‘Dig’ The Earth

It is so gratifying to be able to make meals with vegetables and herbs harvested from your own garden. Yesterday I made a mushroom soup that called for a mixture of herbs like sage, thyme, marjoram and rosemary. I had all but the marjoram – which I substituted with oregano – right in my garden. It felt really good to do that. I have a huge load of tomatoes that I need to process – chop and freeze or allow to ripen.

I did get one small watermelon from my garden this year. There were about a dozen sweet dumpling squash I was able to harvest. I might make some soup or pies out of them. Next year my plan is to make the garden even bigger so we can have more of a variety.

It’s Saturday morning and though I got a late start on seeding my flats this year I am pretty happy with my progress.  I have one mini greenhouse, one milk jug and 2 of the 10″ x 20″ black plastic flats with clear plastic domed covers planted.  After just 4 days I even have some sprouts from one of the flats.

Green Mini Greenhouse: The Basil Flat

I had forgotten how many varieties of basil I had until I went through my seeds the other day.  This will be my second attempt to get some decent plants out of these seeds.  Instead of using store bought peat pots or plastic trays in this mini greenhouse I used my hand rolled newspaper pots that I made a few years ago.  There was enough room for 11 rows of 7 little pots.  I labeled the lid with the seed name and L for left and R for right and the base with L and R so I could keep tabs on which row was which.  They were planted, watered and set in a south facing window with the cover on and vents closed on 4/14/09.

These are the seeds planted in the mini greenhouse from left to right:

• Cinnamon Basil
• Purple Basil
• Italian Sweet Basil
• Dwarf Bush Fineleaf Basil
• Spicy Globe Basil
• Greek Basil
• Fino Verde Basil
• Summerlong Basil
• Siam Queen Thai Basil
• Lime Basil
• Easter Egg Plant (no this isn’t basil, but I had an extra row )

Flat 1: Tomatoes and Peppers

I have a myriad of tomato and pepper seeds.  Since they have similar requirements for temperature and light I decided to plant them in one flat together.  The flat has 16 rows of 8 cells each.  The seeds were planted, watered and covered and placed over the top of my 30 gallon aquarium on 4/14/09.  The temperature above the aquarium and aquarium light is about 80 degrees providing a warm enough temperature to encourage germination.  After 3 days some of my tomatillo seeds (that are 6 years old) already started to sprout.  Yesterday morning, the 17th, I moved the flat to the south facing window.  This morning I noticed that one of Robbie’s Tomatoes had started to sprout.

These are the seeds in Flat 1 from left to right, and bottom to top (or front to back):

• King’s Choice Hybrid Tomatoes/Beefsteak Tomatoes
• Robbie’s Tomatoes/Spike’s Tomatoes (unsure of varieties, harvested from relatives gardens 2 years ago)
• Mom’s Tomatoes/Mystery Hot Pepper
• Olena Ukranian/Italian Market Wonder/Bonny Best/Golden Queen – only had a few seeds so I planted 2 of each
• Costoluto Genovese/Cosmonaut Volkov/Marglobe VF/TigerLike Tomatoes – 2 of each
• Assorted Tomatoes/Speckled Roman Heirloom
• Tomatillos
• Delicious Tomato/ Mystery Tomato
• Jelly Bean Hybrid (commercial ’07 pelleted)/commercial ’08 pelleted/harvested ’07 fermented
• Chile Arbol
• Chile Bola
• Chile Guajillo (4)/Cajun Tabasco (2)/Cuban Hot (2)
• Chile Ancho (aka Poblano)
• Green Bell Pepper/Red Bell Pepper
• Jalapeño Early Pepper/Serrano Pepper
• Marconi Red Pepper/Cayenne Pepper

Milk Jug Greenhouse 1: Mary Washington Asparagus

In this milk jug there are 19 hand rolled newspaper pots with Hoffman Seed Starter mix.  There are air holes cut in the top and sides and drain holes in the bottom.  The pots were seeded and watered and placed outside on 4/16/09.  The Mary Washington Asparagus seeds from 2004 season were put in warm water and allowed to soak for 10 days (hope it wasn’t too long; I kind of forgot about them ).

Flat 2: Herbs and Veggies

This 10×20 flat was filled with 8 9-cell trays.  Each tray holds one variety of seed.

These are the herbs and veggies planted in flat 2 listed as laid out in each tray (since I didn’t plant them in rows per se):

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Well then here is the start of my planting for the 2009 season. I truly hope I didn’t get started too late. I think this afternoon Yeyda and I will go outside once the baby falls asleep so we can start cleaning up the yard. It feels phenomenal to have the windows open finally after being trapped in the house for so many months.

