Give them something to talk about

Song birds are everywhere. I decided today is the day to put out the feeders.

I have a thistle sock with nyjer seeds for finches (they like to cling and swing when they eat. This was a huge hit last year. Nyjer seeds are little, tiny things and I thought that the amount of traffic I got would empty the sock quickly, but it lasted alright. I'd like to have 2 this year, so I went to the dollar store and bought a package of mesh bags used to wash lingerie inside a machine washer. I could get two or three feeders out of each. To buy a thistle sock empty, it costs about $1.75, and they are hard to find. A lot of stores sell thistle socks already filled with nyjer seeds for about $6-11. Make your own, I say.

I also have a standard, general 4 sided feeder. I've bought two of them because I went through so much seed last year, but I've only put out one. I may keep the other in my apartment so when the first is empty, I can fill the second and do a quick switch. Once again Country Wisdom and Know-How gave me plenty to read about birds, bird houses, and bird feeders. Tiny birds - like chickadees - were my main visitors last year. I decided I'd like to encourage song birds, so I read up and bought a mix that I hope will bring us more songbirds. I decided that the blue might be a gird landmark for the birds. I also hung a little wind chime nearby to provide another landmark.

My apartment is on the garden side of the building, so I can hear the singing creatures. The sun is starting to go down. It's cool and quiet. I can hear all kinds of birds chirping outside, maybe they are passing on the word - there's food here.

30 April The Weather

We've been in a cold spurt for over a week now. It's a flux in weather that isn't unusual here. The temperature has been closer to normal - our mid-80's a month ago was too much to hope for, but sometimes it's hard to tell.

I've been watching things because I actually have seeds and plants in the ground, but I just pulled up the weather and I was surprised. I thought when I looked at the weather yesterday, we were going to be in the 60's this week but look! Rainy and warm is a nice way for the plants to get going.

Some of the seedlings are in the greenhouse and the rest are in the apartment. Fingers crossed!

My kingdom for a hose

Trouble. I know, I'm trouble.
Last week I went to our apartment building's office and asked for the tool shed to be unlocked and the hose to be set out for us to use at the garden.
This week, I watched for the hose. Nothing.
Yesterday, I went to the office, saw the building manager in the hall and asked her about the hose. She said she needed to fill out a work order and it would be done yesterday or today. I said yesterday would be better. It wasn't out by 6p yesterday.

I went to the garden around 4p. Still no hose. If we don't get the hose today, we won't have it until next week.

I went to the management office again. I asked after the hose.

I planned on the water being available and since it was not there, I might have had to plan differently. I was just trying to get an answer - would we have water this weekend?

She does this backward, spinning, evasive thing when she's got bad news, even if it's something small, so it's hard to tell how bad the news is. It takes a really long time to get to a straight answer and it seems to be an attempt to wear a girl out while throwing out ridiculous excuses/reasons/accusations in the process which contradict each other.

She didn't put in a work order. She doesn't have to put in a work order. She did not notify maintenance to do it. This is not going to change until next week because maintenance is on call during weekends, but otherwise not available.

The swamp of crud I went through to get that information out of her is ridiculous and entirely unnecessary. Even when I restated the above, she refused to confirm it. I could only get a "maybe" and "that's not what I said."

This is one of those integrity-break thingys that make me crazy. If you did something or did not do something, and someone asks you a direct question about whether it has or not happened - answer the bloody question so things can move forward. If you've got bad news spill it. If you've set consequences, enforce them.

I'm universal on this one, I'm not excluded from responsibility or penalty. It's easier that way. I don't do "politics." It's an autism thing. I literally don't understand it, don't know how to do it, and I don't always recognize it. I prefer things predictable. I am monumentally focused until "the end" is achieved.

Any hooo....

Without access to the garden hose, the most efficient way to get water out of the building is to fill the container in the craft room on the main floor of the building, go down the hall into the stairwell, through a one-way locked door, past the non-functional greenhouse to the garden. Return to the building via the main entrance which is also locked, but our passkeys will let us in. Go past the office, down the hall to the craft room and repeat.

When we have access to the hose, it's connected to the corner of the building, and it's 50 foot length almost goes to the north-east corner of the garden, but not quite. Those gardeners (most of us, really) keep a water heater tank and use a spray nozzle to aim water to fall into their tank, then they water by hand.


In my new spot, I am exceptionally lucky because I am so close to the spigot. It worries me terrible that 70 and 80 year olds are trying to carry gallons of water in and out of the building. Easily half need a cane or walker to get around. It's a contradiction of reason. Plant as early as possible to get as many crops as possible versus risk falling. It's made worse that most keep their walking paths under 10" wide to keep the growing area as large as possible.

So I'll carry water out this weekend, hope for a hose on Monday, and keep the onion, garlic, and spinach going by hand until then. Someone stole my watering can, so I'm going to find something else to use, like a waste basket.

and on...

more

Whooo, I'm tired, so if this gets rambly, I apologize. I want to get this into the log before I fall asleep.

I got a lot done today. I can almost call my plot half ready.

I bought a coil hose and itended to set it up, but I realized the way the drain is set up, the hose wouldn't fit because the nozzle is supposed to be male and the way I set it up, it wasn't the male collection I need for a garden hose.Another trip to Home Depot today got me the part to fix things.

I spent some time cleaning up - getting all of the stakes, misc into the permanent storage that I bought. I walked around the garden planning a bit. I have boards laid out so I can walk through the garden without sinking 12 inches. I moved them around a bit.

