Potting Up and Seeds (Indoors, Outdoors, Ordered)

I made it to Volume Two of Edible Forest Gardens and am enjoying reading about Pattern Languages. I really like the way Jacke and Toensmeier blend philosophy/psychology and practical garden design: patterns that live… I already made some observations on our property that I wouldn’t have hadn’t I read their advice. I feel ready now to do a proper site analysis and a basic design of permaculture zones and sections. Our landscaping last weekend has also given me confidence that we can make incisive changes, with bigger elements than I would have dared to use before, like removing and planting trees and bushes, and laying paths. My vision for the garden is finally taking on a more definite shape.

I’m glad that we’re taking the design of the larger garden slowly and deliberately: most of it will happen over the next couple of years. It seems like we’re rushing (into) the more conventional vegetable garden now, but that would be ignoring the winter months of study and planning that went into it. But it sure feels like rushing now, in that great rush of Spring, and notwithstanding all the study I often feel like I don’t know what I’m doing – and I feel fine with that! It’s part of the great change that is also happening to me.

dscf2509

As more of my time gets spent outdoors I feel less and less drawn to the basement, but that is still where most of the vegetating goes on. I’m seeing some very fine asparagus shooting up fast as rockets in the hotbox, and the elecampane and the stevia are almost ready to leave that area. I sowed a new variety of bell peppers (Vidi Crimson from Renee’s Garden) and am waiting for its germination. I had no luck with the Peacework sweet pepper I got from Fedco: only 4 out of entire packet (more or less 26 seeds) germinated.

Some days ago I took advantage of Amie’s playdate to do some major potting up. Most seedlings needed it: they were bursting out of their cells or shared containers. The difference potting up makes was made clear to me by the two catnips that germinated in my first batch:

dscf2508

The first one was potted up two weeks ago, the second only yesterday. What a difference! That big catnip is now touching the lights at their hihest setting. Almost time to go out! The basils, anise hyssop (smelling so good!), borage, parsley, thyme and sweet marjoram also got their own pots.

Giving more room to the roots of course also meant sacrificing more space in the seedling area. I’ll only be able to sow new seeds once I’ve moved the faster-maturing veggies (spinach and perhaps some onions) into the cold frame and the slow growing celery and leeks into the one raised bed that is ready. The potatoes have already made some nice sprouts and will go into the next available beds and bins. Soon it will be time to pot up the tomatoes and the eggplants as well.

To be started inside:

  1. cucumber
  2. squashes
  3. more spinach
  4. more lettuce: different variety this time
  5. bee balm (aka Bergamot)
  6. more burnet (give it another try?)
  7. the chamomiles
  8. more garlic chives (or straight outside?)
  9. more chard (or straight outside?)
  10. comfrey (or stragiht outside?)
  11. coriander
  12. cumin (in hotbox)
  13. dill
  14. fennel
  15. fenugreek (in hotbox)
  16. more parsley (in hotbox)
  17. more peppers (in hotbox)
  18. sorrel (or straight outside?)
  19. valerian
  20. brussels sprouts
  21. Welsh onion (if I can find seed)

To be planted outside as soon as weather and status of beds allows:

  1. potatoes (“seed”)
  2. onions (seedlings and sets) some in cold frame, others under plastic cover
  3. spinach (seedlings) in cold frame
  4. leek (seedlings) under plastic cover
  5. celery (seedlings) under plastic cover
  6. chard (seedlings) under plastic cover
  7. kale (seedlings) under plastic cover
  8. parsley (seedlings) under plastic cover
  9. chives (seedlings and seed) under plastic cover – in perennial bed
  10. mustard greens (seed)
  11. radishes (seed) under plastic cover
  12. peas (seed)
  13. beets (seed)
  14. carrots (seed)

Can’t wait for that last frost date! Not long now. If only it would stop raining and I could go out there and dig some more. In the meantime I couldn’t of course stop myself from ordering… more seeds!

