The Evil Alexi - Tearing it up on a Saturday

My foot is healing nicely, but it's been a bit of a drama, but not really. I guess I would say, it's different and uncomfortable and a little scary.

 Surgery on Monday, garden clean up on Tuesday, bringing indoors the chives to keep them from the tiller. Friday was the only day I needed to leave the flat.

I was supposed to be at church between 9:30a and 9:45a. I had such a hard time getting out of bed. I waited until the last minute to get out of bed. It was snowing! It snowed in a big, winter wonderland kind of way all morning. I ran errands afterward and then just wanted to go to bed. When I got home, I realized how wet my injured foot was. I was not supposed to get it wet and the sheet of instructions I got from the hospital said I should call with any questions and I should have my bandage changed any time it was wet or dirty. I called the doctor. She told me to go to Urgent Care to have my foot looked at. The bandages were changed.

Saturday I was up, went back to bed, and really got up around 3p. The snow was completely gone. I took a peak out the window and saw the tiller had been through the garden. I had spent so much time in bed that I was feeling antsy, so I got dressed and planned to for a ride.

I went out the back door so I could stroll by the garden and I was sick. All of the straw I'd gathered on one end of the garden to cover the rhubarb and keep them safe from the tiller. I laid rolls of chicken wire across the top and wrapped chicken wire around the whole thing to keep it from blowing around. On Saturday, it was all torn apart. The chicken wire was thrown around the yard. The stakes that were holding it in place were everywhere. The straw was kicked through and scattered all over the yard. The tiller had gotten into the area I wanted to protect. The rhubarb was complete gone. I burst into tears. 

I'd done all of that clean up work on Tuesday, the day after surgery to get it cleaned up and safe. I'd worked so hard on a day I wasn't supposed to do anything at all. It was all undone.

I was sure Katya, who had been asking for a rhubarb plant, had taken them. I thought Alexi might have torn everything up. I went to Alexi's apartment, not there. I went back down to the garden to look at the mess again. I found the rhubarb plants. They were trampled flat and all of the leaves were broken off, but they were still there. 

I decided to wait for Alexi and Valentina to come home. I thought they might be at church. I waited in the lobby. There was chaos going on in the lobby. Then more chaos. And I was so hungry. And there was more chaos and I couldn't handle any more. 

I'd finally calmed down and I realized that taking time to scream at Alexi as soon as he got home wasn't going to undo any of the mess. There was no urgency. So I left in search of Chinese food and took a drive around for a few hours.

I woke up around 3a and couldn't get back to sleep. I went to early mass and finally fell asleep around Noon. It was an on-again, off-again sleepy day.

Monday morning I woke up, but I was so comfortable, I stayed in bed and managed to sleep a few extra hours. I thought I heard knocking on my door. Emma, the cat, ran into my bedroom to hide in the closet. Yep, someone was knocking.

It was Alexi. He'd come to tell me I was not going to get a garden this year because I didn't clean it up like I was supposed to. He said there were mice in my garden, in the straw. I asked if he saw them, he said he did. He thinks his English is great, but since he doesn't use verbs, it's not always clear what he wants, but he was yelling. Eventually I figured out that instead of saying Mouse! Zoom! He was accusing me of trying to keep a zoo in my garden. He wanted the straw out. I told him I'd be out immediately. Then he said I'd owed him $4 since Saturday for the garden. I had it handy and gave it to him.

I stumbled around, put on my coveralls. I pulled my wheeled garbage can full of stakes and tools from my walk-in closet and went down to the garden. It tipped over on some tree roots. As I approached the garden, two Chinese women (Lang and Gao) were talking about me ("Jennifer" not being something often heard in Chinese) in an unflattering way. Everything was tore to bits. It was a bad morning. 

I got the first bin-full of straw to the dumpster. I didn't want to throw it away, but I was trying to keep some peace and keep Alexi out of my garden. Lang, who shares the north boundary of my plot was hanging her fence. She uses pieces of wire fence she's scavenged over the years. She won't speak English, but she understands a bit. My Chinese is extremely limited, but I got her to understand that instead of me putting up my 5' fence, and she, her's, we could both use mine and save the work. I said we could use my stakes too. Last year I had fence and stakes to surround the entire plot. It makes sense to share. Gao joined her and they got started.

My stakes, cloches, and extra fence were on the ground and I was working on the second bin. Alexi came out with Valentina.

