all is well

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.

mon cheri

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?

peas pop UP!

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

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.

the glow

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

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

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.

garden one

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.