Springing Up Veggies

Hello friends!  I can't believe it's almost May...which means it's almost time for the big planting again. Nothing like a weekend of non stop planting.  My kind of marathon :)  Anyways, we're not quite there yet.  Actually, there is a frost warning here the next two nights so my dad and I are going to be in full action later this afternoon bringing flower pots in and tarping some of the seeds already planted in the ground that are not frost hardy.  We started hardening our tomatoes and a few other veggies about a week ago, so those were the first to come in.  Our sunroom is now another plant room.  Story of our lives.  They have taken over the basement, now they are creeping into the rest of the house.  But hey, they are our little friends.

What is plant hardening and why is it necessary?  When you start seeds indoors, those plants grow accustomed to the lighting they are under.  Even if you get high-powered heat lights, nothing comes close to the power of the sun or the other elements for that matter.  If you don't gently break your seedlings into the outdoors before planting them they may break from the wind or shrivel up under the power of the sun.  Basically, plants can get sunburn!  In my last post I talked about how I lost a bunch of little kale seedlings because I took them directly from our grow room to planting outside.  They shriveled up within a day!  Don't make that mistake.

Let's move on to other gardening news.  Basically, it is springing up veggies over here.  We have kale, chard, spinach, onions, and collards sprouting currently.  I just put sunflowers, beans, and my first batch of squash in the ground yesterday so in another week or so there should be more little sprouts! My chives are out of control.  I swear I blink my eye and they have grown an inch.  I've been enjoying cooking with them and adding them raw to salads, however it doesn't look like I've made a dent in them.  Love it!

Here are some of the flower boxes I planted last week.  Let's see...there are snapdragons, morning glories, dehlias, cosomos, wildflowers, forget-me-nots, petunias, and purple and yellow beans.  I had the genius idea this year to plant the colored beans and morning glories on the edge of the boxes so they will drape over the edge and grown up the side of the deck.  That should be pretty cool.  

Of course the entire time we are gardening, these girls are watching us.  The suburban hen gang. Gotta love fresh eggs (and quality chicken poop fertilizer for the garden:).  

Our drainage system we dug for the main garden has been working great.  No more epic floods...yet. My squash patch, on the other hand, has been sitting under water for days.  We neglected to trench this for awhile, and the other day I decided it was necessary.  Our high-tech drainage system involves a hand-dug trench that we took under the fence and connected it to the main ditch in the big garden using a hoe and a few shovels. Crazy complicated, right?!  Look, you don't need to pay a ton of money or use top of the line materials to solve problems.  A little common sense and usually a shovel will do.  Hopefully this patch dries out over the next two weeks so I can get my squash in the ground.

From left to right:

1.  Super tripod for a sprinkler.  This year I refuesed to spend hours watering by hand.  After we extended the garden by over double last year, it was getting a bit ridiciulus to hand water everything. With this high sprinkler stand, we can area water in two or three shifts.  Do you know how many hours of my day I'm going to get back with this thing?! At first I called my dad a nerd for getting a sprinkler stand, however now I'm thinking he's a genius.

2.  Garden lining of beans (sugarsnap, purple string beans, and yellow string beans) and sunflowers (mammoth and pikes peak variety).  I'm pretty excited about this.  Instead of dropping fences in the garden to grow our beans, we decided to let them grown up the 4 ft fence lining the garden and we are going to drop in 7 ft bamboo poles every so often for them to grow up.  (I have a pretty good story about how we got the bamboo, but I'll save that for later).  This will save room in the garden while adding to the ascetics.  Win-win!  I planted a row of enormous sunflowers along the back, guardians of the garden.

3.  BABY SWISS CHARD!  Love me some greens.

MORE GREENS! This time in the form of kale.  I love my kale patch so, so much.  Eat more kale! Also, I believe there is a restraunt opening up in NYC called FuckKale.  Pardon my language, but that's the name.  I dig it, and am totally going to have to eat there!

Quick glance at our onion, scallion, spinach, and beet patch because I didn't want to slop in the garden and get my shoes all muddy.  My gardening boots currently look like a giant clump of dirt.  I don't want my regular shoes to met the same fate.

