gardens grow

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

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

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

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

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...

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

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?