rake shovel hoe

whistling garden blog

2009-10-01T07:44:00.000-07:00

i'm not sure if i even have any readers left on this neglected garden blog. but, just in case, you should know that i have moved all garden posts to my main blog whistling leaf blower. i will keep this blog up, as an archive, but won't be posting any more content here.

while i have enjoyed keeping this blog, i simply don't post enough to justify maintaining 2 blogs. my biggest regret is that i never made that cool banner i had in mind for this blog. i took the photo for it, and never got it formatted into the blogger layout. hmmm. maybe i will someday?

please visit whistling leaf blower. i do post there (kinda) regularly.

fancy

2009-08-19T08:11:00.000-07:00

you may recall me waxing poetic about the humble husk cherry, aka ground cherry, aka cape gooseberry. i planted them, they grew, we have been harvesting the fruit all summer, and they just keep coming!

cosmo loves them, and enjoys hunting for them on the ground under the plants. he leaves of pile of "wrappers" around the garden bed.

they drop off the vine when they're ready, but it is best to set them aside, and wait for them to ripen a bit more. they taste okay with a little bit of green on the berries, but if you hold off 'til they turn golden---just like candy!

our favorite thing to do with them is to dip them in chocolate.

they look so lovely, like a fancy bon-bon, and taste fantastic. the berry has a slightly wild taste, and they keep very well, with or without the chocolate.

flower power

2009-08-17T12:02:00.000-07:00

considering that flowers aren't really the focus of my gardening efforts (i'm all about the food, ya'll), i do have a few scattered about the yard(s), and can't help photographing them! i love all the bees and butterflies they attract, and appreciate the splashes of color from spring to late fall. feast your eyes upon all of this summer color...

cosmo between the edamame and the black-eyed susans

my zinnia circle (in our old yard)

a small poppy, in my mixed flower bed (old place)

a surprise, unknown flower in a butterfly mix

two varieties of cosmos

i hesitate to show these, because the color is nothing close to the real thing.

these morning glories are more of a deep, velvety purple.

cosmo admires his namesake

cosmo eats a cosmo

love-in-a-mist

mixed flower bed

cosmo checks out a bumble bee on the purple coneflower

dewy lotus (from the farmer's market)

lotus glows

a variety of cosmos growing along the creek down the street

cosmo harvesting cosmo seeds

dwarf sunflower (old place)

full sized sunflower!

nature's geometry

this is a Datura wrightii or Sacred Datura (new place)

the huge flowers open up at sundown

they bloom all night, and into the next morning

our landlord planted these zinnia's before he moved

they have been a real draw for butterflies

while we were away...

2009-08-13T12:51:00.000-07:00

the garden exploded! we are now maintaining gardens at two locations: our old place, and our new place. luckily, they are across the street from one another. we came home to beans galore, more husk cherries than cosmo can eat in a setting (more on those in another post), and cherry tomatoes out the wazzoo. the tomatoes that cosmo started, in his little dixie cup at pre-school in the spring, the ones i planted in our new back yard in april? a jungle i tell ya! man! woman! child! all are up against THE WALL OF TOMATOES!

photos don't do it justice. we have to send cosmo into the tangle to harvest!

i pulled up most of the potatoes. the yield wasn't quite what i expected, but it was a lot of fun digging for them. like a treasure hunt.

the carrots blew me away. lots of them, and bigger than last year. we even harvested our very first cabbage!

carl made a delicious braised cabbage with poppy seed, and we roasted some of the carrots and potatoes. yummy.

last night i made this velvety carrot ginger soup, which couldn't be easier to make:

carrot ginger soup

2T butter
1 T finely mince ginger
4 medium carrots
3 cups stock or broth
1 cup milk or cream

sauté ginger in butter, add sliced carrots, stir-fry for a few minutes, add broth or stock and cook 'til the carrots are very tender. purée in a blender or food processor, then add some milk or cream, warm and serve. (adapted from superfoods, by delores riccio).

the fall garden in the new place is growing like gang-busters. the soil may not look like much (kinda crusty, not a lot of organic material, or worms), but the landlord says it's "river-bottom." not sure what that's supposed to mean, all i know, is the plants like it here. could be all that full sun too.

the lettuce, arugula and cilantro are all mature, and ready to eat. the tomatilla plants are loaded, and the bush beans already have blossoms. the peas got munched by rabbits, but i have protected them now, and hope they can recover. even the leeks are beginning to fatten up.

we also harvested our first peppers: sweet red peppers (carmen) and one hot paper lantern. we haven't tasted them yet, but aren't they gorgeous?

not exactly three sisters...

2009-07-09T12:48:00.000-07:00

my current favorite garden view:

featuring, edamame (front), tomatoes (middle) and pole beans, dutifully climbing their trellis (not to mention offering yummy green beans).

fall garden '09

2009-07-07T10:10:00.000-07:00

this year, thanks to teresa (or her husband?) i am getting the fall garden started early. we are moving to a different house on august first, and were told that we can start gardening there any time. since it is just across the street from our place, i have taken advantage of that offer.

cosmo came home from pre-school (in the spring) with a bunch of tiny tomato starts in a dixie cup. i already had all my tomatoes in, so we planted his in the new yard. i didn't expect much from them, but they have really taken off (they are currently twice the size shown in this photo)!

i also transplanted some of the (very slow growing) leeks over there, and recently, four tomatillo plants from jack. the soil in the new garden seems good, but it appears to be lacking in organic matter, so i have been throwing compost in with everything i plant, and perhaps i'll do a cover crop in the late fall or early spring.

yesterday, with some rare time to myself, i cut a path in the new garden space, and planted beets, lettuce, bush beans, basil, cilantro and peas. hopefully i can find some broccoli plants at the farmer's market, and maybe a dill or two. i will probably plant arugula and carrots within the next few days.

last year's fall garden was a big disappointment, but i think i just started it too late. can't wait to see what happens this year.

in other news, the garlic is out of the ground! some of the bulbs were smaller than i'd hoped, but overall, they did well. most were too small for seed garlic, so i'm getting more to plant in october (double what i planted last fall). right now, the garlic is hanging to dry in our shed (where we store things like empty boxes).

we also tasted the first of our ripe cherry tomatoes this week! they are yummy, and those plants are loaded!

daisy envy

2009-07-05T12:47:00.000-07:00

last spring, EARLY spring, i started some daisy seeds indoors. i adore daisies, and wanted tons of them in our garden. the seeds did great, and i had enough plants to give away, and so, lara next door got one. it occurred to me, when i saw daisies blooming in other people's garden last summer, while my plants were still tiny, with no buds, that they might take a year to get established, and bloom the following year.

this spring, i noticed one daisy plant come up from last year. one came up in lara's garden too. here is hers:

here is mine:

not that i'm bitter. no. not at all.

gardens grow

2009-06-18T20:57:00.000-07:00

as soon as i finish writing this, i'll need to up-date again immediately, with fresh photos. these are so dated! we have had so much rain and warm weather, that the plants are growing inches every day, right before our eyes!

first off, let me say that this is the year of the lettuce! our lettuce, all 4 varieties, did remarkably well this spring, and we still have some that has not quite bolted.

