 |  Keep Jake Kitty Safe!!! Flowers bloom and sunny skies bring sunshine making the outdoors so much more inviting. The outdoors a beautiful place to wander and explore,not just for humans but for our four legged friends too. Learning about the different kinds of plants that can harm your pets,will keep them safe and frolicking all sunny season.
Read more Keep Our Critters Safe!!! … 
Our Garden Center is swinging into full bloom,full of starts for herbs and veggies and tomatoes and perennials,just in time for May. “The fair maid who,the First of May,
Read more May Day in the Garden Center …  Hi gardeners! Yes,the rumors are true,organic seed potatoes are here,with the main crop types such as Yukon Gold and Yellow Finn well represented. This is certified disease-free seed of top notch quality from Irish Eyes out of Ellensburg,WA. Our regular seed potatoes are $1.99 per lb –the fingerling seed is $3.99. Fingerlings are generally considered to be much more productive than regular potatoes.
April 30 is our ‘Running of the Carts’Day. This is the day when the warm weather crops arrive,you know,those that everyone’s looking for:Tomatoes,basil,peppers,eggplant all arrive at once from our friends at Sunseed Farm. Look for some new tomato varieties this year,plus all the tried and true types. ONION STARTS ON SALE! Now thru the end of April,all our organic onion plants from Sunseed Farm are on sale,including super sweet ( and huge) Ailsa Craigs,shallots and new this year Cipollini ‘Gold Coin’. regular price $1.69 sale $1.29
Skagit Valley is a huge potato growing region, and as such, there are some blights and diseases in the soil. Late blight in particular makes it difficult to grow organic potatoes in the Skagit. So if you are contemplating growing potatoes this year –definitely choose the seed potatoes varieties we have in stock –they are disease free and coming to us from Irish Eyes Garden Seed –their website is down but here’s a great potato growing tip sheet from Oregon Tilth, which references them as a favorite producer…. Certified seed potatoes are guaranteed to be disease free and will produce higher yields than potatoes from the Produce Department,too. Growing potatoes in containers can work pretty great –there are all sorts of online resources available, including this step by step how-to, this one from Mother Earth News which talks about grow bags and hilling techniques using layers of straw and soil, and a whole page of how-to videos. We also have an incredible assortment of Onion Sets from Territorial Seed Company out of Oregon. Onion sets are priced at $3.79 each. A great story out of Highwater Farms in Mount Vernon,WA that our supplying us with Shallot seeds. Seems that these particular shallots are passed down from their Great Uncle Rolland Hutchings. So come reap what he sowed from the beginning. Shallot Seeds are $13.99 lb.
We’ve got a great Earth Day planned on Monday April 22nd, plus some Garden-Happy workshops this Spring! Please visit our website for more information Please pre-register for these classes with Jill via email: jill@skagitfoodcoop.com or phone: 360-336-5087×139 Uncommon Edible Plants for the Northwest Read more Spring Events …
Come on by and check it out for yourself. No doubt something on this table will strike your fancy. Look hard and you may find something suitable for a future birthday,holiday or baby shower gift. Read more Co-op Mercantile Springtime Sale! …  Coming Soon….. Potatoes are coming,truly they are! It’s all about the weather,as the folks at Irish Eyes won’t ship if they think our seed potatoes will freeze. They are scheduled to ship this week,but Irish Eyes is backed up on their orders,again,due to weather. So bear with us. Likewise,the dry onion and leek sets are set to arrive sometime later next week –all arriving with plenty of time to get them in the ground. The weather? Well,as we all know,we are compelled to work with the weather we’ve got,and what we’ve got,while not perfect,ain’t too bad! Not sure what to plant when? The Co-op’s Garden Center has put together a book mark style short list of seeds to sow and plants to plant. Look for them over in the Seed Rack area,and pick up our March edition. Its not complete,but it’ll get you started. As this week’s enews comes out,our organic Kale Start Sale is nearly over,and our organic Lettuce Start Sale will begin on Friday. A wide selection of 4 packs available,including new varieties:mini red Romaine –‘Breen’,a grown up red Romaine –‘Outredgeous’as well as a very pretty little Buttercrunch heirloom selection –‘Speckles’. All Lettuce 4 packs regularly $1.69 will be $1.29 each March 15-31. Grown by our friends at Sunseed Farm in Acme.