I transferred the garlic chive and rhubarb I pulled out of the garden a few weeks ago. They're all tucked in.

I planted and/or set spinach (from the starts in my apartment), carrots, lettuce, red onions, chamomile, brussel sprouts, chives and some peas.

I'm ALMOST 50% planted in. The starts in my apartment are doing well. When I turned the spinach out of it's party cup, the roots were almost 10 inches long in many cases. The chives I transplanted had their thick, twining roots going in circles in the bottom of the cup.

The transferred spinach seedlings are covered with clearish plastic which I hope will keep them warm enough for them to grow alone outside.

Not a bad day, but now I must sleep.

Claim it. Own it.

I got a late start today. Copied the garden  plan I'd made into a notebook. I've spent so much time reading up on different combinations of plants and what additives each kind of plant needs when it's transplanted, that I can't remember it all.

Home Sweet Home
The Land is outlined in red, my plot is in white.

I hung fence around the perimeter of my plot. I put up the garden trellis, but I made it bigger and a slightly different shape, dug out about a foot of soil from inside the trellis to mound around the edges. Tomatoes will go on the mounds and be trained up (and over?) the trellis.

I flattened the soil inside and used boards to hold up the mounds from the inside so it wouldn't fall in. I laid some carpet strips on the inside to keep the packed dirt down, weed free, and not too mucky.

Mr Hu, Mr Tse, Mrs Lang, Mrs. Gao, Mr. Bu, and a few others were outside working in their plots. As I was working on the trellis, they asked if I was building a house. The carpet made it a done deal for them, they couldn't stop laughing.

I am often the recipient of shaking heads, chuckling, and outright laughter. Sometimes people just cruise by to watch me, some come right up to me and take tools (or whatever) out of my hands to try to stop what I'm doing because they think I am making some kind of monumental mistake. I don't mind being different, but interference or anything more than a casual suggestion just pisses me off. I rolled with it the first year and a half, but last summer, I lost my patience. There is no benefit in "being nice to old people" around here. The respect doesn't go both ways. I'm not used to this, but it's got to be a cultural thing I'm missing. I've decided it's better to stand my ground and cut off the pushy people. I'd rather be left alone because people think I'm crazy than be pestered and patronized by friends.

There trellis is open to the fence on the north side of my plot. I don't want to make too much shade for my neighbor without losing vertical space. I left an opening on the side so I can get inside the trellis area. I'm using it to store my water reservoir, tools, stakes, and other things I don't want stolen. It does look like a little house and by mid-summer, I hope it's covered in tomato plants, flowers and climbing vines, with a cool, shady place inside.

I laid in three rows of soybean seed, all of the yellow onions and garlic. I put in three rows of carrot seed, and I set in the reclaimed onions I took out last week. We still don't have access to water, so I didn't water anything in. The soil is really light and was pretty warm today. I hope the dry, cool conditions will keep the garlic and onion starts from rotting until I can water them. Tomorrow I hope.

I've set aside and "alum patch" for all of the onions, garlic, and carrots. They are supposed to play together nicely and they will be near-ish tomatoes, soybeans, brussel sprouts and peas, which is supposed to be OK. When I first drew the plan, I thought I might have planned too much space for them, but when I've put them in the ground, it looks like it will be OK.

The plot seemed to change shape as the day went along. First it looked so big, then too small, then bigger than the other plots that are still untouched. By the end of the day, I checked the fence line. I'm glad I put it in before I started. My plot looks so much bigger than the plot next to mine. I felt guilty, but everything checked out OK. I adjusted the hay bales so they didn't push the fence over the north boundary.

Dehydrated and worn out, I cleaned up my mess of twine and fence packaging and came in. I think I was outside for 4 or 5 hours. I finished a lot more than I thought I would. I'm going to try to get water to the garden tomorrow, put in the last of the onions, get the peas going, plant the rhubarb and chives I'd brought inside and water it all in. Tomorrow.

It's supposed to be in the 30's Thursday and Friday nights, so the live growing things will have to be kept inside until they are tougher, then cloched when outside.

My antsy self is satisfied. The plot is mine.

Tilled

When I came home from volunteering, I had a bag of groceries, but I stopped to catch up with a few gals by the mailboxes. Katya saw me through the glass door and freaked out. I let her in and she told me the rototiller guy was going to come at 6p and it was almost time and I needed to hurry. I gave her the $7.35 I owed her for the garden rent, but she was frantic that I come to the garden.

I put away my groceries, changed clothes, grabbed the tools-in-a-trash-bin-on-wheels and went to the garden. Tiller Dude was doing his thing, Gregori was supervising and Katya was pacing around my garden plot (formerly hers).

I still don't know what was so urgent. I thought perhaps the garden shed had been unlocked and all of my stuff was in the way since I was the last one to put my stuff in. I thought maybe others were waiting for me, but there was no one else in the garden. The shed was still locked.

Katya pointed at the rhubarb in my plot. I'd split the rhubarb patch that was there, moved a few plants to her plot and transplanted the rest into a different part of my plot. For some reason, this tweaked her and she wasn't sure if I was OK with it. The rhubarb in my plot was fine. There was a circular conversation about the rhubarb that I don't understand, but eventually she went away.

