Plant Sale Prep — Janet Szabo

I had one student in class on Tuesday. Two had registered, but only one showed, so she got a private lesson on using her serger. She had a Bernina 1300MC, which is a model I didn’t know very well. (I know it better now.) It’s one of the early serger/coverstitch combo machines, and after using it, I understand why those machines had mixed reviews. Converting from serger to coverstitch and back is fussy. It has a chain looper that threads almost exactly the same way the chain looper threads on my industrial serger. By the end of class, we were able to get the machine to make a chain stitch, but not a five-thread chain/overlock combo stitch. She was going to take it home and watch some videos and see what she could get it to do.

Getting ready for the plant sale has taken much of the rest of my time this week. Sarah came over on Wednesday and helped me organize trays. We have a lot of plants and some things had gotten moved around and mixed up.

Yesterday, I pulled the plants I started for my own garden and set them aside. I still haven’t planted anything. We were under a frost advisory last night and indeed, it’s 31F now as I type this. A week from now, we are supposed to be well into the 80s. I’ll push hard to get everything planted next week. I’m teaching a thread class in Missoula next Friday.

I have a mix of old favorites and a couple of new varieties of plants this year. These are the tomato varieties I am putting in:

Oregon Star—this has long been my favorite paste tomato. I’ve gotten fruits off these plants that weigh up to a pound. They are the backbone of my salsa and tomato sauce.
Purple Russian paste—I also like these, although they are smaller than the Oregon Star.
Northern Ruby paste—a new one I am trying this year. We’ll see how it does.
Cherokee Purple—long a favorite of mine, I have planted it every year for over a decade.
Indian Stripe—another favorite.
Weisnicht’s Ukranian—this is one I got from Susan, and it’s a good all-around tomato.
Dirty Girl—the open-pollinated version of Early Girl. I generally stick to heirloom or open-pollinated plants in my garden.
Aunt Ruby’s Green—I am doing this one again this year, although I have mixed feelings about it. The taste is great, but knowing when to harvest is tricky as it doesn’t turn red. Still, I think it adds something to my tomato sauce recipe, such as it is.
Black Krim—I succumbed to the description on the seed packet.
Raspberry Lyanna—I succumbed to the description on the seed packet.
Dwarf Saucy Mary—Sarah loves the dwarf and micro-dwarf varieties and this one looked interesting to me.
Brad’s Atomic Grape—I am not normally a fan of grape or cherry tomatoes, but they are popular at the sale. I’m growing this one just to see how it does.
Blue Boar Berry—the one cherry tomato I do like. I forgot to save seeds last fall, but I went out to the garden in March and picked one up off the ground, opened it, and planted the seeds. They germinated.

I have room for 32 tomato plants and I think this list exhausts that space.

Susan and I will put tarps down in the community center this morning. A group of volunteers is meeting here at 3:30 this afternoon to transport plants from the greenhouse to the community center to sit overnight. We set up at 8:30 tomorrow morning and the sale opens at 10 am. I’ll be making up signs and price lists this afternoon and making sure we have all the supplies we need. I think it’s going to be a great sale!