Segua Ania

Give them an inch and they'll take 1.8 liters

2010-04-30T14:04:00.002-05:00

Watering plants is a complex exercise where many variables come into play. What's your soil? What is the variety of plant? What time of the day is it? Do you feel like watering when it's hot and ... please the complete post at my new blog: Grow and Tell. Thanks!

Flower Noob

2010-04-27T21:58:00.000-05:00

Although I am getting somewhat comfortable with growing vegetables from seed, growing flowers for me it’s a different story. The only flower I have successfully...read complete post at my new blog: Grow And Tell. Thanks!

Wind-blown Sunday

2010-04-25T18:39:00.003-05:00

It rained yesterday. Around 4:30 pm or so we even got tiny hail briefly. Today it was sunny most of the day but very windy. Still, it was a good day to work outside.

First I set up my 35 gallon rain barrel. I bought this rain barrel some... please read the rest of this post at my new blog: Grow and Tell. Thanks!!!

Tomatillo News

2010-04-22T22:54:00.000-05:00

I am growing Tomatillos for the first time. I chose a giant variety and a regular green variety. In case you've never heard of tomatillos, they are used primarily to make the salsa verde you may have eaten...read the whole post at my new blog; Grow and Tell. Thanks!

Apple watch

2010-04-20T08:26:00.001-05:00

Although I planted this apple tree three years ago, I still know very little about apples in general. I think this is a Golden Delicious but I could be wrong. The id tag fell early last year and I don’t remember. I know it’s a yellow apple of some kind. Anyway, I dutifully planted another apple tree in the mini...read the complete post at my new blog, Grow and Tell. Thanks!

Pears!

2010-04-16T10:10:00.001-05:00

You will be forgiven for rolling your eyes at my excitement but you would understand if you knew that this pear tree has not grown one inch since I planted it three years ago...read the complete post at my new blog: Grow and Tell.

More and more

2010-04-11T22:19:00.000-05:00

It seems like the more I get done the more there is to do. The potatoes are ready for more soil already but I did not get it done. It’s on the list. The carrots...read the complete post on my new blog; http://growandtell.wordpress.com/

Thanks!!!

Hail AND High Water

2010-04-06T18:58:00.003-05:00

The first murderous hail storm of the season descended upon...read this post in my new blog at http://growandtell.wordpress.com/

New Blog

2010-04-05T21:02:00.003-05:00

I am moving my blog to Wordpress. It seems I have more control over my blog than I do here.
Anyway, I will post abbreviated versions here for a while until I completely switch over.

My new blog is http://growandtell.wordpress.com/

Monsoon Season

2010-04-02T07:53:00.005-05:00

The Monsoon season has begun. Torrential, driving rain; howling winds; stem-breaking hail, thunder, tornadoes. From here on out until Summer my vegetables will fight for survival. It is a miracle that they make it at all.

Not that it is all bad. When I started growing plants, I noticed that my plants were a little brighter and stood a little straighter after heavy thunderstorms --heavy on the thunder that is. Now I understand that a certain amount of Nitrogen gets fixed from the air by the tremendous energy of lighting and it gets delivered to the plants via the rain.

BOOK

I am reading the book Just Food by James E. McWilliams. What an eye opener! McWilliams is an Agricultural Historian and he makes a good case for not concentrating solely on food miles when we look for sustainable agriculture. There is so much more in the book though. I am terrible at book reviews but when I am done I will attempt to review it here.

AND WHILE I'M ON THE SUBJECT...

I have this fantasy rolling around my head that I can produce vegetables at mega-farm prices in my yard. I've been doing some research on the Internet (it is amazing how much info on farm production there is online) and, at least for tomatoes, I need to make my plants produce anywhere from 8 - 20 lbs (3.6 kg - 9 kg) per plant. Of course, I have to get that at a profit if I was to sell my tomatoes.

The next stage is to grow 50,000 lbs of tomatoes in one season, which is the output of many tomato farms.

Then I would like to grow various crops, not just tomatoes.

Naive? Maybe, but even if I can't do it, failure is such a wonderful teacher that I am bound to come out ahead.

What happened to Spring?

2010-04-01T09:34:00.006-05:00

This year I worked really hard to ensure that I planted my cold-weather crops on time. What good is it to plant peas by St. Patrick's day when April 1st looks like this?

Yesterday, the high was in the low 80's and today, April 1st, more of the same. Sure, my tomatoes and peppers are doing cartwheels but it looks like another year without peas. Sigh...

Heirloom seeds to Terminator seeds?

2010-03-30T10:02:00.008-05:00

The whole of Seed Saving Exchange's seed collection is now part of the Global Crop Diversity Trust, an act that apparently gives biotech companies access to them so that they can make derivatives that they can then patent. This sounds alarming but I confess that I still don't understand how we could ever keep a biotech company from doing this in the first place.

Rather than rehash the whole thing, go to this post and read the letter from Seed Saving Exchange's founder Kent Whealy. It's a long letter full of ugly business but it is worth reading.

Now, I wonder how many of the heirloom vegetables I am growing fall into this.

One new thing I learned by reading Kent's letter is the concept of Terminator Seeds. The sci-fi geek in me perked up and I immediately pictured a tomato from the future sent back to kill my Brandywines! Seriously though, the concept of a Terminator Seed stinks of Big Business. A Terminator Seed is the seed from a plant that has been genetically modified to kill the embryo in the seed so that you and I cannot save the seed. Basically all the seeds in the plant are duds, blanks, sterile.

Another neat thing I learned about by reading the letter is the concept of Sacred Seeds. Apparently Native American nations have collections of seeds that have been preserved by them. Now these seeds are also part of this complicated Global Crop Diversity Trust deal.

Ok, so I am being a bit paranoid about this but don't underestimate the things that people will do for money. After all, this has happened before when genetically engineered pollen blew over to farmers' fields and then they got sued (this is alluded to in the letter). I'd hate to go to jail because I saved some seeds.

And you thought Blight was your only gardening problem!

First tomato plant out the door

2010-03-28T20:57:00.011-05:00

Today I put the first tomato plant outside. It is a Nepal tomato plant in a sub-irrigated planter (SIP). Since our nights are still in the low 40's (Fahrenheit), I decided it was time to try the Wall o' Water.
That green piece of plastic with the water pockets sitting on top of the bucket SIP is the Wall o' Water. It functions as a greenhouse of sorts. The water in the cells transfers heat gently to the plant. I visited a website a while back for a tomato farm where the farmer swore by these things. Now I am going to try it and let you know if it works. The Nepal tomato plant is only 3 inches tall so I did not fully fill the cells with water, maybe I should have....hmmmmmmm.

OTHER THINGS
I washed four of the 18-gallon tote SIPs in preparation for planting some pepper plants. Last year the pepper plants did very well on these so I am using them exclusively for peppers. These four will hold Bell peppers; California Wonders of course, but also Sweet Chocolate, Red Bells, and Sunbright. I will plant 4 plants per tote.

WINTER SOWING
The Oregon Spring tomatoes HAVE NOT germinated in the Winter Sowing milk jug yet. The temperatures are expected to rise around the high 70's (Fahrenheit) this coming week so maybe they will germinate then.

Over and out.

New Composter

2010-03-27T13:38:00.006-05:00

I went to Sam's and bought a composter for less than $40 American dollars. I want to find out if I can fulfill all my compost needs on my own without resorting to store-bought compost. If I can, I will be one step closer to my goal of affordable produce. Yes, I am of the mind that the vegetables I grow are more expensive, albeit freer of nasty stuff, than the vegetables I get from the supermarket. But I am intent on changing that. In fact, I want to grow vegetables and produce them at the same price as the big agribusiness farms. Call me crazy but I have a tiny itty bitty sense deep inside of me that this can be done even if I lack agribusiness' economies of scale.

THE CAGE

Another new thing in my vegetable garden is The Cage. Below is a picture of the almost completed cage that will contain some of my Sub-Irrigated Planters (SIPs). I took this idea from the Inside Urban Green blog. I don't know why they use these cages in their roof gardens but I know why I will use mine:

My 1 yr old puppy Lexie.
The murderously hot slab of cement that covers the sunniest part of my yard.

There will be wooden slats across the bottom of the cage that will keep the buckets from touching the hot cement and overheating from below and I will surround the cage with chicken wire to keep my dog from snacking on the plastic five gallon buckets. I needed to build additional holding places for my buckets because this year I have too many and they won't all fit inside the protected garden area.

REDUCE, REUSE, RECYCLE

I planted the Kennebec potatoes today. As planned, I used the empty potting soil bag as a grow bag. I was also going to use a five gallon bucket to grow potatoes this year but I changed my mind at the last minute because I want to use all my buckets for tomatoes. Instead of a bucket, I reused the tops of the 18 gallon totes I made SIPs out of two years ago. Last year I used these tops as mini-raised beds that held cherry tomato plants. They worked great for that. This year, however, I decided to try them as potato containers. This is how they will stack by the end of the season:

Right now however, I only need the bottom part:

Last, I put together the 8x4 bed that I bought at Sam's and filled it with compost-amended soil. I planted Apache salad onions, Arugula, red cabbage, spinach, broccoli, and mesclun.

Next, tackle the fruit trees.

Emergency Post

2010-03-23T10:49:00.003-05:00

Due to bad weather conditions in their wintering sites in Mexico, the Monarch butterfly population has declined dramatically.To learn more, head over to MonachWatch. Meanwhile, maybe you could plant some Milkweed (Asclepias) for the Monarch caterpillar to feed on as they migrate north.

Pass it on.

Tomato Food

2010-03-22T16:14:00.005-05:00

Thus far, I have learned that you can put the following things in the hole before you put your tomato plant in the ground:

Fish heads
Aspirin
Garlic
Banana peels

All these things, when decomposed by the beasties in the dirt, give nutrients to the tomato plant. Actually, you could probably put these things under any plant as the nutrients provided are useful to all plants.

I think the important thing is to break down the stuff into small bits so that the decomposition process happens faster.

You can also add these items to your compost pile/barrel (although probably not the aspirin).

I wonder, however, if there are enough microorganisms in potting soil to breakdown these things in a container...mmmmm....

Briefly, this is what each thing does;

Bananas add Potassium, Calcium, Nitrogen and Manganese.
Aspirin works to protect the plant from some diseases and pests.
Garlic does the same as the aspirin.
Fish heads provide calcium and nitrogen.

Sure, you can just buy something at the store in convenient powder or liquid form but then, what would be the fun on that?

Newspaper pot redux

2010-03-15T21:50:00.008-05:00

My estranged friend Tim seemed to think that my newspaper pots lacked pizazz and he sent me to this website to learn how to make a proper newspaper pot. The blog --www.noordinaryhomestead.com has both a video and a series of photos detailing the construction of an origami box that can be used as a pot for growing plants.
I watched the video several times until I got it. Once I understood the instructions and once I practiced a little, making an origami box was fun and easy.
Advantages of the origami box over the regular newspaper pot are:

You can fold the origami box and store it easily for later use. I can probably store 100's of these in a small box or bundle them with a rubber band and store them in a drawer somewhere.
The origami box is sturdier.
You don't need anything other than your hands to make them.
You can make different sizes of origami boxes by simply changing the size of the paper with which you start.

Sure, it takes a little longer to make an origami box but then again, with just a little practice, I was able to make an origami box in about 30 seconds.

A) My regular newspaper pot made by wrapping newspaper around a pill bottle.

B) The origami box made with a piece of paper 8.5 inches by 11 inches (21.6 cm x 27.9 cm)

It is too late for me to use the newspaper pots for my seedlings this year. By the time I remembered that I wanted to use newspaper pots I had already purchased my bamboo pots and my coir pellets for the season. Still, I will make many of these throughout the year in preparation for next year. Heck, maybe I will eventually be able to grow my veggies inexpensively!

Newspaper pots

2010-03-12T21:04:00.006-06:00

This is the first time I make newspaper pots for sowing seeds indoors.
I took a pill bottle and wrapped newspaper around it and folded the bottom over. I had a bit of trouble keeping the pots from coming undone but at the end I had something resembling a working pot to sow my seeds in. I will fill them with coir.

Like I said, keeping the bottom from coming undone was the tricky part. I did not want to use anything else besides newspaper so I am relying on friction to hold the thing together.

I will try a few and see how I do. If they work well, I will try to figure out a better way to make them.

I also took the cardboard tube from a spent paper towel roll and cut it into sections. I am trying a couple right now to see how they hold up.

WINTER SOWING
I checked my Winter Sowing experiment and the seeds have not sprouted yet.

DOG DAMAGE
Yep, my dog Lexie jumped the fence and dug up all my peas. Time to change the fence and re-sow the peas.

The Bridge

2010-03-09T15:53:00.001-06:00

I am always in awe of what plants do. Here is a little poem along these lines:

The Bridge

I ate the fruit

I saved the seed

I put it in the ground

and day by day

with sun and rain

a bridge has dared

to bring together

Heaven and Earth.

Potatoes and Ollas revisited

2010-03-07T15:15:00.013-06:00

So last year I tried growing potatoes in trash bags with marginal success. My mistakes were:

The bags I used were too big.
The bags lacked structure which made it difficult to add more soil as the plants grew.
I did not provide adequate drainage.

Still, the poor potato plants tried their best and at the end I did get a few potatoes. I did much better with the tubs. The only problem I had with the tubs was that when I tipped them to harvest the potatoes, the tubs broke.
So, this year I gave in to marketing and purchased two factory-made potato bags. These bags are 18 inches (45.72 cm) high and 14 inches (35.56 cm) in diameter. I planted two varieties of potato today --Yukon Gold and Purple Majesty.

I have been told that the first week of March is too early to plant potatoes but I have planted potatoes this early before and it has worked well for me.
As a test, I will also plant potatoes in:

The empty garden soil bag. I'll cut it to match the dimensions of the store-bought bags.
A 5 gallon (18.925 liter) bucket.

OLLAS
I really want to try the Olla (clay bottle) method of watering my plants but Ollas are rare to non-existent around here. So I took a pottery class last year in an effort to make my own but it turns out that making clay bottles is an advanced skill so I never made any. I am now considering going to one of the many pottery shops around here and paying someone to make them for me.
Olla watering is a very old method of watering allegedly brought to the Americas by the Spaniards. You bury a clay bottle near your plants with the mouth of the bottle exposed (for refilling the water) and the roots will obtain the moisture they need from the water that seeps through the porous clay. We'll see.

Stay tuned...

The Long List

2010-03-05T21:48:00.004-06:00

Thus far, here's what I have sowed:

* = germinated, seedling up

TOMATOES:

First Batch

Cherokee Purple *

Pineapple *

Brandywine *

Maskotka *

Arkansas Traveler *

Urbikany *

Amateur's Dream *

Yellow Pear *

Perestroika *

Black Russian *

Galina *

Market Miracle *

Jubilee *

Red Cherry *

Juliet Hybrid *

Siberian *

Black Krim *

Supersweet 100 VF, Hybrid - has not germinated. packet says up to 21 days!

Polish Linguisa *

Second Batch

Silvery Fir Tree

Otradny

Prairie Fire

De Barrao II

Stupice

Grushkova

Aurora

Moscow

Odessa

Nepal

Kotlas (a.k.a Sprint)

Gregory's Altai

Big Rainbow *

Abe Lincoln

Box Car Willie *

Great White

To be planted tomorrow

Valencia

Oregon Spring

Zaryanka Sunrise

Sub Artic Plenty

Sungold F1 Hybrid

Tigerella (a.k.a. Mr. Stripey)

Taxi

San Marzano

PEPPERS:

First batch

Sunbright *

Jalapeño Tam *

Jalapeño M *

California Wonder *

Mini Bell mixed *

Hungarian Yellow Wax *

Chiltepin - not up yet. Trying again although I have overwintered last year's plant

Anaheim *

Red Bell *

Habanero *

Serrano *

Quadrato D'Asti Rosso *

Long Thin Cayenne *

Ancho Magnifico *

Chichimeca *

Early Jalapeño *

Iberian Cayenne - not germinated yet

Second batch

Sweet Chocolate

Grandpa's Home Pepper

Early Mountain Wonder

I also planted a number of gourds including

Apple small

Tiny Bottle

Corsican

Apple Large

Nest

Long Handle

I see now that it was foolish to start the gourds inside as they are growing quite fast and maybe root bound by the time I can put them outside but the heart wants what the heart wants...

