Frozen muck

We had warm weather on Friday and again yesterday, so I decided to look in on the garden.

My plot is on the southern end of the garden. It's in the shadow of our building until late morning, then I have full sun until sundown. 

The ground for the whole garden slopes with the high point in the northeast and the lowest west and southwest. The eastern border for the entire garden is dry, and the plots are dry all the way west, except mine. It's got an inch of ice or more on the low end.

Some of the chicken wire I used last year wasn't rolled up nicely and it blew around in the wind over winter. I tidied up what I could, but some of it is still embedded in ice and won't come free without a lot of working. I've left it for the sun.

I was frustrated with the brussels sprouts I grew last year. I used about 20% of the garden plot to grow them, but none got more than 2 feet tall and the buds didn't get larger than marbles. I left them standing to freeze over and it looks like I made a lot of wildlife friends. All of the leaves and buds were gnawed to the stalk and the top of the stalk was chewed off too. My plot is covered in little poops - maybe bunny. As things were melting, the dung smell was getting strong. It's all good for the garden, I say.

I left some onions and herbs in the ground, covered them in hay, chicken wire, and laid stakes over top to hold things in place over winter. I've never done this before, so it's all guessing. I removed the chicken wire and stakes. Parts of the hay were still blocked in ice. If I did it right, onions should sprout in a few weeks. I put in 300 sets last year and had a really bad show. I'm not sure how much is left in the ground, but any harvest is an improvement.

Parks of the ground are hard and easy to navigate, but I sunk in ankle deep in spots. I didn't fall, thank goodness. Some of the elderly neighbors were watching me. They already think I'm crazy. Crazy and covered in mud is more than I want to give them right now.

I broke up the icy chunks of straw and spread them around a bit. We'll have below freezing days this week. I won't be outside to work for a while. The action is indoors.

In the apartment...

I decided to add the top shelf to the green house. The green beans are over a foot tall and  were running out of space fast. I repotted them and moved them to the top shelf. The squashes are growing fast too, so I put those in bigger pots.

I tried out some marigold seeds I bought at the dollar store. I put marigolds on the three external sides of my garden plot for pest control. I think the border is about 80 feet long. If I succeed with the marigold seeds, I'll save myself a lot of money. They sprouted quickly and look good.

Friday, I decided to try garlic, chives, and ginger root. I planted around 50 cloves and just one nub of ginger. Like the onions, my garlic and shallots didn't do well last year. I'm doing something wrong. 

I love the plants I get from the Pflaum family, but I want to do my own this year. Well, as much as I can. They generally sell 3" pots of seedlings 3 for $5 and there are 3 seedlings per pot. They've been really helpful these past few years and I visit them every weekend at the Minneapolis Farmer's Market when things warm. By early June, they are nearly out of everything and their plants are well mature. Since I started my seeds mid-March, I hope that my seedlings are ready to plant in very late May too.

The annual kick-off at the MplsFM is 27 April and I'll surely be there the first weekend it's a sign of the season for me. I'm not sure I'll buy from anyone that weekend, but I have to go.

I've noticed the starter beans on the green bean plants have withered and started to turn brown. The little energy bombs are nearly depleted.  They're still adding at least an inch per day and they were looking dry this morning. Many of the fast seedlings were looking droopy. I watered everything and closed up the greenhouse. Last week's mold made me really sick and I worried about it hurting the plants (making me sick later) so I left the door unzipped to dry things and move the air.

The trays under the plugs and pots have been refilled, everything is zipped up again, and the lights are on. I added 2 more incandescent bulbs last week for a total of 3 and there are 2 compact florescent bulbs. It gets warm in there fast, so I've had to be mindful of seedling placement. I'm afraid I overheated the lettuce I started. It's made very little progress this week. I put the pots in my refrigerator for a few hours and now they live on the lowest shelf. The leaves are showing more signs of being ruffles. Onward!

It's condensing in there again. It's a dim day, so I've got the lights on, but I'll turn them off after an hour more so it doesn't get too steamy. I hope the little boost of light will perk up the droopy plants and the warm lovers will perk up too.

I am not a confident gardener. I have killed off a lot of seedlings at this stage in past years. If I could get to really nice true leaves, I'll be so happy.

I need to stop messing with the plants for now. Water. Light. Leave it be. If you've got some spare kind thoughts, I could use them.

