Garden Thread

I also made a tray of dirt today! I know I'm still going to be buying a bunch of seedlings when the time comes, but hopefully I can use some I started from seeds.

Also I have gotten my parents' approval to do some major cutbacks in their garden so I can have more space. Goodbye, overgrown jungle of rosemary! You will not be missed.

It's a nicely-lit and wonderfully described picture, Liz n Dick :-) I gave up on starting anything indoors when last year's Morning Glories died a quick death. I just re-potted a root-bound ZZ plant in my kitchen and that got me thinking about adding some more spices to my kitchen window garden. I started out with rosemary, but that got too big and I had to take it outside. I also had a beautiful French lavender, but as soon as I trimmed it to make a sachet, it shriveled and died. My aloe vera is going strong (and it's a great thing to have handy for minor burns) but otherwise, I'm at a loss. Even if I had enough sun for basil or mint, I'd probably eat the whole plant before long. I need plants that: 1) grow well indoors in partial sun, 2) stay small, and preferably 3) are useful in some fashion. Any ideas?

Ooooh, what are you going to be starting?  HOW EXCITING!!  (And your mosquito situation will be fine without that rosemary.  You'll just get some dragonflies to move in once the mosquitoes get out of control!  That's how it works in my yard, at any rate...  Dragonflies and bats.  And, well, lots of mosquito bites.   )

Meanwhile, here is an Onion Update from stately Dick n Hisses Manor:

THERE IS NO SIGN OF ONIONS GROWING.  REPEAT, THERE IS NO SIGN OF ONIONS GROWING.  END TRANSMISSION.

Sort-of gardening:

Five years ago when my dad started to eye retirement, I started my campaign to find ways to keep my parents busy/avoid killing each other. My first idea was a mushroom-growing kit and a textbook about same as a Christmas present, so that he could do something in the winter months without a vegetable garden to take up his time. My dad went on to discover that he could inoculate sweetgum logs and grow shitake, and he's been doing that ever since.

As part of Christmas 2015, he gave four inoculated logs to me and Wifemate. We reaped our second shitake crop last night, three- and four-inch caps. Slashed the caps like hot cross buns, browned in a little oil, and steamed with Japanese cooking wine and soy sauce. Delicious!

The stuff I've started in the seed pods are: san marzano tomatoes, bell peppers, pickling cucumbers, sugar pumpkins, chives, and nasturtiums (I realize the last two really don't need it, but I had thingies to fill).

Yesterday my mom and I tackled the rosemary. I am very, very sore today.

BEFORE:



AFTER:



At some point my dad is going to remove some branches off the tree that is currently shading this area.

Also apparently we don't have mosquitoes really, so there's no worry there. But there is more rosemary on the other side of this fence.

STOP THE PRESSES!  WE HAVE AN ONION!  REPEAT: WE HAVE AN ONION!



I had my doubts that it wasn't just a white fleck in the seed starting mix, but upon closer inspection (read: "with a hugely zoomy camera lens") it is very clearly an onion.  Towering, sturdy, a thrilling deep green!  Or, um, none of those things.  But hey -- every journey starts with a single step.    (For the record, this is an Ailsa Craig yellow onion, a really delicious and long-storing variety.)

Okay, I had to move my pumpkin seedlings out of the tray and into their own little cups because their roots were punching through and attaching themselves to other seed pods. FIERCE PUMPKINS.

Also now everything has at least one sprout! Except for the peppers. COME ON, PEPPERS. GET WITH THE PROGRAM.

Okay, that puts my mind seriously at ease! I thought maybe the seeds were bad or something. I did move the peppers into the spaces where the pumpkins had been, in case they left some mojo there.

WOO HOOOO!!!!  I'm so glad to hear that, because I was actually wondering just this morning how your peppers were doing.  I have faith that the four that haven't shown signs of life yet will still come around, and the nasturtiums.  I think our nasturtiums can sometimes be slow, too.  Your garden is humming right along! 

Thanks 🐍 cahusserole 🐍 for reminding me that this thread is a thing.

Djshe is a Seed Savers Exchange member and ordered a ton of seeds for this year. So far we've got tomatoes (isis cherries, Hungarian hearts, Paul Robesons, Italian heirlooms, German pinks, and gold metals) and peppers (beaver dams, orange bells, hot Portugals, garden sunshines and chocolate bells) in soil under lamps in Djshe's office, and just about everything has sprouted.

