The Life of A Garden

“The difference between perseverance and obstinacy is that one often comes from a strong will, and the other from a strong won't.” Henry Ward Beecher

After the holocaust, I needed to take a day off and regroup.

In the meantime, I noticed that the alliums closest to the front of the table seemed thinner than the ones behind and that some were pulled up by their roots and fallen over.

I immediately suspected my adult male cat, GIR, who has a notorious appetite for salad bar of the houseplant variety.

I can't always be home and in the room, and I can't kill him, and I already have my female kitty (GIRL) sequestered for other reasons, so I had to come up with a cat proof plan.

I remembered an old mosquito net in storage and although at first, I feared it's flammability near the hot lights, after setting it up, I feel safe enough. The outside of the light isn't that hot, and it's easy enough to keep it pulled back from actually touching the fixture. Most importantly, after an overnight test, it appears to have worked!!

It's kind of romantic really. I pull it aside and work close to the bright light, which as it turns out, is stimulating not only the seedlings, but myself as well.

Today I put some more seeds in to germinate in the seedling tray to replace the ones that didn't make it. Rather than cover it with the germination lid, I lightly placed plastic wrap over the newly seeded compartments and we're going to see what happens.

I had planted five cracked Moon Flower seeds yesterday in a big yogurt container, and added two strong rooted ones into the germination tray under the plastic wrap today. We'll see which does better.

Also today, I realized that keeping the germination mix out on the cold porch probably isn't very practical and brought it in to store next to the radiator under the plant table. I have a big bowl of mix warming up, and later today plan to plant another full germination tray with the new tomato seeds and a few more peppers in order to hedge our bets - neither the Fish Peppers nor the Jimmy Nardello's Sweet Italian Frying Peps germinated, even with the soaking beforehand. I'm going to be very disappointed if either of them fail. On the other hand, three Chocolate Peppers came up strong and three King of the North are waking up (finally!).

It felt so good to get my hands dirty and stand near that light. It's eighty-two days until summer solstice and counting...and oh boy am I counting...

XXKHT

“We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark; the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.” ~ Plato

...or in this case "women who are afraid of the light.."

Today I learned several things...

First, that I most likely planted my tomatoes way too early and that I probably should have started a few weeks from now (screw the two weeks hardening off etc. I was just making excuses to get started).

Be careful what you wish for, because today, in less than two hours, I lost all the sage, and all the Pink Ladies, Striped German and Brandywine, Tommy Toes and one of Joanna's Plum tomato seedlings. They fried like they'd reached the end of the Green Mile (Oh John Coffey, I'm so sorry!)

So much for "can't get the lights close enough." Apparently, seedlings need to harden to the light as well as the cold.

The other thing I learned today was that it's a good idea to plant way more than you need, and be prepared to exterminate the weaklings.

Sound harsh? Well, for some of us, it is; but that's what this boils down to. Survival of the fittest, with a little help from The Goddess in You Form.

Next round, I'll plant six seeds in the hopes of getting two plants, and I will get the light on them as soon as they break ground, and I will not ease them into the light.

Always happy to end on a high note, I have two:

At least now, I get a do-over without having to intentionally destroy viable plant matter.

And... the new tomato seeds arrived today with a bonus packet of Lemon Cucumbers.

We grew them last year and they did well early on but got powdery mildew about mid summer, so we pulled them out because they were an ugly spot in the front of our otherwise pristine oasis of community garden space.

Somewhere along the intensive self study course of the past few weeks, I read about a homemade mixture of baking soda and water...now that I have them anyway... I guess that'll be another fun learning experience to look forward to.

Stay tuned!
XXKHT

"My Love is Like a Seed, Baby...It Just Needs Time To Grow." ~ Janice Joplin (Trust Me)

Today I learned that I may have done pretty much everything wrong so far.

For one thing, I don't think I have nearly enough light system for what I am trying to grow. Woodchuck Gardener's locally experienced advice aside, every other garden source states that windowsills are only to be used a last resort and without grow lights, it's a waste of effort.