Words ensued. Alexi admitted to doing it. I lost my temper and started yelling and throwing fistfulls of straw at him. I showed him the rhubarb he trampled and the stakes he pulled out. I told him the whole point of the exercise was to keep things protected ("No! No protect with grass!") and I told him it was for the tiller on Saturday. Not only had he torn up everything and made a mess and trampled my rhubarb, he let the tiller in to the area I was trying to protect. I went on a rage and yelled out my foot and my surgery and the pain I was in. I was fired up and I just kept yelling. Alexi forgot about my surgery. He forgot that he said he would help me work on it. He forgot that when I finished on Tuesday, that he told me everything was OK for the time being. Then he told me to shut up - I was being too loud and everyone could hear.

He walked away and after about 5 minutes, I started crying. Sobbing and bawling while I was trying to clean up. I was so tired, so discouraged, so frustrated, and so worried about my foot. I just stood there and cried.

Some Chinese women came to ask me about my garden, saw me crying, and I told them what Alexi had done. They asked if the whole plot was mine. When I said no, the younger woman who spoke English really well, translated. This woman, Wang, was going to have the other half.

With help from the woman who translated, I told her that I had plenty of fence and stakes for the whole full plot and we could share it. I told her I had tools and she is welcome to use them. It was her first year gardening, and the expense of getting started can be tough

Gao jumped in. I don't know exactly what she was saying, but she seemed to be claiming some of my things. She flashed some cash at Wang. 

Last year, I bought a roll of chicken wire fence. It was much more than I needed. I offered the extra to Gao. She said she'd buy it from me, but not until this year. I thing she was afraid that somehow I was giving the fence to Wang - I don't know. Bickering.

Wang and the young woman with her said they would take care of everything and I should go rest. One hour, and they'd have everything cleaned up. Then they offered to hang fence. I was still crying. The kindness put me back to sobbing.

I hadn't planned to hang fence, just clean up straw, so I didn't have all of my tools at the garden. I went to my flat for the tools, came back down using a crutch and was chased away. I came in to eat lunch and fell asleep. FOR THREE HOURS!

I hurried down to the garden. All of the straw was cleaned up and gone. All of my stakes and cloches were stacked in my plot. All of the fence was hung and reinforced. Gao had kept all of my tools and supplies in the garbage bin in her plot for safe keeping. They'd all worked so hard. I started crying again.

It was 7 days since my foot surgery.

Not good. Not bad, but not good.

It's Thursday now. Monday I had surgery to remove a cyst from my right foot.
As I was locking my apartment door to meet my ride to the hospital in the lobby, Alexi came with a piece of paper that had a note about cleaning up my garden plot and paying for it. I'm only getting 1/2 a plot instead of the full plot I had last year (long story), and Alexi was insistant that I get my garden cleaned by the end of the day Tuesday. Alexi's English isn't so good. He prepares what he wants to say, but he isnere for hoursut th't prepared to listen and answer questions.
I pointed to my walking cast/boot and said doctor, hospital and made a cutting motion and pointed at my foot. He got it right away. He said he would help me.
Surgery went fine. I felt great after surgery, popped right out of sedation, and it's only now that I'm getting uncomfortable. I'm not taking the maximum amount of pain medication and I've been walking around without my crutches.

Tuesday, I was worried about the garden. I raked the whole plot, filled in some divots and tried to gather every thing I wanted to keep to one side so the rototiller can till most of my plot. The half that my new garden neighbor is getting is all cleaned up. I was hours. Then I went to the grocery store, since I was out of  a lot of things. When I got home I was so wiped out. It's not tired, sleepy, or sore, it's zero energy. It's hard to explain.

Wednesday afternoon, I decided to try going without my walking boot. I'd been wearing it 24/7 until that point. I don't know if it helped or hurt. We were supposed to get a big snow storm, so I planned to stay in. I can't get the bandages on my foot wet and I cannot change them on my own. I decided I wouldn't be able to go out for days because of the snow.

The snow missed us, but parts of the state within a 1 hour drive got as much as 15 inches. When I woke up this morning, the ground didn't even look damp.