Gregori doesn't stand well. I got him a chair to sit in. He saw me use my awesome new Husky 2-in-1 ultra thin pocket knife with folding 5" serrated blade and said I looked like a bandit. We talked about the tattoo on my calf that I got in Thailand and how beautiful Thailand is and how much he hates my tattoos and pierced nose. He couldn't even figure out what my Thai tattoo is, so I pointed out the lotus flowers and the vines. It's not colored, so sometimes people don't see it right away.

While we were talking, Sofia come out, said something to Gregori, then looked at me and said "Why are you showing your body to my husband?" Whoops. I explained and I think she got it. We joked a bit about me being a bandit and they both told me how much they don't like my tattoos.
Sofia gave me the business card of the Tiller Dude we've been expecting for over a week now. She asked if I would call him, explain she hired someone else and tell him to not come. Her English is pretty good, but she doesn't hear well, so the phone is difficult. No problem.

Gregori was getting tired. Tilling took longer than he expected.. Gregori needed to pay the guy, then put up the stakes to mark the plot boundaries. Sofia asked me to help him. No problem.
Tiller Dude finished. Gregori paid him, unlocked the shed, and dug around inside for stakes to mark the boundaries.

Katya popped up. She started digging through the shed, pulling things out, throwing them on the ground. None of it was hers. Last year she stole things from the shed when it was first opened so I started to worry. She was as frantic as she was when she told me I needed to go to the garden. I asked her what she was doing. First she said she was helping me. Then she said she was helping Gregori. Then she said she was getting her things out, but I pointed out that none of the stuff she pulled was hers. I guess it's over-stimulation. She wanted to be right in the middle of the action. I got her to go inside.

Mr Hu joined us. Gregori supervised my measuring and Mr Hu pounded in the stakes.

I had enough time to put up a few border stakes and my outside fence (it's open to the park on 3 sides). The sun was down and it started to rain.

All of the good stuff I added to the plot has been tilled in. All of my structure stuff is garden-side. Alums and carrots are ready to go in the ground. very happy.

22 April Weather

I've got a new plan

I've had my head in the books all day. I finally made a chart with the plants down the side and notes next to them in columns so I could keep track of what I needed to know to plan the layout. I noticed quickly that I made some big mistakes in last year's planting because I put plants together in the same bed that don't do well together.

I cross-referenced the seeds I have with the companion plants that do best together with sun exposure, harvest time and size. I made a 10x60 grid and arranged the plants. Alums (onion, garlic, chives) can be interchanged, squashes can be interchanged, and the flowers I've already chosen are really flexible with the rest.

Each space is 1'x1'. I've got room left over, but I have more seedlings than my plan calls for, so I might break even somewhere in the middle. With this plan, I'm going to produce way more than I'm going to be able to eat, so I'll give it to my neighbors. One person caught me in the elevator (with a pitchfork in my hand) and asked after my garden and mentioned he'd like some green tomatoes if I have any to spare.

I'll have plastic mesh fence all around, so I'm trying to take advantage of it as climbing space for peas and squash. I'm able to reach in or open the fence on three sides, so I home to take advantage of more reach and less walking path. I'll build and arbor-thingy in the middle for the tomatoes to brace themselves against, and I'll use the space under the arbor thingy to keep my water supply, tools and other miscellaneous things. I hope they're hidden enough that people don't steal them.

It's nearly 10p on Sunday and the garden still hasn't been tilled. Now that I've got my head full of facts, I've got my mind on more soil prep - primarily doing what I can to warm up the ground. My first plan is to lay clear-ish plastic over the ground. The sun is supposed to heat up the ground and the plastic will hold the temperature and the moisture. Warmed up enough, I can plant. Then some things will get straw as insulation and some will get cloches with the tops open. But I can't do a thing about anything plot related until the ground is tilled. Gratefully, I know I'm not the only one who is antsy. Poor Sofia, the garden president in charge of collecting money and hiring the tiller, is probably driven nuts with people knocking on her door. Her English is pretty good, but she can't hear well at all. Her husband Gregori hears fine, he's very shy about his English. They'll do fine with the other Ukrainian and Russian folk, but the Chinese folk speaking English will be difficult for them both. I'm glad I didn't take the job, but if I did, the ground would have been tilled by now.

The peas I've started are almost 2 feet long and I've got to plant them soon. I stuck drinking straws in the cups and wrapped the vines around to give them something to do. They were beginning to hold on to each other. I shouldn't have started seeds so soon. If it doesn't work out, I'll eat them as pea greens in a salad and plant outside when the weather is warmer.

In an effort to shake things up, literally, I've put a fan on the seedlings. I hope that by stressing them with the breeze, they'll toughen up a bit. It's all part of the scheme to get everything hardy enough to move outside. All of the quiet ones have emerged and look like tiny, but healthy seedlings. They'll be my fretting project for the short term.

Till then.

nothing to do but wait

Around midnight, I noticed a sign in the lobby saying the garden tilling would be Saturday or Sunday.
In reality, most of these seedlings cannot go outside yet, they are too small, but I started to think about structure and design more.
It's been a grey day. Temp is about 45F. I needed to get out of the house, so I went in search of hay bales. I've been reading a lot about how useful they are with peppers and tomatoes so I went looking.
The first place, a big greenhouse place, had "totally nu" hay "bales." The hay was shredded into bits less than an inch long and it was packaged in a one cubic foot rectangular bag, like the peat moss I bought. Twelve bucks.