But it's not enough to have a grow light, you have to have enough grow light as well. Through sheer luck I ended up with a super light contraption with full spectrum blah blah and I haven't the least idea what any of it means but it was free so I took it (gratefully!).

I was also gifted an APS planting system starter kit and then added to it without really knowing what to expect, and now I feel overwhelmed with trying to fit all the pieces together using what I have and have purchased.

As of this minute, I have what can be covered by lights under the lights. I thought I could have the lights hang up higher and cover more area, and it was pure green horn ignorance that got us to this point.

Apparently, the lights don't do any good, or rather they can even do harm by producing spindly weak plants if the source is too far from the seedlings; the little ones burn themselves out reaching for the light. Rather than concentrating their energies into producing fat, dark, energy producing leaves, they grow long vulnerable stems that crush and break easily.

On top of that, I read today that I may have started my tomatoes a month too early! According to Garden Desk:

"For instance, tomatoes should only be under lights for 4 to 6 weeks before transplanting and you shouldn't transplant them until all danger of frost has passed. In my area, the average last frost is May 15th. That means that I should wait to plant the seeds of my 27 main season tomato varieties until mid-April."

THAT'S MY LAST FROST DATE! JEEZUM CRIPES!

I'm tempted to start over. But then, the peppers are coming up. All but the Italian Ice and Hillbilly Potato Leaf tomatoes have broken ground. The marigolds are going great, as is the kale which I now want to plant more of.

And then there're the four tiny basil seedlings that I know I'm going to want more of when the time comes because I just discovered that basil is an excellent companion plant with tomatoes. How apropos!

I think I may have killed the Johnny Jump Ups. Impetuously, I put the light on them right after we installed it and left their humidity holding bags on. I think the blunder steamed them to death!

I will just have to start them again, because I'm going to have their happy faces in my garden this year. And this IS going to all work out fine, whatever it takes - even if I have to break down and buy a few more light fixtures.

Oh yeah...to end on a happy note - The Moon Flowers have cracked and are going in the dirt today. They look like dinosaur seeds. Click on the photo and see for yourself...

XXKHT

“Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.” ~Albert Einstein

Moths and Moonflowers

Last week, my beloved B sent to me some seeds from her collection. She not only added greatly to our tomato selection, but also a variety of marigolds and an edible flower/bean called Scarlet Bees.

She also enclosed Moon Flower seeds that she'd gathered from her own gorgeous vines that she grows over the brick and iron wall of her city garden in downtown Baltimore.

Moon Flowers might be my favorite flower of all. A member of the nightshade family*, they have an enormous, pungent white blossom that unfurls after dark like a virgin on her wedding night - one time only - then closes back into a beautiful fractal spiral within which a fat pistachio shaped, hard-shelled seed will grow inside a sexy coffee colored pod.

The seeds are so hard, that in order for them to germinate, the cultivator must nick them - or as I like to think of it, give them a love bite.

What flower is more sensuous than this? I can't think of any.

Velvety, ghostly, voluptuous petals reek of desire. They require particularly well endowed moths like the Carolina Sphynx - one of the hummingbird species - noted not only for resembling the bird in size and shape, but also for it's extra long proboscis, the better to reach into the deep wells of their sweet nectar.

Oh my. Moon Flowers and Moths have it all over The Birds and the Bees. I move to change it.

XXKHT

A nice poem about Moon Flowers is here: Cold Tea Blues Moonflowers

The picture at left is jacked and edited from here:
Moon Flowers and Carolina Sphynx Moths

*Same as tomatoes, peppers, egglplant etc. but a different genus.

It's like Cabbage Patch Kids Only Much...Much Better!

I've been so busy blogging, studying, signing up for the garden, looking for a job and myriad other things to distract me from it, that I have let three days of green go by without a show and tell!

The baby pictures are in.....

Here are the alliums..the front runners and run away stars so far are the Primor Leeks..an early variety meant to be eaten young...I tasted a tiny piece and they've already a nice flavor. If they weren't so expensive, they'd make gorgeous sprouts for a salad or sandwich.

Embryonic Sage...one defected into the Valencia Tomatoes and I thought we had a super tomato on our hands until I noticed the tell tale black seed case and put two and two together...

