What's growing, January 2008

I was going to take some photos of the outdoor plants today. I was going to do a lot of things, including get some steer manure from Home Depot, and plant some seeds outdoors; instead, I woke up at 2pm and read until 5. I'm still recovering from a long cold/flu/thing, so when my body feels like a slow day I go with it, rather than get sick again. At least I can catch up with blogging!

In text-only, here's what's currently growing outside:

• In the container row in front of the raised beds:
  • One flowerpot of catnip
  • One large container with dormant dahlia and gladiolus bulbs and one bunch of living sweet alyssum, white. I took the bulbs from the other container indoors for the winter, fortunately, because that container was then accidentally smashed by one of the maintenance trucks. Unfortunately, the dahlia bulbs inside are sprouting and I am not sure what to do with them. I'm going to leave the rest of the bulbs out where it's cold.
  • One wicker basket containing dill and four cloves of garlic. It was going to be an indoor container; I just didn't have enough space to keep it inside. I'm sure the garlic will live; maybe even the dill.
    
  • The rest of the container-space is taken up with milk-crates of planting soil waiting for spring planting; one tub and one garbage-can filled with leaves-and-compost, half-rotted and lightly colonized by worms; and several sacks of leaves, moldering away.
  
  
• In the herb&flower bed (from left to right):
  • One root of perennial geranium, Kashmir Purple, planted in November. No green shows yet. I dug up one of the three last week and found that a shoot was starting, underground. That plant is now inside, and the shoot is poking up aboveground. I'm going to leave the other two outside and be patient.
  • The remaining stem of a Martha Washington geranium; it was still alive in a container in October, and although vandals smashed it, I replanted it to see if it will grow and bloom again in spring.
  • Oregano, spreading out close to ground and looking healthy.
  • Peppermint, looking straggly. I know it's put out runners underground already; I tore most of them up when clearing the remains of the basil out out in November.
  • Pineapple sage, also looking straggly. I have become very fond of the flavor in salad-dressing. I'm thinking of starting another one (or more!) indoors, transplanting it out in spring, especially if the plant doesn't bush up with warmer weather.
  • Garden sage, spreading out and looking very healthy. I got this plant free from the nursery, because it had long woody stems and looked straggly. I took it home, spread the woody length of the stems along the ground and mounded them with earth, and it has propagated and thrived.
  • Two rosemary bushes, still small. They never bloomed this year, either.
  • The other Kashmir Purple geranium.
  • Three lavender bushes, still small. Only one bloomed this year.
  • There are three or four little strawberry plants scattered through the bed, set by runners from the bed above, that I didn't notice until they were established. I haven't decided yet whether I will move them in April or just let them grow where they are.
  • There are also a few petunias, leaves still green, that I have decided to leave to see if they will bloom again in spring.
  
  
• In the strawberry bed:
  • I have not yet counted all the strawberry plants! I let the runners run wild this year. Next year I will pinch them off ruthlessly, aiming for more berries rather than any more plants. Strawberry leaves spread pretty thickly across the bed, most of them turned red.
    
  • Three thyme plants among the strawberries, still healthy but not very big.
    
  • One tiny borage volunteer that sprouted up this month!
    


• In the veggie bed:
  • Six onions. Several dozen onions from the nursery, both Walla-Walla and yellows, were planted the end of April last year. I pulled half-a-dozen through the year, for salads. They stayed salad-sized even into October, when I dug over most of the veggie bed, getting ready for spring. I left some of the onions, to see if they ever "grow up."
  • Four Red Russian kale plants, still putting out leaves. I pick off the leaves when still young, for salads.
  • A bed of mixed greens, growing slowly but still yielding salads.
  • Five cloves of garlic. I meant to plant more, but never figured out where. I have covered most of the veggie bed with a compost heap, inoculated with worms, and plan to add topsoil and compost across the whole in early March, to bring the depth of good rich soil in the bed up to at least 18".
  • Three "winter sowing" experiments: one plastic cookie tub, sown with spinach and covered loosely with a plastic bag; one plastic 2-liter bottle cut halfway through, folded back, sown with parsley, then "closed" again; one gallon milk jug, top half cut off, sown with White Russian kale, top half set back down inside the bottom half. The kale is sprouting already.

Tomorrow is Martin Luther King Day and I will probably be at one celebration or another until dark. By Tuesday, though, I'll post photos of all this. :D

Getting started on 2008!

