New 2014 Seeds Are In!

Today we received our first batch of 2014 seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds!  As always, they're 100% organic and non-GMO.  Our picks for this year are:

Copia Tomato - Indeterminate with yellow and red stripes on the outside and awesome marbling on the inside, produces large tomatoes, 85 days.

High Mowing's Gourmet Lettuce Mix - This mix takes the work out of choosing - a great blend of versatile lettuces that are excellent as baby: Black Seeded Simpson, Parris Island, Rouge d'Hiver, Red & Green Salad Bowl, Lolla Rossa.

Moon & Stars Watermelon - This heirloom variety is not only really pretty with a dark rind and yellow "moon & star" spots, it produces large, sweet fruit especially in the hot summers of the northeast. 95-100 days.

Valentine's Day Radish Mix - A mix of round garden radishes in red, pink, purple and white, along with the red and white elongated heirloom French Breakfast radishes.  25 days.

This is a 2-strain pick.  Yellowstone and Cosmic Purple Carrots.  Their interesting colors make them great for farmer's markets or just to add some color to a meal.  Yellowstone carrots tend to get a little longer at 9" (Cosmic Purple get to be about 7") and they are both mature at 70 days. 

Corno di Toro Sweet Peppers - This Italian Heirloom variety is one of my favorites.  Nice sweet flavor, Italian "horn" shape, grows really well in New York, ripens to red in 78 days.

These are just a few of our favorites, stop by to see our full selection or call with inquiries.  We can also special-order any varieties we don't currently carry and bulk seeds for microgreens or large plots.  Check out the High Mowing website to view their full selection.   

Hot Pepper Update

Just a quick update on the progress of our hot peppers in Nyack.  We started these from seed back in August and they're coming along nicely (we forgot how slow peppers grow, definitely not the best crop choice for impatient growers...but, like with all gardening, patience is key).  They're currently under a Sun Blaze 48 T5 fluorescent fixture in a 3'x3' Ebb and Flow tray and we're feeding them with Canna's Aqua Vega, Cannazym and some of Strata's SOS.  The ones in the front row (and some are scattered around the back rows) are Chinese 5 Color, the one with broad leaves behind them on the left is a Chocolate Habanero and the skinny, bushy plants are the Black Knight Chili peppers.  Notice the tight internodal spacing on the chilis?  That's because we're using a T5 light for the vegetative stage...tight internodes means more flowering sights, which means more peppers!  We just saw the first signs of budding on some of the Chinese 5 Color's last week so we'll be switching over to a High Pressure Sodium light and the Aqua Flores base nutrient soon.  We'll keep you posted!

Hot Peppers

We're starting up a new project in our Nyack store, a hydroponic Ebb & Flow display of hot peppers.  We're starting our seeds today and we always start way more than we end up needing, so if you'd like some free seedlings from some great natural, non-GMO, heirloom seeds, stop by in about 2-3 weeks!  If you'd like some and you're a customer at our Queens store, just give us a call ahead of time and we'll bring some over.  What we'll be growing (all from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds):

- Purple Jalapeño - A large spicy jalapeño pepper that turns a deep purple before maturing to red.

- Black Night (sorry no link, these were from last year's batch) - A chili pepper that starts out black and ripens to bright red.  Produces very pretty purple flowers.

- Chocolate Habanero Pepper - A lantern-shaped habanero chili that starts out as green and ripens to chocolate-brown.  They're pretty hot, coming in at about 300,000 on the Scoville scale.

- Chinese 5 Color Pepper - Screaming hot little peppers turn a rainbow of vibrant colors; from purple, cream, yellow, orange to red as they ripen, so all 5 colors can be on the plant at once.