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A Slow Start to 2015

29 Apr

We’ve had a few nights in the 40s in the past week, so I’m glad I haven’t put anything out yet in the garden.

However, that doesn’t mean I haven’t been preparing behind the scenes. I started some seedlings inside a few weeks ago, and they’re actually looking fairly decent. I know I said I wouldn’t have tomatoes this year, but I’ve decided I’ll put them in the buckets and not the tanks. One plant per. I have 6 little tomato seedlings now, three yellow pears and three red cherries. I also started 6 cucumbers, but only four are looking good. I’ve been taking them outside during the day and they sleep inside. I hope to have them all planted in about two weeks.

Photo Apr 28, 1 34 07 PM I decided to put a bunch of herbs into the huge pot I used have only for rosemary. Now rosemary, tarragon, and sage are sharing a space. I will eventually add in the parsley I started several months ago, and possibly the basil. They are now living in the hallway, getting direct sunlight every day.

Photo Apr 20, 4 01 18 PMPhoto Apr 19, 4 05 07 PM

ShmErin got a huge dumpster full of mulch from the City of Alexandria. Wound up being a liiiiiittle bit more than she had anticipated! I took some to beef up the tanks. I’m going to add the compost on to it this weekend, too.

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Finally, my neighbors and I bought some new solar LEDs. I put them up last night all along the fence. They look great.

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More Window Sill Lovelies

6 Apr

I think we’re past the point of freezing, but who knows. We had a frost in May last year. I’m going to mix my new compost into the tanks this weekend and do some seeding. I’ll start with radishes, cucumbers, and carrots. I don’t think I’m going to go for tomatoes this year, as they require a lot more water than I think I can handle.

But good news! ShmErin will be joining us on the blog! She and her fiance moved in to an adorable 90+ year old house and they are working on their yard. She will be chronicling here.

Until then, here is my window sill garden! Basil and parsley are the same from TWO MONTHS AGO. They haven’t gotten much larger, but they’re still happy. In the middle is the celery. I soaked the root end of a left over bunch of celery and it started to grow new leaves in a few days, then eventually some little roots. Yesterday I potted it. We’ll see how it does.

Window sill garden

Window sill garden

Here is the new celery…

Photo Apr 05, 11 39 05 AM Photo Apr 05, 11 36 49 AM

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Sprout Talk – Chia Edition

27 Feb

More snow on the ground this morning. I’ve been coaxing seeds to open up and spread their green-ness in order to make me happy and increase the oxygen in my place. This post has been sitting for about 10 days while I watched everything grow. Some great success, some mild success.

Three weeks ago I planted a pot of chia seeds because that’s all I had here in my kitchen. I normally just toss them into smoothies and such, sometimes make a pudding out of them, etc. A sprinkling of seed, some water, and in a few days, TINY GREEN CHIA SPROUTS! Too much soil for eating, though. Chia sprouts When seeds germinate by having a soak in water, they release sugars and proteins to help nourish the wee baby plant in its first few days, changing the flavor and making the seed and new sprout itself very healthy. (By the way, this is also the first step in making beer. Germinated grains are dried, milled, and added to water. The newly freed sugars feed the yeast that’s then added to ferment. This was my old life. Message me if you want to talk alcohol production!) Because they grow in just a few days and don’t require planting OR light, they’re great for winter snacking. I don’t know why I didn’t think to do it earlier.

Looking online I found several sprouting trays for purchase and decided on a cute $18 one from Amazon that is 6″ in diameter. Hm…. I looked into making my own and found directions for trays and jars. Both would take just a few minutes to assemble. I had everything I needed for three small stacking trays using cleaned take out containers, so I went that way.

I drilled lots of drainage holes in the two shorter containers and one of the larger ones and carefully cleaned off all of the plastic “shards” from the drilling. The undrilled containers act as drip trays. Then I took one of the lids and cut out most of the inside so I had only the rim left over. I attached the lid to an large undrilled container, and the large drilled container fit right in. Then the smaller drilled container inside that, then a full lid, so I had two “levels” there. The second small drilled container fit into the last large undrilled container, then a lid.