  1. Alfalfa (Lucerne) and more Blue Lupine, or Bluebonnet: nitrogen fixers for terraces
  2. My Castle Red Russell: another Lupine, this one red
  3. Valerian
  4. Bountiful Gardens Mild Kingdom Mustard Greens Mix
  5. Windsor Fava Bean
  6. Italiko Rosso Chicory for winter crop
  7. Claytonia for winter crop
  8. Verte de Cambrai for winter crop
  9. Early Mizuna for winter crop
  10. Tatsoi for winter crop
  11. Purple Beauty Sweet Pepper
  12. Wild Bergamot, aka Bee Balm
  13. Borage: love that stuff!
  14. St Johnswort: “Was even used in the Middle Ages for sword wounds!” (Fedco Seed Catalog)… who can resist!
  15. Carpet of Snow Alyssum
  16. Alaska Nasturtium Mix
  17. Panorama Red Shades Bee Balm
  18. Blue Flax
  19. Queen of the Meadow, Eupatorium purpureum, also known as Joe Pye Weed or Gravel Root: flower
  20. Fedco Beneficials Mix
  21. and a big bag (4 lbs) of Buckwheat as a ground cover / compost crop for the lower part of our garden: that part will be in soil enhancer until next Spring.

Two Games: the Sucker (Energy Saving) Game and Max

Our co-houser was very interested in pruning the house of “suckers” – appliances and battery chargers and the like that suck electricity even though they’re not in use. He was pulling them all over the place – especially the microwave, which is mostly my fault. He got so into it he devised a game:

3463171402_b48ecc2b5f

Each member of the household gets a little plate. Each time he or she spots a sucker, he or she gets an object from the central pot – if you spot something you left sucking, you get nothing, but so does anyone else (either does no one else?). The first person to collect five objects gets to chose who will cook her or him a meal of her (or his) choice. Amie was the first to get one!

The other game we’re playing a lot is Max, the cooperative game I wrote about earlier. It is a great game to teach Amie about both strategy and the concept of “luck”. She now understands that Max needs to eat too, and not just treats (which recall Max to his porch when he gets too close to the little forest creatures). Still, that doesn’t stop her apprehension when the fate of the little bird or mouse hangs in the balance:

3463184790_0e527ffe8d

In this particular game all three creatures got eaten. Afterwards Amie decided to make extra treats for Max (the game has only four: after that the creatures are fair game). She made at least twenty little cards with drawings of catnip and milk, and also grapes, worms, and donuts! I’ll have to explain that Max will get too fat…

Marathon Monday Garden Work

Marathon Monday weekend was that for us: a marathon! We had three days of free time, good weather shining down on us, a mound of soil and “compost” (really deteriorated mulch) delivered, and friends with wheelbarrows and stamina come help.

We rototilled and amended and terraced the most problematic part of our front yard: the slope. The terraces – some in the sun, some in partial shade – will be perennial beds for herbs, and there is lots of room for flowering shrubs around the bird feeders. The path in between we seeded with Nichols Nursery Ecological Lawn. Let’s see if it takes. The robins and even the squirrels already like it). I really wanted to plant some buckwheat to amend the soil, but we couldn’t wait for warmer weather…

We also rototilled the entire vegetable garden area, path and all. It will be much easier to dig and sift the loosened soil into the raised bed frames. Some areas had huge amounts of stones, so I pretended I was digging for potatoes. Here is Amie carrying some of that huge bounty away:

3463173834_f5bd0e3e9c

If those were really potatoes, we’d win some sort of price at a fair! Amie also got to sow some bluebonnets (blue lupine) in the flower box:

3462358725_1602a189f9

Lupine is a nitrogen-fixing flower, and I wanted to give it a trial run before I plant it in the perennial beds to make them ready for the perennial herbs later on.

Of course there was also time for a wheelbarrow ride!

