fall garden '09

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!

neighborhood plant exchange

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.

walla walla

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.