we had heads, actual heads of buttercruch, and a variety of romaine (i guess, i don't know the name of this seed that i saved from a neighbor last year, but i love it), plus some thin leafed heirloom, and black seeded simpson. at first i thought it was the pricey fox farm all natural plant food i gave them, but i heard from other local gardeners that their lettuce did exceptionally well too. we have been enjoying delicious salads every night for over a month.

spinach, not so much. it just bolts so damn fast! i did manage to harvest two huge bowls, which, of course, saute down to nothing, but delicious, nonetheless. arugula has been wonderful, and i just keep planting it, and harvesting a round or two of leaves before they bolt.

the yummy peas have come and gone. i have ours planted in a spot that is okay for spring stuff, and they had a good start, but it gets shady when the trees fill in, and i credit our somewhat skimpy pea harvest to lack of proper sun. still though, cosmo snacked to his heart's content (and so did his parents).

the husk cherries are going nuts, and have tons of little lantern fruits, all tucked away under the broad leaves. the flea beetles like them, but don't seem to be doing too much damage.

we have peppers, from those little babies i started from seed! i am so proud. the peppers are way bigger now, than shown here, and so are the tomatoes--all of them completely loaded with green fruit.

i've got potatoes, hilled with dirt and straw, hangin' in there, despite the persistent attack of the flea beetle, and the pole beans have reached the top of their trellis this week, studded with lovely purple bean blossoms. the edamame is not only in the ground (june 6), but now has a second set of true leaves!

we have eaten broccoli from our garden, and have two cabbbages trying to form heads, while i hand pick those pesky cabbage worms off their leaves.

i tried covering them with floating row cover, before the moths could get to them to lay their eggs, but it didn't work. now i fear that if i cover them, i will trap the caterpillers under there, and won't notice the damage until it is too late. instead, i just inspect them VERY carefully, once a day.

but i am realizing that i'm just the kind of gardener that likes to fuss over my plants. i don't mind weeding, it allows me to spend time in each bed. and since i want to look at them all the time anyway, why not look for pests that might need to be removed? i love to walk through the garden just after a rain. everything is so green and lush. my farmer friend, shaun, says that's because there is nitrogen in rain water. maybe so. but this growing stuff?...it's pure magic to me. i am utterly astonished. every day.

one last little surprise: my butterfly plant (weed?) came back! i guess i didn't realize it was a perennial. so lovely.

what kind of season are you having?

self seeders

2009-05-21T20:00:00.000-07:00

so, we had this little pot on the back porch. it once had parsley growing in it. i had it indoors over the winter, until the plant died, for one reason or another. once the weather warmed, i noticed a lot of life in that pot. tons of little seedlings were taking over. they were not parsley. i didn't recognize them at all. they didn't look like any of the common weeds around here nor any think i'd ever planted. mystery.

a few weeks ago, i saw someone at the farmer's market selling sweet annie seedlings. they looked just like those mysterious plants on my porch. then, i put it all together: i had hung the dried sweet annie, that shawn and denise gave us last year, out on our porch light.

it had been inside all winter, but had lost its fragrance, and was beginning to annoy me. i hung it outside in the early spring. the seeds had blown down, into that pot, and sprouted. voila! sweet annie in a pot.

neighborhood plant exchange

2009-04-29T16:35:00.000-07:00

the much anticipated neighborhood plant exchange happened over the weekend. it is one of the many things i love about living here. neighbors bring extra plants and seeds to one location (ria's place, across from bryan park), and if you see something you want, take it. if you have nothing to bring, that's fine too. let your neighbors help you get your garden started. anne and alan helped me transport my offerings, on their bike basket and trailer.

alan, toting my seedlings on his hand crafted bike trailer.

cake, happy-as-a-clam-at-high-tide

last year, i received a beautiful heirloom lettuce, which i call "red sails," but i am not really sure that's correct. i saved seeds from it, planted some this year, and they're doing great. i also received a brandywine tomato plant, which produced delicious fruit. i carefully saved those seeds, and started some indoors this year. it was wonderful to bring my extra brandywine seedlings to the plant exchange this year! i also saved poppy seeds from one beautiful plant from ria, last year, and have numerous starts from those. i have been planting them in my garden, and passing them out to friends and neighbors. ria was excited to see those, since hers did not self-seed this year. full circle!

ria describes a plant

this year i took home a few herb seedlings, some flowers, and best of all borage! "borage for courage!" ...as the saying goes.

neighbors ann, matt and sydney, browse and visit.

tomorrow i hope to put my tomatoes in the ground. we've had consistently warm temperatures, and some lovely spring showers. everything is lush and electric green. the high temps are supposed to remain for a while. i think it's safe...? maybe some of them will get hydro-vests.

potatoes for earth day

2009-04-23T06:39:00.000-07:00

yesterday i spent many glorious hours in the garden. can't think of a better way to celebrate earth day. legend has it, potatoes are to be planted during the waning of the moon. i consulted the farmer's almanac, and noted that yesterday was a good day for planting root crops. it happened to be sunny and fairly warm, so, it all worked out.

i dug three large holes for them, in two different beds. mixed in a little compost at the bottom of the hole, then set in the seed potatoes, cut side down. cosmo helped. we covered them with about 4 inches of soil, and when they sprout, we'll keep mounding soil up around their stems, since the potatoes apparently form in that space between the seed potato, and the top of the soil. this is all new to me. i thought you just plopped a potato in the ground, and it made a bunch of little potatoes. had no idea it was so involved. but, i like involved. that is why i am trying leeks this year too.

i may not have mentioned that i started 3 new beds along the property line. since we are renting, i wasn't sure how much lawn i could really get away with digging up. so, our neighbor jack (and his son, the farmer, shawn) who own the place next door, offered a strip between our houses for me to garden. it gets lots of sun, and the soil seems nice. i've got potatoes there, and plan to also have tomatoes, green beans and edamame.

yesterday i fashioned a bean arbor out of bamboo. ideally, the beans will climb the poles and string at the ends of two separate beds, and then climb across to form a lovely green arbor overt the path between beds. i may have made it too tall though, and i may need to go fix that.

this weekend is the annual neighborhood plant exchange. i can't wait. i also plan to do a lot of sowing and transplanting. better consult the farmer's almanac. i am convinced that they list some days as infertile, or bad for planting, just to give farmers a rest in the spring...

all is well

2009-04-02T09:45:00.000-07:00

all the seedlings survived the frost. in fact, i could detect no damage, to any plant, anywhere. so, there ya have it. all that worrying for naught.

i want to recommend this article by michael pollan. it is the perfect read for a cynic and a gardener, like me. when it comes to global warming, and saving the planet, i fall in the camp of people who say, "it's too late for that. way, way, way too late." which does not mean that i don't do what i can to reduce my carbon footprint, just in case. plus, i find that walking and bike riding and gardening improve my quality of life. pollan's article addresses all of this. read it. seriously. you'll be glad you did.

spring is really coming on in full force. i find myself wanting to get into everybody's backyard in my neighborhood, so i can just snoop around and see what's growing, what they've planted, and what they're planning. one of the things i love most about gardening around here, is the connections i've built with neighbors. i learn so much from them, and we share tips and ideas, and FOOD, once the produce starts coming in.

my indoor seedlings are taking over the office! plus, they just look starved for light (even though i now have THREE lights on them). so, i transplanted a good number of them into individual (larger) containers, and put them in the cold frame, which i am now referring to as the greenhouse. so far, they do not seem to be suffering from any kind of transplant shock, and look really happy in there. i kept the rest inside, as a back up. whatever excess i have, i'll just give away at our neighborhood plant exchange, on april 26.

i've also been thinning lettuce and spinach, and last weekend, we had guests over, and served micro greens (thinnings from the salad box) with our falafel and homemade pita. arugula may be the most delicious plant i've ever tasted. yum.

an ounce of prevention...

