May 1st: Erika’s First Planting Day

I spent a good deal of time both yesterday and today pulling weeds from my garden.  Today they came out really easy, due to a lovely spring storm that blew through last night.  I set myself a goal, and told myself that if I could clear from post to post, I could permit myself to plant.  So I did it.  I pulled and raked and pulled some more, and surprised myself by clearing nine feet of garden bed.  With all that space just sitting there, how could I not go ahead and plant something?

The thing about this particular space is that although it is about four feet deep, only the first 19 inches are plant-able, due to sun requirements.  This particular piece of yard will get between 6-7 hours of good strong sun, so it’s great for lettuces, greens, and other things that would bolt come summer time and hot, scorching temperatures.  Given that it is only the first of May, and we could potentially still see frost for a few weeks, I planted frost-tolerant vegetables first.  As I get more garden cleared, we’ll plant other delicious things, all leading up to Memorial Day, when I can plant the tomatoes and peppers in their permanent beds.

So today I started with snap peas.  I’m using a tomato cage as a trellis, and when the pea tendrils get close to the top, I will invert a second tomato cage and zip tie it to the top of the first one.  Voila, instant six-foot pea cage.  I also planted some cherry radishes in with the sugar snap peas, since I had plenty of room in the space yet.

Next I planted Broccoli Raab.  I’ve never eaten broccoli raab even, but it’s reputed to be wickedly easy to grow, and can germinate in the low forties- a perfect spring vegetable.   I followed that patch with one each of red and green romaine lettuce- our favorite around here.  Next came a foot of beets and a foot of my favorite Swiss Chard.  Next went a patch of scallions, but it occurs to me that my scallion seed was a few years old- I may need to go buy some new seed and start over, as onion seed doesn’t save too well.  After the onions came a patch of French Breakfast radishes, and finally a patch of spinach.

I almost feel a sense of bliss, knowing that there are seeds growing in my backyard.  I definitely didn’t think I’d be getting anything in there yet.

I also got my compost bin cleaned out.  There was already one here, except that someone filled it with sticks and wood.  I pulled out the sticks and dumped my first bucket of compost.  I’m really excited about being able to compost- I go through a lot of kitchen garbage, and it’s always bothered me to throw it out.   Now I can use it to create new nutrients for my garden- free fertilizer- now that’s a great thing!

I did scare away a big fat bunny yesterday.  As I thought about that bunny, I thought it would be really easy to line the fences of the property with chicken wire, and keep the bunnies out.   But then I also thought that maybe I should try keeping them away naturally first, so while Zander and I were out we stopped and picked up some onion sets, and as I plant, I’ll be lining the back of the garden with red and yellow onions.  I also have intentions for marigolds.  We’ll see if we can keep the rabbits out of the garden this year.  And if not- I know where to get chicken wire.

Happy Gardening! I expect I’ll have a whole series of planting days, as I get bit after bit of my garden cleaned up and ready for planing.  And just last night, as I laid in bed, it occurred to me that I have a perfect spot for some Scarlet Runner Beans- I can’t wait to give those a go!

Celebrating Arbor Day By Potting Up!

My plants were in a state.  They really needed to be potted up over a week ago, but with the impending move, they simply needed to wait until we were a little more settled.  We are settled, mostly.  Still a few boxes to unpack, and we have lots of things we want to do to make this home work best for us, but it’s in a functioning state, at least.

So.  The gardens themselves are in a state.  A serious state of need.  There is this vine thingy that has completely taken over every single garden bed.  It’s some kind of ground cover, and the roots go really deep.  As much as I’m loathe to use chemicals on the garden, it may very well be that Round-Up is going to be the way to go here.  Yesterday I spent over an hour patiently digging up just two square feet of garden. The great news is that the soil is wonderful.  It’s lush, dark, a little bit moist, and loaded with earthworms of all sizes.   I may be adding some bagged compost to bulk it up, but I feel confident that I could plant in it as is and reap a bountiful harvest.  Tomorrow if we have dry weather I plan to spend more time expanding my work area.  A little at a time, and then I can get some lettuce, spinach and swiss chard in the ground.

