of the varieties I am growing. I am a huge fan of heirloom tomatoes and have been growing them for quite a few years now. Their flavor is unsurpassed. I have dedicated quite a few posts to heirloom tomatoes and will continue to do so in the future.
At the beginning of this post, I also mentioned that my blog involves bird watching, photography, and related topics. Those of you who have previously read my blog know I am an avid bird watcher and I participate in several research projects.
To peak your interest, I will leave you with a recent bird photo of an American Goldfinch. These birds are year round residents here in Central New York. In the winter, the male's bright yellow color is subdued. They are starting to get their brilliant color back during the last few weeks. I captured this one at sunrise recently.
Thanks for visiting, and I hope you continue to follow my blog.
Welcome back and thanks for following my blog. This is just a quick reminder of the big birding weekend coming up.
So sharpen your pencils, dust off the binoculars, gather the family, and join in on and enjoy one of the best citizen science projects.
Another great opportunity to participate in bird research is coming this week The annual Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) will take place this year from February 15th to 18th (4 days). The GBBC was started in 1998 by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology and the National Audubon Society and is a worldwide event. I have been participating in this activity for quite a few years; it is very enjoyable, provides invaluable data, and is a great family activity.
Here are some simple instructions to get started from the GBBC website:
1. Create a free GBBC accountif you have never participated in the Great Backyard Bird Count or any other Cornell Lab citizen-science project, or have not participated in the GBBC since 2013. If you already created an account for the GBBC in the past, or if you’re already registered with eBird or another Cornell Lab citizen-science project, you can use your existing user name and password.
2. Count birds for at least 15 minutes on one or more days of the GBBC. You can count for longer than that if you wish! Count birds in as many places and on as many days as you like—one day, two days, or all four days. Submit a separate checklist for each new day, for each new location, or for the same location if you counted at a different time of day. Estimate the number of individuals of each species you saw during your count period.
3. Enter your results on the GBBC website by clicking the "Submit Observations"tab on the home page. You may also download the free eBird mobile app to enter data on a mobile device. If you already participate in the eBird citizen-science project, please use eBird to submit your sightings during the GBBC. Your checklists will count toward the GBBC.
Following is a good video regarding the GBBC and family involvement:
Finally, you can practice up on your photography skills and even submit your photos to the GBBC photo contests. Following is several of my photos to help boost your interest in this great project.
Welcome back. It's hard to believe, but I just finished participating in Project FeederWatch for the 12th week of the season. This project started on November 10th and runs through April 5th. So there are still nine weeks remaining.
Over the last few weeks I have taken some nice photos, so I thought I would share. Like I have said many times, this is a great project which involves the whole family.
In my next post, I will focus once again on gardening, specifically growing micro tomatoes indoors during the winter. This is becoming more popular, since it is a great way to grow good tasting tomatoes during the winter months.
First of all, Happy New Year to all! I am looking forward to another year of gardening, birding, and blogging.
It's that time once again. If you're a gardener you'll know what I mean. Seed catalogs. Yes, seed catalogs. They are already arriving. Even though it's still early Winter, we can look ahead to Spring by looking through the catalogs arriving daily and plan for the coming growing season.
I look forward to these each year, I have my favorites, and usually receive some different ones each year also. I especially like to see what new vegetable varieties each company has, as they each try to showcase their new gems.
If you are familiar with my blog at all, you will know that I tend to focus on tomatoes, especially heirloom tomatoes. I have been won over by the heirlooms, as I have said many times. In my opinion, they simply taste better and most times look better also.
For the catalogs I have received to date, I will give a brief overview of each and highlight one new vegetable variety from each. The seed companies always pride themselves on their new varieties each season.
The Park Seed Company got its start n 1868, and thus is one of this country's oldest mail order seed companies. I remember my Mom getting their catalogs back in the 1970s and ordering from them. Recently, I have been ordering their heirloom tomato Rainbow Heirloom Blend for at least 3 or 4 years, with the exception of 2018 when I tried an alternate blend from another source. Needless to say, this year I will return to the Rainbow Blend. For me it is one of the best heirloom tomato seed mixtures I have found.