2009-03-30T06:54:00.000-07:00

i knew a freeze was predicted last night. i thought of bringing the salad box in, or at least covering it. but, i was really tired from getting up early to see our guests off, for their early morning flight back to L.A.

i went to bed early, and thought of the delicate little seedlings outside, not one bit.
woke up to some frost covered plants, and more regret than i can handle this morning. we'll find out later who survived. right now, it's too soon to tell.

mon cheri

2009-03-22T06:23:00.000-07:00

i don't know if spring is actually coming early this year, or if it is just a matter of perception, or, if i am going to get a rude awaking with 3 inches of snow in a week. all i know is i've been digging and planting and hovering over seed beds and choosing the next section of lawn to dig up for garden expansion, like it's mid april. i'm a lot more cocky this year. i'm not so fearful of frost. i know the vegetables that don't mind a little cold, and i've planted them. we've had a few nights of below freezing temps since then, but everything is doing great.

indoors, i've started brandywine tomatoes (from seeds i saved last fall), cherry tomatoes, sweet peppers and hot peppers, poppies, and husk cherries. i found out later that the poppies could have just been direct seeded outside. they germinated quickly, and are growing like weeds. besides the poppies, the brandywines were the first to come up (let's hear it for heirlooms!). my farmer friend, amy, warned me that peppers can be difficult to germinate. they need warmth. so, i set a heat lamp over them, and a heating pad underneath. at one point i stuck a thermometer in the soil, and it was over 90 degrees. eventually they came up, and i'll tell ya, i felt so proud!

the last one to germinate was the husk cherry. i first encountered this lovely fruit when i was in switzerland for a semester abroad as a graduate student. i found them growing on the grounds of the villa where we lived and had our studio. they have a husk over them, sort of like a tomatillo (their close relative) but it's small, golden, and looks like a paper lantern. inside the husk is a marble-sized, orange-colored berry. being a brazen forager, of course, i tasted one. i could tell it was edible because it was so delicious. later i found them in a candy store, the paper husk still attached, but pulled back, and twisted above the berry, which was dipped in smooth, dark, swiss chocolate. wow.
since then, i've been searching for information about this plant. i would tell people about it, draw (and paint, see above) pictures of it, but no one would know what i was talking about. i found some growing in a park in chicago, but still didn't know the name. when i saw them featured in johnney's seed catalog, i decided i had to try to grow them. i figure, if they can grow in chicago, they can grow here. they are also known as cape gooseberry, ground cherry, and they had a very cute name in the swiss candy shop, which i cannot remember. in my bastardization of the french language (though we were in the italian part of switzerland), i refer to them as mon cheri.

what new plants are you experimenting with in your garden, this year?

do i really want to know?

2009-03-11T14:59:00.000-07:00

i added an inexpensive soil testing kit with my seeds order this year, thinking it would be good to know what's lacking in our garden soil, rather than just shooting in the dark. when it arrived though, i was hesitant to use it, since i had already started working beds, and planting seeds. do i really want to know how bad it is? am i going to do what's required to amend the soil? doubtful. i'll probably just keep adding compost, leaf mold, an occasional bag of peat, and hope for the best.

after reading the instructions though, i decided it would be fun to do the test with carl (we both enjoy playing scientist) and if we don't end up adding anything special to our garden beds, then at least we know which nutrients (or lack thereof) to blame if our plants don't thrive.

we did the test. it was indeed fun. maybe we'll add something to one bed, as an experiment, and maybe we won't.

in other news, the arugula has already sprouted, and so has some of the lettuce and spinach in the salad box. expected lows in the twenties for tonight and tomorrow, so i'll bring the salad box indoors, close the cold frame, and cover the other beds, and our baby lilac, which has already started opening its buds.

has anyone else in our neck of the woods started gardening yet?

p.s. today is the one year anniversary for this garden blog!

return

2009-03-07T19:32:00.000-08:00

i guess my garden blogging is as seasonal as my garden. we've had two days of spring-like weather, and now, I'M BACK, BABY! here's a couple of shots of the garden, and the cold frame, buried deep in snow.

re: the cold frame
i failed to understand that the sunlight falls in different places in the winter, than it does in the summer. thus, my lovely cold frame was in full shade all winter long. it is shaded by the building (our storage space/art studio) just south of the bed. needless to say, there was not much going on in there all winter. however, two broccoli plants, 3 kale, one parsley, and a micro lettuce sprout did survive to see the sunlight, which is now beginning to fall on that box.

i guess it will make a good place to get an early start on some plants. plus, carl spotted one little broccoli flower! i sowed some arugula seeds in there yesterday, and started a salad box on the porch, with cold-loving greens.

today, the warmest one yet (at 75 degrees!), i spent most of the day outside, in the garden. my seed order arrived too, along with a new rain gage for carl, and an inexpensive soil testing kit. i don't know if i have the courage to test the soil. i don't really want to know how bad it is...

................

last fall i went to a worm composting workshop at the wonderlab, where, for $10, i got information about vermiculture, and came home with a worm-composting system, including the worms. the bin is made from 3 five-gallon buckets, with holes drilled in the lid, as well as the bottoms of two of the buckets. i've been feeding the worms all winter, and keeping them in the insulated studio. they've done really well, and have been very easy to deal with. today, i dumped the buckets, and attempted to sort worms, bedding and half-eaten food from the worm castings, which are the good stuff, for the garden. it was a bit tedious, but i ended up with a dump truck full of compost. a tonka truck load, that is. i haven't decided which bed with get this yummy treat.

i also tried to turn one of our compost bins, and dug out some (mostly)composted stuff from the bottom of the bin. i spread that on a bed that i think i'll fill with spinach and other spring greens. the main garden area that i worked and planted last year is okay for some things, but once the oak tree fills out, it gets too much shade. so, i'm thinking it is a good spot for the early greens and peas. and, in spite of the lack of full sun, beans, carrots, tomatoes and basil did fine there last year. i moved my pea trellis, and planted peas!

black gold

2008-11-10T18:28:00.000-08:00

just as compost bin #2 is filled to capacity, compost bin #1 is ready to begin again.
we "harvested" our first batch of compost! we started bin #1 about a year ago, and this week, we scooped it out, and spread it on some garden beds (i learned from carol that the best time to prepare spring beds, is in the fall). the compost is probably not completely composted, but i think it is okay to work it into the beds, and let it sit over the winter. now we put our kitchen scraps, garden waste and layers of straw into bin #1 again. full circle.

we also dug into our leaf mold compost pile, and that stuff is delicious (no, i didn't taste it...)! last fall we piled up all the leaves from our yard in one spot, and just let it sit there all winter, and all summer. that mountain of crackly leaves, from one gigantic oak, and one enormous maple, over the course of a year, shrunk down to about 2 wheelbarrows full of dark, loamy, leaf compost. i wish we had a leaf shredder, it would speed things up. but our method worked out, and our garden beds can sure use the nutrients.