My Spring garden will be planted tomorrow, weather permitting. This year I am trying

Cauliflower

Broccoli

Cabbage

Lettuce

Spinach

Arugula

Onions (bunching)

Chives

Carrots

Radish

Mustard Greens

Potatoes (Yukon Gold, Purple Majesty thus far)

As to where I am going to put all those tomato plants (2 per variety), I am not quite sure yet. I have began a campaign to borrow unused yards but I hope I have enough 5 gallon buckets to accommodate most of them. I will begin building The Cage tomorrow as well.

Stay tuned...

Winter Sowing part dos

2010-03-04T13:15:00.009-06:00

Before Winter is over, I need to retry this Winter-sow thing.

Here it goes:

Procure a plastic container with enough room for a seedling. In this case an empty milk jug but an empty 2 litter bottle will work as well.

Take the cap off.

Cut or perforate draining holes at the bottom of the jug.

Cut open a flap on one side of the jug and make sure you leave it attached to the jug. This opening will allow you to put the soil or seed starting media of your choice into the jug --about 3 inches of it or so.

Please BE VERY, VERY CAREFUL when cutting the flap!!!!

I use scissors but I am NOT advocating any one method. If you use your extra-sharp, family heirloom scissors that your great-grandmother used to cut your grandma's wedding dress and you ruin them by using them to cut into a plastic jug, don't blame me.

By the way, if you have a coffee cup with an unglazed bottom, it is alleged that you can sharpen knives and scissors on said unglazed bottom. But I digress...

Add soil in the jug and pour water to moisten it. Sow your seeds as you normally would in the garden and tape the flap shut. You can also make small holes on the jug and the flap to tie the flap shut with a wire tie or rope.

Place the jug where it can get sun and moisture via rain or snow. That's it!

The seed should germinate when the conditions inside the jug are optimal.

Here is my jug with Oregon Spring Heirloom tomato seeds therein:

Why do this? For me, if this works, the benefits are:

I don't have to take room inside the house for seedlings.
I don't have to bother with heating mats or grow lights.
I don't have to babysit the seedlings.
I don't have to worry about hardening the seedlings.

Our last frost date is still over a month away so this test is still valid. I will post weekly progress reports. I have seen pictures of plastic jugs and bottles covered in snow and reportedly, the seeds germinated just fine when the time came.

ANOTHER FUN THING TO DO WITH EMPTY MILK JUGS

The plant tags they sell at the store are too big to id seedlings once I put them under lights. I like to put the grow light within 2 inches of the seedling and I was running into trouble with the plant tags being a tad too high. The solution of course, was to make my own tags out of empty milk jugs.

First I drew patterns on a piece of plastic cut from the jug:

Then, I used my cheap scissors and cut the patterns out. Voila! instant plastic plant tags just the right size!

SEEDLING UPDATE

So far, out of the first batch of seeds, I only had two plants not germinate yet: SuperSweet 100 cherry tomato and Iberian Cayenne. I will give them until Sunday and if they have not germinated by then I will consider them a fail and re-sow.

I started a new batch of tomato and pepper seeds two days ago and I will be starting more tomorrow, time permitting.

The coir seems to be working great as a starter medium. I still have some peat pellets from last year so I'll use them but I think this will be the last year I'll use them.

Stuff

2010-02-24T10:51:00.005-06:00

I went through my blog all the way to the first postings of last year and boy! is it different this year!
Last year by this time, we were seeing temperatures in the high 40's. Today's high is expected to be in the high 30's.

I sowed my first batch of seeds this past Sunday --February 21.

I am a tiny bit more knowledgeable about my veggies this year than I was last year by this time.

My dog is one year older and a tiny bit less spastic, although she still eats anything I put outside whether it was meant to be eaten or not.

I have most of what I need for the garden already so I can concentrate on growing things and not on growing my inventory of gardening tools.

And most importantly, I am more confident in my ability to make my veggies grow and fruit.

It was nice to look at some of the photos in my blog from last year and see what all this work is all about. There will be tomatoes, there will be peppers. Also, it was good to read about all the headaches I suffered last year to bring me down from my pre-season gardening cloud. Blame this ignorant bliss on the seed catalogs. Right now, before any plants are growing, all I have are the beautiful pictures of the vegetables and flowers grown by some mystical Master Gardener at Thompson & Morgan, or other such magical place. Surely they don't ever have to contend with raging winds, driving rain, murderous hail, uninvited hungry beasties of wing or fur and all manner of crawling critters.
No matter. I will do this again this year.

SEED SOURCES
I buy my seed locally anywhere they sell it. On the web, I buy from 2 or 3 places. This year I ordered seeds from:

Thompson & Morgan
Seeds Trust
Reimer Seeds

Locally, I bought seeds from:

Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds
Ferry-Morse
Plantation Products (American Seed and NK Lawn and Garden)

Last, I actually saved seeds from last year although only from a couple of pepper plants.

SEEDLING UPDATE
My Tomatillo Mexican Husk sprouted yesterday, Tuesday February 23, two days after sowing!
Also, one of my gourd plants germinated as well. I moved them under lights.
This morning, I had a number of Siberian tomatoes starting to come up.

Let's do this!

And we're off!

2010-02-22T16:40:00.006-06:00

I have officially began my 2010 growing season! I sowed multiple varieties of tomatoes and peppers inside. This year I am not using peat at all so I have switched to coir (coconut fiber). My local Lowe's even had starting pots made from bamboo. So I am off to a good start. This is my 2010 plan:

A) Grow stuff.
B) Eat it

Seriously though, I read on the web about Winter Sowing and I thought it was an interesting idea. Winter Sowing is exactly that, sowing your seeds during winter. In a nutshell, you put your seeds in a plastic container like a milk jug or a plastic 2 litter bottle with some growing soil (a mini green house) and set the container outside. The seed will sprout when it is ready and the seedling will be hardened.
So I procured three plastic milk jugs, put soil in them, followed the instructions, put some tomato seeds in the jugs and with a heart full of hope I set them outside for the process to take its place. Ah! but it's never that simple! Sometime between the process taking place and lunch, a certain destructive puppy jumped the chicken wire fence (she is way bigger this year and I am sure it took her no effort) and ate all three jugs thus ending this Winter Sowing trial. Alas, what is a gardener if not a hardened soul prepared to deal with weather and dogs and whatever else comes? I already have prepared the second set of jugs and will be putting them out at a more secure location but before I do that I need to take pictures of the whole affair.

The other major thing I am planning is to attempt a Spring garden. I tried growing broccoli and cauliflower and carrots and peas before but I started them too late. So this year, I am sowing all that good stuff much earlier --peas no later than St. Patrick's they tell me. So we'll see.

I also promise more pictures this year.

The Return Of The Blog

2009-11-17T16:26:00.002-06:00

I looked outside today and saw the decaying state of my vegetable garden. I harvested the last of my vegetables last week. I even harvested a Black Russian tomato that was so good it made me get all excited about this coming Spring.
I brought in one pepper plant; the Chiltepin plant. I hope I can overwinter it successfully. I will be pruning it back this week and I plan on moving it to a bigger pot --it's in a 4 gallon bucket right now. Hopefully this won't kill it.
This coming Spring I think I will only plant on 5 gallon buckets. I go back and forth on this since the tomato plants that were in the ground did better than the ones in containers, but, as it is evident right now, getting the vegetable garden ready for next year is a lot easier if all I have to do is empty the buckets, wash them, and store them away. Who knows what my final decision will be!
One thing I know for sure; I won't start my seeds in January like I did this year. I will wait until the end of February before I put any seeds into any dirt.
Come on Spring!!!!

Tiger Lilly burning bright

2009-07-21T19:53:00.002-05:00

This Tiger Lilly grows by the front door. It's blooms every year. First one, then two, and this year, three. The plant produces bulblets that grow at the base of each leaf. I took some this year and put them in dirt. Hopefully I get some new plants that I can put somewhere in the back yard. These bulbs were planted over 10 years ago. They were planted by the original owners of this house. The plants are in a very bad spot and they still grow.

Summer continues its assault on my time. I do get to the garden but not as often as I'd like. I have harvested much and enjoyed all of it. My Sugar Baby watermelons are sweeter than ever and my Minnesota Midget canteloupes are pretty darn good too. I have eaten my fill of tomatoes, squash, peppers and now, the cucumbers began to mature. I have learned lots of stuff this season!

The return of the pollinators

2009-07-13T16:56:00.002-05:00

I went to harvest Galina tomatoes (cherry type, yellow, low acidity) for my dinner a couple of evenings ago and found myself immersed in a sea of buzzing creatures busily going about their business and pollinating all the blooms while they were at it. Hundreds of wild beasties hovered about me and not a single one attacked me. Lots of small wild bees and other bee-like creatures formed a surreal cloud of life and it gladdened my heart that my garden, imperfect as it is, allows them to feed and live their short but so important lives.

Over and out.

Lessons learned

2009-07-13T16:23:00.002-05:00

With Summer well upon us, I find myself with precious little time to blog. This deficiency however, does not mean that things are quiet in the garden. Oh no! Early June brought a list of bad news and new lessons to this semi-novice grower of plants.

First, the garden I had planned and the garden that came into being are two very different enterprises. The advent of my new dog forced me to change my plans midstream and to direct my efforts to mostly futile attempts to keep my puppy from destroying all growing things.
With that said, I allowed grass to grow in my onion and garlic bed which caused poor ventilation conditions. I believe this is the reason why my onions developed what I believe to be Fusarium Basal Rot. I should have taken pictures but I did not so all I can do is describe what happened to my onions. All the onions with the exposed tops appeared to have been eaten from outside in leaving hollow bulbs for me to harvest.

I will blame the grass for competing with the garlic for moisture which resulted in very small garlic bulbs.

The last thing that happened to my onions and garlic was an unintended assault by my puppy Lexie. In her efforts to get a squirrel inside the fenced area, she ran at bullet speed (witnessed by my stay-at-home neighbor)and jumped the fence landing squarely on the garlic and onions, leaving a definite dog-shaped crater in the middle of it.

So I find myself planning next year's vegetable operation already while I harvest peppers, tomatoes, butternut squash, and cucumbers.

Oh, and the weather has been hot and humid leading to blight on a couple of my tomatoes (not my hanging tomatoes which are healthy as a horse though a bit small)

I hope to return to blogging regularly with pictures.

Over and out.

Asiatic Lilly?

2009-06-26T12:06:00.007-05:00

My neighbour gave me this plant this Spring and this is what it looks like when it blooms. My sister-in-law says that it looks like an Asiatic Lilly. This flower is so beautiful that it looks fake.
The real kicker is that it spreads like a weed. My neighbour thought these were dead so she discarded them in her yard only to find them thriving later. She dug them up and gave them to me.

And here is a bit of a mystery: I don't believe this to be Blossom End Rot because all the tomato plants were planted on the exact same soil and none of the other tomato plants are exhibiting this problem. Unless, of course, that Perestroika tomatoes have a higher need for calcium. This plant is growing in a self-watering bucket so as an experiment, I stopped filling the reservoir and began watering the plant from the top. I may be imagining things but the new tomatoes seem to be less affected by this. I will try to add lime to it tomorrow to see if the problem disappears altogether.

In other news, it's been in the 100's for the past week or so and it promises to be the same for the foreseeable future. My melon bed has grown Jurasically and the Sugar Baby vines, which are supposed to be 3-4 feet long are now close to 7 feet long! I have baby watermelon and canteloupe.
I harvested my first tub of potatoes. I got about 5 pounds out of it. Not bad.

Over and out.

First ripe tomato

2009-06-17T15:13:00.002-05:00

The first ripe tomato of the season was picked this morning and quickly consumed. The winner is the Galina Tomato (yellow cherry type). The flavor was mild.

Second place goes to the Amateur's Dream. I picked the tomato even though it was not 100% ripe. If I was to guess, I would say that it was 85% ripe; red with no green areas although the red was not deep. I picked it because I am going out of town for a couple of days and I did not want to miss on the first red tomato of the season (really, my wife would just let it sit there, at the mercy of bug and bird!)

Sorry there are no pictures to go with this as I picked these early in the morning as I was rushing to go to work.

Over and out.

The importance of persistence.

2009-06-11T13:53:00.005-05:00

Persistence. As humans, we need it badly. We live in a universe in flux and if we want to succeed we need to keep trying.

This is the year when I decided to jump on the re-use wagon. Mind you, I was already reusing some stuff, like my empty plastic soda bottles; but this year, I decided to do more. With that in mind, I began to collect 4 and 5 gallon buckets for my sub-irrigated containers, I scavenged for wooden pallets, and I began to think of new ways to use other stuff.
Then I ran into Peter from Wichita Rain Barrels at the Wichita Garden Show and this encounter expanded my ideas on reuse.
I originally set out to buy a rain barrel from Peter but then I decided to learn how to make one.
So I need a 55 gallon plastic barrel.

This is where the persistence comes in.

I called the local Coca-Cola bottler and they told me they only give their plastic barrels to the State of Kansas. Next I called the local Pepsi bottler; they told me to come and get one or two if they were available. I've made two trips out there (they won't tell me over the phone if they have any barrels available) to no avail. Apparently, demand for the barrels has increased dramatically. "Check with us later" the guard at the guard gate told me. And I will.

The same thing happened with the 5 gallon buckets. At first, I tried and tried and no restaurant in town would give me any buckets. I kept at it until I found a restaurant that would. Now, every two weeks or so, I go and have lunch there and come out with a few buckets in hand.

I am also trying to locate a steady supply of wooden pallets. I have gotten some here and there but I will continue to look for a place where I can get them steadily. You will be surprised how many companies pay to dispose of them.

Then there's Craiglist. I know serial killers lurk in there but there are so many cool things you can get for free!

So remember; if at first you can't get what you need for your gardening needs for free; Persist.

Over and out.

A definite lack of pollinators

2009-06-10T10:36:00.003-05:00

Where are my pollinators? I have yet to see a bee in my garden. In years past, I've had to contend with bees, wild and otherwise, wasps, yellow-jackets, bumblebees, and a number of other winged creatures that are fond of exploring the inside of a flower.
This year? Only flies and mosquitoes.

Yesterday, for the first time, I saw a wasp exploring around the lettuce and a butterfly was hovering around the blackberry bush. That's it!

One of my neighbors has a HUGE honeysuckle bush that attracts all kinds of living things but this year I haven't seen any.

So the mystery is: What's pollinating all my veggies? Is it possible that all the fruit in my plants is the result of wind pollination?

Only the Shadow knows....

Over and out.

Tamarind

2009-06-08T20:03:00.009-05:00

I love Tamarind pods. They are sweet and sour and I ate them often as a boy. Tamarind trees grew large in the hot sun of the Sonoran desert. A couple of years ago, I ate some pods that I bought at the store and threw the seeds into a flower pot. Some months later, I was surprised to find baby tamarind trees growing in the pots.
I've managed to keep them alive in the hopes that they will grow in a container and maybe, just maybe, give me a pod or two. Here's one of them in a pot outside loving this 90 degree weather:

Here is a picture of my only Mini-Bell bell pepper plant. I originally grew a number of these from seed but I lost all of them except for this one. Next year I won't be so careless. This picture doesn't really show the number of peppers growing on this plant.

I have baby Brandywines! Last year, I did not stake my Brandywine plants properly and I came home one day after a storm to find them broken in half. I don't remember now if I even got to eat one Brandywine tomato last year.

Here's a picture of one of my Galina tomato plants. For some reason I have 4 of these plants. I hope the tomatoes are tasty.

