2009 Seeds/Plants

A list of things I have planted so far this season:

• Peas: Dark Seeded Early Perfection
• Spinach: Avon Hybrid
• Lettuce: Black Seeded Simpson, Baby Red Mix, "Little Gem" Romaine
• Onions: Texas Sweet (from sets), Evergreen Bunching
• Cilantro (seedlings still - not outside yet)
• Eggplant: Black Beauty (also have Ichiban - not in the ground yet)
• Potatoes: Kennebec, Red Pontiac, unknown "red seed potato"

Of the lettuces, the Baby Red Mix (from Burpee) seems to be the farthest along, and all were planted at the same time.  The peas did not germinate well at all, I'm not sure if it's the variety or just peas in general, as I did read several things about how to encourage peas to germinate this spring, and I tried none of the methods.  Go figure. 

I'll be planting cilantro throughout the year, as it bolts (goes to seed) so quickly and there's really no way to prevent it.  I plant a few seeds every few weeks through about August so that I have some all summer long.

Last night I planted the first of the 3 eggplant plants I bought yesterday at Jungle Jims (they were only $.99 a plant - half the price of Home Depot and a quarter of the price of Varnau's), at the flower bed right by the mailbox (photo below - it's the little plant on the left side of the mailbox closest to the street).  I often plant vegetables among my flowers, and I think eggplants have quite interesting leaves, and the thick stems and spines on eggplants mean that it would be difficult for someone to walk by and pick one like they might a tomato.  I think it will add some nice interest to the front bed.  I'm really excited to plant the Ichiban eggplant this year, which is a Japanese variety that makes a longer, skinnier eggplant.  That will go in the actual garden in a week or so.

Potato Update

The potatoes have sprouted! Yay! I was so excited yesterday when I looked in the potato basket and saw little leaves poking out. It looks like the potato experiment is working. Both baskets have sprouts, though not every piece of potato we planted has sprouted yet. One basket has one piece that has sprouted and the leaves are developing quite nicely. The other basket has two pieces that have sprouted, but they are both just breaking the surface. I am ridiculously excited that the potatoes are growing, as it's a first. I was just talking to one of the other moms at Kate's preschool about it when I dropped her off today, and told her that yes we are actually growing potatoes in a laundry basket! Also the already started potatoes I put in the patio pot have grown a lot as well - it's amazing how much bigger they are just 10 days after planting them in the big pot. I almost wish fall would hurry up and arrive so I could harvest some homegrown potatoes. Almost.

Our lettuce is growing quite well - it's about time to do some thinning and have some yummy salad of "baby greens" with the plants I pull. We have spinach, green leaf, romaine and red leaf - I wrote all the exact cultivars down but I don't have them handy. The cauliflower has also grown significantly in the past week and half or so, and the green onions have sprouted. I have 6 measly pea plants (I planted about 20-25 seeds and only 6 germinated), but I had heard that peas don't always germinate well.

I am hoping after the warmth of the past week it will be approaching time to plant tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, beans, etc, in the next couple of weeks.

The Pathetic Blueberry

So I'm sitting on my patio while the girls play in the sandbox, and I need to share about my pathetic blueberry bush.  I have a blueberry bush that my mom ordered for me about 3 years ago as a very small plant from some catalog - Burpee, maybe, I'm not entirely sure.  At the time we didn't really have a good space worked up to put it in, so I planted it in a large pot - one that came with a fairly substantial tree we planted that year.  Three years later, the blueberry is still in the same pot, but it is rather pathetic and I can't quite figure out why.  The pot is plenty large for it - I haven't taken it out of the pot to check it's roots, but it's still a fairly small plant and I can't imagine it being root-bound in the pot it's in.  Every year I give it a couple inches of compost on the top of it, but I don't fertilize it with much else.  Before I converted to solely organic gardening last year, I'd give it a weak dose of synthetic fertilizer every so often.

We finally have the small (3'x3') raised bed built for it, and as soon as it dries out enough to work the ground up I'm going to be digging in compost, mulch & peat moss in the spot it will go.  However, I'm a wondering if this thing is ever going to really take off and produce fruit.  This year I gave it a hearty 2-3 inches of compost in the top of the pot, and some hollytone since blueberries are acid loving.  At this point we'll wait and see.  Kate absolutely loves blueberries, so it would be really nice if this bush would actually grow and produce fruit!

The Great Potato Experiment

So we're trying an experiment this year.  We're attempting to grow potatoes in a cheap laundry basket.  Mom's garden club was at Natorp's on Wednesday, and the guy who spoke talked about growing potatoes in a tub or basket and said a laundry basket was great with kids because they grow out the sides.  So I bought 2 cheap laundry baskets from the dollar store, and 2 seed potatoes from The Feed Barn this morning (love The Feed Barn, Gravel Knoll Farms and the WC Farmer's Market, gotta get that in here), for a total investment of $2.84, including taxes.