last gasp

2008-10-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

first frost is upon us (it happened last night), a full 7 days past the official predicted date of october 20. i grabbed these zinnias and cosmos for a final bouquet, and brought the container plants inside. i'll try to get the garlic planted today.

as a consolation prize, we get to look at this beautiful thing from our back porch:

frost date

2008-10-23T09:39:00.000-07:00

we've past the predicted first frost date of october 20 and it still has not been down to freezing yet, here. i'm sad to report that many of the greens in the cold frame are refusing to grow. i know the soil is pretty good, so i guess it just doesn't get enough sun in that spot this time of year. the broccoli and kale is doing great though, so i can't complain really. but i do anyway because arugula is my new favorite green, it is easy to grow, two of my neighbors have large, healthy plants, and mine just seem stunted at the seedling stage. luckily, said neighbors are generous.

i've been happy with the carrot crop. a good percentage of them are still in the ground. they are stubby but delicious. i had reported earlier that cosmo didn't like them, but that has changed. if i peel them, and slice them into "carrot coins" he gobbles them up. they are perfect on a fresh salad too.

our crazy, volunteer tomato plants, growing from the compost bin, are still producing lovely tomatoes long after our other ones have withered. i even saw some blossoms on one of them yesterday!

the peas i planted are doing well, growing fast, but i doubt we'll get any peas off of them. the plants are supposed to be frost resistant, but i bet the blossoms are not. we'll see how far they get before it turns really cold.

finally, i planted a small herb garden to bring indoors for the winter. i've become accustomed to those fresh herbs, and don't want to do without them in the cold months.

anybody else out there doing some fall/winter gardening?

recycled cold frame

2008-09-17T19:31:00.001-07:00

cold frame construction is as complicated as you make it. my plans simplified once i realized that the purpose is to warm the soil and block wind. i was wondering if i needed to bury the sides into the earth, and if so, how far? but i spoke with an experienced local gardener/farmer and she assured me that i just needed to place the box on top of the soil, tilt the windows toward the south, and that should do the trick. then my plans got complicated when i realized how tall a broccoli plant gets (about two feet!). my salvaged windows were dictating the width and depth of my box, and the broccoli was determining the height, but when i got the whole thing put together, out of these honkin' 2"x 8" and 2"x 12" boards, it looked like a tunnel, or a large, narrow coffin-- the place where all good plants go to die. i took one look at it, once it was all screwed together and flipped over, and cried, "i can't grow plants in there!" i put the windows on anyway, and couldn't deny it had rather striking form, (i didn't think to photograph it) but it was still not a suitable place for a winter garden. the whole point is to maximize sunlight, and the tall sides would have shaded the plants. i should have remembered from architecture school, the importance of building a model. sometimes it is the only way to clearly visualize what you're building, before you build it.

i considered burying the lower half of it, to make it shorter that way, but soon came to my senses, and decided that taking off a row of 2"x 12" boards would solve the problem. it was easy enough to do that, and then i set the shorter structure on a row of bricks i had salvaged from another demolition site. i am pretty sure that what i have now will work just fine, and i rather like the look of the old paint on the brick.

as it turns out, almost everything was recycled, salvaged or reused. the hinges are from some old cabinet doors, carl spotted them at a flea market in gnaw bone. i bought one long, two-by-four, and those huge boards i took off the cold frame had been purchased as new lumber. i'll turn those into a sturdy shelf to hold all those home-canned goodies we've been squirreling away (see my other blog for more on that).

i've been covering the broccoli and kale with floating row cover, to keep the cabbage moths from laying eggs on them. i had been pulling dozens of those green cabbage worms off of the half eaten leaves, every time i took a look at them. my summer kale was completely demolished by those guys. the cover is not pretty, but it does seem to work.

fall garden

2008-09-04T12:33:00.000-07:00

the fall garden is planted, and includes arugula, lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, broccoli, and peas. those arugula seeds germinated in TWO DAYS! crazy. i worked over half of the edamame bed, and plan to build a cold frame out of some old windows and lumber we salvaged from a renovation and a demolition site. i am still researching the best way to construct it with what i have.

our yard is still sprinkled with summer color, though the cheery brown-eyed susans are fading fast. i cut a bouquet yesterday, and brought it into the house. the marigolds i started from seed took some time to establish themselves, but they're in full swing right now. they are easy to overlook, since everyone seems to have them, and their primary job in the garden is to deter pests. i noticed yesterday how lovely they are.

our top-heavy sunflowers may not fulfill their duties, but i still have hope. i know some birds who would really enjoy those seeds.

harvest

2008-08-25T06:36:00.000-07:00

the leaves on the edamame were starting to turn yellow. most of the pods looked ready to harvest, so i clipped all of the plants at their bases, and stripped the pods off the stems. next i boiled the pods for 5 minutes, dried them in the salad spinner, bagged them and put them in the freezer. we ended up with a little over 5 lbs total, which turns out to be 3 full gallon size freezer bags. each plant had between 7 and 16 pods, with the average being around 10. most of them were fat, and ready, but a few seemed over the hill, and some were tiny, but still yummy. i was amazed at the large amount of biomass (of leaves and stems) compared to the small amount of edamame pods.

clip

strip

boil

bag & freeze

cosmo ate a mess of 'em yesterday. it's one of the only vegetables he truly loves, so i am thrilled to have a freezer full of home-grown.

since soybean roots fix nitrogen, i left them in the ground to enrich the soil. soon i will turn the bed and plant some fall crops like lettuce, spinach & arugula. i hope to build some sort of a cold frame for over-wintering some chard, kale and maybe a few hardy herbs. i'll also be planting some garlic in october.

edamame!

2008-08-14T11:21:00.000-07:00

we harvested our first handful of edamame pods last night, and promptly par-boiled and ate them. so delicious. sweet, nutty and fresh. i told carl i didn't think i'd ever had edamame that was not previously frozen. cosmo kept asking for more. luckily, there's plenty more out there. they need a few more days to mature, and then i think i will harvest them all at once, farmer-style, instead of hand picking each and every pod that looks ready. i had to cover them with floating row covers when i discovered rabbits camping out in there on a regular basis. it's not pretty, but those beans underneath sure are.

i dug up a carrot and found that indeed, those lush, green, feathery plants do have bulging orange roots in the ground. seems they need a bit more room to fill out, so i did some thinning. i thought cosmo would be really into the carrots. i was wrong.

our pole beans were incredibly successful, and are still producing. they strike a dashing figure in the garden too, on their too tall tee-pee poles.

we've enjoyed a crazy sweet and plentiful harvest of cherry tomatoes, and those brandywines are gorgeous, and yummy. let's hear it for heirlooms!

there's a section in one of my cook books called the beautiful tomato salads of summer i think i need to look that one up.

update

2008-07-11T09:37:00.000-07:00

it's mid july, and the garden is thriving. it has been cooler here than expected, but we've had our share of very warm days. we have tomatoes growing on every plant, and have harvested the first few cherry tomatoes. the first one we ceremoniously cut into thirds so we could each have a taste. they are sweet and delicious!

were still eating peas, but they are almost done. the green bean plants are climbing high on their teepee poles, and a few small beans can be found hiding under the leaves.