I went to a place called the SouthSide Farm Store. It's in Minneapolis at 38th Street and Bloomington Avenue. I know they sell urban chicken supplies, so I thought I'd check it out. 

Bales of hay like you would imagine them were stacked against a fence under a tarp. Nine bucks per pop. Small local business owner. Chicken feed in South Minneapolis for goodness sake. I thought I wanted three, but only two would fit in the station wagon.

I didn't realize they'd be so big. They are real, farm-sized bales of hay - 3'x1'x'1'. Satisfying though, to drop off those great big bales in my garden spot which still wasn't tilled when I got home.

I went to Home Depot and walked around in circles. I touched all the things I thought I would buy, but don't need yet.

I bought the 45 gallon wheeled garbage bin I planned for water storage. At home I installed the washer and nozzle bit so water will drain from the bottom and can be connected to a hose. It was really easy. The whole thing took 15 minutes.


I moved my tools and miscellaneous stakes from my walk-in closet to the bin, so when I'm able, I can wheel all the stuff out in one go. They were getting scattered about the place. After the first go at it, the cat isn't interested in smelling them anymore.

hmmm....

What to do? 

I took a nap. The seedlings have taken a pretty bad turn. I don't know why. More reading to do. 

More planning to do. I paced the garden and it's about 60'x10' with a 4'x5' patch of rhubarb already set.
Back to the drawing board as they say.

so much to see

I am amazed. Continuously.
I think the reason I have gotten so verbose about gardening and spend so much time thinking about it is because it is amazing. I could say "creation of God," but my ego is too involved. I want to give credit to myself. Not for creating, but for encouraging growth. Facilitating the beginning. Respecting it all and expressing the appropriate measure of awe to this magic.

I never had a chance to plant my own garden in adulthood until now. I don't have children. I think the combination of those two things keep the novelty inspired in me. If I had a pack of screaming kids hanging on my legs, pooping on everything, I might have lost sight of the glory and wonder with so much noise and urgency around. Plants are quiet. Slow, fast and brief.

There is a big part of me that sits stunned, looking from a distance thinking "I had something to do with that." The same part looks closely at the tiny leaves as they appear between two others. The same part that pokes at the seed hull that is still attached to the tiny stalk pinning the first two leaves together. The same part that turns the pot on a sunny day and watches the little plant turn and flex to face the sun. If I use warm water, sometimes I can watch a tight leaf uncurl right in front of me.

All the same, these beautiful little things don't need my tending. When I go to sleep or run my daily errands, they keep growing and they require little of me. I think that is part of the reason I think about it so much. All I have to do is provide sunlight, water, and something nice to grow in. So simple. At the same time, I know how fragile plants can be. And that as easy as it seems, there is so much wonder in what I don't know that I want to do it right.

I have means now that I didn't have when I had my first garden 2 years ago. So I've done what I can to find nice soil and planting matter mixed together nicely. I bought seeds like any you might find at a store, but I chose brands I know. I held the seeds in my hand and set them in as carefully as I could with my own hands.

I watched.

A challenge in success is the worry it causes.

I planted a bunch of seeds in pots and trays in my apartment, watered them, and put them in the window. Within days some broke the surface and unfolded their heads. They greened up, the stems became sturdy. It was amazing that it happened so fast! But it made me look at the other pots and trays sitting quietly in the window next to it. What did I do wrong? Did I do something wrong? They can't come up all at the same time, they are different kinds of plants. I can't expect them to come up at the same time. But still I wonder.
While I'm trying to manage the teenager plants that are twisting around to catch the sun, I look and the silent soil. I touch it with my finger to test that it is damp. I adjust it's position in the window to catch the best light and I wait.

While the quiet ones wait, I have to move around the teenagers to larger pots, untangling their roots and burying their roots in new, loose, lovely soil. I press the soil in around them like tucking them into bed. I give them a drink of water. And then I go to bed myself. When I wake up in the morning, I check to see if they are OK and if I see them twisting to get to the sun, I know all major needs are met. Nothing to do until they outgrow their new pots.
And I look at the quiet ones inspecting the soil closely for a tiny greenish bump the size of a mustard seed. With the first one I sigh, nod to myself and calm.

But then I refill the empty small pots where the teenagers grew. I shake the seed envelope and thwack it with my finger to knock all of the seeds to the bottom. I tear off the corner, pour them in my left hand, and place them one seed at a time into the waiting soil. I pat them in, water and wait.
I add a label so as all of these seedlings grow and move from one pot to another, I know what I am moving. At a very young age, they all look the same - not the fuzzy haired blue or brown eyed baby, but a stem split into two leaves.

Roundish pair of leaves with a dimple that look like lilly pads means the plant is a brassica. When it grows up, it's going to be something like cabbage. The long, narrow tipped leaves mean the plant is a nightshade and might be a tomato or a pepper. The next leaves that come narrow the list of possible candidates in the roll call of my garden. I really won't know if it's a pepper or a tomato until it's larger. I won't know if it's fruit is supposed to be yellow, red, or green until the fruit is firm and stretching it's skin. So I label them.
Now and as a bonus, the label stake acts like a sundial and I can see how the light is moving across the soil to pass the time. The stake is the anchor I use as a pivot to turn the plant one quarter turn each day so the seedling grows up straight. The label lets me match peppers to peppers and brussel sprouts to brussel sprouts so I can see how similar and different they are.

And while the growing plants wave in the sun, I watch for the quiet ones.