One of my 2008 New Year Resolutions is to keep my garden journal more regularly this year.

Starting off with -- seed starts! I bought a four-foot shop light and two full-spectrum fluorescents at Home Depot, total $30. This is much cheaper than the indoor stations in seed-starting catalogs -- but it does not come with shelving for the plants or a stand for the light. Or extra space in the apartment.

Our apartments in the Union are studios, the kind called SROs, which officially stands for "Single Resident Occupancy." I say it stands for "Standing Room Only." In order to squeeze in a seed-starting station, I stood the light up against a bookshelf and piled milk crates and planting containers between the bookshelf and the microwave. And on the microwave. And in front of the bookshelf. With a holding area in the bathroom for pots that are not sprouting yet.

This first photo shows the shop-light:


In the second photo, you see the motley collection of pots and shelving I have cobbled together:


The wicker baskets are permanent planters; two will stay in the kitchen, along with one of the other trays and a couple of yogurt containers. They contain chives, cilantro, cress, scallions, spinach, leeks, garlic, and two kinds of parsley.


The last of the wicker baskets has been sown with catmint. When it grows up to a nice thick mound, I'll take it into the office for the Cat Executive Officer.


The yellow pot contains one of the three perennial geraniums I planted in the perennial bed in November. I dug one up to bring indoors for a closer look at how & whether it comes to life. It has a small green sprout now; too small to see in the photo yet, but exciting to me. :)


The little plastic box isn't really pearl onions, as labeled; it's bell peppers. The container makes a nice little greenhouse, with plenty of air circulation and no mold problems so far.

There are also a couple of 72-cell Jiffy seed-starting trays. I took the tops off because I was getting mold on some of the cells. Mold's been growing on practically everything. I think I used too much water in the starting soil. Picking off as much mold as I can and then sprinkling with bioactives, Soil Alive! and Dr. Earth's Compost Starter, have helped control it -- maybe just by drying the surface. I've even sprinkled pots that haven't shown mold yet, to be proactive. For the last few batches of seeds, I've mixed the bio-powders in with the soil right at the start, and I haven't seen mold on them yet.

In the bathroom are handmade newspaper pots of far more tomatoes than I will ever plant. :) (You can probably tell which ones were my first efforts!) If they all grow up healthy, I'll give the excess away.


By the time these pots show green, I hope to have bought, begged or borrowed a small bookcase, and be able to arrange the plants better. I also might get a second $30 light setup and put it in the bathroom.

Everything is sprouting up pretty fast except the spinach. (I added some leek seeds and three garlic cloves in the wild hope the would help combat the mold.) It finally dawned on me that it's too warm in here for spinach to germinate; it would actually do better outside. I'm going to take the basket out back tomorrow; after everything gets going, I might bring it back in.

Garden Resolutions for 2008

1. Continue my garden/compost/worm projects. (Wes says it's good to include at least one resolution that you are certain you will keep.)
2. Keep a more thorough garden journal, and post to my garden blog at least once a week.
3. Help start at least one new (organic) urban garden in Seattle.
4. Find a way to continue fresh greens at the Union community meals this winter.
   
5. Help homeless shelters, homeless day programs, and other low-income apartment buildings find ways to grow fresh greens.
6. Add at least one native, heirloom plant to my garden this year, and save the seeds.
   
7. Post at least one "environmental justice" entry each week, making the connection between human issues and environmental issues.

Puzzles of 2007

• What were those clusters of little black (eggs?) on the nasturtiums? (no photos)


• What DOES Holy Basil look like, and why didn't it come up?

Favorite Plants of 2007

The garden produce everybody enjoyed the most:

• Tomatoes, of course.

• Kale. Plant LOTS more kale next year.

• Nasturtiums. Plant LOTS more nasturtiums next year. Wes alone could eat the production of three nasturtium vines. But either make two salads (one with and one without) or put flowers in a bowl on the side for those who aren't freaked by eating them.

• Borage. No worries about getting more - I had volunteers coming up all year!

• All the flowers. Pedestrians like the spot of brightness among the gray city streets, but residents like cut flowers indoors too. Plant more, so there's enough for garden display and indoor display AND eating.

• I planted a variety of cucumbers this year. The most productive were the Asian types (the long, thin ones), and the Su Long was the healthiest. Nobody was put off by the shape, they were all cut up in salads anyway. So next year I'll just plant the Su Long, and maybe lemon cucumbers just because I like the cute little things.

