Hello, springtime!

I guess I’ve sort of had an unintentional hiatus here! I’ve still been baking and cooking, but more cooking than baking, and lots of old favorites instead of getting really experimental. There’s always a certain point of the winter (even a non-winter like the one we just had) that I get a bit stagnant, but now, with the arrival of spring, I am rejuvenated! 

If you follow me on Facebook, you know that I tried out one of those “artisan bread in five minutes a day” recipes. It was amazing, and probably one of the most successful bread attempts I’ve ever had. Posting about that is on my to-do list, and I bought a big jar of fresh yeast and I’ll hopefully come up with some great variations. 

I also am happy to report that I planted some vegetables today! I was considering not gardening at all this year because I’m scheduled for shoulder surgery next month. I’m going to be in a sling for quite a while, and I won’t be able to haul around my containers or sacks of soil or do anything really strenuous. But, I planted some small, manageable containers that I’ll be able to water with a watering can instead of a hose that I need to coil. 

I almost exclusively used seeds from the Hudson Valley Seed Library. I planted kale, a couple kinds of lettuce, the same peas & carrots as last year, spinach, green onions, and I started my sugar baby watermelons indoors. My littlest brother also told me that he suspects that the place he’s been growing pumpkins for the last few years is depleted in nutrients because they haven’t done crop rotation (they only grow pumpkins, and this revelation is undoubtedly because I bought him a copy of The Omnivore’s Dilemma for Kids), so we’re talking about planting some stuff over there to replenish the soil. 

I’ll be sure to post some pictures when my seedlings are up! 

Late August Garden Update

We’re about to get hit with a hurricane, which is kind of unusual for these parts. This morning, I went out and bought bottled water, and then immediately after that, I went to the garden. I took down my container plants from high ledges and set them in protected alcoves and under the eaves of the house, hoping that they wouldn’t be trashed from the storm.

There’s some great stuff happening out in the garden. The accidental tomatillos are growing wildly out of control. There are so many that the fruit just falls to the ground if we don’t go out to collect it often enough, and we’ve already given some away to multiple neighbors. This morning I went and picked as many of the ripe and nearly ripe fruits as I could, realizing that the strong winds of the storm would likely knock them off the plant.

My second sowing of broccoli is up and a few inches tall, but the small green cabbage caterpillars have been hard at work eating the leaves away. I thought I’d brushed away all the eggs that had been laid by the evil cabbage moth, but I must have missed some, as a fat caterpillar sat on a holey broccoli leaf today.

The second sowing of peas is up, too. Only a few of the very first ones that I planted came up, so I resowed a week or two after that. The very first ones have some peas forming on them already, and the others are a few inches tall and will flower soon. After their predecessors drowned so terribly in the spring, I’ve tried very hard to keep them under cover during heavy storms. The lettuce planted around the same time is also coming up nicely, though it seems that one variety is beating out the others.

I’ve got about three of these little sugar baby watermelons growing…

And we harvested a handful of ears of corn! (Before the squirrels got to it, unlike last year!)

Look how yellow it is on the inside!

I also have a burgundy bean plant climbing right up in this container…

And apparently, one of them that I planted in the yard did survive! Check out these awesome beans!

They’re this deep purple on the outside, and bright green on the inside, just like some of the peppers that we get from Farmer Rich.

Speaking of peppers from Farmer Rich, we got one pepper plant from him, and it’s fruiting now, too. If I recall, it’s supposed to turn to an orange-ish color, so they’re not quite ready to pick yet.

And finally, the pumpkins. The only variety that is really thriving is the Jack-Be-Little variety, both in the container and in the ground, and I’m attributing this to the fact that I started all of them in a container and then transplanted them. The ones in the container are much too large for the container but seem to be doing ok.

There’s that little pumpkin starting!

Gorgeous weather for gardening.

The weather in the tri-state area has been just gorgeous lately. We spent most of the weekend sitting outside on the back deck, enjoying the greenery that has finally decided to appear on the trees (as well as getting a nosefull of pollen!).

The container garden that I’ve started is mostly doing quite well. The kohlrabi can’t decide whether it wants to live or die. The lettuce and spinach did die while I was in New Orleans, but I resowed it and hopefully we’ll have that come up. All of the tiny tiny seedlings that were in the trays inside didn’t make it (due, it would seem, to someone in the house, I won’t name names, wanting to be helpful and watering a bit too much). But, just about everything did ok outside, so I haven’t had to replace much. The only thing I really had a hard time with was the peppers, and I’ve started them outside again this week.