3462369599_58b9dcbc8e

And while we worked – especially when we were hammering in the stakes that will hold the terraces in place – we had a visitor:

3462363891_b5e148d6ae_osmall

It’s that elusive Pileated Woodpecker! He was fearless, came to within about 10 feet of us, checking us out, making a right racket!

Inside the house I have started greening the potato seed.

3462356757_b2c77eeeb9

Yup, that’s the bedroom dresser. It’s not like we had gotten ’round to decorating our bedroom anyway!

Riot for Austerity: Month 5

Riot for Austerity fist with Thermometer

“Rekenen,” Dutch: to count

Am I reckoning month 5 already – or only? Sometimes it seems like we’ve been doing this all our lives, other times it’s like we only started yesterday. It shows that we’re not totally “in the habit” yet. I’m 16 (!) days late in reporting. Also, this month is ugly: our consumption went up on several counts, because of our seedling setup in the basement (electricity) and our co-houser (water), but mostly because we were less vigilant with our consumer goods purchases.

Gasoline: 16%

Between us we consumed 19 gallons. That’s 6.3 gallons/person, that’s:

15% of the US national average.

This is getting better every month, and better days are ahead as the weather gets warmer and drier and we can look forward to hopping on that bike!

Electricity: 13%

We pruned the house of all the suckers, but still our electricity consumption went up from 371 KWH last month, to 484 KWH.

It makes for 13% of the US National Average.

Considering we have an extra person staying at our house as well as over a hundred seedlings under lights and above heatlamps in our basement (*), and that all our electricity comes from wind, it’s maybe not too lamentable.

Heating oil and warm water: 109%

The days are slowly warming up and the Freeze Yer Buns challenge is over, (though it’s going to freeze again over the coming weekend). Our heat is still on (at 62 F during the day, 58 F at night), but I’ve shut off the heat and opened the windows on several more days, and we no longer heat the Annex, the part of the house we are working on.  It has shown in our consumption (67 gallons of oil this month against 79 gallons last) and it’s giving me some hope.

109% of the US national average

Heating oil is definitely our weakest point. Now, as we approach the time of year when the boiler will only come on for heating our water, we need to start working on alternatives. Quite a few of them are under review: several solar hot water systems, as well as better insulation of our hot-water tank and the pipes.

Thinking a bit longer term, I’ve ramped up my lobbying for the wood stove, especially now that the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Part III, Section 1121, Energy Conservation Incentives) promises a tax credit for the installation of efficient stoves. And then there are the plans for a greenhouse wrap-around, which will act as a solar wall and solar thermal collector next winter…

Garbage: 10%

We’re making less and less household garbage each month, and are well in the range of the 90% reduction. Work on the part of the Annex is still ongoing, though I believe most of the demolition is done, and we’re looking mostly at building from now on.

We salvaged quite a few good two-by-fours and other pieces of wood, one of which is already shielding our third compost bin from the wind and rain. Once the trash company comes to pick up the leftovers, we’ll weigh in.

Water: 19%

Our water consumption is up by way too much since last month. We consumed 580 gallons a person, which makes for

19% of the US national average

It was a shocker, because that’s up from 14%. Sure, the seedlings drink quite a bit, about 2 gallons a day, I should say, between all of them, but that hardly accounts for a 605 gallon jump!

I know the problem: our co-houser takes a daily shower. DH and Amie and I were trying to compensate for his extra usage by showering less, but this month, it turns out, our co-houser sometimes took two showers a day. I’m such a non-confrontational person, it took me so long to discuss it with him that in the end he was the one who brought it up. He is very open to reducing (he’s helping with “pruning the house” – a constant effort for which he devised a neat game – about that soon!). He was shocked that his consumption counted for so much, and now we’re back on track.

Consumer goods: 51%

This is where it gets ugly. We splurged this month. It hurts after being so victorious last month.

I had to buy gifts (got craft materials) for two birthday parties, clothes for Amie (we’re usually in a reliable hand-me-down pipeline: don’t know what happened), and materials for our Annex (that cost will go up drastically next month as we enter the building phase).  (Our purchases for the cold frame I will, as per usual for any garden-related costs, not count.)