Then there are the peppers and tomatoes.  Today they needed to be put in larger pots, to allow their roots a place to expand.  I did as I did last year and used a fork to remove the tender baby plants from their cells and put them in larger cells.   A fork just works so well!  And when you have an instance where you have two plants in one cell, you can use the fork to remove them to a piece of newspaper, where you can then gently seperate them, without harming the roots.  It just works so well.  The peppers I am very happy with.  I’ve had a successful run of germination with them this year, and I have more than enough to share.

The tomatoes though, I had some disappointments.  I did plant too many seeds, so they really did me a favor by not sprouting at all.  Had we not been in the process of moving, I would have re-seeded the ones that didn’t sprout, but I think it’s too late for that now.  Oh well.  I will still have plenty to share with my brother, and it will be wonderful to get some from him to add as well.   I have 35 successful plants so far, and 8 of those are for Tomatobug.  That leaves me with a much more manageable number, with a few leftover yet for sharing.   I also have tomatillos growing, and the suckers from my doomed sungolds are blossoming too.

One thing I was struggling with was where to put my potlings.  I don’t have a good south facing window anymore, and it’s very clear that next year I will have to learn the art of seed starting by grow-light, but in the meantime, I have these baby plants who are starting to look a little leggy, and like they really want some sunshine.  It’s just not time for them to be outside yet.  I toyed with the idea of setting up my portable greenhouse and figuring out a way to hang the shoplights on there.  But then the inspiration struck.

I discovered that I have these flourescent lights under my kitchen cabinets.  With a baking rack underneath each flat of plants for height, I now have two grow stations in my kitchen.   That leaves me a few small pots without the light, but if I work it out right, I can rotate them in for a turn from time to time.  I think it’s just so cool that everything I really need is right here, ready and waiting for me.

Hopefully these lights will work out until I can start hardening them off.  And in the meantime, I have a lot to do in the yard to get ready for planting.  And boy, do I want to plant.

Growing Tomatoes Indoors

I have determined that growing tomatoes indoors, in the off-season, is entirely do-able.

Over this past weekend, I discovered that one of my cherry tomatoes was actually beginning to change colors.   A second one followed suit shortly enough, and now I have a pair of cherries marching on towards perfect ripeness.

These plants will be taken down and moved in just two days.  I’m not confident at all that they will survive the moving process, but boy, has this experiment process been fun!

Here is a picture taken just now of the two plants in my bedroom.

Yes, my gardening friends, these plants really are all the way up to the ceiling.  They are nothing short of amazing!  The sheer volume of blossoms and fruit in various stages is mind-boggling.  These plants each take 1/2 gallon of water a day- and probably could stand to be watered more than that, but I don’t want to take a risk of water leaking all over the carpet.

In contrast, here is the third tomato plant.  This one is on the first floor, and is drastically smaller than the two that are upstairs.

Crazy to think that all three seeds came from the same packet, and were started at the same time.  The one by itself is a much smaller plant, and I have better hopes that it will take kindly to the moving process.  This one is a good 2 1/2 feet shorter than the other ones, with the very tip of the longest branch reaching just to the top of the patio door.  This one also takes half a gallon of water a day.

There are just two difference between these plants.  One is geography.  The two are upstairs, the one is downstairs.  Otherwise they are in the exact same windows, receiving the same amount of sunshine.  The biggest difference?  When I potted up the upper plants, I blessed them.  I spoke encouraging words to them and told them to bear abundant fruit and be blessed.   Is that really what makes the big difference?  That’s hard to say, but for my trial run in that regard, I would say that further experimentation of this kind would be well worth the effort.

For now I am very pleased with my efforts to grow tomatoes indoors.  I have already determined that for next year’s experiments, I would like Andy to build me a pair of self-watering containers for the indoor garden.  Imagine the possibilities that could come from having fresh, home grown tomatoes year round?  And that’s only the beginning! Why, I just saw today a fellow gardener shared photos of his tomato plants that look a lot like mine.  He also had a pepper garden indoors- hot peppers and chiles year round?  That sounds just as wonderful.

Hopefully when you next hear from me it will be from my new garden home.  Two days and counting.  I can’t wait.

Pepper and Tomato Update Too!