The carrots are doing wonderfully. And take a look at the broccoli and peas! Can you believe it?

Also, in the short week that I was in New Orleans, my apple tree (that looked little more than a skinny stick in a bucket of dirt when I left) grew a whole bunch of leaves! Check it out!

It’s warming up enough here to start sowing some stuff directly into the ground. We’re still not sure what our plans are for moving, but since we live with my partner’s mom, who also likes gardening, we can always just leave her a yummy harvest if we find a great apartment mid-summer. So, Sunday, I put in a short row of soy beans and a short row of royal burgundy bush beans.

We started talking about plans for a triangular trellis for the sugar baby watermelons, which I started inside today. Another summer treat we’ll have is corn. Today, I sowed about a 3.5′x3.5′ patch (I know that Charlie is going to tell me that I’m way off in my estimate, since I’m terrible at them) of corn. I have space on either side of the patch to do more corn, too. One of the sections needs to be cleared of forget-me-nots and weeds, and the other is ready to go. I’m planning to plant the corn in succession so that we don’t have a glut all at once. So, in two or three weeks, I should be ready to plant the next patch of corn. I may also plant my pumpkins over there, both because there would be room for them to vine and because they give important nutrients to the corn. We’ll see – it’s early for that.

I actually planted a handful of flowers, too. Usually I stick to veggies, but I had a wildflower mix that I decided to toss in a window box, and I’d gotten some painted daisy seeds from the seed library. I was planning to plant them in a pair of old polka-dotted rain boots, but they’re MIA at the moment, so I started them in pots that would set just about properly in the boots, and I’ll look a little harder for the boots in the next few weeks.

One last funny note about the garden. As you might have read, we had some hoop houses to keep the kale warm when it was very chilly. Well, I uncovered the hoops when I got home from NOLA, and the kale was doing ok, but I had some really healthy looking tomato plants, perfectly spaced out! It was pretty funny. I used compost to get that area going, so there must have been a few seeds that snuck in that our wormies didn’t process. They look so healthy that I think I’ll let them grow! With any luck, they’re seeds from the heirloom tomatoes we get in our CSA share.

Getting excited for gardening.

I know that there’s approximately two feet of snow on the ground, but I’m getting excited for gardening already. And, quite honestly, if you’re in my area (zone 6) and you’re planning to grow some veggies that enjoy cooler weather, like kale, cabbage, broccoli, and brussels sprouts, it’s time to start ordering seeds! If you’ll be doing indoor starts like I am, it’s actually going to be time to begin those for the cool weather veggies very soon.

One thing that’s going to be different about the way I garden this year is that I’ll primarily be doing container gardening instead of planting things directly in the ground. This is because we’ll likely be moving sometime during the growing season, and I don’t want to give up gardening entirely. I’m not sure when we’ll be moving, or if the space we’ll be moving to will have a garden, or access to a community garden, or if I’ll just be able to have some containers, but having containers will be my bare minimum, so I figure I’ll be able to take them along.

Last year some of my big problems with my garden were timing (I started much too late) and pests, particularly a groundhog, and I think that will be alleviated a bit by planting in containers and keeping them in areas where he’s not comfortable going, like our deck. I need to get my hands on some containers, so if any of my buddies who read this have some that they’re not planning to use, I’d love it!

Here’s the design I came up with for my containers. (Yeah, I made a cute little sketch… sometimes I miss art school, ok?)

In case that’s illegible, or you’re a person with a visual impairment, it’s a picture of a rubbermaid container. I’ll be drilling holes in the bottom (or taking someone’s that they don’t want anymore because it has a crack in the bottom) so that it has drainage. The back side of it has chickenwire that is supported with simple wood poles on either end, and that will be my trellis for things like peas and beans! I’ll also have a thin pipe that will go to the bottom of the container that I’ll water the plants through, since from what I’ve read, if you water from the bottom, the roots are more likely to grow down instead of spreading out, which is really ideal for small spaces like container plants. Pretty neat, right? Is there anything I’m forgetting or that you can think of to improve about it?

I got my seeds this year from a really incredible local source. I joined the Hudson Valley Seed Library, and when you join, you get 10 free packs of seeds. I chose almost all things that can go in containers in case we move (one or two things can’t really, but I couldn’t resist).

Here’s a picture of all my seed packets laid out. Some of them are “garden packs” from responsible wholesalers, “art packs” that have beautiful designs by New York artists, and “library packs,” which have seeds grown right here in the Hudson Valley by small, sustainable farms. I can even send some seeds back that I’ve saved after my harvest this year!