First up are the Eskimo (white) Marigolds, going strong!

Baby Johnnys....so many! I can't wait to see their lively, expectant faces...

For someone with such a nice camera and all this photography experience, I am ashamed that my macros aren't better, but proud mother that I am, I'm showing them off anyway. It's not about me...it's about them.

Aren't they adorable? Yes. Yes they are.
XXKHT

The Growing Challenge

I signed up for the Growing Challenge today over at Elements in Time.

It's simple and about everything I'm doing anyway so why not?

Here are the criteria:

1. For this challenge, you must grow one additional type of fruit or vegetable than you did last year, and grow it from seed. If you’ve never grown anything, well, grow one thing!  Or if you’ve never grown beans or carrots or lettuce or strawberries, try one of those....  And if you don’t have a garden, you can grow it in a pot or on a window sill - see Gardening 101:  Ordering Seeds for links about how.  The goal is to push ourselves to grow a little more food than we have before.
2. If rule #1 is not enough of a challenge for you, you may make your own rules.  For example, I’m going to grow two fruits and three veggies more than I did last year.
3. You must post about gardening once each week. This could be a post about researching different plants, ordering seeds, buying pots, digging beds, planting the seeds, pruning, adding compost, all the way to preparing a meal that includes the food you grew.  **Please include “Growing Challenge” in the name of the posts - and/or have a Growing Challenge tag in your sidebar - so I can find them!*
4. Every Monday I will go to every participant’s website and check out what you’ve written, and write a summary on this blog. This will be a great way to see what everyone is up to and learn from one another. If you don’t have a blog, you can email me a blurb about your gardening progress.

Stay tuned...
XXKHT

                   

"Tomatoes...they consume you before it's the other way around." ~ KHT

I believe I may be going 'round the bend.

I can't stop obsessing about the garden and in particular the TOMATOES.

I was minding my own business today, lurking in the Blotanical Pick Lists and began following a thread of tomato leads which ultimately led to me ordering five more varieties of tomato seeds!

Even without the veggie porn (few pictures), I was enchanted by the names. Besides, I was concerned over the lack of solid red in our tomato patch and they made me buy them...

Cuor di Bue
This Oxheart type Italian heirloom has been a favorite in Italy for many years. Beautiful 12 oz. fruit have a delicious sweet taste, similar to the shape of a heart, great for fresh eating or cooking. Large vigorous vines. Hard to find.

Cosmonaut Volkov
A smooth and attractive, medium-large red tomato that has a full, rich flavor. The productive vines yield well even in hot weather, perfect for canning or slicing. This variety is from Dniepropetrousk, Ukraine, and was named after the first Russian Cosmonaut. In response to many requests, we are pleased to add this variety to the catalog.

Tatar of Mongolistan
We were sent this rare tomato in the late 1970's by Iraqi seed collector, Aziz Nail, who was living in France. Medium-sized fruit are very flavorful, red, and flattened in shape. These have become popular with seed savers since we introduced it about 5 years ago. We are glad to have this tasty type back. Great fresh or dried.

Bloody Butcher
A small 3-4 oz ‘cluster’ tomato. Fruit are deep red in color and have a nice tomato flavor. Production is really good, but where this open-pollinated tomato really shines is its earliness. It ripens in only about 60 days, making it ripen about the same time as Early Girl, but this tomato is much tastier.

So if you don't want to go crazy (like me) whatever you do, do NOT go to visit Rare Seeds.com

If you think you can remain sensible, DO go to visit:

Garden Desk: The Pros and Cons of Heirloom Tomatoes a wonderful and informative post about what it says it's about...

and

Garden Desk: White Tomesol Heirloom Tomato which contains an impressive list of 20 kinds of Heirloom varieties, in addition to 13 hybrids that Garden Desk writer is growing this season.

I'm increasingly amazed at how much there is to know even on the most basic levels of gardening.

This being only my second season, I am truly nuts to try to do this so totally, having no experience, and I am likely in for some huge disappointments; but I can't help myself. The whole process is downright addicting.