Our biggest expense however was books. I bought that wonderful and expensive set, the two volumes of Edible Forest Gardens, and we spent quite a lot in our favorite bookstore, the Brookline Booksmith, on that memorable weekend.

Altogether that makes for

51% of the US national average.

Yikes!

Food: ?

I’m referring to an older post for my reasons for not reckoning this category. We sinned a bit here too: got take-out twice, and made a large order of coffee ($65: gack!). DH on his trip had no choice but to eat out a lot…. I’m not even going to ask him for the bills!

We’re working on our garden, of course. Slowly we’re nudging the food deficit into the black…

Goings on in the Cold Frame and Elsewhere in the Garden

Goings on OUTSIDE

Another nice day, yesterday. Not as warm as on Friday, but working hard raised our body temperatures plenty.

dscf2294

DH finished all ten veg bed frames (in the picture he’s begging Amie to hand over a screw). I heard her ask: “Baba, what are we making?” He: “Beds for the vegetables.” She, incredulous: “Vegetables don’t need beds!”

dscf2329

I also read to her from a novel which mentions “a middle-aged man” and she piped up: “That’s a man who lived in the middle ages, right?” (That as an aside.)

In the meantime I double-dug, sifted and prepared the bed in the cold frame. I used the soil screen DH had put together for me. It’s a prototype, and we already decided on some major improvements, like handles and pivots…

dscf2302

I dug out some real clunkers!

dscf2322

Then I filled it up with the sifted soil, lots of Moo Doo (no access to the horse manure yet), and some of our own almost-one-year-old compost (screened: the eggshells for instance still hadn’t broken down). And so I finally got to plant the lettuces. Here they are, basking in the setting sun, and then I tucked them in for the night.

dscf2333

dscf2335

As you can see I still have lots of room in there for other things, but they will have to be cold hardy (a couple of days ago it was 18F in there – the lettuces obviously survived) and either transplantable or quick to harvest, because the cold frame will soon become the seed bed.

All three compost piles are hot and cooking. I’m debating which flowers to grow in our one flower box: gotta start attracting those pollinators!

Goings on in the basement seedling area

  1. dumped the two dead thyme seedlings, others are doing well, no change in the sickly one
  2. dumped the 9-pack with the suspicious “tomato seeds”, will resow the Ida Gold tomorrow
  3. fed everything that has its own leaves with Neptune’s fish emulsion
  4. noticed the kale has germinated
  5. admired again the first true leaves on the fat borage: that’s going to be one bulky compost crop!dscf22861
  6. admired the catnip: it grew so big in just a couple of days
  7. gave onions and leek a haircut (and cooked the trimmings into the haricots verts for dinner – I guess that was our first harvest!dscf2277

Goings on in the hotbox

  1. elecampane and stevia started germinating
  2. holy basil (tulsi) seems to have stalled
  3. no action yet in asparagus or lavender

To do

  1. resow Ida Gold tomatoes
  2. transplant basils
  3. organize the canning jars (accumulation of many Freecycle runs)

dscf2347

And last but not least, my seed potatoes (10 lbs) and onion sets (3 lbs) from Moose Tubers have arrived! So now what do I do?

Garden Planning Software Review

The garden planning continues. A couple of days ago I wrote about GrowVeg, and I posted the garden plans I made with it. A reader in a comment mentioned a different gardening planner software (Plangarden) and I tried that out – as I was making drafts anyway. This is what I came up with, so far (click for larger):

plangarden1

Garden plan in Plangarden

There are things in Growveg that I like that I wish were in Plangarden and vice versa: the former, for instance, has quick info on the plants (which family, how much sun, etc.) and the latter has a nifty device for recording when you sowed and when you harvested.