Here’s what I got:

• Royal Burgandy Bush Beans

• Shirofumi Edamame Soybeans

• Di Ciccio Broccoli

• Parisian Carrots

• Forest Green Parsley

• Vates Blue Curled Kale

• Dinokale

• Tom Thumb Lettuce

• Sugar Ann Snap Pea

• Doe Hill Peppers

• Sugar Baby Watermelon

• Long Island Cheese Pumpkin (Google a picture of these, they’re cute)

I also have Bloomsdale Spinach and Purple Vienna Kohlrabi, and a Painted Daisy Art Pack that I already ordered from them, as well as the a beautiful variety Radish Art Pack that they sent to people who signed up for membership. :)

Cool weather growing starts sooner than you’d think! I’m also thinking of buying a fruit tree, like an apple tree, to keep in a container, but I’m working on finding the right orchard and the right variety (dwarf, self-pollinating, with apples that are versatile and/or store well). So, lots of research is going into that. I know that I won’t get fruit from it right away, but it’s a long-term investment that I’m happy to make. And if, for some reason, I were to move someplace that apples didn’t do well, or I absolutely couldn’t live someplace where I had space for a dwarf container tree on a balcony, it’s the type of thing that I’d be happy giving to a good home… I mean, wouldn’t you be delighted to get a tiny apple tree in a pot as a gift?

Anyone else thinking about gardening yet? What zone are you in? What are you going to grow?

Season Wrap Up

I’ve pretty much thrown in the towel in terms of my garden for the fall. I got a lot busier than expected (which is great! I’m taking an art class and a yoga class!) and the weather has been really weird. It’s hot, then it’s cold, it’s dry, then it rains buckets. Sure, these are things that farmers have to contend with, but even the farmers I know have said that it’s been a rough season in some ways.

A few weeks ago it seemed like our groundhog friend was gone for the year. They tend to have a summer home (under our shed) and a winter home, and in September, ours wasn’t appearing in our yard multiple times a day. I thought again about planting some greens like spinach and kale, but being busy, then the weather, and then having a flare of my fibromyalgia decided for me that it would not be so.

Due to the groundhog’s frantic eating of everything, our pumpkins never really got anywhere. They’re still flowering (we’re thinking about eating the squash blossoms) but it’s obviously too late for them to make pumpkins.

Let me run down the other things I’ve planted and whether or not it was successful.

Broccoli: Total fail. I planted it in a spot that I thought would be sunny enough, and it was not sunny enough. They looked a bit like frankenstein broccoli because of all the twisting and turning they did to try to get to the sun.

Peas: Died in the ridiculous temperatures.

Honeydew: Made several melons, though we had a hard time figuring out what the right time to harvest them was.

Container Kale: Bolted.

Watermelon: SUCESS! We ate one of them on a camping trip. I couldn’t believe it.

(That’s my partner, Charlie, by the way… I’m not sure if he’s ever appeared in photos on here!)

Corn: It was majestic. But the squirrels ate most of it before we did. It was a sight to see.

Kohlrabi: Another winner. Tasted great! I already bought some seeds to try purple kohlrabi early next year.

Eggplant: As you might remember, these were not from seed, they were seedlings from Farmer Rich. They were awesome! They produced all summer (we might even get another one or two small ones out of it) and we’ve had some delicious dinners from them. I’ve got more in the freezer, too.

Carrots: The jury is still out on these. Not sure if they’re really doing what they’re supposed to underground. We’ll try them again next year if they don’t work out.

Herb garden: It was awesome! I’ve been drying bits of the herbs to save for the winter.

Scallions: Better late than never. They are beautiful – not quite as big as the ones Farmer Rich sends us, but still delicious.

And one final surprise…

I planted that winter squash a while back, and then we had a heat wave, and it was really dry, and it just looked dead. It was only about six inches tall, and it was just totally flopped over and looked un-saveable. I ignored it, thinking it was dead.

Last week, I looked out the window, and lo and behold… it was flowering!

I raced outside and not only was it flowering, but it was fruiting!!!

So, we’ll see how that turns out. Hopefully we’ll get some squash out of it!

Fruiting summer crops while planning for fall.