Editor’s Note:  I hope all my readers will welcome my brother to the blogosphere!  He is going to blog the Minnesota half of the Garden Notes, and this will be a great way for both of us to work together to learn the art of vegetable raising.  So without further ado, here is my little brother. ~Erika

Greetings!  This is Ben, aka the Tomato Bug, aka Erika’s little brother.   I was hoping to get a post in before I went out of town this last week, but I just plum ran out of time.  Now that I am back in town I will see if I can get some updates on here and keep track of how things are growing.  Things are a little crazy in the basement as we are trying to get a lot of painting done before family comes to visit next week, so pictures will have to wait for a future update.

Peppers – I am a little disappointed this year in my pepper growing skills.  This is my first year growing anything from seed, so this is really a learning experience for me.   I originally planted all of my pepper seeds on March 15th (aside from a Chinense variety that I started on the 8th).  They started out doing great, and I had 12 sprouts a week later.  This is where things started to go south.  I did two things that I should not have done.

1 – I used both a heating pad and a humidity dome with  a light  to get things going, so I was really doing a good job of cooking those peppers.

2 – I did not give them enough water to grow or stay alive.

I started round two of my peppers two weeks ago today (much later than I would have preferred).   As of today this is what is coming up:

2 Sweet Chocolate

2 Purple Jalapeno

3 Grande Jalapeno

2 Serrano

1 Big Jim

1 Heritage Big Jim

1 Jalmundo

2 Fresno

I am still hopeful that more will come up, but we might be supplementing our home grown peppers with some nursery bought pepper plants.

Tomatoes – I couldn’t be happier with how the tomatoes are coming up right now.  I learned a lot already from the original pepper failure, so the tomatoes already had a leg up.  All of my varieties except one have at least sprouted some, and the one that hasn’t sprouted was a freebie from someone over at Tomato Garden.  Here is what has come up so far:

8 Vorlons

7 Carbons

6 Black Krim

3 Dr Wyche

11 Golden Sunray

6 Pink Ponderosa

6 Black Cherry

9 Sungold

4 Purple Russian

2 Cowlick Brandywine

3 Pantano Romanesco

3 Cour Di Bue (these ones got a late start, as when I opened the seed packet nothing was in there, had to wait on a replacement from Baker Creek)

The tomatoes are doing great, and I can’t wait to sink my teeth into that first ripe tomato of the year.   If you look at the numbers, that is a lot of tomatoes, and I am hoping a few more come up yet.  Erika and I are doing a tomato swap this year (and hopefully all years to come).  I am responsible for Purple, Red, and Orange varieties of tomatoes, and she is starting the Green, Pink, and Yellow tomatoes.  I also have a few other people I was hoping to gift with tomato and pepper plants, but it doesn’t look like I will have a whole lot of mature pepper plants to hand around.

Well, I suppose that is it for now.  I will try and keep some updates coming, and in the future will also get some pics of my setup and plants.    Oh, I also started some Basil last Saturday, and currently have 4 sweet basil sprouts and 7 genovese basil sprouts poking up.  I am concluding with a “hats off” to my wife, who watered everything quite well while I was out of town.  I came back to more sprouts then when I left, so she is doing something right.

The Tomato Bug

Pepper and Tomato Update

As you can see from the photo below, the peppers are doing wonderfully!

I’m really impressed with the germination of the peppers this year.  I think it’s worth noting that many of the seeds I started this year are from older seed.  Here’s a tally, including the age of the seed.

Hot Peppers:

  • Black Hungarian: sowed 3, sprouted 3- new seed for 2010
  • Hungarian Hot Wax: sowed 3, sprouted 3- new seed for 2010
  • Chile de Comida: sowed 3, sprouted 1- old seed from 2008*
  • Anaheim: sowed 3, sprouted 3- old seed from 2008
  • Serrano de Tampiquino: sowed 3, sprouted 3- old seed from 2009

Sweet Peppers:

  • Red Marconi: sowed 3, sprouted 2- new seed for 2010**
  • Ace: sowed 6, sprouted 6- old seed from 2009
  • Cascabella: sowed 6, sprouted 5- old seed from 2009
  • Sweet Stuffing Peppers: sowed 6, sprouted 6- old seed from 2008

As you can see, over all I have an excellent rate of germination.   Many of the plants are now displaying their true leaves, and I’m starting to consider the idea that I may have to be potting up these peppers before we move at the end of next week.  I was really hoping to hold off a few weeks, but I’m thinking it may get done in a few days here.