Quicky Pictures 25 March

The sun has almost moved around to shine on the greenhouse before it sets. The plants don't mind, they lean towards the brightest light anyway. This is taken just before sunset.

just watchin the dew drop

I've decided to keep the lights in the greenhouse on during the day, so everything cycles with the sun as the sky wheels around and will sun my kitchen (eventually).

There's a constant condensation on the plastic around the layer that has the seeded plugs. I thought it was because it's so chilly in my apartment, but it's keeping up the damp all the time. Even when the lamps are off.

I had a lot of errands today, so I was gone for a good part. I came home, fed the cats, and looked in on the seeds. The lettuce is gangbusters. Ok, well, gangbusters for seeds that were put in 5 days ago and are now a few inches tall.

The b.sprouts are still coming along. I noticed with a little closer look, that the amaranth, cosmos, and coleus have sprouted too.

I'm going to start a few more plugs of wheat grass and oat grass. I hope to transfer the plugs I have now into some pots the cats can get at, but there's just not much there yet. I don't think I planted dense enough. The blades of grass are getting taller than 4"! I'll give it a couple more days to see how tall it will get.  Until then, I'll watch the grass grow. It's the only thing I can see when I'm sitting in my favorite chair in the living room, and the tip of almost every blade has a dew drop that catches the light.

It's Minnesota. Get over it.

I'm Minnesota born and raised. I LOVE snow. I'm not a snow sport person - there is nothing that could motivate me to do slippery&fast in any weather. I don't get much from the "challenge" of physical obstacles. Well, I do, but not the challenges I create. I walked out of the woods in the dark with hip-deep snow and no trail and I felt pretty bad ass. Ride a chair to a scary high place, go down really fast with no natural form of control (I gather that laying down and using friction is frowned upon) and paying lots of money to put stickers on my coat so I can go up and down all day just doesn't do it for me. I'll make snow angels.

Especially this week. We got whammy weather on Monday morning again. Schools closed. Driving is dangerous. Plowed roads drifted over. It's 19 March and people are complaining. It's Minnesota already. Get over it. It's supposed to snow here. I think folks are just spoiled.

I looked through this blog for last year. The weather prediction was mid-80'sF. The same day as today - mid80s. That's not natural. It's 14F outside now, and below 0F with windchill. It's dangerous, painful cold outside. It's Minnesota. Get over it. Put on your warmest (ugly) boots with extra socks. Wear your warmest (unfashionable) coat. Put on a hat and a scarf and some mittens. Give yourself plenty of time. We don't have the luxury of wearing clothes drawn by people who make cartoon versions of practical clothes and sell them at crazy prices. Harsh weather isn't sexy. You can't pull off our notion of "attractive" when all of your useful bits are swaddled under layers, and your eyes are squinting from the cold/wind/snowblindness.

I am wearing a near perfect Minnesota indoors in the winter ensemble - socks, yoga pants, a t-shirt, and a hoodie. If I have to walk around a lot or stand much (cooking, cleaning, laundry), I'll wear my Haflingers. My apartment is drafty and I am uncomfortably chilled, but it's winter. It happens.

The plastic on the greenhouse has condensation all around the level with all of the damp pods. I've turned off the lights for the night. The lettuce is keeping me entertained until everything else pops. I can look at it every few hours and it's done something new.

In this climate, we must start our seeds indoors while winter blows outside. Our growing season is short and unpredictable in the beginning and the end. We get all kinds of produce from our soil that wouldn't naturally come from our land, but we've adjusted for that, and growers have bred plants that will let us get good vitamins from nearby. It's all part of the deal we get for living here.

brussels sprouts are coming

It's cold in my apartment. I'm wearing two shirts, I'm wrapped in a blanket, my fingers and tip of my nose are cold and I think a hat might help. I finally turned on the baseboard heat in the living room. It's been off for weeks. It will be much more comfortable in an hour or so.

We had a few days of wind followed by a snow storm, a quick drop in temperature, and more wind. My apartment is on the west side of the building - perfect for catching the wind. When it's really windy, there's a draft coming in around my air conditioner and there is enough draft on the windows to make a sun catcher swing. All I have to do is put on layers, but it's too cold now. The ambient heat in the building (mostly concrete and concrete block) isn't keeping my apartment warm enough.