CAUTION: Either program claims to space out the plants (i.e., you drag a row of kale across 8 feet and it places 4 plants), but neither program actually does that, or does it accurately. So you need to consult the books or internet, or your experience, and calculate. Because of this Plangarden is, IMHO, the better program, because it does allow you to record how many plants you plant in the row or area you assigned it.

There must be better, much more detailed softwares out there… Anyone?

Day at the Farms

Friday was a glorious day and a holiday too, so Amie and I went out to visit two farms. First, Codman Community Farm and then Drumlin Farm, both in Lincoln, MA.

I went to Codman to check out their compost and also to see if they have duck eggs.  They had neither. But we had fabulous fun checking out their ducks and chickens and their fabulous new coops – I’d want one of those, for myself!

3431939690_11bdca90f3

3431127089_9b7c9b2906

At Drumlin we again had chicken luck. Amie got to pet a pullet and a hen. She was fearless, not just petting them, but running up to the volunteers and asking if she could.

3431944664_a3d1b43108

3431135701_009fd719a3

I had a psychedelic conversation with the volunteer in the hen house. Of the thirty or so pullets I asked if they will keep all of them – not just out of curiosity, of course: I want some! The volunteer said, “No, unfortunately not. About half we sell.” Me: “Really!” She: “Yes, you can buy them at the front desk. You have to hurry, though, they go fast.” Me: “Can I get on a waiting list? Can I call to inquire?” She (mystified): “Sure”. I was about to walk away happy when it occurred to me to ask: “We’re talking live hens, right?” She: “Oh? O no!”

Worth a try…

Most of the pictures I took were of the greenhouse (and its sumptuous contents) and other food-growing-related structures. I believe I was also the only visitor to the farm who took a snap of the compost bins and screen, and the large bag of compost.

At the end Amie counted the rings on the stump in front of the Drumlin Farm entrance. She does that every time.

3431138231_cc5d74a298

“Almost as old as you, Mama!”

Yes, well…

Thyme Bites the Dust, and Strange Tomato Seeds?

dscf2271

I think becoming a mom made me a better farmer. Before Amie came along, all my houseplants died on me. I simply always forgot to water them… or feed them. The herbs I grew on my steps when we were living in our condo survived because they were outside, getting rained on. But now I can’t help but have this sense of responsibility for all the little live creature in my care.This evening i ran out in the freezing rain to cover the cold frame with the lettuces with blankets and a tarp. They all have Amie to thank for that!

Still – sigh – two thyme seedlings succumbed (left in the pic) and one is not doing well. First of all, I can’t express how enamored I am with the thyme seedlings: the tiny pores on the green tops of their fat, small leaves, the delicate burgundy on the underside, and the stems all akimbo, reaching for more light.

Well, in any case, two of them may have succumbed to over-watering or over-feeding, I don’t know. Or under-watering: I transplanted them into peat pots ( the only ones on hand at that moment), and those dry out so much faster than plastic plugs. These two were on the corner of the pack and thus dried out even faster. They curled, then shriveled up and died.

Another one seems to be struggling (middle of pic, camera would not focus on that one): its leaves are also curling (down and in) and the bottom leaves are turning yellow and reddish at the tips.  I’ll see how it does tomorrow. :(

(In the pic to the right you can also see that mystery seedling: still don’t knwo what that is!)

Then there’s this:

dscf2269

It’s one of my Ida Gold tomato plugs… I have to laugh now. I feel like one of those people who meet a doctor at a party and without further ado strip to show them their boil: “Doctor, what’s this?”

Well in any case, I sowed 9 plugs of Sungold, 9 of Glacier, and 9 of Ida Gold. I put them in the hotbox, which works really well. Only three days later about half of the seedlings of the first two varieties had popped out, and two days after that all but one of them were out and I moved them out of the hotbox. I could have sworn there were a couple of seedlings in the Ida Gold batch as well, which is (probably) why I took off the plastic wrap (as the seedlings were pushing up against it) but kept in the hotbox. Bad record keeping!