*The Chile de Comida had a 36% germination rate two years ago when I ordered the seed.  The fact that I had one germinate is right on par, and is excellent.  I plan to save seed from this plant, as it is no longer available.

**The Red Marconi looks like it may have a 3rd to germinate, but it’s taking its sweet time, and it’s a little too soon to call it.

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Now for the tomatoes.

The first seeds to pop up yesterday were the Yellow Pear tomatoes- which are from seed from 2008.   Today I was very pleased to lift the lid and find a whole slew of sprouts- excellent considering that sun the last few days has been sporadic at best.

As of right now, here is what I have, just one week after seeding the tomatoes:

1 Malakite, 1 Green Zebra, 2 Woodle Orange, 1 Sungold Select, 1 Arkansas Traveler, 2 Brave General, 1 Manomakh’s Hat, 1 Amish paste, 2 Cosmonaut Volkov, 1 Fox Cherry, 1 German Red Strawberry, 1 Black From Tula, 2 Ananas Noire, 1 Gold Medal, 1 Nature’s Riddle, 1 Golden King of Siberia, and 2 Yellow Pear

We are supposed to have a gorgeous sunny day tomorrow, so I expect many more sproutlings to pop from the soil in the next day or two.

Tomato Seeds Are In!

Today was the day!  I had about an hour all to myself this afternoon and I decided that time would best be utilized to start some more seeds.  My peppers are doing quite well, and it’s about time for the tomatoes to be on their way too.

All told, I have planted 42 tomato seeds, and at the last minute, I threw in 3 tomatillo seeds as well.  I’m very, very excited to see how the tomatillos do in the ground, as I will have the space.

Ah, space.  Yes, my gardening friends, we are moving to a garden space that has just been waiting for me.  I can’t wait!  In just over two weeks we’ll be moving in and as soon as I can get the boxes ripped open and unpacked, I’ll be digging in that wonderful dirt.

I hadn’t planned on planting 42 tomato seeds.  But I started with 8 varieties that I was also starting for my brother.  Then I went through my seed packets… I have some plants coming to me from my brother as well- a plant swap, if you will… some I planted for myself to try out and enjoy, some I planted to share.  And if any of the ones I started for my brother do not pan out, I have reserves to throw into the mix.

Without further ado, the tomato seeds I planted, listed by color (all seeds come from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds):

White: White Tomesol

Green: Green Zebra, Emerald Evergreen, and Malakite

Pink: Arkansas Traveler, Brave General, Grace Lahman’s Pink, and Manomakh’s Hat

Orange: Woodle Orange, Sungold Select II

Purple: Black From Tula, Gypsy, Ananas Noire (or Black Pineapple)

Striped: Gold Medal, Nature’s Riddle

Yellow: Golden King of Siberia, Pink Grapefruit, Golden Monarch, Roman Candle, Yellow Pear

Red: Amish Paste, Cosmonaut Volkov, Fox Cherry, Reisentraube, Valiant, German Red Strawberry

Yes, that’s a lot of tomatoes.  I have no idea how much actual space I’ll have to devote to them, so I will have to go through and prioritize, and then I’ll be passing on all the extras.

Welcome To The Jungle!

Time for a tomato update because they just keep going!

My plants are now at the six feet tall mark.  How do I know this?  A few weeks ago I had to upgrade my support system from a single 3-foot bamboo pole to a 6-foot bamboo pole, plus a 3-foot pole for the side branches.  These plants are massive.

They have plenty of baby tomatoes sitting there pretty and green, and so many more blossoms waiting to turn into tomatoes.

These two plants each take half a gallon of water a day… I’ve fertilized twice so far, and am thinking I may have to do it again soon.  The plant downstairs is still doing well, but it’s a squatter plant- it has more side shoots so it’s not growing as tall.  It also is covered with blossoms and fruit.

Any day now the first tomato is going to start changing color- I truly cannot wait.   My mind is reeling though from the possibilities.  Providing I have the space next year, I’m planning a full out experiment with tomatoes year-round.