Let me start this post by saying that it was recently my birthday, and my awesome partner bought me a new set of bamboo gardening gloves. They’re so great. I love them because the arthritis in my hands makes a lot of gloves feel uncomfortable, and I already have limited dexterity at times, so really bulky gloves make movement very difficult. These gloves are thin and the fabric is soft, which makes my fibromyalgia happy, since my overactive nervous system is very sensitive to rough things.

These are the nifty gloves…

Now, onto the garden. My knee is definitely not healed, and while I’m off crutches, I’m still hobbling around on a cane most of the time unless it’s a really short distance. I just couldn’t stand to not plant my sugar pumpkins, though, so I decided that I’d go outside today to get them in the ground. I can’t bend my knee very well and I definitely can’t kneel, so I brought a beach blanket type thing outside and set it up next to the area where I was going to work. Then, even more slowly than usual, I dragged all my supplies over to where I’d be working. Instead of standing to till the soil like I usually do, I used a short cultivator and was able to still get the work done fairly quickly. There were awkward moments, sure, and I definitely was in a bit more pain than I would have liked, but I’m thrilled that I got some planting done.

Here’s a tour around the garden. Nearly everything is either flowering or fruiting, and it’s pretty awesome.

The eggplants, as I’ve mentioned before, were seedlings from our CSA. They’ve been doing wonderfully and at least six eggplants have started to take shape, with more flowers closing and looking like they’re going to be eggplants. I’m hoping to serve grilled eggplant at a BBQ this weekend and impress our guests!

This kohlrabi might be one of our most successful plants so far. It’s just about ready to harvest, and we started it from seed!

I really thought my shelling peas were a lost cause. They weren’t doing well, they weren’t climbing up in the three sisters plot, and they just looked kind of ratty. Lo and behold, however, I straightened this guy out and tried to help him back onto a stake, and he was flowering! I may try peas again for the fall, but in containers so that I have a bit more control over them.

These crazy vines are all are all a result of only two honeydew plants. (They end about halfway down the row, and that’s where the kohlrabi begins.)

It looks like this flower has closed up and is trying to start a honeydew!

This next one I just can’t get over. Our watermelon vines are growing all over, though they don’t have nearly as many flowers as the honeydews. This is so freakin’ adorable, though, and you can totally tell that it is a tiny, tiny watermelon!

And finally, my pride and joy: my corn. It got pretty trashed in a terrible thunderstorm we had the other night with winds up to 60mph, and I didn’t think any of it was going to survive. We watched out the window as stalks just got smashed down. We picked the stalks back up a few days ago, though, and a few of them didn’t get wrecked to begin with… and it’s starting to get somewhere! I believe “tassling” is the correct term.

It is so incredible watching all this stuff grow.

I got started on my plans for my fall garden today, too. Sugar pumpkins have been a high priority, since, well… they were the first thing I tried to grow, and that was a year ago! I planted late last year, though, and we had an early frost, so I wasn’t successful. I’m actually a bit late again this year with them because of my knee injury, but our vining plants have been growing like crazy because of the heat, so with any luck, they’ll catch up just fine.

I got the sugar pumpkins in the ground today, and I evaluated the seeds that I had available for what would be good to plant for a fall harvest. Some crops, like kale, are even more delicious in the fall, since the cold weather makes them a bit sweeter.

Kale is definitely on my list of things to plant, and I’ve been looking forward to planting it (and Charlie’s been looking forward to eating it!). I think I’ll also try to do some lettuce, though I don’t remember exactly what variety I have seeds for. I’m going to put that in where the kohlrabi is now, as that is just about ready to be harvested. I have plans for a small area of cabbage (maybe 3 plants) and a small area of winter squash.

The winter squash that I have is a bit of an experiment, really. It’s called Butterbush, and it’s a space-saving variety. It’s a vining plant, but it’s compact and will take up about a quarter of the space of regular vining squash. I’m particularly interested to see how this goes because, as you can see, our vining plants got really out of control this year, so I might be interested to try some of the compact varieties of melons next year. As I may have mentioned, though, the seeds that I have were seeds that I bought when a Cost Cutters was going out of business, and the seed packets were 20 packs for $1! I just bought whatever varieties they had that I knew we would eat, and that’s what I’ve been growing.

Spinach! It just occurred to me. Spinach is what I’m missing. I don’t think I have any seeds. Perhaps I’ll go out and buy some. I have one row of unplanned space (plus whatever frees up when these monstrous melons finish), so I’ll be able to stick some in there.

Next on my list? Figuring out how to get that pesky groundhog that’s been eating everything to leave my veggies alone!

My knee injury is ruining my gardening time!