I asked Alexi about the tiller. He said it would be Friday or Saturday. Since the weather settled, I decided to go back to the garden. Chives, onions, and herbs that I left in the ground last year wintered well and they were sprouting in the path of the tiller. This afternoon, I geared up (coveralls, rubber boot, multiple plastic bags around my cast, garden gloves, etc) and went to dig them up. It was much colder than I planned. Monday, it was 85F. This afternoon it was right around freezing and windy.

Digging up the goodies went faster than I planned and there were way more plants then I realized before. They all had really great root systems. I did all of this without my crutches because I knew my hands would be full of tools.

When I came in, my calf was aching. I think it's got something to do with the way I walk when I'm in the boot. Other parts of my foot and ankle are aching now too.

I planted all of the seedlings I dug up in a punch bowl and watered well. I hope they will keep until I'm more healed. I think I might have to take at least a week off of the garden. I still have to water the seedlings in my apartment, but at times like these, when I'm hurting and waiting for my pills to kick in, I really don't want to think about tending them at all. Later. When I'm feeling better.

We're done with snow that will stick around very long. We may still get snow for the next few weeks, but it won't harm plants and it won't freeze the soil. I'm not worried.

Now to prop myself up, lounge and cuddle with my cat. Napping is in order for sure.

Weather whammy.

It is warm today. Warm. Like, 85F warm. Yesterday was nice, so I opened my window and left it open all night. It's actually getting a little uncomfortably warm now that the sun has moved west and I'm getting direct light.

I had to run to the store and the flipflops, shorts, skirts, and bright colored everything adorned my fellow shoppers. When we get a glimmer of warm weather here, shorts and sandals are the attire. Nice.

Back in the car, on my way home, I heard the host of a talk show about pets joke about the weatherman being in trouble for predicting snow.

Snow?

What?

As soon as I got home, I had to go online to check the weather. Yes, our weather is going to turn again.

No worries. This is Minnesota. We do weather like some people do brunch.

All day I've been nagging myself about going out and doing something in the garden. I went out yesterday and looked around. Some of my straw had drifted over to my neighbor's plot. I moved some of the straw around and chives, onions, and a few other things I left in the ground are sprouting.

I'm not sure if we're going to have a rototiller go through this year. There hasn't been any talk of it, but it snowed a few inches last week, so it's not much of a surprise. Last year at this time, I was really geared up for garden season. I had seeds in the ground and it was so warm. It's not happening this year.

It's not just the weather. I'm having surgery on my right foot tomorrow. I'm going to be in a walking cast, but I'm supposed to stay off my foot for at least 2 weeks and keep it elevated. I am certain that I will not be able to use my spade fork and trying to plant and put up fence is going to be dangerously possible (but unwise) for a month.

I've got lots of seedlings going indoors. I'm still having some die off every couple of days, but since I started with hundreds, I'm still doing really, really well for quantity.

I've transferred all of the seeds to their own cups and I've taken to watering them with a medicine dropper. It's child-size and only holds 2.5mL. I'm still learning how much each seedling needs, but I'm not overwatering anymore. It takes much longer to give each seedling 4 or 5 squeezes of water, but I'm watching the seedling progression more closely than I was and each gets more TLC than they did before. I watered everything with a little extra today.

All of my squash except 2 and all of my cucumber seedlings died. I believe fruit flies did most of the damage. All of my herb seedlings withered and died. I'm going to plant all of these tonight. I'm sure the squash and cucumber will do great, but I'm not comfortable with herbs. I don't know what they're supposed to look like as seedlings and I don't know what to expect. I'll have plenty of time before I put them in the ground.

One month is the goal. I hope to start putting everything in the ground in a month. The Minneapolis Farmer's Market opened this weekend. I love the farmer's market, but I know if I go now, I'll want to spend money and I'll want to buy seedlings. *sigh* One month. I'm allowed to do it in one month.

A lot of snow.

A snow angel I made on 23 April 2013.

Wow, I didn't realize how long it's been since I last wrote.

Our little bit of snow turned into a spring snow extravaganza. We've had 12 days of rain or snow in the last 16 days. We were supposed to get some snow tomorrow, but it looks like the forecast has cleared up and we might get to the 50F's for the rest of the week.

People are really getting sick of snow. My yard, which was completely grass on 22 April had enough snow to make a snow angel the next day, and today all of the snow is gone again. We really can't complain too much since the snow doesn't last, but we've had a dull grey and white landscape. It's been so dreary. The blue skies today have been lovely.