Last weekend and the beginning of this weeks were horrible days of scary weather. We had tornado warnings, continuous rain and massive flooding. Everywhere you looked in NW Ohio there were rivers and creeks overflowing their banks and low lying areas in farmer’s fields that were flooded. Roads were impassible and even sections of area cities were inundated to the extent they had to evacuate.

One sad revelation of this recent flooding is that a close friend of mine discovered all the fish in their pond had died. Apparently the ice cover on the pond got too thick and it was too cold for the fish to survive. When their pond flooded the property they found large bass, catfish, amors and bluegill floating all over their yard. The last time they had such a catastrophic loss of fish was the drought of ’88 that caused a turnover in their pond water. It was the first time I’d heard of such a thing. The water on the surface heats up to such temperatures that somehow it forces the cold water from the depths to rise to the surface and the hot water that sinks cooks the poor fish seeking shelter on the bottom.

You can thus imagine how large some of those fish they lost were since they were from the restocking of the pond 21 years ago. I guess they’ll just have to start anew. My suggestion to them since they were planning on having a larger garden this year is to bury the dead fish underneath since it would give their plants some very rich food. If I recall that is how the American Indians taught the Pilgrims to farm.

With several inches of snow on the ground, below freezing temperatures and days that the roads are so icy I won’t venture out even to get the mail – I really miss being outside.  My three year old wants to play in the snow so badly, but when temps are subzero and I have an infant to care for it isn’t wise to go outside.

I tried before I gave birth to rearrange things so that we could do some winter sowing, but it didn’t work out in time.  I was suffering from some pretty serious edema and it took all I had just to get things ready to make room for the baby.  So, I’ve still got messes of items I had to move around and put away.  If only I could get my 8 foot table cleaned off I’d have a place to sow some seeds (we had to clean out some shelves and the stuff ended up on the table).  There are more pressing matters on my mind though – making sure the kiddies are fed and warm, the house is clean (as well as I can do it right now) and that I don’t lose it in the process.

I sure do miss gardening though.  In my quiet times when I’m nursing the baby I think about how I can take her outside with me in the spring and keep the bugs off her.  Sun protection is a no brainer, but I’m still trying to think of a non chemical way to keep the flies and skeeters away from her.  I guess I could drape mosquito netting over her pack n’ play.  By the time I’ll be ready to spend more time outside she’ll be close to crawling age so I’ll have to set up a nice clean play area for her.  My three year old is my little helper.  She loves to play in the dirt and is learning already how to identify the flowers and herbs I plant.  Hopefully this year we can have a productive garden that we can all enjoy.

The weather has turned colder.  It’s as if the calendar told the weather, “Hey, it’s October.  It’s time to get cold.”  And it certainly did.  We went from a balmy 80 the week before to mid 50s and low 60s all last week.  There is hope for 70 degree weather this week which would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.

There are still some fall cleanup and and preparation tasks that need to be undertaken in my garden and yard.  Weeding, soil amending, sowing cover crops, planting spring blooming bulbs and mulching are all on my list.  I actually considered starting my winter sowing project a little early this year.  Most of the seeds that should grow after being in a period of cold/freezing weather are from plants that self seed.  Setting them in the mini-greenhouses merely gives them protection from the animals and elements for the season until the spring.  For being almost 7 months pregnant this seems like a long, almost impossible list.  Today my gardening has been reduced to indoor herb gardening since I can’t get outside in the cold rainy weather.

About a month ago I spent the day with my mom and I found a cute glass jar with growing medium and basil seeds.  I love basil and gardening so I thought I’d give it a try.  Unfortunately, it did not dawn on me to take a picture of the soil pellet before I added water so you could see just how much it fluffed up.

What gardening tasks are you still undertaking?

I learned the hard way that even with proper storage commercially produced seeds lose their viability with time. In 2003/2004 I bought a boatload of seeds and have been trying ever since to get them all used up. Well I think I’ve finally succeeded. I should have thrown them away about a year ago. None of the carrot seeds I sowed in the garden germinated, nor did the chrysanthemum, corn salad, arugula, dill, beets or chard. Thankfully, after years of trying I do have a successful and attractive bunch of cilantro. My mache is growing and so is my craquante de quatre saison. Rabbits ate the tops off all my radishes before I could harvest so they were a bust. You could see their little teeth marks in the top of the radish.