And then one afternoon, I notice a tiny, impossibly slender stem that could be a strand of my hair has broken the surface and stands up straight holding tiny leaves on it's tiny frame. exhale. Where there is one, there is many and over time, I watch it's brothers and sisters arise while I turn them and turn them to help them grow straight while they reach for the sun.

One of the trays looked a bit crowded with little seedlings - so much smaller than the rowdy teenagers were - so I decided to give them their own pots. I filled a plastic party cup with soil, patted it down, and made a hole with an un-sharpened pencil. I use a plastic fork to loosen the soil in the tray as gently as I can holding my breath and gasping with every slip and sign that I might have broken a root. An inch tall above ground, they have long lacy roots and it's obvious I got there in the knick of time. I moved them to their larger homes in threes and fours, patted the soil, and watered them in.

In stores, grocery stores, department stores, convenience stores and hardware stores I can't walk past a display of seeds without slowing down. I refer to my mental list of seeds at home and try to recall my wish list and check the display. I want red cherry tomatoes, but I have my heart set on Sweet 100s which I've purchased as seedlings at the famer's market and have been so good, but they only have Red Currant. I don't know Red Currant so I am suspicious, but I can't walk away without staisfying the itch for red cherry tomatoes.

They tray that held the quiet ones is empty since they've moved into their own pots in threes and fours, so I scoop up some more soil, pat it into the tray, shake the seed packet, tear off the corner, pour them into my hand and lay them one by one into their starter homes. I pat them in and cover them lightly with soil. I water them in, and put them in the window to stare at.

Over and over and over I've done that this year. It seems that every seed I've sowed has emerged and now I am surrounded by plastic party cups with little plants following the passing of the sun across my apartment living room and trays of quiet ones getting so much of my attention by being so quiet.

The rowdy teenagers are nearly a foot long after a week while some quiet ones haven't peeped in two. From trays they went to cups of three and four to cups of one and two while they spring forth looking for the sun and something to climb on. I'm nervous to get them into the ground as soon as possible. All I had to provide was sunlight, water, and something nice to grow in, and they are running out of something nice to grow in.
I regret starting so many different kinds of seeds at the same time because the fast growers went off like fireworks setting the bar so high, then climbing higher and higher so that I worry about them falling. The taller they got, the more intoxicated they look trying to turn towards the sun. They send out tiny tendrils looking for something to hold it up and the moment a tendril touches something, it wraps around it like a baby's fist and holds on for keeps. The tendrils toughen like wire and make tight coils around the thing it's found.
When they are twisting around like this, looking for the sun and something to hold on to, if they touch, they will cling together wrapping their tendrils around each other and shooting their vines up to get higher. I have to be careful so that this doesn't happen in my apartment. It could, and I could deal with it, but moving them together can be tricky. Planting them into the ground is doubly hard. If one fails, the other is still wrapped around it and I have to separate the tangled living from the tangled dead.

Today a dozen tiny green threads have emerged. I've worried after them for weeks, but they seem fine now. I've learned that the density I've planted with previous seeds is too close and I will have to move these tiny ones to their own pots in an inch or two because the roots are so well developed, and so important. Right now, I'd have to handle them with marshmallow tweezers small enough and gentle enough to hold the seedling while I'm tucking it's root into a new plastic party cup.

With all of this going on around me, it's a wonder I can sleep. It's a wonder I can leave the house without running home to check my babies.

And then there is the wild. Sunlight I can't control. Water that isn't tame. Soil that I've tried to make as a nice place to grow as I can - 500 pounds of compost, peat moss, and manure so far. As I move the teenagers outside and the others to follow them, doing my rounds will mean going down twelve floors, through the door that will lock behind me. I'll pass through the plastic mesh fence to check beds where the seedlings reunite and remember they're tray days while they grow. I'll check the water, pull the weeds and sit back in wonder that I had a part to play with this. I'll walk around the building, enter the lobby, wave my passkey in front of the sensor to unlock the door and go back up twelve floors to wait with the babies until I check on the bed outside again.

It's a wonder.

Still No Till

Friday morning is Bible Study time. I drove into Minneapolis to buy an old storm window from an architectual reclamation store. I'm thinking about making a cold frame. The storefront is occupied by someone else, so headed home.
I stopped by Turtle Bread Co. in my old neighborhood and I scored my favorite things! They have a rotating daily menu and their baked goods fly out, so getting my favorites isn't always possible, but I snagged them today.
The garden isn't tilled yet. It's sunny and 54F but the wind is making it very chilly. I had visions of getting the fence up and transplanting the peas (which I shouldn't have started inside and are HUGE and nearly potbound). I can't do any of that until the till. I have a space cleared and turned for onion sets, but I'm not feeling it. I want to make big moves.

Label your plants. Really. Do it now.

Curiosity got the best of me last night. I was trying to stay awake to watch the end of a movie, but I was getting tired. I decided to move the cubanelle peppers I'd started in a 2" deep tray into individual cups. I'm glad I did. In all, the roots were more than an inch long. On some of them, the roots were longer.
They aren't showing any kind of shock this morning.