the carrots look great above ground. no idea what's going on underneath. the beets look less healthy, and our kale is rather pathetic. i suspect a combination of poor soil, and lack of sun. the plot is not technically in full sun. luckily, the bed with the tomatoes seems to get enough. we've enjoyed a steady harvest of lettuce, though i imagine it will be bolting soon. we've been cooking with all the herbs we're growing, and i even got another thyme plant from the farmer's market, because the little one i had just couldn't keep up with the demand from our kitchen.

peas and carrots
the edamame is growing taller and seems to be healthy and happy. japanese beetles have been visiting the bed, but so far, they haven't done too much damage. i've been hand picking them off as i spot them.

we've had a constant bloom of flowers all around the yard, including a stunning (and very tall) breadseed poppy i received from the neighborhood plant exchange.

right now we have day lillies, echinacea (purple coneflower), cosmos, zinnias, marigolds, nasturtiums, chamomile and the brown-eyed susans are about to bloom.

cosmos

cosmos

cosmos

nasturtiums

is it time to start thinking about fall crops? i started more of the purple bunching onions, and have some garlic ordered for october planting. maybe i'll try some kale and chard in a different location. i'd like to make a cold frame, and overwinter a few hardy edibles.

how does YOUR garden grow?

peas please

2008-06-13T11:48:00.000-07:00

it's pea season. cosmo has harvested the first few, and shared a couple of the peas with us. he loves them, and gets so excited when another one is ready to be picked. i remember his first peas off the vine last year, in houston, at the mandel community garden.

there is not much in this world that is prettier than a pea plant. those squiggly tendrils, reaching for the sky (or a strand of string), heart-shaped leaves, cupped around the winding vine, delicate, understated blossoms, and that pod! so adorable, with it's little elf cap. pluck, unzip and part the shell, to reveal nature's perfection. an organized row of tender green spheres. pop 'em in your mouth. just like candy.

in other news, the edamame came up about four days after planting! we had torrential rains here the day after i sowed them, and i worried they would wash away. but they were fine. it was clear and sunny the next day, rained the following day, and i guess that was just what they needed. here are shots when they first popped up, and today, with their second set of leaves (already? ahh, they grow up so fast...).

we've got cherry tomatoes setting on the vine, and i have been harvesting the purple bunching onions that i started from seed. we enjoyed some last night, with a medley of roasted vegetables.

it figures that the healthiest, fastest growing plant in the garden is one that planted itself, in the compost. here is one of the pumpkins (or melons, or squash?) taking off in the compost.

the good kind of tired

2008-06-06T12:07:00.000-07:00

i just came indoors from over 3 hours of working in the garden. it's been around 90 degrees for the past couple of days. earlier this week i dug up a 6'x7' bed in our backyard. yesterday i turned it, added compost, and turned it some more.

today i took the hoe to it, formed it into 4 rows, and planted edamame. i was inspired last week by the most recent issue of organic gardening. it sounded so easy, and cosmo loves edamame (as does the rest of the family). i quickly ordered seeds and inoculant (from johnnyseeds.com) and planned out the plot (the inoculant is a soybean specific rhizobial bacteria that helps the plants capture and fix atmospheric nitrogen in a form the plants can use. --source: organic gardening, july 2008, p.32). i didn't bother asking the landlord for permission. i was afraid he'd say no. fait accompli, facts-on-the-ground, whatever you wanna call it; the bed has been dug, the seeds have been planted. in about 90 days, we should have fresh edamame. many acres of soybeans are grown in this country, but like the corn, most of it needs to be processed to be eaten. it seems to me that the best way to consume soy, is to eat the fresh beans.

in the process of digging up the yard, i found many treasures, including a small gold chain, a bunch of bottle caps, rusty bent nails, a marble, a bone, rusty swing-set chain, eyeglass lenses... i've been told by several neighbors that a circus used to be located on, or around, the spot where our house is. i was hoping to unearth some circus artifacts, but i'm pretty sure what i found was mostly household debris.

thinning seedlings/homemade bug spray

2008-06-04T19:45:00.000-07:00

one thing that i am not cut out for is thinning. i just don't have the heart for it, and i need to remember this when i sow seeds. here is a row of carrots before and after thinning.

(you might also note all the small stones in the soil)

i tried to thin to 1-2 inches. i think i averaged about a half an inch, at best. i hate to pull up healthy plants. we've had some serious storms here in the past couple of days, and the soil in some parts of the garden is just washing away. i am particularly worried about the beets and the carrots. i built up a bunch of potting soil around them yesterday, today it was mostly gathered in the corners, and low spots of the garden.

in other news, i noticed some little bugs eating my green bean leaves,

(a close up of the bugs)

they looked to me like the type of bug a ladybug might eat, so i gathered a dozen ladybugs from a blooming shrub in the front of the yard. a generous supply of aphids inhabit that bush, so the ladybugs feed there. i captured them in cosmo's bug-observation-container, and released them onto the bean plants. they kept trying to crawl back onto me, instead of the leaves, and then they all quickly flew away. so much for imposing my agenda on other creatures (who, shockingly, have their own!).
plan B: i made a bug spray from a recipe i found in organic gardening. it consists of: garlic, onions, cayenne, dish soap and water. i tried it on the beans, and left a couple unsprayed, as an experiment. i haven't noticed an increase in the bug activity, and the beans are growing well. i need to keep applying it though, since it has been raining so much. something is eating the kale too, but i expected that. plants in the brassica family always seem to get nibbled on. i also noticed some small, purplish, aphid-looking critters on the tomatoes, but no damage to the plant so far. guess i will just wait on those.

i rescued a trunk load of beautiful stones from a dumpster in the neighborhood. someone was doing some sort of landscaping/masonry makeover, and a lot of limestone got thrown out. i've been looking out for some for a while now. i will use it too outline garden beds. i am creating a new one, which i hope to write more about next time.

first blossoms

2008-06-03T06:45:00.000-07:00

the vegetable garden has a few blooms now.

the chamomile i bought from the farmer's market is tall, with dainty flowers on top. the ones i started from seed are smaller, and not yet blooming.

we have our first proud nasturtium blooms, and the two pea plants i started indoors are now blooming. the rest are still catching up.

many of the tomatoes have put out a few blossoms. i was told to pinch them back while they are this young, so that the plant can grow stronger before putting energy into the fruit. i decided to pinch some, leave some, and see what happens.

it's incredible to see the plants i nurtured from seed, begin to reach the stage of producing their own seeds. one of the many wondrous, ordinary pleasures of gardening.

i'll take my salad live, thank you.