My melon bed got wiped out early in the Spring during all the rain we got. I replanted Sugar Baby watermelon, both Red and Yellow and Minnesota Midget cantaloupe. They are doing ok so far. Some of them even have blooms.

I continue to have trouble growing radishes to full size. This is as big as they get for me. A lot of them never grew a bulb. I've heard several theories regarding this. I will keep on trying though because I love radishes.

I checked on my rain barrels and I have two full barrels (95 gallons). Cool.

Over and out.

2 minutes of rain

2009-06-08T13:33:00.002-05:00

Last night a thunderstorm dropped a kazillion gallons of rain in about 2 minutes and some of it managed to get into my rain barrels (yeah baby!). Right before the deluge, we got a sprinkling of pea-sized hail which sent me like a mad man into the lightning to move some of the tomato plants under the covered porch in the back of the house.

My two dogs looked at me as if I was crazy, which I was. The puppy was scared of the thunder and lightning but my old dog Bo, has seen plenty of storms and he was more interested to see if I was running out into the yard with treats in hand.

Luckily, the hail was a dud and after the super strong gale of wind that knocked power out in parts of the city and broke many tree branches, there followed a gentle rain, the kind that soaks into the ground to the merriment of plant and gardener alike.

What kind of life do people who don't garden live? Believe you me, I am beginning to develop a deep vocabulary regarding weather much like the Inuit's many names for snow. I swear to you that my sense of smell can now detect things that only dogs were privy to before. Oh, I am no superman but hanging around plants, and bugs, and air, and sun, I am becoming part of an ancient club; a club we left a long time ago but which beckon us to come back.

By the way, the Mini Bell pepper plant is LOADED with peppers. I'm just too happy for words when I find a plant like that. It surely will be planted in my garden for years to come.

Over and out.

As organic as it gets

2009-06-06T20:48:00.009-05:00

Those commercial farmers that spray pesticides never have to see the enemy in the eye like I did today. For the second time, bugs have attacked one of my tomato plants. Again, they went for one of the weaker plants. Last time, I sprayed some pepper wax spray that worked. This time however, I, with blood-shot eye and with rage in my heart, crushed the spider mites and the aphids and the ants with my bare hands; and the last thing those poor creatures heard was me muttering something about sending them to the deepest hole in hell.
Yep, it doesn't get any more organic than that.

But enough about violent gardening acts and on to some pretties:

Behold this beauty. Until today, I was claiming that this was the Amateur's Dream plant. However, this plant is not growing like an indeterminate tomato but rather it is behaving more like a determinate; in which case, I may have put the wrong label on it. This one could be the Market Miracle plant. At any rate, it has been my best tomato plant this season.

And here is the lone Jet Star tomato. The Jet Star plant is growing on the Topsey Turvy hanging planter. I sure hope this plant produces more fruit so that this tomato doesn't cost me $30 dollars! This tomato is now 1 month old. I thought for sure it would have ripened by now.

These are tomatoes from the Urbikany plant. All my Siberian tomatoes are doing well. Next season I hope to plant more of them.

This is the Perestroika tomato:

Last but not least is my Anaheim pepper (only one so far):

I finally dug all the volunteer tomato plants growing in the melon bed. It was a tough decision but the melons are now getting plenty of sun and they don't have to fight for the moisture. I also dug up all the carrots. I had to concede that they did not have enough depth to grow properly. Still, they are delicious at 3 inches long.
I have lost hope for my garlic and onions. Some of the onions went to bloom already and my garlic looks weak.
My black beans look sad as well as do my peas. My green beans however, are doing really well.
I have about twenty strawberries in two plants and my blackberry bush has lots of blackberries.
Now if I could only get some decent rain!

Over and out.

Rain!

2009-06-03T08:45:00.003-05:00

We finally got a little bit of rain yesterday and today the sky looks promising for some more of the wet stuff.

It's been in the high 80's to mid 90's around here with full sun for a couple of weeks and now my lettuce has bolted and some of my onions are blooming.

And while in the subject of rain, the people in Colorado are apparently reconsidering their ban on collecting rain water. What!? (you may exclaim). Yep,
it is considered stealing in Colorado, what, with all the water politics out West.
Our own rain barrel maker here in Wichita keeps making it in the news because rain water collecting is taking off like a rocket along with gardening and raising your own food.

Now, I called one of the local soda pop bottlers in town to ask if I could get a couple of 55 gallon drums where the soda syrup comes in and I was informed by a very friendly lady there that the State of Kansas is collecting the drums for a state-wide rain barrel project. Mmmmm... I immediately went to the State's web site but all my search efforts turned nothing about this. I guess I'll just have to wait.

Over and out.

Don't know when to shut up

2009-05-31T17:34:00.004-05:00

DEFINITIONS:
Community garden. A shared space where a group of people decide to grow plants together. As a group, they decide what to grow and how to grow it and then everybody works toward making it happen. There are no individual plots in this scenario. I've have seen this work, season after season, successfully in a community garden here in Wichita.

Garden Club: For lack of a better description, I call this a garden club. This is a large(ish) piece of land, owned or leased by an organization whereas a person can rent a plot to grow whatever his/her heart desires. Generally there are some rules about what to grow (no marijuana, for example) but mostly, the renter of the plot can do as he/she pleases.

In recent discussions in the blogosphere, these two seem to have gotten mixed up. Someone in another blog suggested that in the good ol' US of A we don't know what a Community Garden really is. The problem is that in the US we call Garden Clubs Community Gardens. Because of this confusion, folks were all up in arms about the idea that someone would tell them what to grow.
In a true Community Garden, there are no individual plots.
Now in England, and maybe Australia, people get Allotments. I don't know that we use that term here but we should.
This would eliminate the confusion.
Like I said. Here in Wichita, I know of one Community Garden that is truly a community garden worked by people in the neighborhood. I drive by it and it seems to work fine.
Then, we have at least one Garden Club where one can rent a plot. It's not really a Community Garden but rather people who gather together to do what they love which is to grow stuff.
I would love to belong to a Garden Club and have my own plot and in fact I may do just that soon, if there are any plots open. I have a big yard but the plot in the Garden Club would be away from curious dogs and children and unencumbered by tall mature trees that shade everything.
I would also LOVE to belong to a Community Garden where I could work shoulder to shoulder with other like-minded people to bring in a harvest that we could all share.
When it comes to these two gardening options, I see them as offering different benefits. In one, I can grow my stuff in my lot and not ever have to interact with another human being (after I pay my dues that is) in the other, I am forced to talk and cooperate with other people.

Over and out.

updates

2009-05-30T15:48:00.004-05:00

It is May 30 and the thermometer reads 95 degrees. The sun is fully out and here's the status of my plants.

The Amateur's Dream tomato has 10 medium sizes tomatoes. It is by far the best tomato plant in my operation.

The Urbikany tomato has 4 medium sized tomatoes.

The Galina plants all have cherry tomatoes.

The strawberry plants all have strawberries.

Every tomato sucker I planted has rooted and all are doing quite well.

The weakest and smallest of my Black Russian tomatoes has been attacked (viciously) by spider mites and other nasties. I sprayed a hot wax pepper spray on it and that killed 99% of the attackers.

The flowers on one of my potato tubs died about 1.5 week ago.

And, by far, the best watering technique is the cloth wick system. In terms of simplicity, this technique beats all others. Today, the wick is still moist in spite of 80+ temps all week with full sun. The soil is moist but not soggy. The original wick pot dried out but that one has a very narrow cloth wick.

Of the self-watering containers, the 18 gallon totes are doing the best, followed by the 5 gallon buckets. The 4 gallon buckets are requiring water every day. In their defense, the 4 gallon buckets have the largest plants, loaded with fruit.

My onions and garlic seemed to have stopped growing.

My beans and peas are in desperate need of some kind watering solution. I am working on the D.R.I.P. system (Diminished Rate Irrigation Process).
Ok the name is supposed to be a joke but the method is as serious as a heart attack.

The peppers on the ground have refused to grow but the ones in the containers are doing ok.

Corn, squash, zuchini, melons, carrots, lettuce, sunflowers are all doing as expected.

Over and out.

P.S. It's HOT!!!!

I am feeling hot hot hot

2009-05-24T12:47:00.008-05:00

It's been 80+ for the last few days and my new wick-watering experiment is a total success. I planted a couple of Marygolds in a pot and this time I put a much wider wick connected to a bigger water container -a plastic milk gallon jug. Not only has the wick stayed wet during the very hot, very sunny days, but the soil is moist throughout. Now, there is one itsy, bitsy issue with this method of watering and that is it's sheer ugliness. So, I don't imagine that it is going to take with the population at large but for growing vegetables such as squash, or maybe a cucumber plant, this method should work great.

My Amateur's Dream tomato plant continues to outperform all the others with the Urbikany coming a close second. The Amateur's Dream is loaded with tomatoes. The fruit is a medium sized, red tomato. I can't wait to taste it!

The first pepper plant to produce this year is my Mini-Bell. These are supposed to be miniature bell peppers. All my pepper plants decided to start growing this week. They were small for the longest time. Here's the first pepper of the season:

I love my volunteer plants this year. This is the first year I've had any volunteer vegetables.
First I saw what appears to be a cucurbitas of some kind. I grew Sugar Baby watermelon here last year so this could be a watermelon. I also grew cucumbers here so it could be a cucumber as well.

Then, all of a sudden, this tomato plant just appeared! I swear I did not see it 2 days ago. I grew Galina cherry tomatoes and Black Russian tomatoes here last year so it could be either of those.

I ate my first lettuce of the season. It was a Thumb Tom and it was delicious. A squirrel dug up all my second batch of radishes. I have a third batch doing well in a container so I am ok.
I planted my sweet corn in a spot that doesn't get full sun all day and they are leaning a bit. I will leave them be to see what happens.
My puppy chewed on my new rain barrel and spilled all my rain water. So now I have two barrels I have to fix. We are supposed to get rain tomorrow so hopefully I will refill them.

Over and out.

A short poem

2009-05-21T08:09:00.005-05:00

Gratitude To A Vegetable Plant

Thank you,
for speaking to the elements
on my behalf.
Thank you for reaching deep
and reaching high;
that through your efforts
I may bite
into the soil and the sky.

© 2009 David Borboa

Out of Phosphorous?

2009-05-19T08:18:00.003-05:00

The June 2009 issue of the Scientific American magazine has an interesting article of some relevance to those of us who grow plants. The article by David A. Vaccari explores our present situation regarding this very important mineral and raises the idea that we may face a shortage of phosphorous in the next few decades.
As with many debates of this type --running out of stuff, that is, there are two sides to the story. Whereas Mr. Vaccari contends that the economically extractable phosphorous is running out, others believe that we have plenty.

Phosphorous is the middle of those three numbers on every bag of fertilizer. You've seen it: 5-5-1 or N-P-K (Nitrogen-Phosphorous-Potassium). Commercial growers depend on it to grow the huge amounts of food it takes to feed our ever-growing human population.

Mr. Vaccari explores the various scenarios that contribute to this coming shortage, including how we have disrupted the Phosphorous renewal cycle. What Mr. Vaccari doesn't mention is the effect vegetable gardens may have on the demand for food on commercial growers. What would happen if, for example, 30% of Americans grew their own vegetables on their yards? What would happen if 30% of the world grew their own vegetables using sustainable methods?
By the way, I chose 30% based on the fact that when I drive around my neighborhood, only about two out of every ten houses has vegetables growing in their backyards (where I can see anyway). I figured, hugely un-scientifically, that 20% of my neighbors grow veggies, so I just increased that by 10%. I would be interested to find out how wrong I am.
And what about small farms that can supply food locally?

This article cemented my commitment to growing my own food using sustainable methods. I will continue to explore the possibility to grow vegetables all year round using cold-frames and green houses.

Over and out.

2nd Aspirin spray plus updates

2009-05-18T14:17:00.004-05:00

Today I did the second Aspirin spray on all vegetable plants plus the fruit trees and the berry bushes. It wasn't quite 3 weeks yet but I figured since we had so much rain I better spray in hopes of forestalling any fungus episodes. For more info on this experiment, see here.

The watering through a wick experiment --see here, seems to be a success. The wick has not dried and the soil is moist even after a number of hot, sunny days. the surface of the pot has dried but the subsurface is moist. Now I need a plant growing in there to stress the system. So far, none of the herbs I planted in that container has sprouted.

And speaking of watering, something has come to my attention that I had not been aware of. Apparently, a sub-irrigated container, aka a self-watering container (swc), may prove too much for a young seedling. Small tomato plants especially may fail to thrive if they are in a sub-irrigated container that is moist all the time. I have noticed this myself with the smallest seedlings; they just won't grow in these containers. The larger seedlings had no problem whatsoever and turned into full plants and are now producing fruit (yeah!). I know of at least one post in a blog whose link I unfortunately lost, where this problem was reported. That case involved a self-watering container made with 2 liter bottles. I personally think the swc was constructed incorrectly but I can't prove it.

This next tip was reported a couple of years ago by someone else in a forum and I ignored it (typical!) at my own peril. It was advised to place a piece of garden fabric at the bottom of the sub-irrigated container to keep the roots of the tomato plant from reaching into the water reservoir (you place the fabric at the bottom of the bucket containing the soil).
The largest of my Brandywine tomato plants has already shot roots into the reservoir. When the plant does this, there is a danger of root rot and other things.
I have learned my lesson.

Last, I have an idea to fix my plastic watering spikes. The problem I am experiencing stems from the fact that last year I punched three wholes in them that were too large. The result of this is that the water seeps out too fast and the 2 liter bottle empties too quickly. I had hoped for a slow release of water that would allow me to water less often.
My proposed solution is to stuff garden fabric or an old cotton rag into the cone to slow down the flow of water. I will implement this later this afternoon and report on the results.

Over and out.

Tomato techniques

2009-05-15T09:29:00.006-05:00

If you don't want to stake or cage your tomatoes, here are some overlooked techniques for keeping them upright:

OLD SCHOOL
Hold them upright yourself:

NEW SCHOOL
Implant Adamantium skeleton:

SCHOOL OF BIG AG
Alter them genetically:

Various and sundry things

2009-05-14T13:30:00.006-05:00

My big potato plant has flowers now. I know it's way to soon for any potatoes so I don't know why it's flowering already. This is one of the potatoes that I started inside in a peat pot and that may be what people where talking about when they said that potatoes do not do well when started inside. The flowers are pretty though.

Update on the self-watering, wicking experiment. It's been 2 full days and the wick is still wet and although the soil is not dried, I am not confident that enough water is moving across the wick. I must say though, that the day before yesterday was hot, 80+ and sunny and the fact that the wick did not dry may be proof that indeed, there's plenty of water moving. I still think that a wider piece of cloth may deliver more water.
Interesting thing about capillary action. The reason water moves is that water molecules are attracted to water molecules and that is why both the wick and the soil must be wet when you first build a system like this, or when you build a self-watering container (or sub-irrigated container as I and other people preferred to call them). So the water molecules in the soil pull the water molecules on the wick which pull the water molecules from the bottle creating a flow. There are more things under heaven and earth that are dreamt of in our philosophies indeed!

Last, here is where I am on the road to Ollas (for slow-watering purposes)

I have taken 3 pottery classes now and I finally began to understand centering the clay and pulling the clay up into a tube. I say I began to understand, which is to say that I still have some ways to go before I can throw an Olla. I think next class, I will learn how to fire this cup and a couple of bowls that I've made.
Much like capillary action on water, learning how to throw pottery has attracted a desire to make my own potter's wheel since the ones I use at school cost about $1200 dlls.!!!!!!
I've seen several designs online for wheels and I just have to decide which one is simpler. Also, I want to build a kiln that uses wood because A) I am very scared of propane B) I want to fire my own stuff whenever I want to.

Over and Out.

Grow your own for your own good

2009-05-13T10:30:00.003-05:00

Here is a list of various fruits and vegetables graded according to their pesticide load.