3 large, 2 small, 3 lids

3 large, 2 small, 3 lids

Lots of holes for drainage

Lots of holes for drainage

3 large, 2 small, 3 lids

3 large, 2 small, 3 lids

 

 

 

 

 

 

I folded some paper towels and cut them into circles to fit inside the containers over the drainage holes. Two dampened circles per tray, unless you’re using really thick paper. Seeds need to soak for a few hours (or overnight) before hanging out to sprout. Rinse them, then add to them to the sprouter. Chia seeds, you may know, get somewhat gelatinous. After they soaked for a bit and were good and gooey, I spooned a decent amount into each of the three trays, added a bit of water to the top and gently pressed on the lid. (I wound up not using them to allow for better air flow, just let them sit on top w/o snapping it on.) The excess water dripped down to the bottom trays, so there was no worry about over watering.

Soaked chia seeds

Soaked chia seeds

With paper towel filters

With paper towel filters

Small inside large, inside large with cut out lid.

Small inside large, inside large with cut out lid.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Well, it worked, and it didn’t. They sprouted, but before they did that, they stunk. I mean, rotting fish stunk. There was plenty of airflow, and I even removed the tops altogether. I’m happy to say the smell went away after they were fully sprouted. There seems to be a sweet spot in the growth where the sprouts were tastiest. Once they had a set of big green leaves (and by big I mean about 1/4″ each) they got bitter. What was pretty cool though was that the roots bonded with the paper towel, making something of a chia mat.

Photo Feb 19, 11 53 40 PM

Stinky, maggot looking sprouts.

Photo Feb 26, 3 56 33 PM

Roots embedded in paper towel

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Roots in paper towel

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Feb 26, 3 56 06 PM

These guys wound up getting really big! 2/26

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Final day, 2/26

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This was the first part of my sprouting experiment. I also used quart sized canning jars to sprout mung beans, adzuki beans, and buckwheat groats. More of that in the next post.

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Snowy Rooftop Morning

17 Feb

I went up to the roof ONLY to take some pretty pictures of our snowfall from last night. We got about 6″ here in in Arlington, a decent amount. We might get some more in a day or two. Our temps are VERY low, though, in the single digits at night and teens and 20s during the day.

Decent snowfall

Decent snowfall

Here are some bright morning photos. I really liked the way the snow fell in between the slats in the deck.

Untouched by footprints!

Untouched by footprints!

Clear sky!

Clear sky!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The garden was covered in a blanket of fluffy snow. Finally, we get lovely snow! Not really that good for snowballs or snowmen, but easy enough to shovel and clean off of stuff. So far this season we’ve had heavy, wet snow or “wintry mix” that just isn’t nice.

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Tank

Tank

Tank

Tank

 

 

 

Another shot of the slats.

Decking

Decking

 

Shhhhh! The thyme is sleeping!

Thyme

Thyme

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Happy Tu B’Shevat! (Some Indoor Plant Chat)

4 Feb

Happy Tu B’Shevat, the Jewish “birthday of the trees”!

In honor of this fun holiday, a bit of indoor seed starting chat.

I’ve been growing seedlings inside, mostly herbs, not necessarily for consumption but more for sport, if you will. Right now I have ginger, basil, parsley.

I make ginger beer. Right now for fun, but we’ll see what happens with it. Anyway, I wanted to see if I could grow my own ginger. I started with a few pieces of organic ginger root, left them in a bag in the fridge, and when they grew “nubs,” I planted them in a pot. It grew very quickly and sprouted several stalks. Now it’s just a pretty ornamental. Kind of looks like bamboo, and it has a scent that is bright, almost grassy citrus. Smells very clean. I’ll plant it outside in the roof garden when temps get to about 60-65F. From what I’ve read, harvest should start after about a year, enough time to let the root system grow. After all, we’re hacking off chunks of the root. I don’t know if I’ll be able to hold back and let it grow. We’ll follow this ginger development over the next few months.