Cabbage Family

Lots of my spinach, lettuce, tomatoes and cosmos are putting out their primary leaves. Every plant sprouts with two leaves. These are called the "food leaves." Since the nutrition that was inside the shell of the seed is just about used up by breaking out, growing roots and a stem, the food leaves get sunshine and help with water, so the plant has enough energy to keep growing. The third leaf that comes in is a "true" leaf because it is all about the finished plant. It looks like the leaves of the mature plant. This example is a seedling from the cabbage family. I can tell because the food leaves are kind of shaped like four-leafed clover leaves. But that doesn't tell me which plant this is. I won't know until the plant is fully grown. Is it cabbage? Is it Brussels sprouts? I just can't tell.

Nightshade Food Leaves

Nightshade Food Leaves + True Leaf

A lot of seedlings we use in North American gardens look the same when they are at a young age. Tomatoes and peppers look the same to me. Seedlings for both start with thin green stalks with two long leaves that look like blades of grass. They both come from the nightshade family, so it makes sense that they look similar before they get their true leaves but still, when you look at a tomato true leaf, you'll notice it's oval-ish with point on the end and ridges along the side edges like fingers. When you look at a pepper true leaf, it's oval-ish with a point at the end and the edges are scalloped and ridged like they have fingers too. There are other subtle variations based on the variety of the plant - fuzzier leaves, waxy leaves - but these variations show up in both peppers and tomatoes, so this is not a good way to tell which is which.

This is why it's so important to mark seeds and seedlings when they are growing. In the latest article I read it said you must label your seeds, really. You will not remember what is what even if you think you do, so mark them already. Did you mark them? Mark them now. Variety too. Not just "tomato" but "red cherry tomato." The bigger the garden, the more important it is.

I made this mistake in the past, especially with the 72 cell seed started kit I bought last year. After a very short while, I started to forget which is which. Luckily (?) since most of the seedlings I planted last year died, I used the markers from the seedlings I bought already started to mark the rows. But then there was a rain storm and wind and those blew away.

Tomato Plants

Pepper Plants

I proudly say that I was very good about marking the trays and pots this year. I know what I'm putting in the ground and where. Since I have SO many seedlings started, I could easily grab a bunch of tomatoes thinking I've got tomatoes and peppers and completely miss out.

I want to make sure I have a good representation of all of the varieties of peppers I've started, but keep them together in the plot.

Of the tomatoes, there are two kinds of tomatoes.

Determinate tomatoes grow the fruit at the end of the branch. If anything happens (or doesn't happen) on that branch, that fruit is completely lost. Indeterminate tomatoes grow with branches that have many fruit growing on either side of the branch. Last year, determinate tomatoes were ruined all over Minnesota because they flowered late and had to put all of their energy to the ends of their branches to make the tomato. By the time they were the right size, the season was over and they didn't turn ripe. Any of them. People who didn't plant indeterminate totally skunked out.

I've grown indeterminate tomatoes with few exceptions. I like the way they look when they ripen (tip to plant), and I've chosen small fruit varieties like Sweet 100 and Red Currant. Since these plants flower all summer and produce all summer, they are more flexible to weather troubles.

The other difference is that determinate tomatoes grow like bushes. They are about 4 feet tall when they are done. They can be staked to help with wind, but it's not necessary.

Indeterminate tomatoes are vines. Mine have gotten to 8 feet tall. Stakes won't do with these. Some people let them grow across the ground like squashes on top of beds of straw. Others, like me, train them to grow up, around and through a trellis. The main benefit of this is that it takes up a smaller footprint in the garden since the vines aren't vulnerable to being stepped on.

I have to know which tomatoes I am planting because I need to plan for the space they will take up and the kind of support they need. I've mixed them up before and I've had to quick change the structures in the garden. By the time they were big enough to tell the difference, it was too late to dig them up and move them without doing a lot of damage.

Finally, when a bunch of volunteer stuff came up, I couldn't tell if it was what I planted or not. I had to wait for those plants to get full size to figure out what things were. It was a waste of time, a waste of space, and a waste of fertilizer.

Not this year.

No big till, Peppers

The rototiller never showed up today. It was dampish, rainy-ish. Maybe that's why? I saw more than one gardener approach the garden. Stand at a distance. Hands on hips. Look around. Look at garden. Step closer, look down. Look around. Shoulder slump, and turn away.

Tiller day is an especially big day when the weather is so warm. We don't have a very long growing season and we've been up to 85F here in balmy Minnesota, but it snowed lightly on Monday and today was a possibility. The ground has totally thawed and warmed a bit. I'm going to put plastic sheeting down to help the ground warm up.

I've been reading my Country Wisdom & Know-How. The gardening section is big and there is a lot of detail on different kinds of plants, the proper manure and soil pH, the best growing conditions...

I've started taking notes. First from the seed packets, then looking through the book, and then looking online for clarification of details, such as, "what is friable soil?"

I've got one full hand-written page with notes about the 8 varieties of peppers I've started. There isn't a lot of difference between them, but they ripen at slightly different times and there are notes about optimum size and color.

They are nightshades, like tomatoes, but they have to have lots of warmth for the seedlings to come up, so I moved them away from the window that is cracked open and watered them with warm water. The quiet ones I worried about are springing up. They also need to be pretty big - 5 true leaves - before they can go outside. The soil has to be a certain temperature and there is a threshold for the lowest temperature at night.

I've got notes on how deep and how far apart they should be, what to bury with the plant (compost, fertilizer and matches) and how often to water. NOT intuitive, but I've managed to get good peppers for the last two years. This year should be big fun.