We cut up the potatoes into 3-4 pieces (they were pretty large potatoes) with 2-3 eyes each.  Then we put about 2" of old potting soil mixed w/ compost in the bottom of the basket, put in the pieces of potato & covered them with more soil/compost, watered and are waiting to see.  As they grow, we will gradually cover with more soil/compost until the basket is full, like "hilling" potatoes.  I also have 1 potato plant I bought already started from Varnau's on West Chester Rd (also love that place, so I thought I'd put it in as well), which I also planted

in a large patio pot.  So this is our "potato experiment".  If I had thought of it before we planted the potatoes, I'd have drilled a hole in the center of each laundry basket, as there is about 1-2" of the bottom where the sides come up where water could puddle and it's kind of close to where we put the potato pieces in.

I had read that you shouldn't use fresh compost on root vegetables as excess nitrogen triggers leaf production vs. root production, but the guy at Natorp's specifically said compost so we're seeing what happens.  I'm fairly content to experiment when the cost is $2.84 (our old potting soil & compost were free from our compost bin and the patio pot I put the potatoes in).

I'll post pics as the experiment comes along.

Eggplant

So I planted a "Black Magic" eggplant that I bought as a seedling from my local garden center. I've never grow eggplant before, neither as an adult or as a child, so I thought it would be an interesting experiment, seeing as how I adore eggplant parmigiana. I learned a few things this year in doing so (eggplants are like peppers, wait to plant them until it's warmer - I planted mine too early and it did almost nothing for an entire month before finally taking off and growing). However, I now have a dilemma trying to figure out when to pick them. Since I don't have a seed packet, I don't know how big they'll get. I tried Googling it, but mostly just get a list of cultivars and general eggplant knowledge. One helpful thing was that a ripe eggplant should have some "give" when pressed but no indentation should remain. However, something else I found from a seed website says harvest when the size of your fist, which seems like a darn small eggplant. So I think we're going to harvest one on Friday morning before we leave town and see how it goes. As far as growing eggplant, once I figure out when to pick them, it's been great. I think I'll get at least 8 off this one plant, and it's been very easy to grow - no disease or pest problems.

Rain Barrels

So here is a photo of the rain barrels I created. I found the barrels on craigslist for $10 a barrel (you may also be able to find them free/cheap from a local car wash, bottlers or food processor). With 2 small kids, I went with the slightly more expensive but less work tracking them down route. Other items I used to create the barrels: a drill, a hole saw, a jigsaw, two boiler drain spigots, teflon tape, caulk/silicone sealer, fiberglass window screening, 2 rubber bands, and 2 disposable 1# flower pots, and 2 inch PVC pipes and couplers for the overflow and for joining two barrels. There are a plethora of instructions on creating rain barrels online, I took a combo approach. Several sets of instructions call for a small "hose diameter" overflow, however this is NOT a large enough overflow opening during a heavy rain. The 2" PVC seems to work well so far. Also, I chose to adjoin the two barrels at the bottom vs. the top so that I only had to install a spigot on one barrel and they drain simultaneously. Plus, there is a little more pressure that way.

Introduction

Okay, so I've created a gardening blog, primarily to help me in becoming a better gardener, and I thought between this and a paper notebook I might actually be able to keep track of the things I've done, things I plan to do, etc with the garden. Currently, the garden is a 12'x6' raised bed in the northwest corner of our backyard. However, I have commandeered several other spots, one of which is about a 3'x5' flowerbed between our patio and house, which I created initially last year by removing the annoying 'landscape gravel' that was in the spot and digging in a bunch of peat moss and "topsoil" from the construction site behind us. This year, I expanded it's width by about half to create the current space. I also have 2 tomato plants in relatively small (for a tomato) pots on the patio, which I am terrible at remembering to water every day, and a few green bean plants tucked into my front flower bed.

We have 1 3" diameter (approx) compost bin/pile on the south side of our house, and I want to build 2 more and move them to them to the space between our fence and the property line (about 5 feet by 60 feet), however that necessitates putting in a gate in the back of the fence, which previous owners who built the fence never did. Go figure. We also have 3 rain barrels, each holding approx 45 gallons, which I built myself (with minimal help from my father) about 2 weeks ago. They are working great. The cost was $30 for the barrels, plus about another $30 in parts for the barrels, downspout connects, a hole saw, etc. I'd like to build 2-3 more.