2008-05-30T04:23:00.000-07:00

cosmo is not one to eat green leafy vegetables, but he enjoys picking leaves and putting them in his mouth. lately he has been pulling up various plants from the grass and saying, "i can eat this?"
i hope i have made it clear that he needs to check with me before putting plants in his mouth...he loves eating wild onions, and, wisely, following with mint leaves from the neighbor's yard (ours are still too young for harvesting).

walla walla

2008-05-21T12:14:00.000-07:00

i know some gardeners around here have not yet dared to put their tomatoes in the ground, for fear of a late frost. i am not one of those gardeners. i transplanted 4 of the tomatoes i nurtured from seed, into the garden on april 23. it was early, and a big risk, so i constructed some protective systems. i had heard of using a "wall o' water" for early planting, so i got a package from a big box store. it was a burpee brand, called hydro shield. when we filled the first one up with water, to test it out, the cell dividers started breaking, and the thing wouldn't stand up. i wasn't about to put one of those things around my precious little plants, and risk it collapsing, and crushing their fragile stems. so, i took them back, and poked around online until i found a brilliant solution: do it yourself wall o' water using plastic bottles in a ring around each plant. we don't really use a lot of plastic bottles, and i needed a bunch of them, so i went to the recycling center, and snagged a bag full of 1 and 2 liter empty bottles. i made a ring of them, taped them together, placed them gingerly around the newly transplanted tomatoes, and filled them with water. the theory is that the water heats up during the day, and keeps the soil and the plants warmer at night. thermal mass. so, the larger the bottle, the more protection. i didn't have enough bottles for all four plants, so one of them just got a couple of layers of bubble wrap.

my plants were really tall and leggy. i didn't have proper lighting conditions indoors, so they just kept getting taller as they reached for more light. when i saw the hundreds of healthy, short, stocky tomato plants they were selling at the farmer's market, i wondered why i had even bothered starting my own from seed. then i remembered how much fun i had watching them grow from tiny sprouts, right before my eyes in the office, next to the desk. and i learned that i could bury a significant portion of the stem when i transplanted, and that roots would form along that stem, which would strengthen the root system for the plant. so, that is what i did.
i put stakes and cages around them right away too, so as not to disturb the roots later on, and i gave them some food about 5 days later.

they did really well in their homemade "hydro vests" (as my neighbor lara was calling them), and showed no signs of transplant shock. i filled the holes with sun-warmed water as i was planting them, and they had also been spending some time outside for several days, "hardening off." we had two nights when i worried the temperatures would drop below freezing, and on those nights, i covered them, along with the peonies, and some nasturtiums (cosmo helped out, and thought the tomato "ghosts" were funny). none of the plants were damaged, not even the one in the bubble wrap.

after that last frost warning on april 29, it has been consistently warm here in bloomington. i planted 5 more tomatoes in a sunnier spot in the back yard. i did not protect them with anything, nor did i enrich the soil with compost or peat. so, we'll see what happens. so far, they all look great.

2008-05-15T13:18:00.000-07:00

it's raining. it has been raining for weeks, it seems. i love the rain, and so do all the plants, but don't they need sunshine too? i found myself out in the garden today, in the rain, with a hat on, just standing around, looking everything over, thinking about the garden. most everything is planted now. i have some seedlings on the porch to plant when they get a little bigger, and some herbs i started in the garden that i plan to move around as i thin them. here's what i have going:

in the garden patch:
peas
pole beans
tomatoes (2 cherry and 2 "regular")
onions (white onions from sets, and purple bunching onions from seed)
spinach
lettuce (two kinds)
kale (two kinds)
carrots
beets
cilantro
parsley
chives
basil
chamomile
nasturtium
marigold
pumpkin

i made another bed in a sunnier spot in our backyard, along a fence. i have 5 more tomato plants there, two heirloom varieties that i got from a neighbor at a plant exchange: cherokee purple, and brandywine. i also have two parsley plants in that bed, which i got as seedlings from the farmer's market. also along that fence, and in an established perinnial bed, are sage, rosemary, lavender, daisy and thyme.

cosmo and i planted some sunflowers against the house, and i put in a few daisy seedlings there too, but they seem to be struggling, for some reason.

on the porch i have two salad boxes filled with lettuce, spinach and purple spring onions. they are doing wonderfully. i also have more daisy seedlings, seedlings, chamomile and marigolds.

i have two containers in front of the compost, that hope will sort of mask it as they grow... we have zinnias and two kinds of cosmos in there. and i moved some brown-eyed susans around the edges of the bins (we have tons of these all around our yard).

inside the first compost we have some volunteers. i have identified a tomato plant, and several pumpkins. i'm not surprised about the pumpkins. we bought a pumpkin or two every week last fall, from the farmer's market. carl makes pumpkin bread, i make pie. i am actually thrilled that they came up, since the pumpkin i planted in the garden bed isn't really doing well. only one came up, and it looks rather weak compared to the ones in the compost. i think this is due to when i planted the seeds. it has been too wet, and a little chilly. i hear they need warm dry(ish) soil to get started. i'll leave one or two in there, and then transplant a couple to the spot i had planned for them in the bed. i think it will be ok in the bin. the vine can climb out, and onto the driveway, if it needs too.

i wasn't completely positive it was pumpkin at first. it looked like either pumpkin, gourd or some kind of squash or melon, but they can look pretty similar. i tried to find some photos online, but i wasn't sure until i just reached down in there, and examined one of the seeds that a sprout was coming out of. it was definitely a pumpkin seed. i was a little grossed out about getting my hand in there, and i sniffed it, expecting it to reek like rotten garbage. instead, it smelled of luscious, rich earth. undoubtedly a wonderful environment for the pumpkins.

in other news, we have had our first harvests already. first we thinned some of the onions, and had scallions on tacos one night. cosmo enjoyed pulling them up. then last week i harvested some baby spinach and lettuce leaves. inspired by a photo on the root, i arranged a couple of artsy salads for dinner. the store bought tomato was a disappointing addition, but the greens were incredible!

i realized the other day the positive effect the garden has on me. when i am out there, i feel an overall good feeling. just looking at the plants, noticing how they change from day to day, planning what to do next, it simply fills me with joy and a deep sense of satisfaction. i can't think of a better therapy for me at this time in my life.

a boy after my own heart

2008-05-11T12:05:00.001-07:00

last night, after lights out, as cosmo was getting tucked into bed, he laid his head down, i kissed him and was about to leave the room, when he said to me,

"our peas look great."

i almost cried. instead i said,

"they sure do, cosmo. goodnight."

"goodnight, mama."

and he's right, they look fantastic.

grow yer own

2008-04-30T16:34:00.000-07:00

last week we watched the documentary King Corn on PBS. it's all about corn production in america, and the excessive amount of corn we consume as a society, primarily through high fructose corn syrup (found in most commercially processed food), and through consumption of corn fed beef. the film is very well made, and features two young guys who try to learn about corn by growing their own acre, and trying to track where it goes once they sell it. one aspect of the film has continued to haunt me. most of the farmland in the US is used to produce an inedible product. the field corn they grew in the documentary must be processed before it can be consumed by humans. i found this info on the national corn growers association website:

Corn-on-the-cob and canned or frozen corn at the grocery store come from sweet corn. The corn you grow in your garden also is a variety of sweet corn. But the most abundant type of corn grown in the United States is actually field, or dent, corn. Almost all of the corn you see in farm fields is dent corn.

Unlike sweet corn, dent corn has a hard outer portion about the thickness of your fingernail. The inner portion of the corn kernel is soft and floury. Dent corn is used to make starches, oils, livestock feed, ethanol fuel and many other products like crayons, paints and paper. Dent corn also is used to make corn syrup sweeteners and other ingredients that appear in all kinds of foods from soft drinks to baked goods.