Annddd here we have our garden menace.  Pickles is our plant-eating, flower-box laying, the-garden-is-my-litterbox, cat who is always getting into trouble.  Sometimes I feel like we are doing more to try and keep her out of the garden than the deer and squirrels.

Last but not least, I wanted to share my obsession with seeds.  Seriously, I'm like a kid in a candy store when I walk into the seed section of Home Depot.  The seeds have been buy one get one free for the past week or so, which is basically like giving an addict drugs and saying don't use them. Obviously I have bought, oh, probably 20 packets or so.  As if we needed MORE things to plant. But I needed the red and gold sunflowers.  And romane lettuce (the green leaf and butterbush isn't enough).  And how could I pass up on growing a 200 lb pumpkin!?  I'm excited and terrified at the same time.  However, I know bigger is always better, so bring it super-sized pumpkin!

That's all the news from here, hope you're enjoying your Spring and starting your garden!

~Margaret

Digging Up The Dirt

This past weekend was a gardening marathon.  Saturday and Sunday my dad and I were out digging up the dirt and getting early plants in the ground.  First off, we didn't dig up the entire garden by hand because that would be crazy!  Sheer death.  Instead we used our trusty rototiller.  Thank god for modern technology.

While the rototiller is much easier, it is no walk in the park.  There is still serious energy involved in steering it, especially when your garden is mostly clay and saturated to the brim with water.  As in sinking into mud and having difficulty getting your food out saturated.  The sloshing and suction noises were very unnatural (and downright disturbing!) to have in a garden.  Alas, we are working with what we got.  And as it is long past time for me to plant my dark greens, we slaved away in the garden to get it ready for planting.

I think the worst part of this early prep was trenching the entire garden.  As I mentioned before, our backyard elevation is beneath the surrounding properties so we get a steady flow and pooling of water whenever it rains.  Which happens a lot in the Spring.  After some bad flooding last year, we decided to dig a ditch around the entire garden and split it in the middle, basically creating raised garden beds and protecting our veggies from unwanted water.  Mucking around in the wet clay, armed with nothing but shovels, we slowly heaved the heavy dirt to allow water to properly drain. I took a giant brownie break after we finished :)

Here's a shot of our chives.  They are growing strong!  I recently used some to top my mashed cauliflower.  First time eating something from the garden in 2015 woot woot!  Anyway, we had to put a metal cage over them because my fat cat likes to lay on top of them.  She also has been trying to use the herb boxes as a litter box.  Not cool.

We planted onion slips this year just to see what happens.  Considering they are in straight up clay, we don't have high hopes, but it's a fun experiment!

This little guy is from last year!  We planted onions on a whim last year and then forgot about them so they stayed in the garden all winter.  Surprisingly they were growing this Spring, so we transplanted them so they are with the rest of our onions and scallions.

Here's a shot of our onion, scallion, beet, and spinach patch.  Again, we aren't expecting much out of the beets because our soil is so hard, however I happen to LOVE beet greens so I'm fine just eating the tops :)  I tried growing spinach two years ago and all that happened was it bolted and grew flowers - not leaves.  As leaves are the point of growing spinach, I was discouraged and didn't grow it last year.  I have since researched and learned that spinach really hates the heat (I had planted it mid-may last time), so I am hoping that by planting it early Spring, I can harvest it before the heat of summer hits.

Ahh - my kale, collard, and chard patches.  Arguably the best part of the garden!  I love my dark leafy greens.  I super extended all these patches this year and have high hopes for all these veggies.  Just a quick tip; kale and collards like to be spaced out with a large diameter between each one so I always find it best to plant them in individual circles while swiss chard doesn't grow quite as big to you can run giant strips of it, leaving space between each strip but not as much room between each plant.