Diamond

Poblano/Anco

California Wonder

Cubanelle

Golden California Wonder

Orange Sun

Purple Beauty

Hybrid Red Roaster

Bonus #2 Onion starts

I spread the compost/poo/moss in the garden. It's 65F and sunny. Very nice for it. I dug out dandelions. There are a lot of volunteer plants that I can't identify, but are all over the The Land. There is plenty of dill coming up too.

Bonus #1 Last week, I used a spade fork to loosen up the weeds on the garden borders. I decided to move the rhubarb that was on the long border. The plants were small, but when separated, there were over 20. When I was a kid, rhubarb plants would get 3 feet across. I've given away 6 so far. I don't have room planned for 14 plants. When I moved them, I put them closer together than I might have, but I'm not sure they'll all survive. After a week, they are floppy and pitiful.

Bonus #2 There were two clumps of chives in the far corners of the garden. They were each about the size of a fist and a couple of stalks were starting to bud. I decided to save them from the rototiller. They aren't chives, they're white onions! The roots were a foot long and the onions were so tangled around each other, some of the onions look like corkscrews.

I pulled them apart, cut off the greens, and trimmed the roots very short. There were 44 onions in there! I think I made the plants docile, but not dead. I've seen stubby onions like this planted before, so I think I did it right.

I forgot about the advice to cut back greens that are being transplanted until tonight. I cut off the long bits of the chives I brought inside from the garden last week. I hope this will improve the plants. They look kind of sick.

lil sprouts day 18

"The Rack" in west facing window

rhubarb and chives

cosmos

cubanelle peppers

mixed sweet peppers

cherry tomatoes

4 O'clocks

Brussels sprouts

sweet peas 1

yellow cherry tomatoes

butternut squash

zucchini + 1 butternut

spinach

sweet peas 2

poblano peppers

NEW chives, cilantro, chamomile and lettuce

    

Wintery spring for a while

A few days ago, we were told to expect ice pellets overnight with snow this morning. It got windy with rain on Saturday. Instead of ice and snow, we got tornado weather yesterday. The temperature dropped from 78F yesterday afternoon to 36F this morning.  We'll have this cold for at least a week.

I didn't cover the outside transplanted rhubarb. It was a hard decision, but I finally decided since it can winter over, it could handle a couple of cold days. I have a backup rhubarb plant in my apartment. And there are 13+ plants outside. If all of them take, I'll be buried in rhubarb. Much will go to friends and neighbors. Friends will take the extra starts. I could probably start my own CSA.

The seedlings are blowing my mind. A lot of seeds started, but became too squished. I re-potted them last night, and it's a good thing I did. The root structures were long and spreading. It would have been knots in a few more days. I accidentally broke more roots than I liked. The look OK this morning.

I couldn't bring myself to thin them, so I'm approaching 100 plastic cups with up to 5 seedlings each and I'm not done. The cat is irritated about the time, the smell (soil is distracting her), and the space this is taking up. I am running out of flat surfaces and will start making an island of boxes in the middle of the floor so everything can get as much sun as possible. I only have 1 west facing window in the living room. The bedroom is too small to keep plants in there. Grow, grow, grow!

Good news! The garden is going to be tilled on Thursday. I have to buy another 200lbs of soil additive and spread first it so it can be tilled in.

Seedlings will be planted over the next 3 weeks then watered and occasionally cloched as weather dictates.

That's the plan anyway.

For the next 10 days...

Country Wisdom & Know How

ISBN-13: 978-1579123680

Gardening is not intuitive and should not be taken for granted. Put seed in ground, water, harvest? It's not that simple. I have gotten green things to come out of the ground with that, but "harvest" has been more conceptual than practical.

I bought this book in 2007, and I've kept it on the shelf. I was reminded of it when I saw the most recent edition at the book store.

The edition I have has 8pt font, 400+ pages, and they are the size of a 1/2 sheet newspaper. I forgot how much I like to read non-fiction for fun, but this is A LOT of text to look at. I lost my momentum to read it cover to cover. The newer edition has three times the illustrations. I went at this with a mission though.

I started reading a couple of days ago. There is gobs of information on plants, gardening, building things for gardening, cooking things from the garden, feeding birds, crop crafts... - I got a little heady there for a minute. I'm just reading about gardening for now. 

I thought I had the seed start stuff down, but I was missing bits.

A lot of my doing has been aping my neighbors. I see some with shallow trays with soil and tiny seedlings. And I see styrofoam cups with bigger seedlings. In both cases, I've seen them carried out to the garden for planting, but I missed a step.

When people have been taking the tiny seedlings to the garden, they've gone straight into the soil in what I call nursery beds. They are used in high crop rotation gardens. There are two growing beds to each nursery bed. The most mature bed is harvested every day with fresh greens. The second most mature bed is growing, and the nursery bed has all of the seedlings. As the most mature bed is harvested, the medium seedlings are planted with a handful of manure in the empty spots. Two beds are constantly being harvested and transferred to while the nursery bed has new seedlings starting all of the time. Crops change as the weather changes. These beds are done in addition to crops that need longer grow time like squash and cucumber. 

I failed to notice how carefully the nursery bed is attended, especially in extreme temperatures. The reason those gardeners are able to move tiny seedlings outside is because the nursery bed is so carefully tended to mimic what others take for granted by starting indoors for a longer amount of time.