I haven’t posted in a bit, particularly about the garden, and that’s because I had a pretty terrible fall about ten days ago. I tripped outside of Charlie’s house and, if you’ll excuse the expression, ate shit. Pretty much my entire weight went on my [already arthritic, twice operated on] left knee, so Charlie has been holding down the fort with the garden and we’ve been eating miscellaneous take out and quick meals. (In case you’re wondering, I’m currently in physical therapy for a subluxation of my patella, and they’re going to decide if I need surgery for my meniscus tear in a few weeks.)

The good news is that the garden is at the point where it mostly just needs watering. The plants are big enough that they’re battling it out against the weeds (I’m sure there’s some weeding to be done, but it’s not as concerning as when the seedlings were tiny). Charlie’s been checking to make sure that the white cabbage moths leave our broccoli and kohlrabi alone, and those are doing much better.

Here’s the word of mouth report, passed on from Charlie, and based on what I can see through the window! (I’m on crutches and can’t really make it down to the garden.) Our pumpkins are growing like crazy already, which is awesome. Both our honeydew and our watermelons are spreading out and have flowers on them!

Our corn is getting very tall. Last night we had our volunteer shift for our CSA, and our farmer was there. We had a nice chat about what we were growing and how we were doing with it (I loved it when he said it sounded like we have our own little farm going on!). He said that the saying is that corn should be “Knee high by the fourth of July” and ours is definitely that tall, so it seems like that is right on track!

Are you ready for the most exciting part?

We have an eggplant!

The first actual crop of the season is here and growing besides the blueberries. This photo was taken on the first day that Charlie noticed it, which was taken a few days ago, so it may be even bigger by now, assuming that some greedy animal didn’t steal it. The eggplants are a bit ahead of the game because when we got them, they were giant seedlings from Farmer Rich, but hopefully any day now, we’ll have fruit developing on the things we started from seed!

Planting the pumpkins…

It’s unbelievable how much our plants have grown in the past 10 days since I’ve posted. Some days, I feel like we will never reach harvest time. Other days, like today, I look at pictures that compare the size from only a week or ten days earlier, and I am amazed.

I woke up early again today despite the fact that I’d gotten very little sleep for two nights. I noticed that the temperature was only at 74 (and it was headed up almost to 90) so I quickly got dressed and went outside.

If you recall, the last time I posted, I mentioned that I planted some of my pumpkins for the fall. Three giant pumpkins sprouted in the area that is away from the main garden plot, and they were very close together, so I decided that it would be a good idea to transplant the middle one away. Since not all of our watermelons survived, we had a bit of space in that area, so I moved one of the giant pumpkin seedlings to over there. I was a bit nervous about it, but I used a trowel and just went for it and it went extremely well. Now, that long row looks like eggplant, eggplant, giant pumpkin, watermelon, watermelon, giant pumpkin, giant pumpkin, so our little markers aren’t quite accurate anymore, but at least everything has the space it needs.

The lumina pumpkins also sprouted in a tiny corner of the main garden plot. Sadly, none of the giant pumpkins that I re-sowed in the three sisters plot came up! I don’t know what I’m doing wrong. Since the four lumina seedlings were very crowded, I transplanted three of them to the three sisters plots (two in one, one in the other, and the fourth is near the three sisters with the single pumpkin). Hopefully they will thrive and benefit each other.

The peas that are separate from the three sisters are also starting to come up. The ones that are in the plot are various sizes – one of them will need to latch on to a piece of corn soon or I’ll have to build a trellis. The corn is getting quite tall, but it’s not very sturdy. We had a lot of wind when it was young, and it seems to be leaning a bit. I may try to build up some hills around them a little if I can without hurting the peas.

The herbs are doing awesome and we had wonderful homemade pesto last night with our copious amounts of basil. This photo is from when I first planted the seedlings from the CSA, and now it’s filled in even more.

I also did some weeding today, but it is impossible to keep up with and one day soon, Charlie and I hope to mulch the plants now that they’re a bit bigger. Charlie has taken a pretty big interest in the garden and has been a huge help. He usually goes out to water and weed in the evenings when he gets home from work, which is nice because I usually go out in the mornings.

We have had a few problems with pests. At first, we thought that it might be slugs, as our broccoli and a few other things were getting lacy. We set some beer traps around and got some slugs, but not ridiculous amounts. I saw a white moth today and I am now suspecting white cabbage moths, but unfortunately, I may have to spend some time picking them off the leaves if that’s the case! Haven’t gone back out to check yet.

