What's New

Okay Kids, So I talked last spring about what is my favorite place to shop at for such a large variety of vegetables and flowers. Again I went to Baker's Acres and got some NEW Varieties. (Click here for last years new veggies).

Juane Flame, Big Zac, Ananas Noire, Abe Lincoln, Tomande, Lipstick

Ive never seen these varieties at my other nurseries so I had to get them. Notice the 'Big Zac' tomatoes! I got three of those! I mean, they named it after me so I really had to. I am still waiting on the beds to be done with the remodel before I can plant them in the ground. Hoping to have that all done by next week. I am deciding to use the EarthBoxes only for peppers. The tomatoes just get too big and unmanageable in them.

I hope all you kids got some new and different varieties... Try something that you never have...I double dog dare you to! Here are some of the different varieties that Baker's Acres had that I liked.

Black Magic Viola: truly a black flower!

Look at these guys, Grafted tomatoes! I don't know if you have heard about these guys yet, but way cool, also Way expensive! A grafted tomato is a combination of two tomato plants. Normally they are one Hybrid and one Heirloom variety. The rootstock is the hybrid and the scion is the heirloom. This makes the heirloom variety more vigorous and immune to soil born diseases. It does not protect it form air born diseases however. Still pretty cool. I know that you can do it yourself too. Maybe I'll try it next year.

Grafted Tomatoes

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My Story Part II

Here is the rest of my story;

Like I had said before, I had just taken over the garden across the street and was just starting to call it home, when out of the blue, the cute, adorable, little chipmunks that I use pretend I was when I was younger, had turned ravenous and mean. First they struck at my cucumbers, eventually taking down every cucumber that I had planted except 2 of them. I believe that year I had gotten 2 cucumbers of the eight that I had planted, and at that they were not the best either. I viciously went to war with them, not being sure of what I could do, and a little bit sad that they had to be so cute! Although I fought the fight, I didn't know anything on how to stop them from eating all of my cucumbers and without hurting them. Eventually my only option was to leave them alone and to live with them, but that doesn't mean that I couldn't sprinkle some HOT CAYENNE PEPPER around my plants...*evil side is coming out*!

Alas, chipmunks were not the only critter that has come to menace my garden! Along with the little chipmunks there were the HUGE slugs...ewe! These slugs were the largest slugs that I had ever seen, They were at least 4 or 5 inches long and they were ferocious! These were easy to solve though since my neighbor had bought a book for me that talked non stop about ways to get rid of slugs! One of the way that they said to get rid of slugs was to put copper wire around the base of the victimized plants, the copper wire causes a electrical shock when the soft bodied slugs come across it! They dislike it enough that they stayed away form my plants and all went to the person across form me!

With all stories there seems to be a tragic ending somewhere; about 2 years ago my neighbor had put her house up for sale, so I had to plow down my garden and sow grass seed down. On the flip side, there is a happy ending, I was able to convert my back yard to a garden wonder land of my own!

So now you all know my story and how I started on my journey in gardening. I would love to hear your story as well. Can't wait to see how all of you started you gardening journey!

~Zach~

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