Ginger, about two weeks after planting.

Ginger, about two weeks after planting.

Many fragrant stalks.

Many fragrant stalks.

Ginger, happily growing today.

Ginger, happily growing today.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Baby basil seedlings, Dec 1, 2014

Baby basil seedlings, Dec 1, 2014

Basil today.

Basil today.

I planted some basil, too. These guys first went in in December, and they’ve barely grown since then. I just started to see a second set of leaves from the few remaining seedlings, so that’s nice. Normally by 10 weeks we’d be significantly larger, but we’re not outside here.

 

Parsley today, planted Dec 1, 2014

Parsley today, planted Dec 1, 2014

Same story with the parsley. Second, and some third, sets of leaves, but not that much else going on. More lanky, lazy looking parsley. I was considering letting my rabbit have at these seedlings, but I can’t let her eat my science experiment just yet!

I do have actual seed starting pots and pellets that I’ll bring out in about a month or so. I’m going to build a little seed starting box and see if I can get some plants to grow upstairs this year instead of buying ready baby plants. I’ll probably stick with herbs, but we’ll see how adventurous I’m feeling.

 

Oh, here’s my ginger beer!

Rabbit's Domain Ginger Beer!

Rabbit’s Domain Ginger Beer!

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Garden Catch Up On A Rainy Fall Day

17 Nov

It’s cold and rainy out today. I’m going to think happy garden thoughts so my feet will warm up.

2014 was a mildly upsetting year up on the roof, though that doesn’t mean I didn’t learn anything! Over the next few weeks I’ll post by general topic instead of a play-by-play.

First, a catch up.

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Herbs. Dead rosemary, returning chives, returning thyme.

All in all, my “harvest” was much smaller than in years past. We had some gross cold, cold weather that actually killed my rosemary plant. It had been doing really well over the years, and I had given it a much larger pot. I thought it was pretty hardy. I heard that lots of other folks lost their rosemary. The rest of my herbs came back, though. Chives, thyme, and oregano all came back in their pots. I planted new parsley in a pot, and then both green and purple basil in one of the tanks from seed. They wound up doing well. I still have not replaced the rosemary. Debating what to do there, if I should try some indoor herb gardening this year. I brought one plant inside last week but I don’t know if I want to make a whole indoor garden out of it.

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Tank 1, cucumber seed, bean seedling, tank 2.

Then we had a bit of a cold snap in May that killed off several seedlings I had started indoors and had replanted outside. I started beans inside. They died, so I wound up planting them a second time. Here are my tanks and some wee baby seeds. The tank on the top wound up with cucumbers, beans, and beets. The one on the bottom had the same as last year, two tomato plants, variety of carrots, and the aforementioned green and purple basils. I planed fewer carrots than last year, and I think they grew much better because of it.

I decided to tackle my problems with water this year. I built (what I thought would be) a great rain barrel! You’ll have to wait for my next post for my great 2014 water adventure.

The highlight of this year was certainly my composting abilities. I had two buckets that did really well. I’ll save that for another post as well.

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The Delinquent Gardener – 2013 Wrap Up

6 Apr

I’ve been a bad blogger…but only because I’ve been a bad gardener. Apologies.

I got very busy in August with work and all of a sudden it’s spring. Or, “snow spring” as we had.

Before I start up new posts later this week with water news, tank redesign and pot repositioning, some quick highlights from last year.

The Soft-Bellied Tomato Pecker

Soft bellied tomato peckerAlton was RIGHT! He exists, and he’s a nasty, aggressive jerk of a Jay bird. I finally caught him on one of my tomato plants in late July. I walked over to him and yelled at him, and he yelled right back at me. Short of covering the whole tank and plants with netting, I didn’t know what to do. (Scarecrow? Maybe I’ll do that this year.) I finally got him off the plant, and he flew onto the top of the elevator lobby on the other side of the roof, still yelling at me. I have no doubt that he came back after that, probably bringing some of his posse to squawk at me just in case. I’ll share in the event that he returns this year.