The heat is on. The plants next to the windows have been pulled away 1. so they don't get too cold and 2. the baseboard heat is under the windows. When it warms up, it dries out the plants really fast. Emma the Cat is bothered by the plants taking up more of her window space to stretch out, especially when that is now a warm place for her to lay. She's decided to sleep with her paws all tucked in and her head hanging over the table with the plants to catch the warmth as it rises. I wrapped Leena in a blanket for the first time. She likes it. She acts like it's a full body cuddle and she purred and relaxed until she decided to get some food.

I turned on the lights for the greenhouse. The plastic closest to the window has a lot of condensation. It's feeling the cold. Now that the lights are on, the temperature should balance out. The lettuce continues to grow. It's starting to show it's first leaves and a funny thing? The brussels sprouts have sprouted! They are on to their first set of leaves too with stems about an inch long.

I really like brussels sprouts. Last year I tried to grow them and they were short - no tall spikes and only a dozen tiny heads or so on the 15 plants I started. I let them freeze over the winter outside. The year before, I tried to grow cabbage. It didn't go well. Maybe I'm no good with brasicas, but I still like to eat them. I'm using last year's seeds for a lot of things I started last week. I've got enough time to have some failures, and when in doubt, I can always get plants from Pflaum's.

But the Brussels Sprouts Are Coming! Not in all of the pods I planted, but 2 for sure. yay.

not sexy pictures

I've seen them...blogs with sexy pictures. The ones with the near focus and fuzzy background. The color-balanced, strategically placed items of interest. The adorable pictures of our web hostess. The expensive fonts (fonts of 20% more - cheers Ani) and custom logos.

Not me. I'm not even going to try hard, because I won't succeed to compete because...well...I really don't care. If I get a sponsor, KUDOS ME! They can sponsor my crappy pictures too.

As a bit of documentation, this is how things are today. All 144 cells are planted with 2-4 seeds each. I labeled them carefully (an important lesson learned from two years of "Oh, I'll remember"). This is my little greenhouse. There is one more shelf below what is shown, but it's dark, so I'm just using it for storage now. There is a whole other layer of shelves I could add to have 4 shelves, but the greenhouse is perched on my kitchen table, the top shelf would be way too tall for me to reach without my step ladder and I know I would probably try to reach it without my step ladder many, many times. Sometimes I am my own toddler. Part of me wants to do stupid things. A different part of me tries to set up my life so I can't do stupid things, or at least it's hard to do stupid things.

SO, here are the pictures

Greenhouse from the living room side.
The box for the greenhouse blocks the light when
I'm using the living room.

Greenhouse from the kitchen side.

Terra cotta-colored plugs were
started on 15 March. (left)

Terra cotta-colored plugs were
started on 15 March (right)

Black plugs were started
on 18 March (left)

Black plugs were started
on 18 March.

Black plugs (left) with flash to
show the labels.

Black plugs (right) with flash to
show the labels.

Lettuce mix started on 15 March.

And 72 more...

I've just washed my hands from planting my second 72-cell starter.

This set is acorn, butternut, and luffa squash, Asian cucumber, rosemary, sweet basil, leeks, green onions, sage, spearmint, green beans, and yellow pear tomatoes, and peas-in-a-pot.

The greenhouse is working great. Now that I've got the lights inside the plastic covering and everything is all zipped up, the humidity is up and it's warmer in there than the room. I have one incandescent bulb with clear glass (it's really bright) and two compact florescent. There's nothing special about that combination, it's just what I had around the house. They're all part of a single pole lamp, but instead of having to turn on each light individually, I have all of them "on" and I've used an extension cord with a tap foot switch to turn it off and on without opening the cover.

The lettuce has been following the light all day. I love to watch it.

sucked in

I decided to buy more seeds today. Holyheck. I went to Wagner's (I joined their membership club this year) and went through the seed packets just tossing them in my basket. I spent $25 on seeds, which kind of shocked me. But, I got seed catalogs this year and the cost in the catalogs is more than the retail price for the same and I don't have to pay shipping.
$25 in seeds is going to get me a whole lotta food, so I don't have much to complain. I guess $25 seems like a lot to spend all at once.

I need to start these new seeds and I've already used up my 72-cell starter. So I bought another one. At Target. It was $7.99. Last year, I bought the 72 cell self-watering doohicky. It was $20. So I'm justifying my $7.99 too.

I rearranged the lighting that I've got going for the greenhouse so that I can zip the plastic cover closed completely.