Notice Peaches are at the very top. Have you ever tried to grow Peaches organically? Phew! If someday these darn late freezes stop killing all my blooms, I plan on bagging each Peach to try to get one or two not sampled by a legion of bugs.

Please visit http://www.foodnews.org/fulllist.php for more information. Meanwhile, by growing your own of the stuff listed here, you can be sure to control what you are eating.

RANK	FRUIT OR VEGGIE	SCORE
1 (worst)	Peach	100 (highest pesticide load)
2	Apple	93
3	Sweet Bell Pepper	83
4	Celery	82
5	Nectarine	81
6	Strawberries	80
7	Cherries	73
8	Kale	69
9	Lettuce	67
10	Grapes - Imported	66
11	Carrot	63
12	Pear	63
13	Collard Greens	60
14	Spinach	58
15	Potato	56
16	Green Beans	53
17	Summer Squash	53
18	Pepper	51
19	Cucumber	50
20	Raspberries	46
21	Grapes - Domestic	44
22	Plum	44
23	Orange	44
24	Cauliflower	39
25	Tangerine	37
26	Mushrooms	36
27	Banana	34
28	Winter Squash	34
29	Cantaloupe	33
30	Cranberries	33
31	Honeydew Melon	30
32	Grapefruit	29
33	Sweet Potato	29
34	Tomato	29
35	Broccoli	28
36	Watermelon	26
37	Papaya	20
38	Eggplant	20
39	Cabbage	17
40	Kiwi	13
41	Sweet Peas - Frozen	10
42	Asparagus	10
43	Mango	9
44	Pineapple	7
45	Sweet Corn - Frozen	2
46	Avocado	1
47 (best)	Onion	1 (lowest pesticide load)

Tomato question

2009-05-12T16:44:00.003-05:00

I just learned that determinate tomatoes fruit once and then they kind of stop. Obviously, to get fruit from determinate tomatoes all season long, we need to stagger their planting.

My question is; if I pinch a sucker off a determinate tomato, can I fool mother nature and get a plant that will fruit? Or will the tomato genes know that they are done fruiting for the season?

What if I do some extreme pruning? Will that allow me to coax another set of fruit from the plant?
Extreme pruning is just that, pruning the plant to the extreme. I read somewhere that a tomato only needs three leaves to live (that is leaves, not leaflets) and that by pruning extremely, all of the plant's energy goes into producing fruit.

Has anyone tried either one of these techniques?

Inquiring minds want to know!

I am off to pinch a determinate tomato plant's sucker.

Implementation

2009-05-11T21:38:00.011-05:00

2 liter bottle. Check.

Cloth scrap. Check.

3 dollar container from Dollar General (from last season). Check.

Add soil. Wet soil. Add wet cloth.

Cover with soil to the top of container. Wet soil. Insert other end of cloth into 2 liter bottle. Fill 2 liter bottle with water.

As I was finishing this project, it occurred to me that it would improve my chances of success if I made the wick (cloth) wider thus increasing the surface area to deliver water to the soil.

Also, to avoid growing algae in the water bottle, it would help to shield it from light somehow (duct tape perhaps)

I planted Dill, Oregano, and Spinach. I'll report on my progress.

Also, I was preparing a couple of sub-irrigated containers and I thought it would be useful to show what they look like before the dirt goes in.

This is my fill tube. I hope you can see the notch I made in one end. (I used my cell phone to take these pictures)

Finally, this is what it looks like before I add the dirt.

R&D

2009-05-11T13:14:00.007-05:00

I have been thinking about the best way to re-use 2 liter bottles to water my plants. Here's an idea:

Step 1: Take a standard 2 liter bottle.

Step 2: Take an empty 5 gallon bucket donated kindly by a local restaurant. Drill or punch drainage holes on the bottom.
Step 3: Take an old cotton t-shirt and cut a 1 - 2 inch wide x 1.5 foot swath from it. These measurements are totally arbitrary. Do what works for you.
Step 4: Fill 1/3 of the 5 gallon bucket with potting mix.

Step 5: Get the t-shirt scrap wet. Really wet.

Step 6: Lay one end of the t-shirt scrap inside the 5 gallon bucket on top of the potting mix. Add enough water to moisten the soil.

Step 7: Fill the rest of the bucket with potting soil and add water to wet the newly added soil. Put your plant in.

Step 8: Insert the other end of t-shirt scrap into 2 liter bottle and fill bottle with water.

I just thought of this when I awoke this morning. I haven't tried it but I think it will work.

The magic here is provided by capillary action. The water travels up the cotton fibers as water from the soil vanishes.

Our nemesis here is evaporation. We don't want the t-shirt scrap to dry. I think I could wrap the exposed fabric with a plastic grocery bag to keep it wet during the hot days of Summer.

Unknowns are: Will it work at all? Will the water wick fast enough for a big plant like a tomato?

Why:

Although the sub-irrigated container using two buckets works well, it uses two buckets and requires more drilling, cutting, and assembly. A new method that requires a minimum amount of cutting, drilling, and materials is nice.

Burying a bottle or olla in a container takes up precious space needed by the plant.

I apparently do not have enough to do.

I will implement this design and report on my progress.

herbs

2009-05-11T07:59:00.004-05:00

Yesterday, in the evening, I finally planted some herbs:

Cilantro
Rosemary
Fenugreek
Basil (Genovese)

I planted the Basil in the tomato sub-irrigated containers. This will not work if I don't keep the tomatoes neatly pruned.

I sowed more bush watermelon (Sugar Baby and Sugar Baby yellow). I hope these don't die like the others.

I also planted the Catalina flower (Torenia) in a nice partly shady spot. The flowers are blue/purple. I hope it takes.

I sowed the last of the seed of French Marygolds from last year. Last year they sprouted and grew large but did not bloom. I wonder if I waited too long.

I finally put a suggestion of a fence around the Hollyhock bed to see if my dogs get the hint.

The Black Beauty Zucchini and the Butternut squash are up. I love Butternut squash. I just slice it, saute it in olive oil with onion, garlic, and then I add some cheese. Yummmm.....

The Yellow Pear and the Golden Jubilee tomato plants have been up for a week now but are not getting bigger. They look healthy however.

Happy Mother's Day!

2009-05-10T10:43:00.010-05:00

All the mothers in my life woke up to, what else...rain. Sigh!

And if you bought your mom one of these upside-down tomato planters (hey, you never know, some moms may want one :-) ) here's something they don't tell you on the commercial: The tomato plant will want to grow UP.
This is a problem because, as the plant gets bigger and produces fruit, the weight of the tomatoes may break the plant. This was actually reported by some acquaintances of mine who tried this planter a couple of years ago. I don't know if this happens to all varieties of tomatoes. It is happening to the Jet Star growing in my upside-down planter. I think putting a bamboo stake and training the plant when it is young may solve the problem.

The tomatoes in my containers are finally getting taller. I thought they may not grow anymore since I started them so early and left them in their small pots for so long but they are showing vertical growth at last. Some of them are bearing fruit now.

Because of all the rain we've gotten lately, I am growing small mushroom forests on some of my containers:

The Tom Thumb and Tin Tin lettuce are doing ok in the square-foot-gardening beds

And look at the pretty squash flower! This plant won't survive unfortunately as it has been attacked by some borer. I would show you the beast but I sliced it when I extracted it from the stem of the plant and it just looked like goo afterward. I may have killed the plant as well, although the leaves are not droopy anymore.

Flower six packs were on sale so I picked a few.

The largest of my potato plants is budding. I can't imagine that there are potatoes in there already so I am going to let it sit for a while longer.

Here is my 3 year old at breakfast. Later, he will go and dig in the yard for the sheer pleasure of it and I will dig alongside him (for the sheer pleasure of it).
My 5 year old was unavailable for a photo shoot.
Also, the sweet corn is as high as a cricket's eye, the giant sunflowers are all up, the giant kale has sprouted, black bean seedlings are making their appearance as are the sweet peas. I planted green beans and more radishes. I harvested and ate all my radishes except for a few that just did not grow.

Ruminations on sub-irrigated containers

2009-05-08T13:40:00.014-05:00

Now that I've made a few sub-irrigated containers (SIC) and planted a few plants in them, I have a few opinions:

Sub-irrigated containers or Self watering pots are called so because you fill their reservoir with water and the plants get the water from this reservoir as they need it. Actually, water moves from the reservoir up through the soil to the plant's roots although it is not uncommon for the plant to shoot the roots all way down into the reservoir.

I don't like making and using SICs from 18 gallon totes.

For one thing, they are harder to make, at least when compared to the SICs made from 5 gallon buckets.
For another, the totes that I can get from Target, Dollar Store, etc, are not UltraViolet light stabilized. The SIC I made from a tote last year is already getting a little stiff and brittle this year.
They are also harder to move once you fill them and put plants in them.

No, for me, 5 and 4 gallon buckets are the way to go. I finally found a restaurant where they told me to come any time and get 5 gallon buckets. Score! You will be shocked to learn that they throw them away if no one gets them!

It is easier to make a SIC with two 5 gallon buckets.
SICs made with 5 gallon buckets can be moved relatively effortlessly
They last longer, season to season.
They are big enough for just about any plant.
You can get 5 gallon buckets free from restaurants.

With 5 gallon buckets, you can standardize the making of your SICs. I bought one of those drill bits that are round (2.5 inches wide) that are used to cut holes into drywall and stuff and used it to make the big hole at the bottom of the 5 gallon buckets.
**NOTE** Make sure you buy a guiding bit that goes with the hole-making bit. You will need the guiding bit to attach the hole-making bit to the drill and to stabilize the hole-making bit when drilling the hole

For the 1 inch hole, I used a 1 inch "paddle" bit. I don't know the proper name of these bits but when you see them you will know why I call them paddle bits.

For the air holes, I used a plain 1/4 inch drill bit.

It takes two 5 gallon buckets to make a SIC.

Take one of the 5 gallon buckets and drill holes at the bottom as indicated in the graphic. This is your TOP bucket:
Stack the TOP bucket into the second bucket. 5 gallon buckets conveniently fit into each other to leave a space approximately 3.5 inches deep at the bottom. This space serves as the water reservoir.

I drill two holes in opposites sides of the BOTTOM bucket, about 1/2 inch from where the bottom of the TOP bucket would be. These holes are needed to allow air into the reservoir. Air is essential for the proper functioning of this system. Air comes through these holes and it gets sucked in by the soil.

Next, I take a small plastic cup and cut four evenly spaced slits around its sides and two small slits at the bottom. This cup acts as the wick by which the water from the reservoir gets delivered to the rest of the container. We have a bunch of small plastic cups we get from restaurants with our boy's drinks.
Originally, I drilled a bunch of holes into this cup and then I secured it to the bucket with plastic ties. This a lot of work and it took the joy out of making a SIC. I got the idea of cutting the slits into the cup and just letting the soil weigh it down from the Homegrown Evolution blog or maybe it was the Green Roof Growers blog. I apologize for not remembering!

Once you have cut the slits, drop the cup into the 2.5 inch hole . It will protrude a little and that's ok. If you want the cup to sit deeper, make the hole in the TOP bucket larger than 2.5 inches. The thing to avoid, is making the hole the same size as the mouth of the cup because if you do, the cup may go all the way through and move in the reservoir, messing up the wick idea.

Finally, put the fill tube into the 1 inch hole and make sure it goes all the way to the bottom of the reservoir. Cut a notch in the end of the tube that goes into the reservoir to allow for better flow of water when you are filling the reservoir.
Before I go on I want to talk about the fill tube some more. I have mentioned in this blog that I don't recommend using PVC pipe as a fill tube. PVC is easy to work with but I've read discussions on the web regarding the possible leaching of harmful chemicals into the soil of the container which then are taken up by the plant, ending up in your plate. It sounds plausible to me but I have no proof whatsoever that it is true. Still, I don't want to take unnecessary risks, especially when there are alternatives. I chose Aluminum as the material for the fill tube only to find out that the same thing may happen with Aluminum ions getting into the plant and into my food. Again, why take a risk. The nice thing about PVC and Aluminum pipes is that they come in big sizes, like 2 inch diameters, which make putting the water in the reservoir easier. Alas, being the paranoid type, I chose to use an old watering hose to make my fill tubes; thus the 1 inch hole for them in my SIC's.
I hope that because the 5 gallon buckets I use were made for food storage, they are safe for growing edible plants in them.

So now that the cup and the fill tube are in their respective holes, I pour the soil in. It is not recommended to use yard soil. The soil that works the best is the stuff you can buy at your Mega hardware store like Lowe's. This type of soil mix allows for the air and water to move freely from the reservoir to the plant. I fully intend to use less and less store-bought soil and use more and more of my home-made compost for these containers
When adding the soil to the container, make sure that the cup (wick) gets soil in it. I fill the cup first and pack the soil firmly with my hand. Then I add some more soil and pack that firmly as well. Then I add some water to make sure it is wet. I repeat this process a couple of more times. The soil has to be wet all the way down to the cup for this to work. If the bottom soil is dry or if you allow it to become dry, water will not travel up the soil mix to the plant. I have no direct experience with this since I haven't allowed the soil to dry but this is the warning I got from the people who did this before me and I don't want to test it.

Some people add dry fertilizer to the very top of the soil after the plant is in. Magically, the fertilizer travels down the soil mix. There is a very erudite and complete explanation as to why this is so in the GardenWeb forums. I don't use dry fertilizer in my containers because the soil I bought comes pre-fertilized. Eventually, when I no longer buy soil, I may consider feeding the plants or not.

The last things to do are to put your plant in and fill the reservoir. Since I use 1 inch wide tubing, I found it easier to fill the reservoir using a funnel. I keep filling until water comes out of the air holes.

I found out last year that I only had to re-fill the reservoir about once a week even in the hottest part of the Summer. I saw tomatoes growing abundantly in sub-irrigated containers in Phoenix Arizona during their Summer, which is brutal!

Also, there are other websites that show you how to make a SIC. I have seen some very fancy SICs with built-in tomato cages and all manner of improvements. I stick to my simple SICs. Once you make a couple of them, it gets very easy to make them. Especially if you standardize your procedure and make them all at once.

Hopefully I will get to take some pictures this weekend to show you how my tomatoes and peppers are doing in these containers.

May 7th

2009-05-07T10:54:00.007-05:00

And the winner for first tomato of the season is...

Jet Star!

Despite all the warnings I got about starting strawberries from seed, I tried it anyway. I successfully germinated 9 Sarian strawberries and 3 Alpine. This is the only plant that survived the transplant outside. It's a Sarian Strawberry.

Suckers. There is one born every minute, and you can grow them into full tomato plants once you pinch them! I waited too long and these tomato suckers got big. I knew from experience you could plant them and they will root. I planted these about 10 days ago and they are now shooting new leaves. Some people say that these will not produce fruit but I got fruit from planted suckers last year.

And speaking of tomatoes, this is one of my volunteer tomatoes this year. They don't look like any tomato seedling I've seen before. I know they are tomatoes because I actually found one of these growing from a mummified tomato buried in the bed. I have dozens of them growing in my watermelon bed (all my watermelon seedlings died), This is the bed where I grew the alien cherry tomato last year. My sister-in-law swears they are volunteer trees but these are not growing anywhere else in my yard; and how did the tree seed get inside the mummified tomato?

Last, this is the latest entry in what's fast becoming the largest category in my gardening blog:
LEXIE DAMAGE:
She ate the hose out of one of my rain barrels. Plus, in doing so, she tipped the barrel and all the rain water was spilled.
She also has eaten three branches of my blackberry bush (it's thornless)
She better be done teething soon, I am tired of fencing everything!

Reuse, Reuse, Reuse...

2009-05-05T13:57:00.003-05:00

I just had to show this to the world. I found this idea in Wela's gardening blog (http://mygardenandsuch.blogspot.com/) and I could just kick myself for not thinking of it before!

I don't know how many of these bed springs I've seen sitting by trash cans waiting to be carted away by the trash man.

Worse, I bought some expensive grid online for my cucumbers that is neither as big nor as sturdy as this and I made a trellis for my peas out of wood and chicken wire that will probably not last more than one season.