I've had a big die-off of seedlings. I tried to be hands-off after I broke a lot of stems transplanting seedlings, but I was too hands off. Last week, I decided everything that had survived needed more room and some individualized attention. I had the garlic and shallots started in paper dixie cups. I had to peel the cup off the first clove I was going to transplant and the roots had grown into the seams in the paper. The garlic and shallots are so much healthier with a lot more room.

Watering has been a problem for me. I haven't managed it well in the garden, or handling the seeds indoors. Last year I noticed one of my neighbors watering her seedlings with a plastic disposable spoon. Each seedling would get one or two spoonfuls. I used to think that was so tedious, but it makes sense to me now. I got a medicine dropper (free from Walgreens) and I've been using it to water the seedlings. It means I have to water a lot more often, and it takes much longer - I've got about 100 seedlings - but so far it's been working well. The seedlings look healthier than they have - the green is deeper, second and third sets of leaves are coming out.

I'm still just guessing as far as how much water to use, but since I'm checking every day, I don't overwater and I can recover from too little water before it kills the plant. I'm measuring the water based on the number of "squirts." Today, little seedlings got 3 squirts, garlic and shallot cloves got 4, and the plants that are working really hard, like the squashes, got 5 squirts.

I plan to carry this over to the garden be watering each plant individually instead of relying on the sprayer on the hose to get everything wet. Last year, my watering wasn't even. It meant some of my plants had really shallow roots. Some of the plants that wanted a lot of water sucked the soil dry. I hope to fix that this year.

Today I started reading Country Wisdom & Know-How. I bought it a few years ago and it is a FANTASTIC resource for everything.

To start with, I'm going to read up on all the kinds of seedlings I've completely wiped out. With all of the snow, it's going to be early June before anything can go in the ground. I've got a few extra weeks to start seedlings and I can do it with the official proper way to start that kind of seed.

I'm going to start my garden layout too. This book is great for explaining companion plantings and lists of plants that don't do well together at all. It's a huge book. Lots of information and when I get tired of reading about gardening, I can read about raising chickens or making jam.

Just a little snow.

We had some snow on Friday. Just a bit. It made the grass look like it might have an icy crust, but I didn't test it out.

We've been damp all weekend. It's rained off and on. The News just said we're expecting at least an inch, and I heard something (I wasn't really listening) that we might have snow again later this week.

I am sure we are going to get one more whammy storm before we can call an end to it. I don't have any great insight beyond living here for so long. We always have to have weather in September that is really, really hot. In January, we get a warm spell, that seems strange. In February, it gets really, really cold for about a week. In April, it snows. This is how we do, as the young people say. But we haven't gotten a big snow - 2 inches at least - this month.

I've been making a concerted effort to leave the seedlings alone. I've done damage just moving things around. I'm still concerned about the shallots and garlic. In the next few days, I'm going to move them to bigger containers. I don't want to hold them back already.

I never did get to the reading I'd planned on. I've been in a cycle of excessive sleep, pain, and numb hands. The pain and numbness is definitely related to weather - when the barometric pressure drops, joints have a chance to swell up and things in joints move around to places they wouldn't be and using joints is harder. Gravity and atmospheric pressure are your friends. I go through sleep marathons from time to time, but I don't know why. Oh, and hungry. I've been ridiculously hungry lately. I can't seem to keep full. I've even woken up to get food, drink a bunch, and get back to sleep within 1/2 hour.

So, I've got a jaw-cracking yawn going on and I have got to eat something.

Shallots and garlic and water.

The shallots have been sprouting for a few days now. One of the cloves was popping out of the soil in it's little paper cup. When I tried to push it down, it wouldn't go. It doesn't have and sprout yet, but the roots are working hard. I hope I'm not stunting them in the paper cups. Maybe I should go plant them outside?

The garlic is just showing sprouts today. I think I'm going to have the same stunting/crowding problems with the garlic that I'm having with the shallots. I'm going to study up today.

The greenhouse is assembled to it's full size with four shelves and five bulbs lighting and heating the space. I noticed seedlings are starting to droop, especially the squashy-type veg. I'm not sure if they're just too top heavy from stretching tall with only one set of leaves. Some of the short squashy-types that have just emerged are short but are already putting out true leaves. Others have withered and look dead.