Top 6 Things I Did Right in 2007

1. Compost tea really does seem to increase yield (at least in tomatoes) and cut down on disease. I did have black spot on the green peppers, some damp rot in a couple of lettuces and a pansy (planted too close together) and the downy mildew that swept through the vines (planted too close together). This seems light compared to the myriad of awful things the gardening books warned me could happen.
   


2. I vibrated the tomato blossoms with a battery-powered electric toothbrush, and a huge number of tomatoes set.
   


3. Radishes work well as a "trap" crop. I found this out by accident. The first crop of radishes got pretty heavily chomped - but almost nothing else did.
   


4. Marigolds and borage brighten up the day for everyone; are great in salads; and do seem to be good companions for other plants. They certainly didn't seem to hurt anything.
   


5. Cucumbers and squash love bone meal and kelp. Sea Magic and compost tea make a great foliar feed.
   


6. A layer of worm castings really speeds up seed germination! (I learned this by accident.) Worm castings also make a very effective treatment for black spot. (I learned this in desperation.)
   

More lessons from 2007

1. Learn how to mulch. First I was waiting to mulch until the seedlings came up. Then I was afraid of smothering the seedlings, so I was waiting until they got high enough that I could put mulch under them. Then I was overwhelmed by the difficulties of tucking mulch in around the base of all those plants. I didn't learn until the end of the year that I don't have to "tuck it in" around the stem. :D I also didn't have the money for a good commercial mulch, the transportation to get much of it, or the patience to shred enough newspaper to mulch 70 square feet of ground. And don't use peat moss as mulch. It dries into an almost impermeable layer. I learned that after just one watering. My most effecti ve mulch was coffee grounds. I was cautious with them this year -- next year I'll be less cautious.
   


2. Don't plant cucumbers beside the lavender. Interplanting works great, but cucumbers need LOTS more water than herbs are comfy with. Flowers and herbs, okay; strawberries and herbs, okay; cucubits and herbs, no.
   


3. Mark where you planted! I sometimes forgot where seeds were, and which. The markers of individual nursery plants got lost, too. Not as big deal, but I was surprised when our (one) green pepper turned red; and what I thought was a zucchini turned out to be a sunburst squash while the sunburst squash turned out to be a zucchini.
   


4. Keep up the garden journal better. I started out faithfully recording every sowing, every watering, every feeding, every time it rained, the date I started a new worm bin or compost bin. By the end of September, though, I slacked off on keeping records. Now I wish I had them.
   


5. When you buy nursery seedlings, you can get more than one in a pot. The reason the peppers never thrived turned out to be that they were each two plants, put in together. When I tried to separate multiple seedlings in other pots, they sometimes did not thrive. Again it seems best to steel yourself to cut off extra seedlings early, in order to get one productive plant.
   


6. If you start your own plants, you have more control over what you get. Of three pots I bought all simply labeled "zucchini," one was light green and pear-shaped, one was dark green and round, and one was dark green and, well, zucchini-shaped. This was interesting, but... well, I want to know what I'm raising!
   


7. You have to start the winter garden before winter. I could have more growing now, if I'd realized I had to plant it earlier.
   


8. Foliar feed is pretty much wasted on lightly-feeding plants. Not that it hurts them - but it's a waste of money.
   


9. Don't try starting seeds in potting soil. It works much better in peat moss. And even in warm weather, some plants start better in peat moss than in garden soil.
   


10. Worm castings don't solve everything. They worked so well on the black spot that I tried them on the downy mildew, too. Doesn't work on downy mildew.
    


11. The charts say beets like acid soil, but mine grew a lot better after I added some dolomite lime.
    


12. Sunburst squash tastes better when you let it grow larger. The bite-sized squash on crudité trays is pretty bland, and isn't worth the space in a community garden when you have to make salad for 20 once a week. When it gets to three or four inch diameter, it develops a very pleasant flavor - and goes a lot farther!
    


13. Lemon cucumbers taste better when they are very deep yellow. They are edible when they've just begun to turn orange around the stem, but at that point they taste like almost any other cucumber. If you wait until the whole cucumber is dark yellow with streaks of orange, they begin to taste lemony. In a salad, though, nobody noticed any difference. Plant less lemon cucumbers next year, and use them whole.
    


14. When they say to use compost tea right away, they mean it. I let it sit too long, twice. BIG stink.