In 1996, U.S. sweet corn growers harvested about 119,400 acres of sweet corn. By comparison, the amount of land dedicated to dent corn production is much larger. U.S. corn growers plant about 71 million acres of field corn each year.

those statistics are quite dated. the amount of dent corn grown today is much higher, especially with the increased demand for ethanol, and the rising prices. if you are interested in this topic, i urge you to see the film, or just start poking around online, it's fascinating stuff, for sure.

but the reason i brought it up here is that seeing the film, and thinking about all that farmland producing inedible crops, brought home to me the importance of learning to grow food. gardening is a hobby for me, at this point. i'm not growing food to sustain my family, or even to reduce our food bill significantly. i grow food in the garden because it is pleasurable, and because i want cosmo to know what it's like to plant a seed, nurture it, wait, and eventually pick the fruit off the vine and pop it in his mouth. but maybe it is a more serious endeavor that i first thought. i am learning how to grow food. the hands-on knowledge i am gaining about soil, seeds, temperatures, and light....might come in handy someday. in any case, it feels like i am making a little patch of the world better by raising edible plants.

have you ever heard a plant grow?

2008-04-18T11:48:00.001-07:00

i swear i did the other night. i have the grow light set up with the tomato plants right next to the desk here, and i was sitting at the computer when, out of the corner of my eye, i saw some leaves move, and i sort of heard it too. i glanced over at the tomato plants. and one of the leaves was still trembling slightly.

these bright green beauties really want to be in the ground.
too bad the ground is not ready for them.
the last frost date is still weeks away.

once again, i sigh. i wait.

oceans of violets in bloom

2008-04-15T07:42:00.001-07:00

compared to last month, we have many more blooms to show off this time, for garden blogger's bloom day. this is our first spring in indiana, and it's exciting to discover all of the spring flowers in our yard, and our neighborhood. i keep singing that line from the prince song, when the doves cry, because some of our neighbor's lawns are carpeted in blooming violets right now. we have some in our yard too.

we also have some very tiny flowers that look like miniature violets, but i don't know their name.

cosmo's favorite is the dandelion, but he has also learned to spot, and say forsythia. the one blooming outside his bedroom window fills his room with a glorious golden glow when the sun hits it just right. he calls that one "cosmo's for-si-tee-ta"

yesterday we discovered a few grape hyacinths in the lawn. i had been admiring them on our walks, in other people's yards. they might be my favorite of the spring bulbs.

our neighbor jack has a wonderful peach tree in bloom, visible from where i sit right now.

and across the street, a magnolia is peaking. i stole a few blossoms for the house.

our daffodils finally bloomed, and i was inspired to do a watercolor of one of them. when i finished, i remembered something a painting instructor in college once told us: don't bother trying to paint beautiful things found in nature, like sunsets or flowers. you will never be able to make something as beautiful as a sunset. you can't improve on that. instead, challenge yourself to make beautiful paintings out of the mundane objects in our lives (he was really into still life arrangements of boxes, mannequin pieces, etc.).

while i enjoyed painting the daffodil, because it allowed me to do an intimate study of it, the painting really pales against the flower itself, or even the photograph.

our red amaryllis, indoors, is on its second round of blooms. it sure has a striking presence in our living room.

the burst of color all around gives me something to focus my attention on while i wait and wait and wait. when is the predicted last frost date, again??? april 22? may 5?

peas pop UP!

2008-04-12T11:17:00.000-07:00

that's a command. from cosmo. we planted them in the ground 19 days ago, and still, not a single one has sprouted. our next door neighbor's peas are up and growing fast, and so are the ones i started indoors, and transplanted to the garden. i am not sure what happened. the ones i started indoors were soaked for a day in a vitamin C solution. they germinated in 4 days. i used seeds from the same package when i direct seeded in the garden, but i did not soak them first.

i soaked a few more yesterday, and have planted them indoors today. i wanted to try again outside, but today it just feels too cold to put anything in the ground.

last week we had lovely weather, and i did a lot of digging in the garden. i prepared two more beds, and in the process of making paths through the plot, i ended up with raised beds. i feared they would collapse without some support, so i staked some boards around them. i think it all looks rather funny, but it will work. cosmo stays out of the beds if he has paths and stepping stones to follow.

i am so anxious to plant everything, but i know i still have weeks to wait.

sigh.

first failures

2008-04-03T12:15:00.000-07:00

yesterday was one of those days where it seemed i had to do everything, at least three times, the wrong way before i got anything right.

i wanted to transplant some seedlings to larger pots, they were getting kind of leggy and out of control. it was silly of me to plant these flower seeds indoors in the first place, and i have made a note in my garden book to only start tomatoes indoors next year. in any case, i still had these plants to deal with, so i prepared some containers. the "potting soil" i had picked up turned out to be some crappy top soil, so i went to the nursery to get something more suitable for seedlings. the stuff i came home with was not much better, and it was very wet and impossible to work with. i pushed through though, and re-potted about 24 fragile flower starts. i really don't have room for them indoors, at my little seed station, but i thought i could make it work somehow. it was such a pretty day, with sunshine all day, i decided to let them bask in the sun for while before i brought them inside. after dinner we went back outside to play, and all of the seedlings looked shocked and nearly lifeless. i guess it got a bit too cold for them. i am pretty sure it was the temperature (or possibly the sun?), and not the transplanting that did them in, because i had some marigolds out there too, which i had not moved, and they looked the same. i rushed them all in under the warmth of the grow lamp. today, it looks like some will survive, but most of them will not.

i feel a mixture of regret and relief. i wish i'd done things differently, but then again, i know i can direct seed more flowers later this month, and now i have plenty of room indoors to nurture my tomatoe plants, which are very healthy and beautiful (they never went out yesterday). and i guess i've experienced an important lesson in gardening...sometimes, things die. sure, i could have prevented that from happening this time, but, as it turned out...it was just one of those days. my bad luck was not limited to gardening efforts either. it was everything.

lucky for me, today is another day.

smells like spring

2008-03-27T16:50:00.000-07:00

it's rainy and warm today. crocuses and daffodils are blooming all over the neighborhood. ours still haven't popped open, but we are patient. yesterday was a glorious garden day for me. i was outside for hours and hours. i transfered the tomatoes to larger containers, and gave the remainder to my neighbor, lara. i set up a trellis for the peas (though it's going to need some reinforcement) and then cosmo and i planted a row of peas. we left room for the 5 plants i already started indoors, which i am in the process of acclimating to outside. cosmo seemed to really enjoy it, and recited his little pea rhyme to the seedbed.

the first salad box is filled with sprouting loose-leaf lettuce. yesterday cosmo and i filled the second, larger salad box with soil and then planted spinach, heirloom lettuce, and purple spring onion seeds. cosmo helped me sow the seeds, and he was really good at pinching the rows to cover them. i love to find ways to involve him. he already seems to be intrigued by the natural world. he walked up to a severely pruned bush in someone's yard yesterday, and gestured upward with his arms saying "grow! grow!"

i dig it

2008-03-20T19:33:00.000-07:00

the rain let up long enough for me to get out in the dirt this afternoon. i dug up half of the garden, and worked in some peat and composted manure. the soil seems ok to me, has decent drainage, and was easy to work. i was encouraged by the sight of a few earthworms, but there are also many small stones, and fine root systems in there. the roots probably come from the large oak tree to the west of the the garden plot. it felt so good to be out there, though i bet i feel it tomorrow (especially in my back).

cosmo was out there with me, pokin' around in the dirt, and examining the contents of the newest compost bin. "two flies," he stated. i couldn't really figure out what he was saying. it sounded like "two fries" and i thought, we never put fries in the compost, what is he talking about? i went to inspect. there were two flies on the food scraps. he stood there for a long time, just looking.