The coffee cup transplants have stayed indoors longer to get taller and stronger and only put outside when the weather stabilized. There is no crop rotation. Things are planted close together, harvested periodically through the summer, and by harvesting, the plants are thinned allowing the plants that stay in the ground longest to get the largest for a fall harvest. This allows for eating "baby" veg too, but with less variety.

Since I saw both sizes of seedlings go in to the garden, I assumed they were equivalent. When I grew my seedlings in my Burpee seed starter set to a couple of inches tall, I put them in the ground, they died. I bought plants from a vendor and they went off gangbusters.

My reading told me I should start seeds, transplant them into larger containers, grow them bigger, and then put them outside. I thought that transplanting and then transplanting again would be harmful, but I'm reading that not only is it necessary, it could be beneficial for the plant's hardiness.

I had started many seeds in shallow-ish plasic containers with seeds every .5 inch or so (like I saw in the first example I mentioned above). Today, I dug out the squash and zucchini seedlings which were nearly 6" tall with roots that were running around the sides of the plastic containers. I put them into individual plastic party cups. I also replanted spinach - which I realize was going to sprout like a bed of grass if I hadn't done something. The first spinach to come up had 1" stems with 1.5" leaves. They were floppy, but developing their secondary leaves. When I went through that planter box, I realized that the tiny seedlings that had barely broken through had super root structures. I transplanted all of the seedlingswith three to five per party cups I filled 20 plastic cups with the spinach alone! If I would have left it be, they would have choked. I'm going to grow spinach and herbs in a vertical planting system to save ground space. I think I'll have plenty.

B.Sprouts and cherry tomatoes are over 1" tall. I'll have to transfer those in the next day or so. Peppers are starting to emerge. Peas, which I started less than a week ago in Burpee seed starters are threatening to get huge quick, so I'll have to move those before they get root bound in their little starter pods.

I will have plenty of seeds to transfer and lots to give away. I think I'll do much better this year. 

I still have lots to read. More seeds starting and more seedlings to move. Traditional planting dates around here happen mid-May to Memorial Day. I think I'll be very ready to meet the day.

Rain tonight, ice pellets Sunday night, and snow on Monday. The weather is back to "normal." It's comforting.

Serious, Committed, Dressed for it?

There's a place just after casual interest where things start to get serious. The equipment gets better, the uniforms start to match, and safety gear is called into play because there is a distinct possibility that someone might get hurt.

The first year I gardener, I developed a huge blister in the middle of my right palm. I was using hand tools to dig through hard soil to churn the ground. I had the wound all summer. I wore a variety of bandage combinations, but it didn't really heal until months later.

Last year, I got another blister. It wasn't as big or as deep. I bought better gloves and bought a full size, long-handled aerator. Not long after I bought a big girl shovel. By the end of summer, I had a full kit and no blisters.

The upgrade continues. I bought a spading fork, started more seeds, and I've purchased some pretty good planter/structure pieces. But I don't yet look the part. I have painted toes for my bare feet, but still...

Last year, I had the bad habit of setting down a tool and forgetting where I put it. Not enough hands! Some things were missing until I pulled out all of the dead plants in the fall.

This year, I decided I would like a smock/apron with pockets. It is HARD to find a "working" apron and I don't care for the neck strap, waist tie apron for something like this.

It doesn't help that I'm a big gal. A smock needs to be able to accommodate size since it's kind of tailored. I'm very happy to say I found a great source on Etsy.  Timeless Apron's Etsy Shop & TimelessAprons.com

Happy, happy, happy. The few that I've seen that I like lots are sold, so I contacted the shop owner to see what I can get.

Do you have a favorite?

Go! Go! Go!

I got the net fence from Katya today. We did a walk-through of the full plot I'm getting from her and the half plot she's getting from me. With the official (?) hand-over, I can really get started on the outdoor stuff.

In the past, we've paid one person who has hired someone to till, but there seems to be a problem finding someone this year. I really want to get to work on improving the soil. If the group isn't going to hire someone, I might just do my own plot myself.

I found a place to rent a tiller for a pretty good price. If I decide to rent it, I'll offer to do everyone's, but I'm a little nervous about the language barrier, timing, and politics. I'd have to clear out my station wagon to bring the tiller home and right now it's full of garden stuff.

If I don't rent, I'll do it myself with my new spading fork. I will definitely pull many, many muscles, and be sore for a long while, but it's a good sore and a nice chance to get dirty.

 I have about 100 pounds of soil additives to fix up our silty, sandy soil. I'll need to double it for the full size plot. Manure didn't go very far in the smaller plot, I used about 120 pounds (3 packages). I think I'll need at least 300 pounds for the new space since it hasn't been take care of very well. Everything I have is in my car since I don't have any storage except my apartment. Things left alone outside will be stolen, even peat moss.

I'm planning a big day of buying, loading, and unloading all of the soil stuff. I'll need to get it all out of the packages and lightly worked at minimum so it can't be taken.

I'll take another day to layout the garden and built the arbor and climbing structure and put up the fence if there's time.

Another day to assemble and install the watering system and lay the outdoor carpet for walking paths. I'll have to dig in the cedar plank baffles to help with erosion and drainage.

We don't have access to water outside yet and the garden shed (tools, stakes and fencing) hasn't been unlocked. That will dictate when we can move plants around outside, but I've got plenty of things to do before I'm ready for that.

I'm very happy to get started.

Lil Sprouts Day 10

tomatoes & b.sprouts

peppers

flowers & zucc

squash & peppers

     

peppers

peas

spinach & cat grass