We've got three 5'x3' raised beds in the backyard. Two just have some cover crops, and one's freshly augmented with new soil and chicken fertilizer. Djshe planted several rows of peas last weekend (I forget the specifics - I'll ask her later today) in that last bed, and we've got bags to add to the other two when the time comes.

We're also got a decent sized plot in our local community garden, which is less than a block from the house. I haven't been over there in a while, and am daunted by the work it will take to get that bed fully ready to plant. Ah well...nothing to it but to do it.

There are also a few blueberry bushes that we need to transplant over the next month or so. We just didn't plan them well. They're too close together, and too close to a bunch of strawberry plants. We'll probably end up moving the strawberries to the other side of the house, and spreading the blueberry bushes out a bit in a spot where they'll get more sun.

More soon, no doubt (including more details of the epic Seed Savers Exchange order)...

Djse's witty November moniker, your garden plans for this year sound awesome!  I'm especially envious of your blueberry plants.  We had grand blueberry plans at stately Dick n Hisses Manor that have yet to pan out; I'm going to have to live vicariously through yours.  Please keep us updated so I can seethe with jealousy!  And seriously, you've got home garden and a community plot?  Nice!  That feeling of "nothing to it but to do it" is so true, though.  Now that our snow's pretty much all gone I'm eyeballing the remaining raised beds in our garden that need to be restored and I have no interest in doing it... but, yeah.  It needs to be done.  Sigh. 

As for Seed Savers Exchange, they are AMAZING, aren't they?  We tend to get our seeds from three sources -- SSE, Hudson Valley Seed Library (we're kind of juuuuust close enough to the Hudson Valley to do well with plants that thrive there), and Fedco.  We've actually grown in the past the Isis cherries, Hungarian Hearts, and Italian Heirlooms, and they're all incredible.  Especially the Hungarian Hearts; those are easily the best tomatoes I've ever tasted, so I really hope you guys enjoy them.  Our SSE order this year is:

--Lazy Wife beans
--Parisian Pickling cucumber
--Ailsa Craig onion
--Hinkelhatz pepper
--Orange Bell pepper
--Santa Fe Grande pepper
--Federle paste tomato
--Lemon Drop cherry tomato
--Principe Borghese tomato (I think this is paste)
--Purple de Milpa tomatillo

And you know what?  I've been drinking tonight and I'm feeling some serious summerlonging, so here are some pictures of some Isis Cherries and a Hungarian Heart from our gardens past:







It's not even March yet.  I need to get a grip. 

My mom's complaint last year was that our tomatoes were too small. This may have been the fault of growing in baskets. It may have been the result of my not being a diligent pruner. Last year we grew sweet 100s (these were cherries, but even still they were on the wee side) and indigo roses (black tomatoes!). Do you think it's the fault of the variety or the growing medium? This year I'm going to put plants in the ground (which means I need to watch out for varmints). I've got the San Marzanos for sauce making, but I'd like some out-of-hand eatin' tomatoes. Suggestions?

I'll probably still use the baskets (might as well, I just need to buy new coco liners). I will therefore need to figure out if I want to grow anything out the bottom this year or simply use them normally. The baskets are useful because the fence around the backyard blocks a lot of light, and the elevation of the baskets means they get lots of sun.

The nasturtium seedlings (the ones that have sprouted, anyway) are getting their second leaf growth! Soon they will go into the ground! I just need to figure out where I'm putting them and what sort of structure I need for them to climb up (basically if I'm building something or buying something).

Hm.  I'm a terrible garden trouble-shooter, so anything I say here about your tomatoes is just me talking out of my ass.  But you're probably right that being a diligent pruner can only help the quality of your tomatoes.  They might also want more food, especially growing in containers.  And yeah, variety will definitely make a difference, but if you make sure your slicers are getting enough nutrition you'll probably be good.  As for out-of-hand eatin' tomatoes, I absolutely adore Rutgers or Ramapo tomatoes, if you can find them (they're both pretty popular since being reintroduced to home gardeners a few years ago).  They're small-ish and fairly delicate, but have the greatest fresh tomato flavor I've ever encountered.  One we've had a lot of luck with is Goldy, a yellow heirloom that has grown up to two pounds per fruit for us, and is meaty and mild and gorgeous.  If you want a behemoth cherry tomato that borders on to being a slicer and is wildly prolific, you absolutely can't beat the Fox cherry tomato.

This is the year I'm not going to even bother expecting the pepper seedlings to ever germinate. I'm going to go all reverse psychology on them.