More pictures coming soon!

Farmer Cat Update…

I have some great news to report on the garden. A few days ago I was starting to get discouraged, as I was really fatigued and hadn’t had a chance to plant a few things that I wanted to, and our little seedlings weren’t growing much, but they are finally starting to grow quite a lot! I also got to do some work in the garden a few mornings this week before it got very hot, so we’re in pretty good shape!

One of the things I’ve been meaning to plant is the carrots. The carrots will be Charlie’s responsibility, as I think I’ve mentioned, since I don’t want to be on my [arthritic] knees dealing with root veggies, but I was happy to plant them for him since he’s got a busy schedule with school and work. I got a big double row planted in between something that Charlie’s mom is growing (beans, maybe?) and another small empty plot I had.

In the empty space next to the carrots, I planted a few more giant pumpkins. I haven’t had any luck yet with the ones that I sowed in the three sisters plot. I actually put a few more in the three sister’s plot, hoping that that trio will be successful. I think that some of the seeds ended up getting washed away and then eaten, so I figure it’s worth trying again. Some of the methods actually recommend waiting until the corn is a week or two old to plant the peas and pumpkins anyway, so it’s not a terrible tragedy that they didn’t come up the first time. So, hopefully, between the pumpkins that are in the three sister’s plot and the pumpkins that are over on their own, we should have some huge pumpkins to carve! (If not, I’ll have to go steal some from my younger brother… he has been successful in growing pumpkins for the last several years!)

The giant pumpkins need a lot of time to grow since they’re so large (they can be over 100lbs!) but other pumpkin varieties don’t need as much time, so I’ll be sowing my sugar pumpkins (also called “pie pumpkins” since that’s what most people use them for) in a few weeks. I also planted just a couple of one more variety called Lumina Pumpkins, which are a gorgeous pumpkin with a white outer skin and an edible inner orange flesh!

Here’s a picture I found online:

So I hope we get a few of those, as they would be lovely decorations.

This morning I also got to sow some more shelling peas. You’re really supposed to do those pretty early in the spring, but they have a short growing season, so if they can withstand the heat, I’ll have some, no problem. If anything really bites the dust, I’ll pull it up and start over in a few weeks for a fall harvest. Time to start reading up on that!

Similar to the giant pumpkins, I sowed some with the peas in the three sisters mounds, but not many came up. I think I have two or three in one mound and one in another. I’d really like a bigger crop than that, so I replanted some in the mounds, and I also did a row of them in our main garden plot next to the three sisters. There’s a trellis there, so the peas will be able to climb up it.

And how are the rest of our crops doing?

So far, so good. We lost some seedlings when we went away for the weekend (some that had been in the ground already and some that were not yet planted). It seemed like some had been overwatered and some had been underwatered by the person taking care of our plants. Our main loss was in melons, and that seems to be from overwatering/damping-off disease, which I believe is fungus. Two of the honeydews we had in the ground already just shriveled up and died! It happened to three of the watermelon seedlings that were in the ground already, too, once we got home, but two of each plant are still going strong.

Honeydew	Watermelon

I’ve also got my row of broccoli doing well and my row of kohlrabi doing awesome, though the ones that are towards the front of the plot are definitely doing better as it seems that they’re getting more sun.

Broccoli	Kohlrabi

The corn is just amazing looking… (though I have some more weeding to do!)

And the eggplants that were quite tall seedlings when we got them from the farm share are doing well.

Our container plants are also doing well, but that’s going to have to be a post for another day. I’ll also probably have to write a whole post about pests later, but I think I should do a little research first (perhaps setting some traps) to see what kinds of little things are chomping on our veggies. Something was eating a bit of the broccoli last week, and now something ate a little of the honeydew, and now a bit of the eggplant… so it’s time to get serious about it. I haven’t done any pest control yet (besides fences) so I think we’ve done ok so far!

Thinning the Seedlings

This is what my seedlings look like today after transplanting the broccoli and kohlrabi to give them some more space.

Lately I’ve been getting super jealous of Charlie’s mom’s seedlings. She’s growing ampalaya, a type of bitter melon that’s used in a lot of Filipino dishes. We started our seedlings at about the same time (she may have even started a few days later than me) but hers are growing like champs. Mine seem downright puny next to hers!