Peppers, peppers, peppers

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I adopted several pepper plants from friends’ windowsills and patios. While I won’t be doing that again, I peppers sixdid have quite a harvest of various types of peppers, including bell and several kinds of hot peppers. None of the bell peppers got really big, but they had nice flavor. I used a few of the jalapenos to make spicy simple syrups.

One of my neighbors was excited to try the red chilies, so I told her to take as many as she and her husband would like. Later, I heard that the peppers made him sick. As it turns out, they had never cooked with hot peppers before, and in fact, didn’t even realize that they were HOT! Yikes. That’s an eyeball scratch I’d certainly like to avoid.

cuce collage with dollTasty cucumbers

I was very happy with my first successful harvest of cucumbers last year. I’ve talked about the significance of the cucumbers and my grandfather’s never ending desire for pickles in the garden years ago, so this year I will once again plant cucumbers. They need more water than I had been giving them, but I have a new plan for that. I’d like to actually pickle some of them this year as I did with the radishes last year. I need to pick them when they’re a bit smaller than they are in this photo, otherwise they get bitter and have huge seeds. But just in case, I also learned that Dolley is a fan of the bitter cucumber skins.

Carrots!

Growing carrots in the tank was so much better than in the small buckets the year prior. They were, for the most part, straight, but not very thick. All in all, however, I’m not totally happy with the volume of the carrot harvest I had last year.carrots with doll I had tried to make seed tape, but I think that didn’t work. Maybe it was using diluted school glue? I’ve seen directions for DIY seed tape that suggest using flour and water as the adhesive, so maybe I shouldn’t have used Elmer’s. Oh well. I’m not going to use it at all this year. I’m going to stick to the Kyoto Reds that Farmer Russell gave me last year (the two long carrots in the photo), as they seemed to do well, and the purple ones. They also did nicely and are very pretty.

I also need to thin the carrots MUCH MORE than I did last year. They were too squished for space, and many of them didn’t get much larger than seedling size. When I started to clean out the tanks this year, I encountered many baby sized carrots that never grew. My trusty taste tester didn’t have much feedback this time besides a hefty yank of the sample vegetable.

And finally, some lovely cherry tomatoes, unpecked by birds.

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I pick a peck of pickled peppers

24 Jul

IMG_8658Well, they’re not pickled just yet. This is last week’s pepper harvest. Banana peppers from ShmErin’s plant, bells from ShmAli’s, red jalapenos from my plant. The plant currently has about a dozen banana peppers ready to pick. I’ll do that tomorrow. The bell peppers are also doing well, but they’re not getting to, like, actual pepper size. The green peppers here are supposed to be red and the red ones are supposed to be green. Some picked too early (they were starting to get soft spots) and some too late. I have actually transplanted three of the plants…more on that in a day or two.

Here are the three plants that these peppers came from. The bell pepper has been getting really thirsty since this heat wave started. I’ve been bringing it water about 2x a day. It generally responds within about 15 minutes by waving “thanks” to me.

So about three weeks ago I asked my neighbor if she saw anyone taking my chocolate cherries. Although I’ve offered her tomatoes and herbs as she liked, she has repeatedly refused, saying I should enjoy the fruits of my labor. So, I couldn’t figure out who was stealing my cherries. Then, I noticed one of the other tomatoes on the other plant was half eaten. Then another. Could this be the elusive soft-bellied tomato pecker that Alton Brown and neighbor McGregor talked about in Good Eats episode 6, season 6, “Tomato Envy”?

Cucumbers were moving along really nicely for several weeks. I decided to pick off the little baby cucumbers once I saw one or two nice sized ones growing on each plant. It really seemed to help them along. Rather than having the plant focus on a dozen babies, I encouraged them to just pay attention to a few. Seemed to work well. I actually picked enough to not know what to do with them at one point. We sliced them up and nommed on them while biking one day. Great snack! I wound up making a cold cucumber soup. Easy and totally delish. Used cuces and onions from the garden.