i'm still a bit nervous to plant any seeds outside. i think we have more cold weather coming. all the indoor seedlings look wonderful, and i am anxious to get my salad boxes started. i can always bring those in at night until it warms up.

the glow

2008-03-18T20:35:00.001-07:00

carl took this photo of the blue glow of the grow lamp, as seen from outside.
all the tomatoes came up yesterday, as did some pink cosmos, zinnias, and one marigold. today, i saw the tiny chamomile sprouts. all of these are seeds started indoors. the feverfew seed are several years old, they may not do anything. but then again, it has only been a few days.

in other news, i saw a pileated woodpecker in our tree, twice in two days! i was really thrilled, it was a first for me. yesterday, i could scarcely believe it. i saw it in the morning out our living room window. it landed, then quickly flew off, but not before i spotted it (the size got my attention) and identified it. this evening, i saw it again, from the kitchen window, on the same tree. it stayed a bit longer, i was closer, and i got a really good look. i called for carl, but he just missed it. i hope it hangs out in the neighborhood.

it is raining and raining and raining here in bloomington. we sailed popsicle sticks down the gutters tonight on our evening walk with cosmo. he loved it, and cried when we headed back up hill for home, and he couldn't float his boats anymore. he got to bring them to the bath though.

day six: sprouts

2008-03-16T17:01:00.001-07:00

the very first seedlings to sprout are the cherry tomatoes i planted monday night. i woke up this morning to find them beginning to uncurl and poke up through the soil. made me so happy.

i worried about them not getting enough light, so ran out to get a grow lamp. i ended up with a sylvania spot-gro 60w bulb, in a reflective shop lamp that i can clip to the window sill and position where i want. i was planning to get a florescent one, but that didn't work out (long story). this one is more like a regular incandescent bulb, but it's supposed to be for plants. it gives off and eerie blue glow. i have it a little over a foot away from the plants because it seems to give off a lot of heat. i'm going into all this detail because i'm secretly hoping someone reading this has used this type of lamp for seedlings, and can give me some pointers.

i also got a couple bags of peat and some compost. i am anxious to start working it into the garden. tonight i built our second compost bin, and poked around in the first one. i tried to turn it, but didn't fully succeed. from what i could tell, things have not broken down much, which makes sense given that we started it in the fall. there's not a lot of activity in the compost bin over the winter.

i'm completely giddy, and rather wound up over this gardening thing. i had some crappy dreams last night. thinking about baby tomato plants under a hot light, and fantasizing about fluffing up dirt seemed to ease my mind.

bloom day

2008-03-15T13:36:00.000-07:00

for garden blogger's bloom day i have a couple of photos. the crocuses are technically on the other side of the fence, in our neighbor's yard, but i was the first to see them, and none of ours are blooming yet. but we are excited by all the bulbs popping up, and since this is our first spring here, it is all a big surprise. the previous owners planted perennials in the flower beds so that there is something blooming from early spring to late fall. most if it we have yet to identify. i think these are daffodils about to bloom.

yesterday i planted more seeds indoors. mostly flowers, and today i started a few peas. i think i could get away with planting the peas directly in the soil outside, but we don't really have a bed ready in the garden yet. i started digging yesterday. it is going to need a lot of work. the little seed station i've set up in the sunniest spot in the office is quickly running out of space.

i've started mapping out the layout of our garden. our plot is 11' x 13'. i am looking into companion planting, and choosing herbs and flowers that will benefit the vegetables. it is surprising, even to me, how much pleasure this activity brings me. i am spending most of my free time on all-things-garden-related. of course, no time is truly free, and it is possible that this obsession has something to do with avoidance of other work...work that is less enjoyable, and a lot more frightening. even so, nourishing the soul has got to be helpful in the long run.

box

2008-03-12T20:37:00.000-07:00

i visited two antique stores today, in search of a wooden crate. i had read an article in organic gardening about how to make a portable, living salad box. it's a shallow wooden box, with a wire mesh and window screen bottom. you fill it with soil and plant lettuce and spinach, to be harvested as micro-greens for salads. i liked the idea of saving space in the garden by planting greens in a box, and i also liked the idea of putting them up on a table at night, to keep the rabbits from eating them.

i could picture an old wooden coke bottle crate as having the right dimensions, built in handles, and aesthetically appeal. i was ccertain i could find something cheap that was as good, or better than one i could make. the first place had several. they ranged from $15 to $25 each. i found an old wooden drawer that i thought might work, and bought it for $10. it was a bit small, and i wasn't sure about it, so i went to the only other place like this that i knew about in town, and found another drawer that was much bigger, and perfect for only$4. the second place was a lot more fun too, it was mostly salvaged architectural fixtures, doors and moldings, plus other items for restoring furniture or interiors. i had a nice conversation with the woman working there, about gardening, harvesting herbs and greens, and the time you can find in your life for gardening. she wondered what happened to that time during the winter.

this evening i drilled holes in the bottom of the smaller drawer. i plan to also line it with window screen, as the holes are rather large. i may plant some seeds in it this week. i am very happy with the solid, weathered and handsome boxes, even if one of them was over-priced. i enjoyed being in those shops much more than i would have enjoyed making the boxes.

garden one

2008-03-11T18:11:00.000-07:00

carl gave me a hoe for valentine's day. i can't think of a more romantic gift.

i've been itching to garden for so many years now. my grandmother was a great organic gardener in illinois, and my mother learned a few things from her, and passed them on to me. i will never forget the way the soil in my grandma's garden felt in my fingers. it was black, sandy, loamy, lightweight--rich. i loved to be in her garden as a child-- picking strawberries, tomatoes, pulling up carrots and potatoes--and i'd rip my fingers to shreds in her raspberry brambles in the summertime, for the tangy sweetness of those little red jewels.

i tended a garden with some other women in oregon back in the early 1990's. our garden was lush and fruitful, and i learned so many things from that master gardener from cornwall. but this is the first chance i've had on my own to plant more than a couple of flowers or potted plants.

we have a really small garden plot in the yard of the place we are renting. the soil doesn't seem great, but it looks like a pretty good location on the property. we piled all our autumn leaves on top of it, and they have been sitting there all winter, sinking in. of course, they haven't had a chance to compost or anything, so, most likely we will rake them off into a pile, and use them for mulch once we get things planted. we are looking into simple ways to enrich the soil, but don't plan to get too precise for our first go of it. i don't think we will test the soil or anything. our next door neighbor jack suggested working in some peat moss, and alfalfa pellets. i am also considering chicken manure, but what do i know? just guessing here. our compost bin is still too young to use, but we plan to start another one so we can let that one "cook."

i have a garden notebook, but i thought a blog might be a nice way to chronicle my early experiments with gardening. we are getting inklings of spring here in southern indiana, and i have garden fever. i can't stop thinking about it, and there just isn't enough to do yet. perhaps writing will help me manage all the excess energy.

last night i planted some tomato seeds in an egg carton. i can't decide if i should have them covered by clear plastic, to retain moisture, or if they should be open, for maximum air flow. the egg cartons i'm using have a built in cover, and right now, i have it propped up with a toothpick, at carl's suggestion. a sort of compromise i guess. i find myself touching the soil every couple of hours, to make sure it is moist enough. micro managing.

i have 6-13 days to wait still, before i'll see the first sprouts.