Every day I learn about ten new things. Today I learned (don't laugh) the difference between hybrids and heirlooms (thanks Garden Desk). I learned that I should expect lower yields from my heirlooms and that I'm going to have to do battle with the buggers - but I figure we didn't have fantastic tomato yields last year anyway, and I'm growing so many varieties, some of them are going to work and whatever didn't I will have learned from the experience and will try to improve next season.

Best case scenario, I have so many tomatoes, I'll be a slave to preservation and sales - I plan to sell some veg this year at (hopefully) The Old North End Farmer's Market and also (maybe) to some local restaurants.

Worst Case Scenario: I get few tomatoes and I study harder next time and learn from my mistakes. I will still have an exciting array of seed varieties to play with and I can perhaps enlist a mentor for insurance.

All this talk about it has give me the urge to go look at the babies. The kale needs transplant already because it's in the germination tray and not under light. It's leggy and is crying for a different situation.

Also, my daughter is going to sign up for a plot so she'll be on hand to take the stragglers on. With all that going for us, I'm pretty sure we're going to be buried in delicious veggie goodness by July.

Mmmm, mmmmm, good.
XXKHT
*veggie descriptions lifted straight from rareseeds.com

“We dance round in a ring and suppose, While the secret sits in the middle and knows” ~ Robert Frost

Even though it's way off topic, and after I refused to reveal myself to my first commenter stating that I want this blog is to be about Kimberley's Garden and not so much about Kimberley...

My new bosom garden blogging friend Linda who writes Garden Girl has invited me to participate in a meme: "List Ten Things That People Don't Know About You" It's almost too challenging since I tend to be a very open person, so I'm changing it to...

"Ten Things That The Public May Not Know About Me"

1. I was born in Wurzburg Germany while my father was in the military headed to Vietnam
2. I gave birth at home four times (on purpose! as Linda says)
3. My eldest child is 21 - the age I was when I had him - making me officially old enough to be a grandma. (Yikes!)
4. I do not want grandchildren - but not for reasons of vanity. As much as I love meine kinder, I feel guilty for producing a litter of western super consumers and I hope they'll be gentler to the environment than I was. To clarify:  I would dearly love any grandchildren that come along, but my hope is that if my children want to have families that they'll consider adopting someone who's already here and needs one - the more humanitarian and ecologically responsible option.
5. Ok, my other blog readers are well aware of this, but I am a die hard agnostic and I publicly question and often ridicule all the major religions in a quixotic effort to find and/or add some clarity to the convoluted and dangerous subject. (you gotta start somewhere)
6. I've been a professional cook/chef off and on for 28 years and the highlights were working as the pastry chef at Robert Duval's former restaurant (was his at the time) The Rail Stop in The Plains, Virginia and also at Restaurant Nora in Washington DC, the first all organic haute cuisine restaurant in the east.
7. Nora and I did NOT get along. But Mr. Duval and I did. He has a major sweet tooth and loved to watch me bake, often asking questions and or just lurking around to observe the process.
8. I say outrageous things just to get laughs (all the time)
9. Sadly, I have never attended college
10. In addition to being an avid new gardener and former chef, I am also a traditionally published writer (culinary and travel topics), a mixed media artist and photographer, and my recycled bike parts sculpture "Where Bicycles Come From" will hang in downtown Montpelier, Vermont all summer as part of their Sculptcycles exhibition. The picture is of the model, but the actual sculpture will be approx 5'x5' made of bike tires spray painted and wrapped in white duct tape with a tricycle suspended in the center. The contraption will be suspended from fishing line from some high anchor hopefully to the effect that it appears very sporelike to the viewers below.
11. Bonus: I am unemployed. (Anything considered.)

Well there you have it.
XXKHT

Next up BABY PICTURES! (and I mean the green kind)

"“The first principle of success is desire - knowing what you want. Desire is the planting of your seed.” ~ Robert Collier

Yesterday, my daughter Ashley and I planted almost all of the remaining seeds that we're hoping will become our summer garden residents.

In addition to the many tomato varieties mentioned in yesterday's post, we've tucked our cracked kale seeds into the dirt, alongside the Johnny Jump Ups and a few varieties of colorful, and companionable marigolds. Some Greek Oregano and Common Sage are incubating next to the alliums that are coming up with a vengeance!

