‘Dig’ The Earth

Our first snow of the season and it has to be a yucky one. Monday morning it started snowing and it left about an inch on the roads. Tuesday it was more of the same until about 6 PM.

Wet, heavy, slippery snow started to fall in blankets across the landscape. Great for plants, bad for driving. I called my mom who’d come to visit us earlier in the day with dad and they were on their way home at about 8:30 PM. They’d been trying to get a hold of my brother because he had stayed to work late with DH. Dad wanted me to convey the message that if he could stay where he was to do so. The roads were treacherous and the visibility low.

By the time I called DH to let him know they had already left the office. The next 45 minutes was tough. This will be 4 years since our bad accident that left my husband broken and my car in pieces. The last thing anyone wanted was for that to happen again. I had a knot in my stomach and I thought for sure I was going to lose my supper. Finally at :15 after 9 DH walked in the door and I could relax. Then my thoughts went to my brother. He lives with my parents an hour north and therefore in the middle of the heavier snowfall.

Thankfully he was also OK. I called him an hour after my DH got home just to make sure he’d made it home OK. He said you couldn’t even see the main roads and that the country road they live on was like a washboard with drifts of snow 5″ deep. Yikes.

Today we are in for lots of wind, rain and snow. There is actually a wind warning in our area. You can hear the wind howling or “talking” as my daughter calls it outside the house. It’s a little unnerving. Hopefully we didn’t leave anything in the yard that will get blown away by the 70 MPH gusts.

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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Fennel	Oregano	Lemon Balm	Summer Savory
Marjoram	Curled Parsley	Early Golden Acre Cabbage RadicchioMilano (1) Early Golden Acre Cabbage	Broccoli Waltham

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.

In the past few weeks we have had incredible ups and downs in temperature.  Since about the 8th of November it’s been mostly down, way down.   The week before it was in the 60s and 70s and then January came out of nowhere.  Nights have been down in the 20s and our heating system in the house has been running overtime.

Even with these extremes in weather I’ve witnessed something amazing happen.  The iris corms that I planted earlier in the fall actually started to sprout.  They’ve been rained on, snowed on, frozen and thawed and they are still green and growing.  For instance on Tuesday it snowed, then it warmed up and the little green leaves were still as bright and perky as can be.

The other plant that has me completely flabbergasted is the Nippon Montauk Daisy that is planted in a container on my back patio. My tremendous pregnant belly has precluded me from bringing in all my potted plants by myself so this plant and others have braved the cold, snow and freezing. Every time it warms up even a little – like into the upper 30s – the leaves bounce back and it doesn’t look wilty anymore.

I’ve only got a few more weeks before the baby comes. With what little energy I have left I’ve been trying without much success to get my winter sowing started. Last year I think I started too late and left too few “breathing” holes in the containers to be successful. Just seeing how resilient these plants have been makes me want to try again.

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?

Until lately I haven’t done much to follow the progress of conservation efforts. I think having a child now and also having a little plot to cultivate yearly has really given me a sense of perspective about the future of the planet. That’s pretty much why I wanted to start this garden blog in the first place. It’s not only to share my gardening progress, trials and tribulations, but also to share information about how we can daily help improve the future of the planet. Through conservation, using organic items, encouraging biodiversity when we garden, etc. are all things we can do to help. We need this and our children will benefit.

The other day at Wal-Mart (whom my husband calls the evil empire) I saw signs all over the place for Earth Month 2008. Being the largest retailer in the world it would make sense that they should offer their customers products that do not overtly harm the environment and encourage the millions that shop there to be more ecologically responsible. If you are a budget conscious shopper it is sometimes difficult to buy these certified organic products. Stores like Wal-Mart and Meijer (in the midwest) are coming out with natural and organic products that are cost effective for most any consumer.

If you can have your own garden in the summer try to grow some easy crops like salad greens, potatoes, green beans and tomatoes. Being able to harvest fresh food from your own land or container without it being contaminated by pesticides or herbicides or hormones is something of which you can feel proud. With the rising cost of food because of fuel prices being able to go a season without having to buy these things could save you some serious cash and add peace of mind.

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In zone 5 we have about 5-6 weeks before the last estimated frost which gives us enough time to start tomato seeds indoors. You could also wait until the end of May and buy some tomato seedlings from your local garden center – buy heirloom varieties if you can and save seeds once you harvest. This will encourage biodiversity and give you and your friends seeds for good juicy fruit next year. It will cost you the same as buying 2 lbs. of tomatoes but will yield at least 10 times that before the growing season is over. Salad greens, lettuce, spinach and carrots can be planted outside right now; the sooner the better. Once it starts to get warmer the greens and lettuces will get bitter tasting and the plants will bolt (go to seed). Green bean seeds can be planted directly in the garden once the danger of frost is past – probably the last week in May/first week of June.

As a matter of fact, today I planted 20 varieties of greens, herbs and root crops. My earliest harvest will be in mid-May. I could resow every 2 weeks for continuous harvest or leave the space clean after harvest for summer and fall bearing fruits and veggies.