New from Park Seed this year is the Purple Boy Tomato Hybrid:
From the Park Seed website:
New tomato that combines all the flavor of the heirloom Cherokee Purple with an improved disease resistance package. It's deep violet color, intense rich flavor, and stunning violet-purple hues, offers that true homegrown tomato tang!
The J. W. Jung Seed Company was started in 1907. The company also publishes quite a few other seed catalogs including Totally Tomatoes and R H Shumway I have ordered from Jung in the past and view them as a good company with good prices.
New from Jung Seed is the Giant Belgium heirloom tomato:
From the Jung Seed website:
Giant meaty tomatoes with mild, sweet flavor. So sweet that some people use them to make wine. Huge, dark pink fruits average 1-1/2 to 3 pounds, but can weigh up to 5 pounds. A favorite slicer for burgers and BLT's as well as sauces and canning.
This is a fairly new company formed in 2013. Looking at their catalog, I am impressed both in the selection of varieties and how the catalog is organized. For example, in the tomato pages they have an entire page of tomatoes resistant to blight. They have heirloom hybrids, grafted tomato root stock, and much much more. For those of you interested in grafting, see my post from March 3, 2014.
New from Seeds ' Such this year is the BumbleBee Mix tomato:
From the Seeds 'N Such website:
70 days. A spectacular mix of pink with yellow stripes, yellow with red stripes and purple striped with metallic green. Round, 1 1/2-in., cherry-sized, crack- resistant fruits create the freshest, tastiest, most colorful salad ever! Indeterminate.
This a specialized catalog as the name implies. The 2019 catalog is their thirteenth annual seed catalog. I have been ordering from them for several years. They sell not only potatoes and sweet potatoes, but onions and shallots, even leek and onion plants, as well as garlic and winter cover crops. New for 2019, grains including wheat and flint corn.
They have a great selection of fingerling varieties, which are very popular among home gardeners and chefs alike. I have grown several of the fingerling varieties.
New this year is the Island Sunshine potato. From the Maine Potato Lady website (no photo available):
Bred and selected by the Loo Brothers of Prince Edward Island specifically for field resistance to late blight. Also has resistance to common scab. A medium yield of round tubers with rough yellow skin and dark yellow flesh offers excellent culinary quality for boiling and baking. Late maturity and great storage.
Heirloom Tomato Seed Collections
As I stated above, I have my favorite heirloom tomato seed collection that I have found and tested to date from Park Seed. I recently discovered a website that showcases numerous collections that might interest you. Tomatofest offers a collection for everyone, based on tomatoes types, sizes, time to maturity, climate, and more. For example, one collection features heirlooms best for making sauce.
Following is a video which explores many heirloom varieties, perhaps to help you narrow down which ones you may like:
Finally, A bird photo I captured this past weekend during Project FeederWatch.
Welcome back. Time is going by and Project FeederWatch has already been running for 5 weeks. So far I have been observing quite a few species, as they vary week to week mainly depending on the weather. When it's cold and snowy the bird totals are definitely higher, both number of species and individuals.
Following are the birds I have observed thus far since November 10th, which was the beginning of the project. Not every species below was observed every week.
American Goldfinch
American Robin
Blacked-Capped Chickadee
Blue Jay
Brown-Headed Cowbird
Dark-Eyed Junco
Downy Woodpecker
European Starling
House Finch
House Sparrow
Mourning Dove
Northern Cardinal
Red-Bellied Woodpecker
Red-Winged Blackbird
Tufted Titmouse
White-Breasted Nuthatch
White-Throated Sparrow
The Project FeederWatch website allows you to not only enter your bird counts, but also offers interesting tabulation and analysis of your data. For example, thus far this season, the House Sparrow and Dark-Eyed Junco have shown the largest group sizes at my feeders with an average of 6.3 birds per week when observed.
You can still join Project FeederWatch or even use it as a great Christmas gift.