With the cracked seeds, Ashley gingerly removed them from their paper towel incubators and gently placed them into the germinating trays - three to a spot for the Kale seedlings, as well as all the ungerminated tomato seeds.

As with the alliums, you want to use sterilized equipment (bleach/water-1/10), and don't make your germinating mix muddy. It should just hold together when squeezed but not be sticky. You don't want to create too much resistance to the delicate babies, but you don't want any air pockets either.

Fill up the tray and tap it down lightly with the force of gravity. We placed a seed aligned with each of three corners and a popsicle stick name stake in the one that remained - I enjoy the way they resemble tall, thin soldiers standing at attention awaiting orders. As acting high priestess of this future garden, I humbly request that they grow into strong productive plants beginning NOW.

After the seeds were nestled and watered in, on went the mini greenhouse lid. I did not fill the reservoir nor wet the capillary mat that wicks the water while the seedlings are germinating. I read somewhere that seedlings don't want their feet wet, and with lids the humidity level is quite high.

The alliums have shown some signs of a fluffy mold (already!) and I'll pick it off until the lids comes off and then I'm hoping it will take care of itself.

I also recycled some deli/yogurt containers for the Jump Ups because I wanted a lot. They use an extravagant amount of germ mix but I wanted the flowers to have rich resources to draw from. For their lids I stretched ordinary sandwich bags just to keep the humidity up.

The APS systems are expensive and I'm already trying to imagine ways to duplicate them with recyclables in future.

Lastly, the mother daughter planting afternoon turned into a sign up for your garden plot party when Nikki and Katie dropped by and left their payment and paperwork for their very first plot - my first recruits!

Welcome Katie and Nikki - I look forward to living vicariously through your first time joy. What a fabulous day...

XXKHT

Editor's Note:
I apologize for the gigantic "Look at me!" signatures on the photos. The monitor settings have issues and it somehow escaped my notice that the marks were so enormous and blindingly white. It's not that they're such amazing pics, but I've had my intellectual copyrights infringed upon numerous times, and at least I might as well get a little advert out of it when it does occur. I'm happy to share photos with permission and I beg kind readers to indulge me this courtesy.

“It's difficult to think anything but pleasant thoughts while eating a homegrown tomato.” ~ Lewis Grizzard

My beloved surrogate mother sent me a care package full of seeds yesterday which has greatly added to our tomato prospects.

We now have fourteen varieties we'll be attempting to grow, as follows:

Three cherries -

1. Blondkopchen - a tiny yellow, very sweet and prolific variety from Germany (I'm assuming)
2. Tommy Toe - a very very tiny red cherry - I noticed Joanna and Daniel's Tommy Toes went crazy in their plot (next to ours) last year.
3. Italian Ice - a white cherry tomato that is supposed to be eaten chilled (rare!)

An array of colorful slicing:

1. Purple Calabash - "ribbed, bulbous and scarred" (mmm!) hails from Mexico - super concentrated flavor - great for sauce and fresh
2. Black Krim - reported as "most reliable black" with earthy, smokey flavors - 10-12 oz.
3. Green Zebra - Golden green with green stripes - excellent flavor - tennis ball sized.
4. Brande's Valencia - (seed saved) incredibly rich orange color all the way through the juicy sweet flesh

Two Pinks:

1. Pink Ladies - saved seeds from last season and our all around favorite for flavor
2. Caspian Pink - Beefsteak variety in pink!

Three potato leafs (supposed to prevent splitting in the sun  must be isolated from traditional leaf varieties):

1. Hillbilly Potato Leaf - gorgeous sunset colors inside and out
2. Micado Violettor - very rare purple slicing
3. Brandywine - grows up to around a pound - legendary

And two plums:

1. Lemon plums - size and shape just like lemons
2. Joanna's plum (saved from last season) ??

I am planting almost all of the remaining starts today. I'd meant to do it on the equinox, but misjudged the date. The alliums have come up and the kale and oregano seeds have cracked and will go in the dirty right away!

Next post, pictures of everything!
Yeeeehaaaa!
XXKHT