Cinco de Mayo

2009-05-05T09:47:00.005-05:00

Happy Cinco De Mayo!

I just love how we humans make a party out of everything, even war.

And just in case you care, Cinco De Mayo IS NOT Mexican Independence day. Mexican Independence Day is September 16.

Cinco De Mayo celebrates one battle against the invading French forces. The battle took place in Puebla, Mexico and it's celebrated because the Mexican forces were outnumbered and outgunned and yet managed to defeat troops who had not been defeated in 50 years (these were the French troops of Napoleon's time).
As a child in Mexico, I don't remember Cinco de Mayo being a particularly big holiday. It is big here though.
The holiday became big in Texas mostly because of Benito Juarez (the first -and only, indian President of Mexico) who was at the time living in this tiny, dusty town in the border, now known as Juarez - of drinking, whoring, and general debauchary fame.

By the way, I believe Benito Juarez was the last, and possibly only, honest President Mexico has ever had.
But I digress. Cinco De Mayo is now a great excuse to throw a party, eat tasty Mexican food, and drink Corona and Tecate beer. Plus, pretty girls dress in pretty colorful dresses, adding myrth to the day.

So what does this have to do with gardening? Absolutely nothing.

One is the loneliest number

2009-05-04T08:33:00.006-05:00

I garden alone.

My wife is not interested and my children's gardening consists of them following me with their toy shovels or my trowels and digging out whatever I put in (actually my 5 year old does help me with useful tasks now and then).

But most of the time it's just me out there, muttering to the weeds and ground critters and crying silently as the grass "stickers" bury themselves into my flesh.

Sure, gardening time is great for introspection. The dirt and plants speak a very slow language that takes weeks and months so I have plenty of time to think.

Now and again though, company in the garden is nice. Like the Sunday before last, when my friend Tim came around just to chat. He sat and talked while I laid some garden fabric and planted some peppers on the ground. I took a break and we drove to a Starbucks nearby to see if they had any coffee grounds; then we sat at a Taco Bell for some food and drink.

That was nice.

Hey Tim, I finally used the wood you brought me to fence the square-foot-gardening beds!

two steps forward, one step back

2009-05-03T21:43:00.003-05:00

Today I planted the Elliot blueberry bush. I was very happy to see that the other two blueberry ~~twigs~~ bushes had grown some leaves. I cleaned the berry bed and worked in some peat and coffee grounds. I know about peat and the damages done to bogs to harvest it but I had a bag of it from last year and well, I would feel worse if I wasted it.

I ran out of time and I did not build a fence around the bed. I suspected that Lexie, my destructive puppy, might think this freshly worked bed too good to pass up so I put tomato cages around the bushes. Before getting the boys ready for bed I decided to check on the berries and sure enough, Lexie had dug all around the bed and, she managed to get her big square head into one of the cages and chew on one of the blueberry plants.

If you are new to gardening and you stumble upon this blog, heed this warning: gardening and puppies don't mix.

Also, if you are new to gardening these are some of the issues you may want to know about:

Roundup and other herbicides are bad all around. They do their evil deed and then they wash up into our water supply.
Peat is not really a renewable resource and can be replaced by other things such as coir (coconut fiber). If you need peat to acidify a bed, try coffee grounds instead.
Cow manure is loaded with heavy metals and other poisons.
Lawns are responsible for A LOT of pollution, contamination, and water waste. Plow them under and plant flower beds instead.
Compost is easy to make, keeps stuff from ending up in our landfills taking up space, and is as good as gold when it comes to enriching your soil.
PVC leaches harmful substances under normal gardening conditions.
Reuse is better than recycle. Recycle is better than the landfill.
Use organic methods whenever possible for many many reasons.

Over and out.

May 2nd

2009-05-02T21:48:00.009-05:00

My Siberian tomatoes are coming along. I am very impressed with the Amateur's Dream plant. If the tomatoes from this plant are any good, it will surely become one of my standards. This plant is at least twice as big as the biggest of the rest:

It has blooms already. All I need now is for some pollinators to do their thing.

The potatoes in the bags are doing ok. If you grow potatoes in a bag, make sure you give the bag some structure, like chicken wire, otherwise, the bag is hard to work with. Also, wherever you put the bag at first, that's where it stays because if you try to move it once the potatoes have rooted, you risk disturbing the plants. The potato plants in the bag that I did move, are smaller than the others. Here is my best bag of the three:

I am also growing potatoes in tubs. Here's what one of the tubs looks like now:

My pepper plants are not growing much but they are not dying either. In this tub, California Wonder, Red Bell Pepper, Pasilla, and Padron:

My purple onions from sets and my garlic are doing great. I bought both at a hardware store (Sutherland's). The bags they came in did not say what variety they were:

Tin Tin lettuce. I failed to thin when they were young and now it has been a mess trying to get them to a single head. I will be planting a new set tomorrow morning and this time I will do a better job. I may make a home-made seed strip using flour and water as a binder and newspaper strips. I think my local newspaper is printed with soy ink, at least the black and white sections.

I planted corn, squash, giant kale, and more peas (Mr. Big).

I got some coffee grounds from Starbucks on Thursday and so I am ready to plant the new blueberry bush but I did not have time today due to my wife's friend coming to town and the subsequent visiting and merry-making. I hope I get to put the bush in the ground tomorrow.

First Aspirin spray

2009-04-30T21:46:00.001-05:00

I sprayed all my plants today at 5 pm with an aspirin solution of 350 mg of aspirin per gallon.

I did not put any soap or any other substance to make the water stick.

By the way, I think the aspirin is synthesized in a lab so this is not an organic method. Still, I will continue spraying since I believe aspirin to be fairly benign.

I bleed red clay

2009-04-30T08:08:00.008-05:00

I took my first pottery class. It was a humbling experience at best.
When I arrived, I was assigned my wheel and was given my tools:

You use your garroting tool (really, it is a wire with two wooden handles, just like in The Sopranos) to cut a chunk of clay.
You wedge (knead) the clay to "awaken" it and to remove air bubbles. "Make a ram's head" Kaye told me, as she expertly produced something very much resembling the head of such an animal. As she wedged the lump of clay, the ram's head appeared and disappeared under her experienced hands.
When I tried it, well, let's just say that the animal whose head I made has not yet been seen in nature.
Next, Kaye showed me how to center the clay. You put the lump of clay in the middle of a tray called a bat and then you affix the bat to the potter's wheel. Then you turn the wheel on and using both your hands you center the clay. I was to practice this for an hour. An hour?! Come on!
A child could center clay

An hour later, I still could not do it properly.

Sweat pouring down my red clay-smudged face, feelings of shame and insecurity running rampart in my heart, I continued until I got the clay to stop wobbling so much.
"Keep your elbows tucked in and point your left hand toward 1 o'clock" Kaye reminded me.
My more experienced classmates kindly encouraged me:
"It takes a while" someone said.
"Once you get this, the rest is easy" Dave said. Dave has been doing this a long time; ever since returning from Vietnam. I stopped for a second to watch Dave put some finishing touches on a beautiful flower vase.
While I was struggling with this very first step, Kaye built a huge, perfectly even urn. As it turned flawlessly on the wheel, Kaye exclaimed "it's a little wobbly".
I felt small.

I moved on to the next step, which was to make a cylinder out of my lump of clay. Kaye had already shown me how to do this. She made a whole in the middle using her thumbs while the wheel spun.
"Only touch the clay when it is moving" she said.
Then, she touched the clay and it magically rose smoothly and evenly into a perfect tube.
I practiced this for the next hour.
These are the results:
If you look really carefully, you can see that by the end of the class, I was tired and disillusioned.

So it will be a while before I produce my first Olla it seems. Let's just hope that pottery does not totally destroy my self-esteem and I end up on the street muttering to myself "I did tuck my elbows in! I did push toward 1 O'clock!"

More stuff

2009-04-29T09:11:00.002-05:00

I thought I was almost done planting. I thought I was moving on to the cultivating stage of my veggie gardening. I thought wrong.
I want more stuff.
I need to build a couple more square-foot-gardening beds to grow more stuff.
I don't have enough stuff growing.
I still have one more day in April.
I can do this.
I never planted cabbage, broccoli, or cauliflower.
I did not plant enough lettuce varieties.
I don't have green beans growing anywhere.
Oh Eggplant Where Are Thou?

Surely my wife and kids will be fine without me while I grow more stuff. Wont' they?

Great idea but...

2009-04-28T12:57:00.004-05:00

I want to spray my plants with aspirin. The original article (see this post) called for uncoated aspirin. I think the reason for this is that uncoated aspirin is easier to crush and dissolve in water, but it also may have something to do with the coating itself in coated aspirin. I did some research on the Internet and found different substances (like ethylcellulose and methylcellulose) used in the coating of aspirin. There is no way for me to know what effect those substances would have on my plants so I decided to use uncoated aspirin only.
BUT...
I could not find uncoated aspirin anywhere. I tried Walgreen's. No go. I tried Dillon's (a supermarket chain owned by Kroger) No go. I tried K-mart, Walmart. No go. All those stores only carried Coated and Enteric Coated aspirin. Finally, on my way back to work from lunch, I drove past a Deep Discount pharmacy and decided to try there and lo and behold they carried uncoated aspirin. You can tell it's uncoated because when you handle it, you are left with a dusty residue of aspirin in your fingers. Plus, it did not say Coated anywhere in the bottle. I checked the ingredients on the back of the bottle and the only other thing in the pills was corn starch.

Let the spraying begin!

***UPDATE****
In the original article, the dosage for this is 1.5 aspirin (81 gr) per 2 gallons of water. I can only assume that 81g stands for 81 grams. 81 grams equals 81000 milligrams(1000 milligrams = 1 gram) My aspirin came in pills of 385 milligrams each so that means I would have to use about 210 pills to make the solution stated in the article!!!! That did not seem right so I went online and began researching this. I found this article where a more sensible recipe is given: 250 - 500 milligrams of aspirin per gallon of water. That would be one of my aspirin tablets in a gallon of water. Much better!
As for how often to spray, I will still follow the every 3 weeks schedule.

Final Tomato plant tally

2009-04-27T14:34:00.004-05:00

This is the final list of tomatoes I am growing this year:

Market Miracle - Siberian. Determinate, 8-12 oz (~227-340 grams) red tomato

Amateur's Dream - Siberian. Indeterminate. Big, bright red tomato. This plant has outgrown ALL the others and it now looks like a small tree. Short but with a very thick stem.

Black Russian - Indeterminate. Medium size black tomato. Someone claims that when dried, they have a delicious smoky flavor. I will have to try that.

Perestroika - Siberian. Indeterminate. 8-10 oz (~227-283 grams) orange-red tomato.

Urbikany - Siberian. Determinate. Very early 2 inch (5 cm) red tomato.

Galina - Siberian. Indeterminate. 1 inch (2.5 cm) yellow tomato. Sweet.

Maskotka - Determinate. 1 - 1.25 oz (25-35 grams) red cherry tomato.

Jet Star - Indeterminate. Hybrid. Medium size red tomato.

Yellow Pear - Indeterminate. 1 inch (2.5cm) yellow pear shaped tomato. This one I actually grew two years ago. Because it did not produce fruit in the Spring or early Summer, I let the two plants go. They did not die but thrived and then they started producing like crazy in late Summer and produced all the way to October. I liked the flavor of this tomato. I did not try to grow it last year but just a few days ago I decided to plant a few seeds of it to see what happens.

Golden Jubilee - Indeterminate. Yellow softball size tomato.

Brandywine - Indeterminate. Large, beefsteak type tomato. I failed to stake them properly last year and they broke in half during a thunderstorm midseason.

Alien unknown cherry - I planted a cherry tomato last year. I lost the packet and I don't remember the type. The plant grew and grew. I did not know last year about pruning tomato plants to a single vine so I just kept tying the vines to stakes. This year I have a bunch of volunteer seedlings from that plant. I took two of them and put them in a container.

I have come to the conclusion that one lifetime is not enough to try every tomato variant out there but I will have fun trying. Also, there is ALWAYS something new to learn about tomatoes.
For example:

Feed them via the leaves (Foliar Feeding)
Give them Aspirin
Prune them

I went with mostly Siberian tomatoes this year because I wanted early fruit. I put the Siberian tomatoes ouside when the highs were hardly in the 40's and the lows were often near freezing and none of the plants died. (I did lose a couple to very high winds). I did get to eat one Black Russian tomato last year and it was indeed rich and flavorful with a taste unlike any of the red tomatoes I've ever eaten.

Lots of rain, no rain water

2009-04-27T10:51:00.005-05:00

The rain began falling right around 3:00 pm yesterday. Watching the water rush out of the water spouts with some force, a little voice told me to go check my rain barrel, but I did not. The rain continued to fall almost continuously until around 5:00 am today. When I let Lexie out this morning, I checked on the rain barrel and sure enough, the force of the water stream had knocked it over and I collected zero rain water.
The storm that dropped all this water --3 inches reported on the radio, was a strong one but none of my plants received any damage. My area is somewhat protected by many mature trees and there are wooden fences everywhere to baffle the winds. Mercifully, there was no hail.
The tornado sirens kept going off throughout the evening and this had Dominic worried. Ronan of course had to come and sleep in our bed because he is terrified of thunder and lighting. Curiously, Dominic never was.
The tornadoes that touched down did not even come close to our part of the county.
Today I will go look at the rain barrels at Lowe's again.

Busy day

2009-04-25T21:25:00.003-05:00

I started this morning by pulling weeds off the melon raised bed. To this bed I added yard dirt plus compost so I had quite a few baby weeds to pull. Some watermelon seedlings were coming up already (Sugar Baby Yellow, and Sugar Baby).
I was surprised to find dozens of volunteer tomato plants in the bed. Last year, I grew one cherry tomato plant there that grew and grew and became this monstrosity. I dug up a couple of the volunteer tomato plants and transplanted them to a separate "bed" that I made from the remains of an 18 gallon tote. I intend to manage them better this year. Their parent plant was a heavy producer of tasty cherry tomatoes.

Then I prepared a spot and planted the black beans (Midnight Black).

Better late than never doesn't apply in the garden but still I planted my peas (Mr. Big). I could not tell by the packet if they are vines. I thought all peas were vines. I'll have to look it up later.

I added soil to the potatoes which are growing strong.

I checked on the Hollyhocks. They are coming up. I need to protect them from my dogs; they keep digging in the bed.

I put the rest of the peppers on the ground. This year however, I put garden fabric down to discourage weeds and grass and thus make it easy on me later.

Last, when I was at Lowe's the other day, I found seeds of the yellow pear tomatoes that I liked so much 2 years ago and put a few seeds in a pot. I know I probably won't get any of those tomatoes until late summer or early fall but what the heck.

The terracotta spikes don't work; at least not as they come. After you screw the 2 litter bottle to the plastic attachment and insert both into the terracotta spike and fill the bottle with water, the water spills out instead of staying in the bottle to be delivered via the spike. Maybe I can figure out how to seal it.

There a few things left for me to do, like planting herbs and squash and mulching the fruit trees but I am close to being done with the planting phase of my operation.

Again with the watering

2009-04-24T12:24:00.010-05:00

Watering.
If it wasn't such a darn-tooting important part of the whole process I would not be so obsessed with it. Plus, last year, it took me an HOUR to water the plants, not to mention the large amounts of water I used. I vowed then that I would become a smarter waterer.

My watering strategies this year are:

Using rainwater as much as possible. Rain water is free and rain water is free of stuff such as chlorine and residual pharmaceuticals. Where I live is not heavily industrialized so acid rain is not a big problem. By the way, "pure" rain is somewhat acidic, with a pH of about 6 because of the effects of carbon dioxide; or so it says in Wikepedia. There are discussions on the web about getting your rainwater off the roof of your house. The concerns have to do with the materials the roof shingles are made of and what kind of dust settles on the roof that then gets washed into the rain water. For example, the dust around here is dust from the farms around Wichita. The dust contains pesticides, herbicides and who knows what other "cides". I am considering rigging some kind of temporary water-capturing jig using a tarp and rolling it out whenever rain is in the forecast and rolling it up when it is not.