But, all good things must end. After picking a whole bunch of beans one day, I noticed that most of the leaves were starting to yellow and the beans themselves weren’t looking great. The cucumbers in the tanks were also not so hot anymore, probably because it has been so hot. I’ve been bringing each tank a full 5 gallons every day, plus more for the smaller pots, but with almost a week of temps near 100, it just wasn’t working. Sadly, this tank is nearing its end.

My compost had been growing weird things…I was advised against nibbling on these mushrooms, as they are toadstools and will kill me. I’ll skip them. I also saw a number of larvae squirming around here and there. So, I got another bucket and divided the compost in half, adding several days of rabbit litter to each one. Today, both bins are doing well, no mushrooms, and no wiggly things.

Finally, some lovely garden photos…

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The Pepper Whisperer

11 Jul

FYI…I’m rather enjoying Instagram and Picstitch, as you may have picked up in the last few posts.

Last week, we put up lights for our July 4 get together on the rooftop. I was really surprised at how pretty the tanks looked with the lights all around. We also made lots of snacks.

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We’re really cooking now! Tomatoes, cuces, peppers, beans…almost everything is growing well up on the roof. What’s not? Cilantro. But, remember, I don’t really care, as it tastes like soap. I don’t, however, know why it died. I’m thinking it’s because those bins don’t dry out as well as the terra cotta pots or the tanks. It wasn’t a problem in the past, but I think with all of the rain we’ve gotten in the last few weeks it hasn’t had a chance to dry out, and therefore the cilantro is over watered. The parsley and peppers in the same bin are fine, it seems, but the baby onions in the other bucket seem Imageto be stunted also. Oh well. Win some, lose some. On the left here are some scenes from the most recent strong storm we had. In and out in under 45 minutes, usually. I haven’t even collected water for weeks.

Now, on to veggies I actually like.

I have become the pepper whisperer. Two friends brought their sad, almost sickly pepper plants up to the roof, and lo and behold, magical healing takes place under my watch. ShmAli brought her yellow bell pepper over maybe three weeks ago. She was keeping it on her kitchen windowsill. Once up outside, it dropped a bunch of sad leaves, and then started to regrow new ones quickly. ShmErin also had two indoor peppers, a banana and some sort of chili pepper. They had grown to about 3′ tall and were kind of lanky. They also had spider mites. Booo. After two weeks on the roof, a ton of banana peppers appeared.

Beans I wind up picking every two days or so. The smaller, thinner ones are REALLY sweet. Cuces are doing quite well. The two plants I put in the terra cotta pot and expected to die have been productive and have offered a few final products of their own. I have to pick them before they seed, as the plant’s goal is to reproduce. If you pick them before the seeds inside mature, it will keep making more plants. Same with the beans. The ones that are left on the plant too long get really dry and not tasty at all. Also, smaller seeds taste better and are less fibrous.

I’m really looking forward to the tomatoes. They seem to be the crowning achievement of everyone’s home garden, for some reason. Might be the beautiful color contrast.

The cabernet grape plant…I don’t think is. These do not have a grape shape. They are more like large cherries, but I’m excited to see how they’re going to do anyway. I think I’ll be ready to pick a few of them this coming weekend.

And, for good measure, some of my babies, via Instagram.

As always, I had a willing parsley taste tester.

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Pre-Pickles and Other Growth

28 Jun

Tomatoes and beans and…is that a carrot? Oh, my.

The glass tabletop in the photo is 30″. The carrot root was about 8″ and the rest of it was all…stalk? Not sure what happened there. I will check with Farmer Russell and update. It started to flower, which isn’t a crazy thing to happen, but I haven’t had a carrot do that before. It was looking like Queen Anne’s Lace, a relative in the carrot family. I also got a really tall, tough stalk coming from the parsley, so I cut that, too.

My grandfather always wanted to grow pickles in my garden, but they were really the only things that didn’t grow there. Now, we have amazing cucumber growth, so I’d like to think he’s enjoying them.

Oh, the parsley and freak carrot? Instead of the compost bucket, they found a better home.

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