I noticed the lettuce mix, wheat grass, and oat grass are sprouting already. 2 days. So much fun! I like growing things.

I checked with a few more lobby stalkers - cauliflower, lemon basil, and spinach have been requested. A head of cauliflower was $1.89 at the store tonight. I think I'll skip that. Too much space for too little out-put. The others are a go (I already have the seeds).

Trying to find the light

My little apartment faces west and I've got 2 windows.  Big in the living room, small in the bedroom.

I can't block the window with shelving, it's considered a fire hazard. In the past, every horizontal surface in my living room was covered with starter cells. Emma the Cat was frustrated. And every time I started moving things around to rotate them in the light, she thought she was finally going to get her spot back.

I bought an indoor greenhouse to start seedlings this year. My brilliant idea was to put it in the space between the living room and kitchen on top of my kitchen table to catch as much of my western light as possible.

This is the first time I've had seeds in pots in the greenhouse. As the day passed, I watched the sunlight rotate through the room. At one point, the bathroom was brilliant with light. But then the sun went down. Direct light didn't get near the greenhouse. It's too early in the season for the kitchen to get direct sunlight. I've never paid attention to that before.

So I got my three bulb reading lamp pole from the bedroom, arranged the seed trays and pointed the lamps and got some really bright light going on the seeds. The lights aren't perfectly arranged. From what I read, it's best if the lamp is 4-6" above the soil shining straight down. This is supposed to prevent "seed stretch" which I've had problems with in the past, but I didn't know how to fix it. Now I know how to fix it, but I'm not sure I want to spend money on a few horizontal florescent shop lights that I'll only use a few months per year. So it will be reading lamps for now. Eventually, the sun will catch up.

Lobby Stalker Wish List

In my apartment building, the first floor is community space and we've got about 20 people who don't want to be alone during the day.

For years, these people who hang out in our front lobby, but the space  got really uncomfortable. They would stare people down, or closely monitor when people came and went and talk about it, or talk about guests who came. Rumors would begin and spread in the lobby. A popular repeat rumor was that the water in the building is "poison." In the four years I've lived here, that came around 3 times with people getting really upset about it.

Dennis follows the vending machine guy and stands right next to him to watch him fill the machines. He learned the guy's schedule and would wait for him in the lobby. When the guy changed his schedule, other Lobby Stalkers would call Dennis' apartment to tell him to come see the vending machine guy fill the machine.

George volunteers to man the package closet. When the mailman comes and has packages bigger than our mailbox, he gives them to George with a log, George locks them up, and from 4-5p, George waits for people to come pick up packages. With changes in postal service, George spends all day in the lobby waiting for the mailman. He has some buddies who sit with him. There are a lot of residents who count on the mailboxes being their chance to socialize and mail is really exciting for them. Changes in the schedule meant more people would wait for the mailman. When he comes, he goes into a room behind the mailboxes to fill them. Someone figured out that if they opened the door to their mailbox and sit, they could see whether the mailman had gotten to their box yet. 

This trend spread so now, twenty or thirty mailboxes are open and people are sitting in chairs across the room watching. But they don't just watch. They comment on when he's done sorting the junk mail (goes in first) and the contents of the junk mail. Eventually, someone will go grab the junk mail from an open door to see what it is, announce it to the room, and put it back. 

"He's on the 4th floor." 

"Oh! He put a package slip in 515! Who lives there? They're getting a package!"

"He's not done yet. He's hasn't been here yet" to anyone who walks in the room.

The mailman can hear all of this. Sometimes people would talk to him through the open doors. It made the mailman absolutely insane. He's surly. He hates it if anyone approaches him when he's outside at his truck.

After a resident survey of things that we'd like fixed up (like the elevators that break down constantly, cleaning the hallways better), the comfy chairs in the lobby were removed and a sign was put up limiting the number of people waiting there to people waiting for deliveries or rides only.

Where to go? What to do? There is no way to get these people to stay in their apartments and they don't want to be alone. More than half of the first floor is a community room with a pool table, TV, a few different suites of comfy furniture, a kitchen, lots of tables and chairs. A lobby stalker brought her coffee maker to the community room and her gal pals would sit there are have coffee instead of in someone's tiny apartment. Someone brought cookies. The office gave the Lobby Stalkers the key to the kitchen so they could use the BIG coffee maker and donated the first can of coffee. They are off and running.