Don’t Fear the Reemay! It will give baby veggie starts about 4 degrees of frost protection. Not only that,but it protects against wind,bugs and pounding rain. Row covers are a smart gardener’s strategy to get in the garden earlier. The Co-op sells a 67″x 50′size for $24.99 that can be re-used for up to 4 years. FREE PRIMROSES! We’d like to celebrate International Women’s Day,Friday March 8,by offering our lady customers a lovely primrose in bloom. Future women also eligible! Stop by the table
Take a look at Sunseed Farm website’s learning center page. It has an excellent graph showing what to plant when in our region. Note, as Nick says, sowing means seeds and planting means plant starts. Let the fun begin! Read more Fresh out of the Garden:Start Date …
[We hope you can read the descriptions on these seed packets from Uprising,they're fairly delightful...] Seeds are the LIFE! What would our species be without seeds? Extinct,most likely. The seed is a miracle package of DNA –some of which adapts just a tiny bit each year to the climate it matured in. Some seed facts: Hybrid seed DOES NOT mean GMO seed. Hybridization is a human controlled natural process whose history, Read more Seed Facts from our Garden Center … Click HERE to see the MASTER SEED LIST
Key to abbreviations:TSC –TERRITORIAL SEED COMPANY US – UPRISING SEEDS SSE – SEED SAVER’S EXCHANGE IE- IRISH EYES GARDEN SEEDS H – HEIRLOOM ARK – ARK OF TASTE VARIETY NW – NORTHWEST HERITAGE O – ORGANIC OP – OPEN-POLLINATED C – ESPECIALLY SUITED FOR CONTAINERS HY – HYBRID F – ESPECIALLY SUITED FOR FALL/WINTER HARVEST ** –NEW TO THE CO-OP IN 2013 Read more Master Seed List … Our Garden Center is starting to gear back up:Spring Is Inevitable. Seeds from Uprising and Territorial are here! See the list of available seeds here. From Nancy:Our Season is coming back around again. And,wow,what a varied and wonderful place we live in! Yesterday morning it was 29 –t Plus,we are carrying over two dozen other new types from Uprising,Seed Saver’s Exchange and Territorial Seeds. Stop by and see all the ‘NEW!’signs! Please note that as the seeds begin to fly off the racks,if something you want is out of stock,feel free to fill out a customer request for them;with your name and number. When the seeds you want come in,we will place them in the special order box at register # 1 under your last name. Primroses from Thompson’s Greenhouse are coming in! $1.29 each,both doubles and singles in a wide assortment of colors! Read more Seeds are Here! … Happy early Autumn! Just like the last two years;we’re getting a slow, beautiful, panchromatic ease into the cold season. This allows us a lot of time to tackle the chores of Fall in pleasant weather. Garden Nancy is pulling out weeds and overgrown areas in her yard so that the first precious rain falls on favorite plants rather than undesirables. It is also the BEST time of the year to divide many perennials, plant new ones and amend the soil. The best thing to amend your soil would be your own garden compost or worm castings. Next best is any of a variety of humus adding,soil building amendments available for use in organic agriculture. Bagged Worm castings from Wonder Worm - $17.99 for a 12.5 lb bag - is a great humus amendment. Another highly recommended soil conditioner is Humagic soil builder from Hendrikus. This is a highly rich source of humates,available as a liquid concentrate or bagged in two sizes. A little goes a long way. This Weekend is our Plastic Recycle! Bring your empty garden pots and flats Oct. 6 and 7 –we’ll have a trailer parked in the Co-op parking lot to receive them for proper recycling. Thanks to Nick from Sunseed Farm for this great service. Also,the best time to sow wildflower seeds is, well, when they do. Saved seeds from non-invasives can start to go in the garden over the next couple of months. The Co-op’s Garden Center offers two commercial mixes: a Wildflower seed mix and a Butterfly garden seed mix 14 grams of seed for $4.49. This nice weather looks to continue through the week. Garden Nancy is ready to get back out, enjoy the sunshine and get some work done. Yours verdantly, the Garden Center crew.
Read more Local Garden Cafe Sampler Success! … | |
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