Alright, now for an important thing to remember when planting your garden: if you grew your own seedlings, make sure you let them acclimate to the sun before planting them!!  That means leaving them outside for a few hours a day a week or two before permiantly putting them in the ground.  I was lazy with my kale seedlings, as you can see by the white (and very dead) kale plant on the far left.  Poor little guys fried in the sun!  The middle kale plant was one that came back from last year, so it's doing great, as is the hybrid on the far right.  My aunt sent me three types of kale that I had never heard of, one autumn hybrid, one snowdrop hybrid, and one mistletoe hybrid.  Somehow they are doing great despite me not letting them adjust to the sun.  I'm not complaining.  Overall, I only lost 10 or so plants which when  you have a patch of around 100 is not really a big deal.  Actually I seeded most of my kale so I will simply pull some of the sprouts that I would usually get rid of to leave only one plant per circle and transplant them to the ones that need it.  Easy peasy.

Cabbage anyone?  This year I planted my cabbages much closer together than last year because despite cabbage being a large plant, mine didn't grow near the size I thought they would.  I really think the hard clay had something to do with the baseball sized heads I got last year, however they tasted fine.  To adjust this year I'm going to grow more in the same amount of space.  Hopefully I wind up with a decent amount of cabbage when all is added up.

I leave you today with a very random box of onions.  Why?  I don't actually know, ask my dad.  This is his doing.  I find it hilarious and love how he planted them in a Starbucks box.  Because I often think of onions and coffee?  Anyway, my dad ordered way to many onion slips to plant them all in the garden so I guess he got creative with finding places to put them.  Like an empty Starbucks pod box on the table of our deck :)  I love this stuff.

Later this week we will be planting our flower boxes, and possibly planting a few squash plants and sunflowers.  It all depends on the weather, but so far the extended forecast looks promising and I'm itching to get more in the ground!

Until next time, happy digging in the dirt.

~Margaret

Tips and Tricks for Transplanting Seedings

This year we took a different approach to starting our seedlings.  Instead of starting all of our seedlings in cow pots (I have an explanation for this, promise:), we started most of them in little jiffy seed starting pods.  The little disks that you throw in warm water and they puff up.  There were two reasons for this: 1.  last year we had to tarp off almost the whole basement and put a large heater in the center to keep the seeds warm enough to pop and 2. we were waiting for our shipment of cow pots to come in when we were ready to start planting.

We have learned a lot from using the little disks.  There are both good and bad to them, as I'll explain. If you start your seeds in the little disks then you will need to transplant them after 2-3 weeks, as well as if you start multiple seeds in one larger pot.  Now of course you can just pull out all but one seedling from each pot, but if you want to get the maximum amount of bang for your buck, then you're going to want to transplant those additional seedlings.

Before we get down and dirty transplanting, let's talk cow pots.  What the heck are they!?  Well, they are pots made of cow poop.  Before you close your computer in disgust, they don't smell, aren't mushy, and have no noticeable relation to cow manure.  The genius of these pots is in how they nourish plants and are completely biodegradable so you can simply put the whole pot in the ground.  I love the idea of organic poop pots!  It's nature's natural cycle, and let's face it; everyone's soil can use a little more poop!  Especially here in the suburbs, it's necessary to constantly fertilize the soil to keep it full of nutrients that animals naturally return to the soil.

You can order cow pots online here.  If you don't want to order them, then be diligent and look around your local gardening store for natural, organic pots that will break down and feed your garden rather than the plastic variety that pile up and pollute the planet!

Wether you are transplanting from pods or pots, the most important thing to remember is to label the new pots you are putting the seedlings in!  We have a few (ok, over 30) plants that are unknown because we forgot to label them.  Actually, we didn't properly label the seeds when we planted them, but point is make sure you have a system in place because even if you have 5 plants, you'd be surprised how easily it is to mix them up.  Especially when you have more than one type of tomatoes, peppers, etc.  Got your pots labeled?  Ok, now let's talk soil.

Here's another lesson learned this year: don't use garden soil when starting plants indoors.  So last year we had a bunch of potting soil left over from the previous year. Since we start planting in January, there is no soil to be found at any stores.  Last year we were able to get by with the soil we had, this year not so much.  Desperately searching for bags of dirt everywhere, we were able to score a few totally frozen bags at Home Depot.  It was the Vigoro organic garden soil.  Realizing we couldn't be choosy, we just used it.  The problem is it is a chunky soil, with wood chips and such, ideal for being outdoors mixed with whatever soil is already in the garden.  Not good for starting little seeds that are extremely delicate.  After one round of planting with just the soil (and not much luck), we started mixing it with organic miracle grow potting soil and it has been working like a charm.  It's important to remember plant's needs when potted indoors and young are very different than when they are outdoors and larger!  Look for organic potting soil, preferably for vegetables that has food in it.

