Newspaper pot redux

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

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

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.

© 2010 David Borboa

Potatoes and Ollas revisited

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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!