abundance shared is abundance doubled

Tomorrow is the last day of Bible Study until the fall. We wrap up with a pot luck and hours of gab. It's not really my thing. I don't eat much. People comment on how little I am eating. I finish eating before everyone else.  You'd be surprised at how much things are about eating when you don't eat.
I LOVE to cook and I'm good at it. I love to cater. I love to set up parties and I love to hide behind an apron. No such luck at a pot luck.

I've been thinking about what I will make for the party or even if I'll go. A few weeks ago, when I was offering someone seedlings, she suggested I bring them to the pot luck as my thing to share.
Easy peasy. I can take them to the party. Make my presence known and dodge out whenever I want because I don't have to wait around to collect my pan or help clean up.

"Red Currant" Indeterminant Cherry Tomatoes

The 36-cell seed starter with tomatoes has been doing really well. Even better than I thought they would be at this point. I pulled out the bin of soil I've got in my living room and the 3oz paper cups I bought and started moving seedlings. I had read something about putting at least three seeds in every container when starting seeds, so that's what I did. I started running out of space so in some of the cells, I sowed five seeds.

I transplanted 40 or so into the tiny cups to take to Bible study and I still had a lot left over. I moved the rest, three to a cup, into the larger party cups that have been in rotation as I've moved seedlings to cups to planting. I lost track, but I think I planted at least five of them with these seedlings. All are watered in.

"Carnival Mix"
Sweet Peppers

I decided to transplant the "Carnival Mix" of peppers from the 18-cell seed starter. These were at least two seeds to a cell, but they're doing so well, it's just a matter of time until I have to move them. So I replanted those too. When I moved them around I realized how well they're doing. The stems are really green and firm; not delicate at all. I moved these three to a cup in the party size cups. All are watered in. I really look forward to see the varieties mature.

I am really happy with how all of this is going. I don't know why I've been so worried. Maybe it's just the wonder of it all. I was genuinely worried that I wouldn't have enough plants from the seeds I sowed and that I would have to buy some from Pflaum's at the farmer's market. Even with all of the sprouts, I've still worried that I would break them or kill them somehow. Last year, things did not go well. I hat lots of weak, spindly seedlings that couldn't handle being moved at all.

I got dirt happy and decided to split up some of the spinach cups too. There are at least five plants in each cup and sometimes many more. The spinach came up OK, but the stems have stayed spindly. Then the food leaves came up, they kept getting longer and longer, just making the whole seedling floppy. The same thing happened with last year's salad mix - they all fell over and died. When they died, I had them in a container and I just left it in the garden. It came back to life and did really well until it bolted.

I'm hoping that this year's floppy spinach, lettuce mix and herbs will revive with more space and heat. I've split my bet though. I've put some of the spinach seedlings in the ground already. Some are in clustered cups, and now some are split up in larger cups. Something is bound to work. I have nearly 50 spinach seedlings between the three settings.

My living room is clearing out. I have cups covering  The Rack, but there are only about a dozen left on the cardboard box island in the middle of the room.  I have some downstairs in the greenhouse too, but I can't remember what is there. These really established tomatoes and peppers could go to the greenhouse now too, but I know my plants are so much further along than the neighbors' and I'm afraid that some will be stolen. It's a sad reality.

Tomorrow after the party, I'm going to check on the peas I transplanted the other day. The rain has been such good timing!

I will take pictures of the minicups for church in the morning. The lighting isn't good here at night.

The Wild Ones: Dill, Mint, Cilantro, Lemon Grass, and ???

Since ours is a community garden next to a park, a lot of things get churned into the soil when it's tilled every fall and spring, and assorted other things blow in all season.

Last year, it took me a while to identify the volunteer plants that we've got growing in the garden. Since they grow in the straight line trenches I made for my seeds, I can't always tell what's to keep. So far, I need them to grow to a certain size before I can tell what they are. I've asked Anatoli, Zhenfang, and Alexi to help me identify weeds, but sometimes we run into a language barrier. Alexi and I get pretty close.  When I ask if a plant is "good" or "bad," Alexi tends to judge the condition of the plant (healthy v. non-healthy). He calls the volunteer plants "wild." I've tried to teach him the word "weed," but it's not working so far. I don't think he can quite hear the difference between "wild" and "weed." "Can you eat it?" is greeted with a shrug because, well, anything can be eaten.

A lot of the wild plants could be herbs at their early stages. Zhenfang doesn't care for most herbs. She has chives and cilantro in her own garden, so I've given her different herbs to smell (maybe she'll recognize them?) but after grossing her out with basil, she won't go near them. Last year, she was helping me in my garden, and she started pulling out my lemon grass. I wanted her to smell it and look at the color so she could tell what it was and not pull it, but she refused. If I ask her if a seedling is "good" or "bad," she answers based on her own tastes. The herbs are almost always counted as bad, but she also calls onions, sweet peppers and potatoes bad. She knows they are edible but she wouldn't eat them, and she doesn't think I should eat them either. When she sees me come home with groceries, sometimes she'll poke around the bag to see what I've got that will meet her approval.  Too many boxes. She's not happy I bring home boxes and Coca-Cola.