Using sub-irrigated planters. I was calling these self-watering containers but the term sub-irrigated seems more applicable. Last year I tested one and I only had to put water in the container once a week, even in the middle of Summer.

Using watering spikes. Last year I bought plastic watering spikes. This year I complemented those with terracotta watering spikes. The plastic watering spikes released the water too quickly which was my fault because I drilled three holes on each. Now I know that I should have started with one hole. I have not tested the terracotta spikes yet so I don't know how they do in this regard.

While we are on the subject of watering spikes, which you use in conjunction with a 2 littler plastic bottle, I learned this last year: cover the plastic bottle's open end with some kind of fabric otherwise you will be cleaning debris and bugs out of them every day:

Also, because the spikes are relatively expensive, some people use the plastic bottle itself as a watering spike. When I read about this, I immediately thought about taking a needle or pin and making a bunch of tiny holes in the bottle to let the water seep slowly. I read somewhere that the tiny holes often become clogged with tiny particles of soil and the water does not come out.
So, we are advised to make one larger hole. I have not tried this so I cannot vouch for either hole-making technique but the advice seems sound.
When using watering spikes, the idea is to deliver the water directly to the root of the plant and thus eliminate putting water near the surface of the soil where it evaporates and does no one any good.
In a container, the setup would look something like this:

Whether you grow your plants in a container or on the ground, I would recommend that you "plant" your bottle at the same time you plant your plant. Keep in mind where the root of the plant is at now and where it will be in the future and bury the bottle accordingly:

Now I need to collect as much rainwater as possible. I've seen numerous home-made rain barrel designs on the web but I am unsure about making my own. There is a guy in Wichita (www.wichitarainbarrels.com) who makes very sturdy rain barrels. I am considering getting one more 50 gallon barrel but we'll see.

Giddy with anticipation

2009-04-23T15:40:00.004-05:00

At the recommendation of fellow blogger Diana, I signed up for pottery classes.

I went to Clay Art Studio and paid for a 10-class session which includes the clay and the tools.

I am so excited I can't hardly sit still! The tools all looked mysterious and esoteric to me, all except for the garroting tool that looked just like the ones the mobsters used in The Sopranos.

I spoke to Kaye (the owner and teacher) and told her about Ollas. She had never heard of the concept but she was happy to tell me that they have a low temperature kiln where I can fire my terracotta masterpieces. She also suggested that I may enjoy making my own flower pots...oh the joy! Plus, I get to learn how to do other cool and exciting things like glazing.

The class is every Tuesday at 6pm. The studio is practically next to my job. I can already hear The Righteous Brothers singing Unchained Melody as I sensually GET TO PLAY WITH MUD!!! (movie reference: Ghost)

Oh, and I can just envision the endless hours of fun me and my boys are going to have once I know enough to start showing them!!!

I don't know if I will be able to produce Ollas for this gardening season but I will sure have some for next year!

Gardening despite the weather

2009-04-23T09:33:00.003-05:00

Now we are in the 80's. We went from highs in the mid 60's to highs in the mid 80's overnight. My strawberries are shell shocked.

Also, I am amused by my discoveries of things that are obvious to everybody else. I primarily grow stuff I can eat. Blame it on my childhood. This year however, I decided that I needed to grow flowers. As it turns out, flowers are needed to attract pollinators.
So here I was bemoaning that once I am done implementing my irrigation schemes, my garden will look like a production farm rather than a garden. Then it hit me. Why not plant flowers in containers and put them around the watering pipes and buckets?

We'll see how it all looks later in the season.

More on watering

2009-04-22T14:34:00.011-05:00

Last year I bought a rain barrel but I did not get to use it much. This year, the 40 gallon barrel will be the center piece of my watering plans. The problem is that 40 gallons do not last very long, especially if I waste water, so I have to be very conscientious when watering this year. To help, I am growing most of my vegetables in self-watering containers. Some of my vegetables are growing in 5 gallon buckets with watering spikes in them, and a few, will be growing on the ground.
For the plants in the ground (mostly peas and beans) I have designed this simple drip watering scheme:

To achieve the drip, I think I can stuff some left over garden cloth in the holes of the pvc pipe.

For the plants that have watering spikes (I have both plastic and terracotta spikes) I am thinking of something like this:

The idea here is to use as little city water as possible. I also have a well but I am still working on how to integrate it into my watering plan. The well is connected to the sprinkler system that broke last year. To use it, I will have to uncap it and install some type of pump.

One issue that has been discussed at length in gardening forums is the use of PVC pipe when watering eatable plants. It's been said that PVC pipe, when heated and exposed to conditions common in a garden, leaches harmful chemicals into the water that the plants absorb, thus passing the bad stuff on to you when you eat the fruit of your labors. In particular, the use of PVC pipes in home-made self-watering containers is not recommended.
Me, thinking myself clever beyond reproach, decided to use aluminum tubing instead of PVC, only to find out that Aluminum ions are poisonous to plants. I did some research into the use of Aluminum piping and found out that generally speaking, aluminum is not reactive until the pH (potential Hydrogen) of the water/soil, reaches acidic levels (somewhere around pH 5) which could conceivably happen in a container plant.
The perfect material would be bamboo but I have not located a source of cheap bamboo for this purpose, so I am now using pieces of an old watering hose.
In the diagrams above, one could use watering hose instead of pipe. One could also use a watering hose INSIDE pvc pipes to gain rigidity.
A soaker hose would not work because I believe I could not get enough water pressure from the rain barrel, and if I did get enough pressure, it would soon diminish when the water level in the barrel dropped.
I will see if I have enough time to build one of these this season.

Progress in the garden, such as it is

2009-04-21T21:44:00.008-05:00

In my ongoing quest to water the plants efficiently and easily, I found these terracotta spikes. They are no Ollas but the principle is similar. These spikes come with a plastic adapter where you screw a two litter plastic bottle. We'll see how they do.

I finally built a simple sieve to get the river pebbles out of the flower bed upfront. It is nothing fancy but it will do the job.

Also, I planted 10 Irish Eyes sunflowers in a spot on the front that was bare. When I dug in to amend the soil, I found that the original owner of the house had put bricks down to form a small terrace. I can imagine she put potted flowers on there.

So far, the only blooming flowers in my yard are the wild flowers. This one blankets the lawns with magenta and has been blooming now for about three weeks. I wish I knew the name of it. I also have tiny blue flowers with four petals and tiny yellow flowers from small clumps of clover.

Here's a picture of the upside-down tomato. There are a lot of posts out in the blogosphere about the home-made upside-down planters made with two litter bottles. I personally think that those don't hold enough dirt for a tomato plant. In fact, the store-bought upside-down planters are just take-offs on the old upside-down planters people made with 5 gallon buckets. If I decide to make my own upside-down planters, I will use 5 gallon buckets.

I sowed my cucumbers in a self-watering container and I sowed the Hollyhock seeds I got from one of my Facebook friends on a nice sunny spot in my yard.
Also, I made a 3x3 bed for my strawberries and put the strawberries on the ground. This time I covered it with chicken wire to stymie the birds.
I am about half-way done with the first phase of my garden.

The road to my garden is paved with good intentions

2009-04-17T08:41:00.006-05:00

This week:

I bought the material to fix the screen on my rain barrel. The bug screen in the barrel was bashed in by a two legged garden predator. Beware of 3 year old boys bearing hammers. And how did he come by a hammer? Really, besides the fact that I am a terrible parent, 3 year old boys gravitate to the most dangerous activity/object in their vicinity. It's in their genes. When I am outside, my boys outnumber me.
Anyway, I bought the material but I did not have the time to fix the barrel. Maybe this weekend.

I bought the wire mesh to make the sifter to sift the river rock from the flower bed upfront. The original owner of the house had landscaped using smooth river pebbles. The next owner, whom I bought the house from, let the flower bed go for 6 years and the river pebbles sunk into the bed.
Did not get to make the sifter. Between my wife's work schedule, and my sick toddler there was not time. Maybe this weekend.

I bought a Blueberry bush. This is my fourth Blueberry bush. My previous 3 have not made it. I am not giving up. This bush is more mature than the other 3. It's sitting in its store pot outside. Maybe this weekend.

I bought compost to amend the soil where the sunflowers are going. It's sitting in my garage.
Maybe this weekend.

I got the wood to make the strawberry bed. The strawberries are inside under lights wondering when the heck I am going to give them a proper place to grow.
Maybe this weekend.

I got the totes to make into self-watering containers for the remainder of my peppers. Maybe this weekend.

My friend kept calling wondering when we are going to build the protective cage for all my containers. Maybe this weekend.

Life is what happens when you are making gardening plans.

Amazing stuff!!

2009-04-16T09:31:00.006-05:00

This morning I learned something that has shaken me to the core! Maybe I am amused and shaken to the core easily but this bit of information has implications that make my brain implode with the possibilities.
And what has so rocked me as to render me giddy?

The fact that the plants I grow and eat are made of sunlight.

Whoa! I feel faint just thinking about it!!!

You see, I, like many other people, took it for granted that all plants were made from the minerals and nutrients from the soil. I suppose that if I had really thought about it, hydroponic plants could have cued me on this.
Yes, I knew that photosynthesis was instrumental in the creation of energy for the plant but I did not know that photosynthesis MADE the plant itself.

That the plants are NOT made from the stuff from the soil (at least not substantially) was proven a long time ago by a Flemish (Flemish=Belgian-Dutch. I did not know this, I had to look it up) scientist. This guy planted a tree in a container with soil and fed the tree only water for 5 years. Then he took the tree and weighed it. Then he weighed the soil. The tree weighed well over 100 pounds but the soil was only missing a few ounces!
So where did all the carbon and stuff come from to make the tree?: Sunlight, via the process we know as Photosynthesis.
Come on!....Sunlight!!!!. Carbon, Vitamins, Minerals, Lycopene, Capsaisin, and hundreds of other compounds....ALL FROM SUNLIGHT!!!!

I immediately get back to StarTrek (doesn't everything always lead to StarTrek?) and their magical Replicators. If you have never watched StarTrek (!!!!!!), a replicator is a device that synthesizes anything out of pure energy. Captain Pickard's favorite thing to conjure up from pure energy is Earl Grey tea, cup and all.

Couldn't we, the smart inventive mammals in this planet, figure out how the plants do this and recreate the process? Couldn't we?

PHOTOSYNTHESIS, THE FUTURE IS YOU.

***UPDATE***
I guess I should have been paying attention during Biology class. It turns out that the process noted above, although still impressive, is not what I originally thought. The plant DOES NOT convert sunlight into stuff, rather, the plant, via photosynthesis, takes the carbon from the carbon dioxide in the air and turns into stuff. That is why plants are good for the atmosphere; they take Carbon Dioxide and return Oxygen. Sixth graders know this, now I do as well.

Live and breathe gardening...literally

2009-04-14T15:29:00.005-05:00

Yeah, you've heard some people live and breathe gardening but this is just too much!

from: http://www.mosnews.com/weird/2009/04/13/firtree/ (pictures of tiny tree at the site)

"5 cm. fir tree removed from patient’s lung

13 Apr, 11:35 PM

A five-centimeter fir tree has been found in the lung of a man who complained he had a strong pain in his chest and was coughing blood.

The 28-year-old patient, Artyom Sidorkin, came to a hospital in the city of Izhevsk in Central Russia last week, Komsomolskaya Pravda daily reports.

Doctors x-rayed his chest and found a tumor in one of the lungs. Suspecting cancer, they made a decision to perform biopsy, but when they cut the tissue, they were amazed to see green needles in the cut.

“I blinked three times, and thought I was seeing things. Then I called the assistant to have a look,” says Vladimir Kamashev, doctor at the Udmurtian Cancer Center.

The five-centimeter branch was removed from the patient’s body.

“They told me my coughing blood was not caused by any disease,” Sidorkin says.

“It was the needles poking the capillaries. It really hurt a lot. But I never felt like I had an alien object inside of me.”

It is obvious that a five-centimeter branch is too large to be inhaled or swallowed, doctors say. They suggest that the patient might have inhaled a small bud, which then started to grow inside his body.

Meanwhile, the piece of lung with the little fir tree has been preserved for further study."

Ollas update and a couple of rants

2009-04-14T07:41:00.008-05:00

Olla Update
I found a pottery shop that will teach me how to make pottery. It may seem boring to other people but, at least for now, my goal is to make ollas for watering. Ollas, if you don't know, are terracotta jars that you bury next to your plants and fill with water. The plants then "take" the water from the porous terracotta as they need it. Classes are $15 each and the whole course takes 10 classes. Not bad for a neat skill that will last a lifetime, and one that I could pass down to my boys.

Rant #1 - India's green revolution disillution
I've been following the story about the farmers in Punjab, India. Apparently, the Indian government encouraged, via subsidies, the adoption of modern farming methods, you know, chemical pesticides and fertilizers, high yield crops, modern machinery, and now, the Indian farmers are running into familiar problems (familiar to the West that is).
First, the water table is falling by about 3 feet per year. High yield crops require high amounts of water.
Second, the land requires 3 times as much fertilizer as before. No big surprise there.
Third, the crops require more and more pesticides every year. Yeah, heard about that one too.
Last, because the Indian farmers are having to drill deeper each year to get ground water for the crops, they are now hitting brackish water and thus are killing their plants with the salt.

Now, I am not so naive as to believe that we can do away with modern farming practices overnight. For all my love of organic, local gardening, I know that the majority of the people do not grow vegetables (even if new gardeners are popping up in record numbers) and to sustain our current population, we need big agriculture. This doesn't mean however, that we just accept the status quo and bury our head in the sand (do Ostriches really do that?).
I read somewhere that our current situation can be traced back to the moment Fritz Haber successfully synthesized Ammonia with Nitrogen from the air and thus ushered the modern era of chemical fertilizers (later he was instrumental in the development of Zyclon B, and was a defender of the use of poison gas as a weapon). Prior to that, fertilizing relied on guano from South America and other natural sources, such as Nitrite salts. Because there was only so much guano, we could only grow so much and thus, we had a natural check on population growth, meaning that if more people came about than we could sustain, they would simply starve (aka, Malthusian Catastrophe).
Now we are hooked on Big Ag and Big Chem with the results we see now: pollution of our water supplies and exhaustion of our water supplies, not too mentions others such as the diminished nutritional value of our crops and the increse in diseases due to the pollutants in our food.
I live in Kansas and every year, I see less and less farms around here, which tells me that someone else is growing our food and I am afraid that those people are in it strictly for the money and are not really looking out for my best interests.
We need to turn this around but I am afraid it won't be easy. I do have hopes though, because I know the inventiveness of man but we have to start by recognizing that there is a problem.

Rant #2 - lawns
The more I gardened, the more I began to see my lawn as a waste of space. Then I started reading Second Nature, by Michael Pollan and now I know that not only are lawns a waste of space, but also that they are a BIG source of pollution and water waste.
I spoke with my wife about this and she now agrees that we must do something about our front lawn. I've seen other people's lawns around here that use stone and flower beds instead of grass.
That may be the way we go.

The waiting garden

2009-04-13T07:56:00.005-05:00

It's raining still. It began on Saturday night, stayed all Sunday, and it's still hanging around this morning.
Before the rain started, I managed to put out two more tomato plants, a Black Russian and a cherry type; Maskotka.
Then I decided to put the Jalapeño M plants out as well. They seemed happy on the 65F degree weather, with a gentle breeze and a beautiful sun. I haven't checked on them since but I have the perverse feeling that they are dead.
I also put all the potatoes that I had in peat pots out on tubs. Then I moved the garden bags where I am growing some more potatoes.
I also filled the upside down tomato planter that I bought and stuck a Jet Star tomato plant in it. This is my wife's tomato plant. "I just want a plain red tomato" she said.
So far, I have the following tomatoes outside in home-made, self-watering containers:

Market Miracle
Amateur's Dream
Black Russian
Urbikani
Maskotka
Brandywine

The onions and the garlic are doing great. My radishes all recovered from the snow and ice storms. My lettuces are coming on strong and I now have Minnesotta Midget canteloupe plants emerging.
I really wanted to plant my beans and peas this weekend but I did not get to them. It turns out that my wife and children want my attention as well and so I can only allot so much of it to my plants.