Anyhoo. Yesterday morning I found no seedlings. Not a sign of any: not shriveled or fallen over or rotted… just gone. I found, however, congregated in the middle plug, six or so fuzzy black balls. This evening they have become what you see in the pic. They look like seeds but, really, I couldn’t have sown 6 in one plug! I’m very careful to sow only the seeds I want, and thin only rarely. Is that fuzz really small roots, or is it a fungus?

When I first spotted them I immediately sequestered the set and set it aside. I don’t want to throw it away…

So, doctor, what is that? And more importantly, is it lethal?

Designing the Garden with GrowVeg

gardenlayout1small

I wasn’t getting to the actual design of the garden: it was too intimidating, all those elements, heights and widths and soil types! Then I found GrowVeg, and I signed up for a trial membership. I like it a lot, it makes designing the garden quite easy.

I have a couple of suggestions for them:

  1. They don’t (yet?) have all the  vegetables I need (parsnips anyone?).
  2. Some aspects of the program (Flash) are clumsy (don’t fill something in if you think you might have to move it later).
  3. Also, some of their growing information contradicts other sources, but then that’s not new.
  4. I also wish their “companion” info was more complete.
  5. I wish there was some way the program could automatically add soil PH to a bed or a row, so one doesn’t put a high PH together with a low PH veg.

Still, it finally got me going. In fact, I’m having way too much fun! This is what I have so far (click on image for larger):

gardenlayout1small

Yes, those are potato bins in the lower right-hand corner: 4 of them, for late varieties. 2 more potato beds for earlies. Lots of tomatoes and dry beans. The herb garden is in front of the house, not in this picture. 2 beds for lettuce and spinach, and 2 for compost crops. Lots of beneficials and companion plants tucked in. The rhubarb probably won’t get enough sun there. The onions I placed outside the fence, figuring none of the wildlife will want to eat them…

I probably need to fiddle around some more, especially with the orientation of the beds. I also think I put too many beds into the space we have.  Is 2 feet between beds (4 x 8) enough? I don’t think I could get a wheelbarrow through. I also need to check for incompatibles in the same bed. And I need to ponder on crop rotation… Any comments and advice is welcome and needed!

I increasingly find myself wishing for more sun. We have 2 mature oaks, 2 beeches and 2 pines closing in around and above the garden. We’ll get some good morning sun and noon sun, but the afternoon will be cut short quickly. I filled the prime sunny locations most sun-loving plants (tomatoes, peppers, basil and potatoes), but we’ll see how they (and the rest) perform. And even if they do well, I’ll be in trouble next year, when I want to rotate the crop.

We’ve been trying not to think of cutting down some of those trees, but reading Edible Forest Gardens has – seemingly paradoxically – convinced me that it would not be a bad thing. First of all, we have many, many pines, oaks and beeches elsewhere on our property, and throughout the whole neighborhood. Secondly, the oaks are in bad shape, and one of the beeches was badly nicked during the construction of the septic system. Thirdly,  replacing these canopy trees with many varieties of dwarf and semi-dwarf fruit trees and berry bushes would amount to replacing a mono-culture  with a much more complex poly-culture. It would be good for the veg garden as well as for the diversity of the garden as a whole, as such a variety will be more useful for us as well as for birds, insects, and other wildlife.

But having such massive trees cut down will costs lots of money. We’d demand they leave the wood here, of course, though we still don’t have a wood stove, or even a saw (chain or otherwise) that can handle that kind of girth… all of which also cost money. More for our wish list!

In the nearer future, the Fedco Moose Tubers seed potatoes and onion sets will be arriving soon – I hope not this weekend, though, as it will freeze around here.

And just done:

  1. sowed Broccoli blend
  2. sowed Swiss chard
  3. sowed Russian Kale
  4. sowed Elecempane
  5. sowed Stevia
  6. sowed Lavender (True)
  7. sowed Hyssop
  8. sowed Asparagus
  9. also cut and brought inside the first Narcissus