This kind of secondary leaf means it's a kind of
squash or cucumber. In this case, it's zucchini.

This year, the "wild" seedlings are over an inch tall and have gotten to their secondary leaves, so I can tell what they are. Garden plant sprouts emerge with two leaves (primary leaves) on a stem.  They all look the same to me. I have to wait for the second set of leaves to show up to identify the plant.

The "wild ones" in this year's garden are dill, mint, and coriander/cilantro. All three are very popular in our little community, so really the only nuisance is that it grows wherever it wants.

The dill is sprouting up everywhere, gets more than 3 feet tall, goes to seed, and cycles back. There are constant crops of dill all summer. I found out that my Russian and Ukrainian neighbors save the seeds and scatter them by the hand full every spring. Valentina kept a huge a tin of seeds and offered to share. I passed on it. Even still, I've got wisps of dill growing. Sofia says that "Russian" dill tastes better than "American" dill. Alexi has said it's really good in soup. There is a "summer borsch" that was referred to last year. It seems to be heavy in herbs - mint, dill, and a lemony leaf that grows on a bush 4 feet tall. I've got to get that recipe.

I haven't planted my mint in containers (cat mint and spearmint). It can spread pretty far on it's own, but since the garden freezes hard and gets tilled every spring, I thought it would be destroyed and not bother the neighbors. Volunteer mint is all over my garden this year. It doesn't look like the mint I've planted, which is kind of bushy. This is a leggy, creeper mint with darker, shinier leaves. Last year, Valentina gave me some cuttings, she told me it was "Russian" mint. Tasty stuff. When Zhenfang saw it in my garden last year, she went nuts - she wanted some! I gave her several cuttings and she was over the moon. It's back.

Cilantro (corriander) popped up in my garden this year. Last year, my planning was really off and by late summer my garden was pretty bare. The waste of space lead Zhenfang to bring me seeds and seedlings to put in the empty spots. In one section of the garden, she scratched the soil and scattered coriander. It seems that some of it survived to live again this year. It's not growing in places I want it, but I'll let it get big and go to seed and replant the seeds where I want them. I should get several harvests this year.

Last year, the lemon grass I planted was just a curiosity - an expensive exotic I wasn't very sure about. I let it do what it would and it spread quickly. It grew nice and tall, and whenever I brushed past it, the air smelled of lemon grass. I got a recipe for a kind of Thai iced tea made from lemon grass and a little ginger - very nice. In the fall, I wanted to pull it up and dry some for winter, but I didn't realize that it's a rhizome. When it was spreading across the surface of the soil, it was spreading underneath and got some really deep, woody roots. I discovered that rhizomes like lemon grass and Mexican bamboo can do really well in Minnesota. This year, I buried a plastic, tight weave basket, filled it with soil and put the lemongrass seedlings in there. I was a bit worried that I'd stunted them, but I noticed tonight that they are growing gangbusters. Since I planted them near the walking path, I'll still get the lovely scent and this fall all I'll need to do is dig up the basket. No wild lemon grass this year and I hope to have some rhizomes to give to Felicia H in BE.

There is still one kind of plant growing in my garden that I can't identify. The leaves look like they might be salad greens, but last year, I let it grow it sprouted golf-ball-sized yellow flowers. When it gets a little bigger, I'll take some pictures and send them to the University of Minnesota horticulture folks for an identity check.

What kind of wild stuff grows in your yard/garden? Any surprises?

My cup runneth over

It was so foggy and rainy this morning, I didn't think I'd get any garden time. There was a peak of blue sky this afternoon, but before sunset, the clouds had rolled in and more rain is coming.

I decided to check on things before dark. Everything that was still in the soda bottle seed starters were completely soaked and many overflowed with water. According to the rain gauge, we got nearly 2 inches of rain last night - too much for my containers.

I planted everything from containers - tomatoes, brussel sprouts, peppers, and squash. In the ground, it looks like a lot of plants. Zhenfang brought me some sweet peas to fill in a gap where the seeds haven't sprouted. She's got a 20' fence with sprouted peas so far. *envy*

Everything already in the ground looks good. The carpet of weeds that are coming in are actually dill. They've grown just enough now to let the feather leaves loose. It grows wild here. Once it gets about 3 feet tall, it goes to seed. The seeds drop, and repeat several times per summer. Like last year, I'm sure we'll have continuous harvests of dill, so if you'd like some, just let me know.

The gals from Ukraine have collected what they call Russian dill seeds and they've offered to share them with me. They've told me that American dill doesn't smell the same. I've kept some seeds from last year, but I don't know what kind they are. I'll clarify the kind I've got when it comes up.

Leaving the garden tonight, I really don't have room for anything else in the garden. I have maybe 2' to keep my gardening tools and stuff. All is well.

Grow baby, grow!

Don't judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant. ~Robert Louis Stevenson