Before putting the soil into the pots, we like to put a small piece of paper towel down just as insurance the soil won't fall out.  While this is not necessary, if your soil is dry when putting it in the pot some will fall through.  The paper towel allows water to come out and everything, just takes away the initial soil loss.

The amount of soil you put in the pot before adding the seedling depends on the type of plants.  Most plants will require a little bit of backfilling as they grow to keep them sturdy and not scrawny.  So for most plants, fill the pot about 2/3 the way up.  Tomatoes are another story.  In the wild they grow as a vine, rooting from the stem as they snake across the ground.  Since we grow them vertical to make it easier to harvest the tomatoes, most people don't realize the stem will continuously push roots from the bottom up.  You know how tomatoes have all little fuzzies on the stem?  Those are small roots, waiting for soil!  If you want your tomato seedling to grow big and strong, when you transplant them leave plenty of room to backfill as the plant grows.  This will help thicken the tomato stem making it sturdy and prevent it from being damaged by the elements when you eventually plant it outside. When transplanting tomatoes, fill the pots only 1/2 way up.  It looks silly at first, but in a few weeks, the soil will be at the top of the pot and you will have one damn good looking tomato plant!

Once you have your pots labeled and filled to the correct level with the proper soil, it's time to actually transplant your seedling.  First I'll talk about transplanting from the little pods, then separating young plants from the same pot.

Ok, biggest thing to remember when transplanting from the pods is MAKE SURE YOU TAKE THE OUTTER WRAPPER OFF!  Like when you eat a candy bar, peel the the plastic off before biting down, same goes with plants.  My dad and I made that huge mistake, not having used the pods a ton before, and we lost a bunch of early tomatoes that way!  The outer casing on the pods prevented the tomatoes from properly rooting and therefore stunting their growth as well as their ability to absorb nutrients/moisture.

It was really hard to rip up all those tomatoes and reuse the pots, however there was no hope for them.  Tomatoes we had planted a month after are now much larger, greener, and healthier.  There was no recovering from being root bound (and grown in the wrong soil).  Lesson learned the hard way.  Don't make our mistakes!

Once you removed the wrapper, simply place the plant in the correct pot and cover up to the first two leaves with soil and gently water.  Done!

Now if you have multiple seeds popped in a container and want to separate them in order to transport them, grab a screwdriver.  Slotted head to be exact.  You can use a chopstick, butterknife, or really anything to gently cut a hole in the soil around each plant and carefully pop a small dirt circle with the roots out.  Then move it to the assigned pot and cover up to the first two leaves with soil.  Repeat for the rest of the seedlings.  Again, you don't have to keep ALL the seedlings.  It is perfectly acceptable to simply pull all but one plant out of each container.  This is a technique to use less pots at first as well as less seeds to get more plants.  My dad developed this technique last year, and we quite like it!  Check out his post from last year and you'll understand why we wound up with over 120 tomato plants in the garden!We quite like doing it this way, and I think next year we will go back to planting all our seeds in multiple pots and separating them instead of the pods.  I find the pods are very hard to keep at the correct moisture level when the plants are sprouting because they are so small and dry out very quickly.

Good luck with your seedling endeavors and let us know if you have any questions/ comments about your experience with transplanting!  From us and all our little friends, happy planting :)

~Margaret

First Spring Planting: Kale

Hey all!  It's been awhile.  Almost a year in fact.  Truth is, I've been slacking with this blog.  My dad and I have been busy planting and gardening for three months already!  We started our first seedlings mid-January.  Of course we kept saying we needed to write a post, take photos, blah blah blah, but we've been lazy.  Unacceptable.  Gardening is an amazing journey that I want to share with everyone who cares to listen to our ramblings on this site.  There is something magical about watching plants grow before your eyes, and of course eating fresh produce is always the best part!