Part of this, I know, is because I am using an organic seed starting mix, and she is using some crap-filled soil. It’s got fertilizer in the mix. When I originally went to go pick up my seed starter, I had a ridiculous time trying to find organic. I went to our local Lowe’s and definitely couldn’t find it myself on my first visit, and I was told they didn’t have any. I went home, discouraged. On my second visit, I asked someone else, and they said that they only had organic potting mix, and explained to me that potting mix is heavier than seed starter, so they recommended getting that and mixing it with something like sand or vermiculite to make it lighter. Well, the organic potting mix bag was huge and much more than I needed, so I decided against that. On my third visit, I was determined to leave with something. I spoke to someone else who told me to just use the organic potting mix as-is. Well, at home, I already had some potting mix, and Charlie’s mom and one of my books had said not to use that!

Charlie and I wandered around the store for a while longer, and we stumbled across the peat pots, very far away from the rest of the gardening stuff. I decided at that moment that peat pots were the way to go for a beginning gardener like me, and picked them up. I was bitching and moaning about how I couldn’t believe that they didn’t have the organic seed starter, when Charlie rounded an end-cap and said, “Uh, you mean, like this?”

Apparently no employee on any of our visits had known of its existence.

Anyway. The organic factor is probably one reason that my seedlings are small, but also, we had a cold snap here in the tri-state, and it was gloomy for a few days with very little sun. And finally, I think I didn’t thin my seedlings enough, so today I set out to do that since we got a beautiful day of sunshine. If it is the fertilizer thing, I’m going to address that by feeding my seedlings some compost tea that we’ll make from the stuff in our worm bin.

It took me a really long time (a couple of hours) to carefully separate the tiny root structures and to replant each of them. I happened to buy eggs in a cardboard crate this week, so I poked a hole in the bottom of each of those for drainage and planted my extra broccoli and kohlrabi seedlings in there. Some of them had four little seedlings to a peat pot cell, which was obviously far too many. I thinned them down to one per cell, and I have about sixteen healthy looking broccoli plants and I think about 16 healthy kohlrabi plants. I didn’t touch the other plants much – I’m doing a lot of this by trial and error, so when I want to attempt something (like thinning out/transplanting) I’ll try it with just one first to make sure it doesn’t kill the plant, so I have a few more trials going on like some thinned out scallions and putting a cell of herbs in a bigger pot.

Other exciting news is that while my melon seedlings have had their very first true leaves for a while, but I can see the second ones creeping in now, too! They’re really growing, slowly but surely.

I also started some lavender from seed today in a cute colander. It’s too late, really – you’re supposed to start 8-10 weeks early according to the package, but, you never know. I might get some this year and I might not, but it’s a perennial, so if I have any luck, I could have some next year.

I also had one rogue seed plant itself! I believe it’s one of those helicopter seeds that fell into the seed tray and helped itself. I decided to go with it and transplanted it to its own cell. If that is the case, then it’s probably a maple tree! So cute and funny that I started one totally by accident.

That’s the farming update for now, except for a reminder to myself to wear sunscreen the next time I go out.

Busy, sick, but still growing! (& a calamity explained…)

I’ve been so busy, and then so sick, lately, that I have totally ignored my blog and practically ignored my seeds. I’ve definitely ignored my Gardening for Dummies book, and I need to read more in that to figure out what to do now that my seeds are turning into something!

Charlie and I do a lot of fundraising for AIDS Walk NY, so you’ll see some baking posts coming along soon about those. And then, after our huge yard sale to raise money for AIDS Walk, I was so run down that I went and caught strep throat in addition to the big ol’ flare that I was having of my chronic stuff. Charlie has been diligently putting out my seed tray in the morning, watering the lil guys, and bringing them back in at night, though.

So far, I have not killed off an entire crop of anything. The catnip refused to grow to begin with and I have no idea why, and so did the rosemary, but I had very very few seeds left to plant. I’m not worried about the rosemary because we have a plant started already that’s doing quite well. The other herbs… I admit that I don’t really have any idea what’s going on with them besides that they’re not dead, and that if they were not labeled, I could not tell them apart at this time.

However, the scallions are doing fine, the broccoli finally came up after I re-sowed them again, the kohlrabi are starting to get tiny, tiny true leaves, and my melons are doing fantastic!

I should be proud, right? I’m a new gardener! I’ve never done this before! I even had a huge calamity!

[What calamity?]

