Just a few things. And some things never germinated. That means it’s not my fault, right?
I’m actually doing pretty well, I think. I had been hoping to put things outdoors 24-7 a few weeks earlier, but we have been having pretty cold nights all throughout April so I have kept things inside for the most part. I would put them out for a few hours if we had a sunny day but then bring them back in under my kitchen grow lights for the night and that has worked well so far. We also had a lot of rain in April – go figure – so they did spend a lot of time growing indoors.
If you’re just joining me here on my gardening adventure (thrilling, I know!) – check out my playing with dirt post to see where I got started.
None of my salad seeds (radicchio and looseleaf lettuce) germinated in the seed starter thing I had going, but I noticed that some random seeds I had put in an old pot outside from last Summer were actually doing kind of well. So I decided that I’d try starting some new salad seeds and just leave them outside. I purchased a salad grow bag, filled it with some organic container soil, and made a makeshift little greenhouse out of a garbage bag with holes in it for a little extra warmth. I don’t know if this was really a good idea or not, but it seems to have worked. The grow bag product leaves something to be desired, for sure. The pictures at gardeners.com show it having fairly substantial sides and able to stand up on it’s on, but in reality it’s pretty flimsy and not at all mobile – if you lifted it up you would disrupt all the dirt and seedlings. I put a large plank of wood underneath it so that it would still be at least semi-mobile.
So most of my salad seedlings have sprouted now but none of the radicchio is actually red or anything.
I also have a promising tomato seedling that is doing better than any of my other stuff – but I don’t know which kind of tomato plant it is. The seedling was a stray which grew outside of my intended container. I suspect it’s Wickline Cherry since that’s what it was closest to, but it could also be Cherokee Purple or Green Zebra.
Other seeds that have sprouted include quite a few Czechoslovakian Black Hot Peppers and Yellow Bell Peppers. And I’ve got five very healthy looking soybean plants that I’m pretty excited about too.
The soybean was exciting coming out of the ground. One grew a bit earlier than the others, and then four others followed in rapid succession. They look like something out of Super Mario Brothers.
I then transplanted them to a larger container, which I’ll leave near the railing of my deck. Soybeans grow like a vine, so I figure it’d be good to have something for them to cling to.
I’ve got some herbs going too but nothing that I’ve grown from seed. I decided to start a basil garden and I’ve got two Genovese plants and one unknown basil something to start it with. I’ve also got cinnamon basil, Thai basil, lemon basil, and purple basil, but all of those still have to be germinated from seed.
I have this really cool old piece of ceramic pottery that I inherited from my grandmother. It was supposed to be a fountain, but I was never able to find a water pump small enough to fit in it.
If anyone can identify that plant in the lower front there, that would be awesome. Got any ideas? I’m 90% sure it’s a basil plant but I suppose it could be something else.
Other than that, I have some dill, sage, thyme, and oregano.. and a few stray strawberries popping up in a container from last year. Oh, and I’ve got some organic seed potatoes (gold, red, and blue) which I’m rooting right now and will be putting in the ground (in a container, that is) probably in the next week or so.
I really have no idea how much of this stuff will make it through the summer, and even more how much of it will actually put out a harvest. I’m excited about the progress I’ve seen already but let’s just say I’m taking a highly skeptical position towards it. I expect that it’s going to be really hot and sunny out on my deck come July and August, and I’m more than a little worried about pests. I’ve started watering the plants with a mix of cayenne pepper and water in my spray bottle to hopefully deter animals but so far that’s really the only precaution I’ve taken.
I also just finished reading Second Nature by Michael Pollan, which was a fantastic book. It’s less about gardening specifics than it is about what man’s relationship to nature is and has been in recent history, and why and how social attitudes have shaped the way we look at everything from the suburban front lawn to chemical pesticides to the (sometimes not so) subtle sexuality of the rose. It’s a great book and I’d highly recommend it to anyone who has ever even had a remote interest in the natural world around us – not just those who have been inclined to get out and dig up some dirt every now and again.
What’s your favorite thing about nature? Or your least favorite?