The book by Michael Pollan, Second Nature, is really good. I really like his take on weeds and weeding.

Still no pictures. I took a few pictures on Saturday but I was not happy with them. I want beautiful pictures like the ones here and here.

Last, I took the rain barrel I bought last year and put it under one of the water spouts. My 3 year old thought it was a good idea to take a hammer and bash in the bug screen on the barrel. I kept thinking of the best way to fix it and I finally got it: grease splatter screen. I will use that until I find the right size mesh somewhere to fix it permanently.
I also put a brand-new trash can under another one of the water spouts to collect water for the flower beds. They should both be full by now.

Hopefully, I will get to put the Irish Eyes sunflowers out today when I get home.

Aspirin for your plants

2009-04-10T19:37:00.002-05:00

Really!

This is an excerpt from http://www.papillonsartpalace.com/aspirinforplants.htm:

"The dosage Martha arrived at after numerous experiments was 1.5 aspirin (81 gr. strength) to two gallons of water. Important note: The tablets should be the uncoated type. She also added two tablespoons of yucca extract to help the aspirin water stick better to the leaves. (The yucca extract can be substituted with a mild liquid soap).

SPRAYING

Finally, Martha divised a schedule of spraying once every three weeks, no matter the type of plant. The summer when Martha first started testing aspirin water was not the best, weather-wise. It was cool, rainy and damp. Yet, by the end of the season, the plants growing in the raised beds on which the aspirin water had been used looked like they were on steroids! They were huge and green and insects-free. Some disease seemed even to have reversed themselves on cucumbers affected by a virus."

I am so trying this!!!

Better Blogs and Gardens

2009-04-10T10:31:00.005-05:00

I am just impressed by some of the gardening blogs out there. You know the ones, the ones that have useful information, daring experiments (like giving your tomato seedlings alcohol), beautiful pictures, good writing. After reading their daily posts I am left thinking:

That my garden is unworthy.
My pictures are fuzzy and dull.
My writing is boring.

And every day, after reading those blogs I tell myself the world doesn't need another gardening blog. But then, I have this strong urge to tell someone about what I do in the yard and so I write it down here hoping some like-minded person will see it and go: "Ah! yes, I saw something like that..."

I have been doing gardening. I wish I could have taken pictures but the kind of gardening I've been doing has been by-the-seat-of-my-pants type of gardening and alas, I did not have a camera.

I hijacked my brother and his truck and went searching for pallets to build a fence around the vegetables. I hope to have pictures of the building of the fence.

Also, with the pallets, I am going to build a cage for my containers.

I got a couple of tons of dirt for free to fill in the holes that the dogs dug around the house. I had to do this before the April rains came. I finished doing this one day before it started raining.

My neighbor showed up at my door during dinner with a box of freshly excavated Grape hyacinths which grow like weeds in her yard. I did not have any and I really like them so she dug up some and brought them to me. Also, she brought some bulb flower that spread like wild fire in her yard. She says she paid $13 dollars per plant last year. She gave me 2. I hope they spread in my yard like they did on hers. I quickly put these in pots.

I started on the self-watering containers again. I have to get them all done this weekend so I can put out all the plants that are beginning to get stressed out inside the house.

I tried to make it to the Snap Dragon sale at one of the garden centers but they were all sold out when I got there, so instead I bought some perennial flowering ground cover for the front flower bed. Pictures later.

I REALLY need a new camera!!!!

One last thing. If you are a DIY kind of person, Craiglist has a never-ending supply of people giving stuff away for free.
One person was giving away 300 cement blocks, brand new. They were the kind that you can use for bases for pots, walkways, etc. The city was making him clear them out. By the time my brother and I showed up, he was out of them.

How Green is your Green?

2009-04-08T15:37:00.003-05:00

Noxious fumes-emitting lawn mower and weed-eater. Bad.

Electrical lawn mower and weed-eater. Better, but still, we are talking about plastic, electronics, and toxic materials (used in the electronic boards).

Old timey manual push mower and garden shears. Good. The old ones (do they make new ones?) were made of steel and wood, both breakdown in the soil, eventually.

Goats. After they're done mowing the lawn, you can eat them (unless, as someone else has noted, you've given them a name).

First Day Of Spring (AGAIN!)

2009-04-07T09:25:00.002-05:00

I checked the 10 day forecast and finally, no freezes on sight. Everything, and I mean, everything is going outside this week.
Now, all I have to worry about is:

Tornados/High Wind (40+ miles per hour is not uncommon)
Hail/Thunderstorms (We get pea size to grapefruit size hail around here)
Birds, Squirrels, Dogs, Oh my!
Bugs
Drought
My own incompetence.

Ah! I garden because it relaxes me...

Of poverty, hunger, and orange trees

2009-04-06T13:37:00.002-05:00

I don't know if blogetiquette forbids two posts in quick succession but here it goes.

I read a post about Seville oranges on www.yougrowgirl.com and it reminded me of The Secret. I posted a short comment and thought nothing more of it. Then I read posts somewhere about ghetto gardens and I thought I'd do a post about The Secret. I discovered this secret when I was 12 or so, while waiting for a city bus to take me to school. I did not always have the bus fare but this day I did. I remember it was cold and I had to decide whether to use the money for some food at school or to get to school. At the end I decided to ride the bus because the school was several miles away and it was just to cold to walk.
So there I was, at the bus stop, standing under the bitter orange trees that the city had planted all over the place. Bitter Orange; Seville Orange; Citrus aurantium. These trees were hardy, with beautiful dark green leaves. They bloomed into a thousand beautiful, delicious, white flowers.
This particular time, however, there were no delicious blooms on the trees.
The sun was just a hint on the horizon, the bus was typically late, and I was gigantically hungry.
Not having anything else to do, I decided to see if the leaves of the orange trees were somewhat edible. It turned out that at that stage of hunger, the leaves were not too bad. So while I waited for the overcrowded city bus, I ate leaf after leaf.
And then, The Miracle happened. My hunger was gone. Just like that. Gone. No desire to eat. If there was any hunger left, it surely was just the memory of food. The actual hunger pangs were gone. There was a strange satiety present in my mouth. I remember feeling like I had discovered the secret of the ages and when the bus finally came, I rode all the way to school with a green grin.

Before I began writing this post, I went online to find out the name of the bitter oranges and I was pleasantly surprised to find out that the bitter orange oils are used as an appetite suppressant. It's good to know that the world has discovered the secret. Now I must find seeds somewhere to start some bitter orange trees.

A giant global garden

2009-04-06T09:01:00.004-05:00

I am reading a book called Second Nature by Michael Pollan. Michael talks about the continuous front lawn in the suburbs, meaning that the front lawns in the suburbs blend with each other forming a huge park-like lawn. Well, I thought of something: blogs about gardening extend our gardens in an abstract way making a gigantic garden extending the breadth of the world. I go outside and check my garden. I visit my baby radishes and rejoice at their vibrant little leaves, I check my Rose of Sharon bushes, still dormant. Then I come inside and start reading gardening blogs. I see the pictures and read the words and I rejoice at the progress being made there as well, almost as if I was there, visiting another section of my garden.
You see?

It is April 6 and the low was 25 last night. My veggies had just recovered from last week's ice/snow storm and here we are again. I've only lost one tomato, a Brandywine, killed by wind gusts of 40+ miles an hour.
Tomorrow we are expecting the same, and we are not out of the woods yet. I have seen hard freezes up to April 15.
Because the peach tree and the nectarine tree bloomed so early, the freezes killed all the blooms before they got a chance to get pollinated so we get no peaches nor nectarines this year. Oh, and the plum tree bloomed as well and lost all the blooms. That leaves the apple trees.
The garden is Hope.

Potato

2009-04-02T16:26:00.000-05:00

Plant seed potato at least 4 inches deep. You can plant deeper but the shoot will take longer to work its way through.

Garlic

2009-04-02T16:24:00.002-05:00

Plant garlic when the clove will be exposed to several days of temperatures under 65 degrees to encourage bulb formation.

Gardenspeak

2009-04-01T08:19:00.004-05:00

Listening to the radio on my way to work this morning, I heard a phrase I'd never heard before:

"There are some crocuses in the lawn"

The person was talking about how in the midst of this recession, there are a few pieces of good news.
I believe that the reference here is how crocus will bloom in early Spring even with snow on the ground.

Snow = recession
crocus = good news in spite of recession.

I wonder how many other sayings of this nature there are. I can only think of a few right now:

"Growing like a weed"
"Every rose has its thorn"
"Stop and smell the roses"
"Don't be a pansy"

and my favorite quote from the movie "Toombstone":

"I'll be your Huckleberry"

By the way, I was curious as to the origins of this last phrase and this is what I found in
World Wide Words:

"What it means is easy enough. To be one’s huckleberry — usually as the phrase I’m your huckleberry — is to be just the right person for a given job, or a willing executor of some commission. Where it comes from needs a bit more explaining.

First a bit of botanical history. When European settlers arrived in the New World, they found several plants that provided small, dark-coloured sweet berries. They reminded them of the English bilberry and similar fruits and they gave them one of the dialect terms they knew for them, hurtleberry, whose origin is unknown (though some say it has something to do with hurt, from the bruised colour of the berries; a related British dialect form is whortleberry). Very early on — at the latest 1670 — this was corrupted to huckleberry.

As huckleberries are small, dark and rather insignificant, in the early part of the nineteenth century the word became a synonym for something humble or minor, or a tiny amount. An example from 1832: “He was within a huckleberry of being smothered to death”. Later on it came to mean somebody inconsequential. Mark Twain borrowed some aspects of these ideas to name his famous character, Huckleberry Finn. His idea, as he told an interviewer in 1895, was to establish that he was a boy “of lower extraction or degree” than Tom Sawyer.

Also around the 1830s, we see the same idea of something small being elaborated and bombasted in the way so typical of the period to make the comparison a huckleberry to a persimmon, the persimmon being so much larger that it immediately establishes the image of something tiny against something substantial. There’s also a huckleberry over one’s persimmon, something just a little bit beyond one’s reach or abilities; an example is in David Crockett: His Life and Adventures by John S C Abbott, of 1874: “This was a hard business on me, for I could just barely write my own name. But to do this, and write the warrants too, was at least a huckleberry over my persimmon”.

Quite how I’m your huckleberry came out of all that with the sense of the man for the job isn’t obvious. It seems that the word came to be given as a mark of affection or comradeship to one’s partner or sidekick. There is often an identification of oneself as a willing helper or assistant about it, as here in True to Himself, by Edward Stratemeyer, dated 1900: “ ‘I will pay you for whatever you do for me.’ ‘Then I’m your huckleberry. Who are you and what do you want to know?’ ”. Despite the obvious associations, it doesn’t seem to derive directly from Mark Twain’s books."

USDA Hardiness Map

2009-03-30T10:07:00.003-05:00

When I started growing plants 6 years ago, I saw the USDA Hardiness Zones map as gospel. Now, I see it for what it is; just another tool to help me along.
There was (or there will be) a press announcement soon, heralding the NEW USDA Hardiness Zones map.
Apparently, with global warming and what not, we need a new one. Not that I needed a press conference to tell me that.
I mean, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), I liven in hardiness zone 6a. This means that the lowest temperature possible where I live, falls between -10 degrees Fahrenheit and -5 degrees Fahrenheit.
The thing is, I can't remember the last time temperatures got that low.
So I went searching for temperature logs. I quickly found out that those are for sale and I did not want to pay.
I can however, find tables that record the average temperatures for my area and according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (www.crh.noaa.gov) the average low temperature in January for my area is in the low 20's F.
the Accuweather website (www.accuweather.com) gave me a free sample of record low temperatures for February and they say that the last time the temperature dipped to -7 degrees F. in my area was back in 1996.
And I am not the only one complaining about the map. The people at Arbor Day (www.arborday.org/) contend that my area is now zone 7.
The folks over at Garden.org say that the map is only accurate for the Eastern US:

"...and in the rest of the country (west of the 100th meridian, which runs roughly through the middle of North and South Dakota and down through Texas west of Laredo), the USDA map fails. "

This, they say, it's due to the mountains and Pacific ocean climates. They give as an example, Oregon and Arizona, both of which have Zone 8 parts but have vastly different climates.

It does help to have an agreed-upon point of reference but take it only as a starting point. I think is more important to get to know your local climate really well and take note of changes. Around here, we've had Armadillos for about a decade now. We did not have them in the 1980's, at least not in the numbers we have them now, and I read somewhere that time is running out for our great Cottonwood trees because Fall temperatures have risen.

Happy Gardening.

Snow Falling On Onions

2009-03-28T18:55:00.015-05:00

Sure, not near as poetic as Snow Falling On Cedars but I don't grow cedars. At least not yet.

That's one of my baby onions poking through the snow.

Here's what my garden looked like this afternoon:

Here are more images of SPRING from my yard:

My poor baby pear tree will drop all of its foliage:

I don't know if it was the excitement of all the snow or what but my puppy Lexie decided to snack on one of the potato bags. I don't know how she untied the chicken wire. Smart girl...

And now, let's look at how my chiltepin plant is doing. She has spent some time outside and has done well, even in a very windy day. She is nice and safe inside until it warms up again.

Last but not least is my potato experiment. I saw on a video that potatoes don't transplant well. I had a few pieces of my seed potatoes left after I planted the potatoe bags and I did not want to waste them so I put them in peat pots. When I checked on them yesterday this is what I saw:

According to Weather.com, we have a few more nights of sub-freezing lows. My peppers are all outgrowing their peat pots and they need to be put on their self-watering containers soon.
Here's to Spring!

My tablescape

2009-03-26T08:25:00.002-05:00

Gina, over at My Skinny Garden blog has a post about tablescapes. I did not know there was a term for your dinner table setup, or maybe it only applies to table setups for special occasions. Anyway, here is a description of my tablescape. (i know, a picture would have been better but my camera is not available at the moment).

This week's bills.
Daycare art from my two boys (3 and 5)
Some magazines.
Our checkbook. It never leaves the table as we seem to pay bills all the time.
Wet Wipes. For my 3 year old (he eats like a Viking barbarian)
Tissues
Napkin holder. Empty at least twice a week.
Somewhere under all that, a scented candle for ambiance. I know it's there because I can smell it.

Maybe later this season, I can replace some of this stuff with a floral arrangement from my yard.

Short soapbox speech

2009-03-25T13:25:00.004-05:00

Clover is not a weed. I repeat, Clover IS NOT a weed.
Clover is a nitrogen fixer. It grabs nitrogen from the air and the bacteria in its roots processes it, thus making it a self-fertilizing plant.
Clover does not need to be watered as often as grass because it grows deeper roots.
So far, clover takes care of: Water Conservation and the Reduction In The Use Of Artificial Fertilizers Which Minimizes The Pollution of Rivers And Streams Due To Run Off.
As a child, I played in parks with Clover/grass lawns and I remember them as the softest, coolest lawns.

Second, I am reading a book called Ultra-Metabolism, and if I believe the things in this book, then I have to declare:
Dandelions ARE NOT weeds either!
Who do I have to call/write incessantly to change the Dandelion's reputation?

In summary, Clover is good and Dandelions are great.

Over and out.

When I grow up...

2009-03-25T08:12:00.004-05:00

...I want to be a Gardener.

How do you define a garden?

The answer to this question is important to me because depending on what it is, then it defines me, or at least part of me.