The lettuces that were doing so well flopped over and are mostly dead and withered. It's happened every single time I've tried to grow lettuce in a container, but in the past, if I take the container outside and leave it in the garden with all of the other growing things, it's rises from the dead and throws out beautiful, healthy plants. Maybe it's the heat in the greenhouse. Or the light? I haven' succeeded yet, so I don't know what works. More reading. I contacted the Master Gardeners at the university, but I didn't get an answer for growing seedlings other than advice that lettuce is sowed right in the ground, not transplanted. But I don't plan to transplant these. I just want some fresh containers of lettuce and greens. I'll have to keep looking.

I don't feel confident about my seedling management at all. I've had massive failure in previous years. This year I've used seeds from previous years - not heirlooms, seeds left over in old packets. The greenhouse thing is new. I turn the lights on. I turn the lights off. I open the door for circulation. I close it for humidity. I'm watering from the bottom. I've broken some stems when I've moved things around - some plants don't mind, some drop dead. If I get 40 plants from the 150+ plugs I've seeded, I think I'll feel successful. I'm well on my way with only 5 plugs or so without healthy looking seedlings, but I'm not confident.

I refreshed the water in the trays the plugs sit in. I'm not scientific about watering at all. I try to keep water in the trays. I've messed up a couple of times. I try to be mindful of the seedlings that are working hard to throw up stems and leaves. Air circulation and temperature affect the moisture too. Dozens of plugs sit in the same trays together even though they are different varieties. That seems like it's wrong, but I don't have the space to sort everything into it's own special places.

I've spent about $50 on seeds and soil. Pflaums sell pots, 3 for $5 with 3 seedlings in each plot. I can always fall back on them for the things that don't succeed.. I'm going to keep trying.

Green beans like to be crowded.

Well, that's what I ready anyway. My green bean plants are over a foot tall and were becoming problematic in my little greenhouse. I'd accidentally bent the stalks and moving them just a little to water them put them in danger of breaking - a true heartache when they've come along so well.

Last night, I took the green bean plants and put them all in the same container maybe 14 inches across and 5 inches deep. Then I wrapped all of the stems around each other to a little support to keep them all upright. They have that little bit of fuzz on them that makes them stick together anyway and with their leaf pairs sticking out, they clung to each other anyway.

They aren't in the greenhouse anymore. They're by the window. Today, like magic, a couple of the stems threw out 4-6 inches of vine and there are at least 4 new leaf pairs going. Cool beans.

On PBS tonight, Nature had a program about how plants communicate. They can attract polinators, shoo away polinators that are too aggressive, fight for root space with "stranger" plants while playing nice with plants that came from the same parent plant. Non-native plants can grow like crazy and take up a lot of space while poisoning the native plants around them, but some native plants create a barrier around their own roots to hold off the aggressive plants and will integrate in groupings of the weaker native plants protecting them from the aggressive non-native plants too allowing both native plants to grow healthy while holding off the "bad guys." Fungus and fir tree roots give each other a boost and connect thousands of trees in the same forest to keep everyone happy.

It's interesting to think about. I'm even more impressed with the scientists who've come up with experiments to test theories. One scientist exposed the leaves of a tree to radio active carbon gas (think carbon dioxide in, oxygen out). They came back the next day with a Geiger counter and found the other plants that got the carbon from the tree that "breathed" the radioactive gas.

Another scientist blocked parts of plants from themselves so the plant couldn't tell that it had been pollinated. He said he made the plant kind of crazy by making it "blind" to the things going on around it and it's own self. The plant's floral smell became stronger, more energy went to the flowers and other bits to attract sexy bugs even though it had already been pollinated for days.

Plants are smart. Smarter than we realize. How do we recognize communication between organisms without nervous systems? If other plants, fungus, and bugs can understand what plants are saying, can we ever understand it so we can listen too? Can we talk back other than the clumsy bumping around and manipulating the environment and genes of plants in the process? Sure. We'll just have to wait for it.

Folks who grow things know a little bit about this. There are guides for companion planting - putting plants that support each other together and you can make a fruit sweeter. Include red and orange flowers and you'll get hummingbirds. Put marigolds on the border and it will keep some creatures away. It's much more sophisticated than that, but I take my list of do's and don'ts for companion plantings handy when I draw up a garden plan - and I DO have to plan to give each plant the space, sun and water that works best.  That's complicated enough. The green beans in my window will remind me.

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).