The Lobby Stalkers sit in the community room now. They can't see the front door, so they don't stare down people like they did. There are still teams/gangs/factions of people amongst the stalkers and they sit together in the community room in bunches, but they surround the coffee pot. There's an unspoken schedule of people as they rotate in and out. In the morning, someone brings a newspaper and it's divided up to be read. People take turns bringing treats. The gangs have planned card games, trips to the mall, a baby shower for the gal in the office. It's great.

Outside the community room is "the sharing table." I don't know how it started, but anything on that table is free to anyone. Something someone got from the food shelf they don't want. Maybe someone is moving and they have stuff to let loose. Anything (except clothes, the office does NOT want clothes around).

Last year, as I'd harvest the garden and have more than I could use, I'd leave it on the sharing table. The lobby stalkers have first dibs since they are 10 feet away, but they also keep cell phones handy to call neighbors to alert them of free stuff. I became very popular with my garden stuff. If I had something unusual (like yellow cherry tomatoes), I'd bring them in to the Lobby Stalkers to try so they could testify that there was nothing wrong with them. I got folks to eat Chinese cucumber and long beans, yellow cherry tomatoes and pear tomatoes, different herbs and squash.

I just made a visit. I asked them what vegetables and herbs they would like. Since I always have so much extra, I could make sure to plant things they like. There were votes for the same things I've grown before. They'd also like potatoes, sweet corn and radishes. I've never grown potatoes and we're in the middle of Minnesota - lots of corn fields around here. I'll do radishes (EASY!)

It helps to guide me about planting since I really haven't had a plan. It gives all of us something to talk about. I imagine some might help me out in the garden. It will give me a reason to set a schedule for myself when it comes to harvesting - I can get pretty lazy if it's veg just for me. success

Now I'm back to read up on starting seeds and companion planting. I'm off to buy some more seeds this week when I buy a grow lamp for the greenhouse. It gives me something to do.

I'm back

I got pretty quiet last year. I hosted my class reunion in August, got pretty sick, and the garden fuddled along with me.

I waited until the last day to take down my fences and posts. It took about 45 minutes to get everything flat so when the snow would come, the garden wouldn't be discernible (as per city code).

The Garden President, Sophia, banged on my door earlier that day to yell at me and tell me I was horrible (when I told her she woke me from my sick bed) she yelled that I was lazy and should sleep at night like a normal person.

I'm not sure if she has hard feelings for me. Ultimately, she can decide that I don't get a plot this year because almost broke the rules. I'm still pretty ticked. I'd like an apology. But she's a bossy, grouchy old lady so there's not much chance of that.

I flip-flopped over whether to have a garden or not. As soon as I agreed with myself that it was going to do it, "gardening" has had my attention online, in the stores, and looking through my homesteading books.

This will be my third plot in our community garden (as long as Sophia doesn't ban me). I never had a garden of my own before this and I've made a lot of mistakes (which really irks the senior citizens who think I waste). Since I've made some really annoying mistakes, I think I started off well.

I bought a 5'5" indoor greenhouse ($19.99 on sale) with a clear plastic cover and zipper access. I saved lots of my small plastic pots from last year. Last night, I started some seeds in my 72-cell Jiffy plant-starter tray from last year. I did some bigger pots for lettuce mix. EACH pod got it's OWN label written on a mini popsicle stick ($5 for 1000) in permanent ink that includes the date the seeds were started. I haven't been so organized in the past and it took a lot of extra time.

Here's the seed list for 15 March 2013. Most are last year's leftover seeds:
Amaranth: Love Lies Bleeding
Brussels Sprouts: Long Island Improved
Cat Nip
Chives: Common
Cliantro
Coleus: Rainbow Mix
Cosmos: Gazebo Mix
Oat Grass
Pepper: Cubanelle
Pepper: Poblano/Ancho
Sweet Pepper: Carnival Hybrid Mix
Sweet Pepper: Red Roaster Hybrid
Tomato: Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato
Tomato: Warren's Yellow cherry tomato
Wheat Grass

Gosh, when I look at the list all spelled out like that, it seems like a lot. There are still a lot of crops I want to grow. I'm going to hold off a week (if I can restrain myself) until these seeds get a good run at sprouting. I dreamed about them being a little lawn of green last night. They aren't sprouted of course, but my brain is already there.