But as of now, it is opening season of gardening cross fit.  Crop fit as the subway commercial cleverly said.  Whatever you call it, there is no denying that Spring means hours of manual labor. Sweaty, dirty, gardening.  And I wouldn't have it any other way.  It really is the best time of the year :)   As all the flowers are coming up and buds start to form on the trees, all I can think about getting seeds and seedlings in the ground.  This past Saturday we officially started the garden by breaking out the rototiller and re-arranging the kale patch.  Of course we wound up breaking the rototiller because the ground is super swampy (and since our soil is just a bunch of clay, it's basically cement), but it did feel good to get dirty for the first time this season.

Let's call these the five views of our garden.  Remember them, because they will be changing quite often as we continue to prep and plant.  Right now the entire garden is quite dreary and begging to be tilled!  Thank god for the rototiller because I think I would rip my back in half if I had to turn over this plot by hand.

My obsession is perennial plants.  Who doesn't like a plant that you don't have to plant?!  Now most vegetables need to be replanted every year, however there are a few that never fail to come back all by themselves.  Take chives for example.  They are always the first plants growing in the spring, and they come back bigger each year.  This time they invaded my basil box that is next to where they are planted.  Agressive little herbs!  Looks like I will be giving some baby chive plants away to friends and family.

Both our scallion and onion patch started growing again without any help.  Must be a onion family thing.  Bottom line...plant something in the onion family.

I'm super excited for our grapes to start growing.  They are such a gorgeous vine, and the fresh grapes are out of this world!  That is, if the squirrels miss any.  Squirrels are our biggest pests.  I despise them.

Here you have our plan for water control.  We get a lot of water flowing through and pooling in our yard due to it's elevation and that of our neighbors yards.  Our soil is also 99% clay.  Not a good combination when you are trying to cultivate plants!  Check out this post from last year to see just how bad the garden floods.  We don't want any repeats of that.  So we are trenching the outside of the entire garden and creating channels to control the flow of water and keep it moving away from the plants.  Basically we are building raised garden beds.  I'm cringing typing this because it's going to be a ton of work.  Anyone want to grab a shovel and help dig dirt?!

Back to the kale planting.  I was surprised to find that almost ten kale plants from last year survived this harsh winter and started pushing new leaves!  As we were only able to till a small part of the kale patch (that we are extending this year), I dug up the living plants and replanted them in their new spot.  What really surprised me is there were another ten plants that I had started late last year (mid-September) that were also growing again!  They were so small when all the snow came that I thought for sure they were goners.  I know that kale is cold hardy, however we've been getting such rough winters here in New Jersey that I never expected any to live.  Especially not young seedlings! Anyway, I collected all the living babies and moved them to the back kale patch with the year old plants.

This year my dad and I are selling veggie seedlings out of my friends local florist, so I had started a bunch of kale plants indoors last month.  As I started much too many to sell, I threw the extras in the ground because they were quickly outgrowing their containers in the basement.  I'm going to wait until we can turn over more of the kale patch before putting seeds in the ground because the clay is almost impossible to work with when it has been sitting under ice and snow for the past few months. This year we're growing red russian kale, curly kale, and my personal favorite, dino or lacinato lake. I'm going to let my dad share how we started our seedlings this year and how he made our basement "plant friendly".  Seriously, our basement glows at night.

If you are planning on growing any type of dark, leafy greens this year (kale, swiss chard, collard greens, spinach, arugula, etc) then now is the time to get them in the ground!  They are cold hardy and the sooner  you get them in the ground the sooner you will be munching on scrumptious salads, sautes, and other yummy dishes.  As soon as the tire of our rototiller is fixed we will be back to work, turning over the soil so I can finish planting the kale patch, as well as get my collards, chard, and spinach patches started.  Don't procrastinate!  You'll thank me later :)  

One last thought; this year I am giving each kale plant less space when planting.  Most places say leave at least 12" between plants, however last year I believe I could have had them slightly closer together and they would have been just fine.  More bang for my buck without sacrificing the health of the plant.  I left about  6-8" between each plant this year so we'll see how that goes!

~Margaret