Here is a plan to not get stuck with too many seeds. Find a friend that likes to garden and share your seeds with them. Sometimes one package of seeds is too many for a small home garden so splitting it gives both (or more people) something to share. There are several sites across the internet that offer seed sharing and trading, including, Wintersown.org, Gardenhere.com, and Gardenweb.com from iVillage. There is a plethora of people willing to share their seeds and plants for postage and you can too.

When you buy seeds don’t go cheap. It is tempting to buy cheap packs from Big Lots that offer a lot of seeds, but often their viability is much lower than other seeds thus the bulk just gives you more to gamble with. Really consider your space and pick plants/seeds that will fill but not overwhelm each other and you. Also, think about what your family likes and will likely eat in one season.

If you happen to have seeds leftover at the end of a season that you weren’t able to use don’t fret. Keep them in a cool dry place until the beginning of your next season. A freezer is OK; a small college size refrigerator or a corner in your fridge (if you have room) would be ideal. Put them in small plastic boxes with silica gel packs from your shoe boxes so that no moisture bothers them and causes them to mold and rot. If you visit Trudy at Wintersown.org you will see that she has a number of ways to store her seeds, most of them out of cold storage. You must remember though that she turns over those packets very quickly and will rarely have all of those seeds in her possession for a whole season. In any event, try to get your seeds shared or used by the end of the next season. After that it may be time to add them to the compost heap.

This is always one thing that makes me nervous in the growing process – repotting your new seedlings. Sherxr from Ur Resident Chef had a question about when and how to repot. Well, I’ve had my share of successes and failures in this regard, but I’ll share with you the process that seems to work best.

I’d wait until they have one set of true leaves before you move them to a pot (unless they are too crowded). As the seedlings grow make sure they have some airflow to help stave off dampening off fungus and also to make the stalk strong before you repot them. If you plan on setting the pots outside – like on your porch or a rooftop garden – harden them off before you repot unless they are overly crowded.

Hardening off is a process where the plants get accustomed to the conditions outdoors – gradually. Take them outside early in the morning for an hour or two so they get used to the air flow and sunshine. Increase the time they spend outdoors gradually as the days go by. At first keep them out of the heat of the midday sun or you’ll end up with dead seedlings fairly quickly. As When you are getting ready to repot let them dry out a bit and stop fertilizing. Get your pots ready with a good potting mix and use the first leaves that came up after germination to pull them from their current location. A pencil usually works well to lift the roots from the dirt.

For tomato and pepper seedlings if they have more than one set of leaves you can probably bury the plant up to the lowest set in the ground.  This gives the plant added stability as it grows.

Today when I looked outside I saw something wonderful – green.  There are hyacinths coming up in the back yard.  Next to one of our outbuildings my “giant” daylilies are sprouting.  To the west of the house the dianthus that dried up like an old neglected leather shoe is sprouting new grayblue pups.  In the front yard just to the east of the doorstep there is a little clump of daffodils that has popped up out of the ground.  When I went to check on the “pie pieces” near the end of the drive way I discovered that my daylilies there were also sprouting and that the artemisia (wormwood) was growing under its mat of dried out stems from last year.

The other thing I discovered underneath the artemisia was a nest.  It has got to be a rabbit nest.  My husband was teasing me that maybe it was a creature “with sharp pointy teeth”.  If you’ve ever watched Monty Python you know what that means. 

It was so nice to see all these plants making their way back into the world after the long, cold, icy winter.  I hope to be out there with them soon planting some companions.

As soon as I get my USB port issue fixed I’ll upload the pictures from my camera.

Every gardener has a different way of storing seeds.  Some like plastic baggies others like paper envelopes. Personally, I like the paper envelopes since they don’t retain as much moisture and keep the possibility of mold to a minimum.  Look on gardenhere.org for patterns for large and small seeds envelopes or find ways to make your own using mail envelopes, coffee filters, etc. 

Always, always, always label your seeds.  Sometimes mystery seeds are fun,  but you really do need to know what they are so you can plant them in the right place at the right time come next spring.  It might also be a good idea to label your paper towels or plates you use to dry seeds so you know what they are when your pack them. 

Still you need to find a place out of direct light, high temperatures and high humidity to store your seeds.  Since the majority of us don’t have climate controlled rooms especially for seed storage we have to do the best we can to keep them from going bad.  A few options would be the refrigerator, a closet, or an attached garage (in the winter).  Shoeboxes, plastic tubs with lids, old wet wipes container, and file cabinets are all viable places to keep your seeds.  One tip I found interesting to keep moisture to a minimum is to put the silica gel packets you get from clothing and shoe boxes in the boxes or drawers where the seeds are stored. 

With the passing of time seeds lose their ability to germinate properly.  The more care we take to store them properly, the longer they will last.