But we’ll see. One step at a time.  As it is, I’m not so sure these big guys will survive a move, as they are six feet tall and quite heavy, I don’t know how to successfully move them without harming them…

I’m also trying to root a sucker.  We’ll see if that takes.  And if that does… well, that opens up a huge world of possibilities in the arena of tomato propagation.  Who knew this could be so fun!

Peppers Are Started

I planted pepper seeds yesterday.  I was only going to start the hot ones, but then I read the sweet seed packets and saw the germination time was about the same.  Four pepper varieties are new to me this year, the rest are old.  One in particular, the Chile De Comida is a hot pepper that I got two years ago, and it had poor germination then- down to 36% according to the packet.  So we’ll see.  This particular variety wasn’t even available from Baker Creek this year, so I’d like to get a plant to save seed from.

The hot peppers this year are:  Serrano, Anaheim, Chile De Comida, Hungarian Hot Wax, and Black Hungarian.  The sweet peppers are:  Red Marconi, Cascabelle, Ace, and the Sweet Stuffing Peppers.

Two more weeks, and the tomatoes will also be started.  The only seeds I’m starting ahead this year are the peppers and tomatoes.  As soon as the overnight lows get above 40, I’m also planning on trying some Broccoli Raab in a pot.  Never had it, never tried it, but I thought it was time.  It likes cool weather to grow, so I’m hopeful I’ll get a little something out of it to try.

Spring 2010: Looky, Looky

It’s a little strange to think that in the nearly five years that we’ve been living here, I’ve been using the view to the shed to tell the story of the seasons.  And now, now we’re watching and waiting, and with the next season, I will have to find something new to meter the view with. Exciting and strange all at the same time.

I took this picture yesterday- March 15.  I believe my words to Andy yesterday were along the lines of almost annoyance.  As I looked at the snow-free land around us, and basked in the 50º sunshine, my thoughts drifted to the fact that here we are in the midst of an early spring- the one I’ve been waiting for for three years now, and it had to be this year.  Talk about trying my patience!  This is the perfect weather for experimenting with sowing early peas, and I can’t sow early peas because of the impending move! Annoying, yes.  But still exciting, and there will be more early springs in my future.

Inside the house, tomorrow I’ll be starting peppers.  But I wanted to give an update on my indoor tomato garden.  All three plants are growing like gangbusters. Here’s a photo of the one downstairs:

And here’s a photo of the ones upstairs.

They are all doing very well in their pots, although it’s amazing how much water they take in.  If I continue with this idea of cherry tomatoes in the house in pots, I’m afraid that in years to come I’m going to need an even bigger pot yet for them to truly be happy.

But what do we have here?

Yes, my gardening friends, see those tiny green orbs?  Those are tomatoes.  One of the upstairs plants is pushing out the very first Sungold Cherries.  I can practically taste them, I’m so excited!  I started these plants on December 31.  On January 7, I found sprouts.  I cannot believe that these indoor plants are going to produce fruit!!

I had one more thing I wanted to show, but my picture turned out a little fuzzy.  Well, here it is anyway.

See that blob of green in the middle?  That would be a rosemary sprout.  Everything I have read about rosemary indicates that it’s totally not worth it to start it from seed, so of course, I had to try it.   I started with about a dozen seeds, and put them in a small dish with some water overnight.  In the morning, I had something very interesting.  I still had seeds, but they looked more like tomato seeds- with a little sac around each seed.  I filled a cup with potting mix, added the seeds, and added a tiny sprinkling of dirt to cover, followed by some water.  This went into a modified greenhouse to soak up sunshine.  I want to say it was about two weeks later I found something growing.  Just one- but it was definitely a sprout.  I’ve been babying that sprout for a good two weeks now, and it finally looks like it might be pushing some true leaves.

Unfortunately, the soil in my little pot was growing moldy fuzz, and today I decided I should probably give this little guy a new home.  It’s awfully small to be transplanted, but we’ll see how it likes the fresh dirt.   If my sources are correct though, and the sprout survives the transplant, it could be years before I get anything producible off this one sprout.  It’s still fun to try though. 🙂

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