On to better things....yesterday's tomato spot on Niki Jabbour's Year Round Gardener radio show was really fun - and the podcast of the spot can be found here.
Yesterday I managed to hobble to the sink to sieve the seeds of over 100 cups of saved, fermented tomato seeds. It took hours, but it is satisfying to know that the majority of the tomato seed saving work is nearing completion. Soon I will attack another 40 or so varieties.
And now on to early thoughts about next year. Our seedling sales method has been pretty much unchanged for over 15 years - I pick out varieties, start seedlings, and we bring them to the market for a few weekends in April and May. This ends up in significant seedling overage for many varieties, and with the cost of materials (and time), combined with a big increase in other heirloom tomato seedling vendors, I just feel it is time to ratchet things down to a more manageable (and less wasteful) process.
I haven't through through all of the details, but it is likely to entail a far more customized, targeted approach. I will likely come up with a selection of potential offerings, post them on my webpage (and perhaps email them out to those customers whose email address is known) - and grow to the proposed orders. I may reduce my Farmers Market days to just a single weekend - or not at all, instead scheduling pick ups here, at our house, or at another agreed to, convenient location for all concerned.
This will also be well aligned to my plans to significantly reduce my garden size and complexity for next year. I need to provide much more space for plants (less density - less disease), and start moving from indeterminate varieties toward our new Dwarfs. All of this is preliminary thinking - but thinking out loud, so that all of you have plenty of opportunity to provide feedback, either through comments or email.
I am someone who loves change - and it feels like it is time to change a few things about our springs, and my gardens.