Well, you see, I had patiently sowed all of my seeds one Sunday afternoon. I’d saved up my spoons to do it because I knew it would take some energy and I knew it would be asking a lot of my arthritic hands. We prepared the kitchen table so that I could work without the wind blowing anything away. We laid out my peat pot, a spray bottle, and my friendly watering elephant, Harold. (Harold looks like this, but it’s not actually Harold, so you’ll have to see Harold in action another time…)

I carefully planted each seed so delicately. I used a chopstick to pick up those tiny seeds and to drop them into the little homes I’d made for them. Once they were all done, I put the plastic dome on top to keep them warm and humid, and I lovingly taped the packages of seeds closed for the next time I’d want them – perhaps another round of broccoli and kohlrabi in the fall?

Everything was set where it was supposed to be. I’d expressed my concerns about the cat, but was assured… “No, no,” I was told. “He’ll be fine. He’ll leave them alone.”

I went to bed.

The very next morning there were hushed whispers and shuffling about the house. No one wanted to tell me what had happened.

But I knew. I knew that the cat had knocked over my seed tray. He spilled everything out. He ruined the spoons I had wasted and could not get back, and I had to save some more to do it another day. And it was days before I had the energy to do it all over again.

This, I swore at the cat, was worse than the time that he puked on my new flip flops. I mumbled at him some more as I refilled the trays with the organic seed filler. I conceded that although this was bad, it was not as bad as when I had just moved in with Charlie, and he, the cat, had left a dead baby bird on the floor of our bedroom, and I was the one to discover it.

Yeah… that was worse than having to re-do the seed trays, even if there wasn’t really enough rosemary left to plant, even if I might be short on seeds in the fall, and even if we do have rogue seeds popping up in odd places from time to time… and it’s usually thyme.

Coming soon: Why did I go organic? And how the hell did I manage it with the service I got at Lowe’s???

Watermelon Keg and Punch Recipe

We saw the idea for this in Food Network magazine a few months ago and decided that we absolutely had to make it happen. We procured a plastic tap, added a bit of tubing to make it a little more secure, and made it happen! Warning: This is really, really messy. I got watermelon juice all over the kitchen trying to do this.

Tools

Spigot
Sharp Knife
Sturdy bowl or other means of supporting the watermelon
Pastry blender or potato masher
Strainer
Toothpicks

Ingredients

1 large watermelon
1 L bottle Mount Gay Rum (do yourself a favor and don’t use Bacardi – use something nicer)
1 package fresh mint leaves, stems removed
6 limes
lime juice to taste
lemon juice to taste
ice

This is what the drink mix looked like just before adding the rum, I believe…

Directions

The first thing you’re going to need to do is hollow out the fucking watermelon. It’s a task. Make sure you allow enough time for it. Take a sharp paring knife and slice the top of the watermelon off at an inward angle, like when you’re carving a pumpkin. Have a big bowl handy and a metal spoon and scrape the watermelon out until you’re down to the rind. See the video link for a demonstration. It’s less of a two person procedure than it looks like – I’ve just got two herniated discs and can’t lift anything.

So, once you’ve scraped out your watermelon, cover the top with plastic and put it in the fridge. Take a pastry blender, potato masher, or a big fork and mash up the watermelon as best you can. You’re basically juicing it. Take another bowl and put a strainer on top of it, preferably with fairly big holes, but not big enough for the seeds to fit through. Pass your squished up watermelon through the strainer, and you’ll get tons and tons of bright pink watermelon juice. If you’re not getting very much, continue to mash the pieces of watermelon.

Set aside the juice in a container that is not the watermelon. You can see that there’s a lot of juice. Since we were making lime pies, we had about 10 limes that we’d already juiced and zested but that still could contribute flavor to our cocktail. We threw them into the watermelon juice and let them sit there for the duration. What you can do is cut the limes in half, (pick out any obvious seeds), give them a good squeeze, and toss them in. They’ll bob around and flavor your drink.

Throw in the mint, then stir in some lemon and lime juice. Pour in the bottle of rum, then taste it, and if you want, add more lemon or lime. Refrigerate until serving.

When you’re ready, set the watermelon in its base. Use a sharp knife to poke a hole, close to the bottom of the watermelon, for the spigot. Insert the spigot snuggly. You’re now ready to fill the watermelon!

I wasn’t sure exactly how much the watermelon would hold, so I alternated a cup of ice, then a cup of punch until I was about halfway up, and then added some more punch. Since we didn’t want the fruit to just be rotting in the sun, we made sure to put a lot of ice inside. It kept the watermelon very cold. We left about half the punch inside the house to refill the watermelon with later.

I secured the lid of the watermelon to the top with two toothpicks, then we carefully carried it outside. Everyone loved it!