These days I hesitate to tell people that one of my favorite things to do is gardening. I am afraid that people get this idea that I tend beautifully designed English gardens with flowers and bushes placed in strategic locations to maximize the colors and scents.
Nothing could farther from the truth.
My garden is definitely blue collar and the most important issue to me these days is sunlight, specifically where it falls the longest in my yard.
So I tell people I grow plants instead. I figure that is the most accurate description of my activities.
It could be that I am just insecure. I do the same thing with my drawings. I don't tell people I am an artist either. I draw, with pencil and ink. That's all.
I am not a writer. I blog.
Or I suppose I could say that I am a gardener, just not a good one; but then that opens a whole new discussion on what "good" means. When I eat my first delicious salad made from stuff I grew myself, I may come to a different definition of "good" than when I am talking about how pretty my garden looks.
And really, Landscaping and Gardening can be mutually exclusive. I mean, a landscaper doesn't have to grow a thing. He can simply get the plants from someone who grew them.
Does it really matter?
Why do I worry about stuff like this I will never know.
Maybe it is because we have a cold front running through the area and all my plant growing is at a standstill and all I can do is talk about growing plants instead of actually tending to my plants.

All my Irish Eyes sunflowers have real leaves now and I have radishes and lettuce in my square foot gardening beds now. It hit 31 degrees around 5 am this morning and when I left the house the thermometer was reporting 33 degrees. I'll see this afternoon what effect the weather last night had on my seedlings.
I brought in my 5 tomato plants that are in containers. So far, my tomato plan is working as expected.

Catch the gardening wave!

2009-03-23T08:20:00.008-05:00

He asked, "What are you doing these days?"
I answered: "I am growing vegetables and flowers"
He said, "I buy my vegetables at the grocery store and my flowers at the flower shop"
I thought, "He doesn't get it"

I read more and more about how people are tuning in to gardening these days. It's like we sense something.
Is it the ailing economy? We've been through bad economic times before, but I don't remember reading that gardening as an activity took off then.
Is it the end of the world in 2012? Are we sensing that soon we will have to survive without the modern infrastructure of roads and supermarkets?
Are we all just getting older? I read tons of blogs by young people who garden.

What is it?

Speaking as a relatively new gardener, I can say this: It is not to save money. If you are new to gardening, you won't really save money on produce. Not at first. At first, you get taken by all the beautiful and glossy gardening catalogs and you buy. You buy everything that may make you into a better gardener. This in spite of all the wonderful web sites and blogs out there telling you how to grow plants on the cheap:

http://www.cheapvegetablegardener.com/
http://www.homegrownevolution.com/
http://www.genteelrecessionista.com/
http://www.littlehouseinthesuburbs.com/
http://www.pathtofreedom.com/
and many, many more.

Also, for a good, entertaining story about how quickly and surreptitiously your costs can get out of control, read the book by William Alexander, The 64 dollar tomato .
Eventually, once you get your gardening legs, you will begin to incorporate the money saving techniques you've read and heard about, but at first, you will pay.

So if saving money is not it, then what? Well, for one, taste.
It is no secret that farmers today grow food that can be shipped thousands of miles away and last a long time in storage. Tomatoes and strawberries get picked green, long before they develop their deliciousness. Tomatoes, at least, are bred to withstand a beating during shipment and taste is not the number one factor during their cultivation. You are more likely to grow delicious produce in your yard, especially if you grow heirlooms.

Nutrition. It is now known that the vegetables and fruits grown by giant farm monstrosities like Monsanto and others, contain much less nutrition than produce from the past. Agribusiness is just that, a business and their concern is making money, not nutritious food. The reasons as to why food is less nutritious today are related to their growing methods. The produce from your yard will be more nutritious, especially if you practice natural, organic gardening.

Health. By growing your own food, you know what's in it. No more salmonella or pesticides in your food, as long as you use organic methods. Period.

Exercise and the joy of doing SOMETHING. Get off the couch and turn the t.v. off. Go fight aphids. Go make compost (I am told is addictive). Then go and show off the beautiful stuff you've grown.

Nothing in this post is original. I am simply saying that after 6 years of growing plants, I can attest to the truth of what it's been said about gardening.

Grow and Tell!

Tigers and Lions and Hail, Oh My!

2009-03-21T12:11:00.012-05:00

The forecast called for isolated thunderstorms. Around 8 pm we heard thunder and saw lightening but the water was falling softly and the wind was gentle enough that I did not worry about my 5 tomato plants that are outside in self-watering containers. I went to sleep.
At 1:30am, HAIL! I berated myself for not assuming that a thunderstorm in March would produce hail. I began running through the mental inventory of all the tomatoes I still had inside. Plenty.
Still, I felt dumb for not preventing the assured destruction of the tomatoes that had already been hardened.
This morning I walked outside and took inventory of the damage.
NONE.
Actually, one tiny basil plant bit. One out of 20.
I consider myself lucky and I hope I learned something. Assume hail in Spring thunderstorms.

I got teeny tiny lettuce coming up in my square foot gardening bed. It is head lettuce of some type. The package did not specify. It is seed number 445 from Thompson and Morgan.

I looked at the spot in the front yard where I will plant flowers and noticed that the lonely Tiger Lily that grows every year is not lonely anymore. There are now 3 more Tiger Lilys. I Googled Tiger Lilys and learned that what I thought were seeds, are actually mini bulbs that grow on the stem of the lily. Oh, I am going to have a Tiger Lily farm next year! I read that they usually take 2 years to flower but I can wait. The Tiger Lily won't bloom until Summer so I won't have pictures until then.
One last thing. I also saw this for the first time on the flower-bed-to-be:

Parts of the bed are covered with these little craters. My friend told me they were Ant Lion traps.
We dug one up and we found a tiny caterpillar. Too small to get a good picture with my old camera. The idea is that ants will fall into this sand pit and the Ant Lion, which waits at the bottom much like the monster in the Star Wars movie, will grab them.
My friend assures me that the tiny worm will grow into this:

I CAN'T WAIT!!!

The Parts Of The Plant

2009-03-20T15:24:00.003-05:00

First Day Of Spring

2009-03-20T10:11:00.003-05:00

HAPPY FIRST DAY OF SPRING!

The first day of Spring is mostly symbolic when it comes to gardening. Most gardeners do it all year long for gardening is comprised of many activities. Yet, I rejoice all the same.

A friend who read my post about the Composter 2000 asked what was the "peeing in the composter" all about. I think I read somewhere that if you pee in the compost you add Nitrogen to the mix. Urine has a component called Blood Urea Nitrogen. This component, if I remember right, comes from the breakdown of muscle in the body and it gets flushed out by the kidneys. Apparently, in the compost, the Nitrogen gets extracted by the compost goblins and voila! Nitrogen in the compost, which is good for the plants. We'll see how I do with my bucket.

Also, I have been reading more and more blogs from gardeners, farmers, and others who have embraced the growing of plants and I am more and more excited about growing flowers.
When I started growing plants, I concentrated on growing things I could eat. I don't know why.
Last year, I planted the first flowers ever. These were Marygolds that I planted because I heard that they kept some bug away from my tomatoes; and also, I planted them becacuse I got a free packet of Marygold seeds with my order of vegetable seeds. I guess I also planted a few giant Sunflowers to provide seed for the birds (they loved them and ate every little seed out of the heads)
This year, I am growing Lavender, Pestemons, and Irish Eyes Sunflowers.
I think it may be too late to plant any other flowers from seed this year but next year...

The Composter 2000

2009-03-19T18:39:00.003-05:00

Ok, so it more like The Composter 1896.
I am going to try to compost some leaves and stuff using this old metal trash can. I started two days ago and I have been faithfully turning the leaves and grass and weeds plus some not so fresh produce I found in the refrigerator.
I am quite sure I am doing this wrong already and the very funny thing is that there are a quadrazillion web sites out there with every bit of information I need. I told myself I will read them all this weekend. Meanwhile, I can't wait to sneak out in the middle of the night and pee in the composter...he he he...

Name change

2009-03-18T15:55:00.005-05:00

I became aware of a conflict in the name of my blog. The name of my blog is written in the Cahita dialect of the Yoeme or Yaqui people. It means "Flower World".
Flowers play a big role in the belief system and culture of the Yaqui.
The conflict arises because the Cahita language did not have a written form and so we do the best we can to write the words in a manner that will render their pronunciation close to the way they are supposed to be spoken.
Fine and dandy.
The problem is that the Yaqui span two countries with very different languages: Mexico and the US.
If you want to write the word "flower" to approximate its pronunciation it would be "Segua" in Mexico, where Spanish is spoken; in the US however, "Sewa" works for English speakers, which most Yaqui in the US speak.
After a while, I decided to spell the word "Segua" instead of "Sewa". Once I made that decision, it was easy to change the header on my blog to reflect the change. The URL of my blog however, cannot be changed easily.
And that is fine after all because this way I get to honor both spellings and thus validate the Yaqui on both sides of the border.
If you are interested, the Yaqui or Yoeme, are the only indigenous group in the Americas to still retain ownership of their ancestral lands after over 500 years of contact with outsiders. Some groups exist in the Amazon who have been only recently in contact with the outside world and of course, the reservation system doesn't count as ownership of anything.
Traditionally ferocious, the Yaqui have managed to do this in spite of an official extermination policy by the Mexican government of old and despite modern efforts by corrupt politicians and drug traffiquers.
The Yaqui are a recognized "tribe" in the US. You should know that tribes are from Africa. The Yaqui, as well as many other indigenous groups in the Americas referred to themselves as Nations. (even though the modern Pascua Yaqui call themselves a tribe)
My connection to the Yaqui comes from both my parents, although unfortunately, I was only exposed to the culture in a very small way.
Now, back to growing plants!

Sunny Sunday and the deal is done.

2009-03-15T18:05:00.014-05:00

Not quite.
It was a beautiful day for gardening. Sunny, mid 60's, with a gentle, caressing breeze. And Lexie, the destroyer:

Lexie is a stray puppy that we got from the pound. She has destroyed many things with those brand new teeth of hers. I wish I had better pictures of her but whenever I come close to take a picture she tries to eat the camera.
This is Lexie relaxing on the bed she "made" from the cushion from one of our yard chairs.

In spite of all her efforts, I managed to plant the purple onion sets I got two weeks ago, plus garlic. This is the first time I try to grow garlic
The only thing I knew about growing garlic is to plant it with the pointy end up. Lucky for me the bag the garlic came in told me how deep to plant it and how far apart.

Besides the garlic and the onion, the following went into my square foot gardening beds:
Apache salad onions - seedlings I started from seed
White onions - seedlings I started as well
Mignon carrots - same as above
Pink and red radish - sown directly in soil
Tom Thumb lettuce - sown directly in soil
TinTin lettuce - same as above
Head lettuce - same
Broccoli di Cicco - same as above

Once the beds were fully planted I secured the grids and attached the corner posts.

Here are both my Square Foot Garden beds. One is finished with the temporary protective wire cage. Next, I will finish putting the rock down around the beds. Last, I will build a fence around the bed area so that I can remove the individual wire cages.

Last year, I planted all my vegetables in a patch. I grew a lot of stuff in this plot but it was a lot of work keeping it weed free, that is why I decided on the Square Foot Gardening and self-watering containers for this season.
I still will use my garden patch this year. I will plant beans and peas, giant kale, giant sunflowers and maybe some more potatoes.
Part of the plot will be used for the upcoming green house. I am also planning on erecting a real fence around it. For now though, I am going to take a break.

Potatoes in the bag

2009-03-14T22:14:00.008-05:00

I finally got to the Potatoes-in-a-bag project. I took two run of the mill, 27 gallon, yard bags and put one inside the other. Then I cut three drainage holes with a pair of scissors. Here is where I ran into my first challenge for once I cut the holes the two bags got out of alignment and the holes in the inside bag did not match with the holes in the outside bag. So now, I am not 100% sure about how well this set will drain.
For the second set, I waited until I put the soil in before I punched the draining holes.
I used garden soil instead of potting mix because it was cheaper.
I put 1 cubic quart of soil in the bag and watered it in preparation for the seed potatoes.

Finally I put the potatoes in and hope that the black bags warm the soil and encourage the plants to grow. As I add dirt to the bag, I will unroll it until I am satisfied I will not need to add any more soil.

I repeated the process and made a second set. I did not add any compost or fertilizer to the bag as the soil already had nutrients added. I am not a great fan of Miracle Gro stuff but that's the only brand I could find at Lowe's.
The final step had to do with protecting the bags from Lexie, my rambunctious puppy. Here is the very temporary solution until I figure out something better:
I also got to sow my Irish Eyes sunflowers in peat pots, and I put my Galena tomatoes in peat pots as well.
I bought the lumber needed to protect my beds from Lexie but I did not get to work on that today. My friend Tim suggested that I enclose the area of the beds instead of enclosing each bed individually.
Tomorrow I will see about tackling more items from my to-do list.

To Do List

2009-03-13T12:39:00.003-05:00

1. Plant potatoes in bags. I am using regular yard bags, with holes at the bottom for drainage. I may have to wrap them in chicken wire to keep my new destructive puppy from mauling them down.

2. Put 2x4 studs around my beds. And wrap chicken wire around them to keep my new destructive puppy from digging everything out. I was inspired to do this by my destructive puppy -Lexie and by a post on Karl's Garden Blog.

3. Prepare the garden plot in backyard. Clean weeds, add compost, add fence to keep my new destructive puppy from digging everything out.

4. Add dirt and water and plants to all self-watering containers. And, , figure out how to keep my new destructive puppy from thinking that these are her new chew-toys.

5. Sow my Irish Eyes sunflowers that will go in front yard. I did not want to start them too soon.

6. Prepare flower bed in front yard. I got most of it done last Fall but it still needs compost.

7. Plant white onion, Apache salad onion, and carrot seedlings in beds. Sow radish.

I am also very excited that my friend Tim has agreed to help me build my greenhouse made from second hand windows. It is just an idea so far but with Tim's help I may actually get it built.

Gardening in the 23rd Century

2009-03-11T15:43:00.003-05:00

Robust tomato plants

2009-03-10T18:56:00.003-05:00

So far, this Market Miracle tomato plant has lived despite my neglect. I decided to put the plant outside because I believed we were in for a week's worth of above-freezing temperatures but I was wrong. This plant, along with a Brandywine tomato plant, has lived through at least 3 nights of sub-freezing and windy conditions. I expected them to be dead when I came home from work today but they were still alive so I brought them into the house for a well deserved break.

How Does Your Garden Grow?

2009-03-10T08:07:00.002-05:00

Consider the humble aluminum can. We don't think much about it. We drink the contents therein and then we either trash it or recycle it and then we forget about it. But the aluminum can is a wonder of modern engineering worthy of a second look. Every aspect of it was designed; more aluminum and you are wasting material; less aluminum and the pressurized contents will end up all over you pretty new shirt. The tab is made just tight enough to keep things in but loose enough to allow even the most delicate fingers to remove it. Then we make millions of exact copies, each performing at the same high level. Yep, pretty amazing.

Is your gardening a high precision enterprise? Do you know the exact chemical composition of your soil? Is your compost controlled to such a degree that you could patent it? Is your knowledge of your plants so deep that you could earn a Botany degree? Are you so tuned to the weather that they call you from the local tv station for the daily forecast?

My sophistication level in the garden rises a little every growing season but I am far from being the guy that understands how fertilizer travels down the soil seeking its point of optimum equilibrium, or any such thing.

Don't get me wrong. I would love to be a Master Gardener and possess such esoteric knowledge (In the age of Wikipedia, is there such a thing as esoteric knowledge anymore?).
But even at my mediocre level of gardening proficiency, I miss the early days. I miss those times when I just naively put seeds in peat pods, left them to get leggy and weak and then transplanted them into the first open spot in the yard. Sure I lost a lot of plants but I also got tomatoes, peppers, and herbs.

All the same, last year I bought a Ph test kit so I could optimize the soil for Blueberries, and a soil thermometer that in no small part, allowed for record germination rates this year. Will I ever become a Master Gardener? Will my gardening ever reach Aluminum-can like precission? Probably not but I doubt my joy for it will diminish no matter what.

How does YOUR garden grow?