Dare alla Luce

Dare alla luce- to give to the light, to give birth.

Day 33 of quarantine

The store bought ginger I buried in a to-go soup container on 3/25 poked through last night. That's exciting.

Peas are coming up, I see signs of a fava bean coming up. Lettuce, arugula, chard, kale. The winter sown jugs are also starting to come to life- calendula, more lettuce, kale, one sunflower...

Tomatoes are coming along. The ones I planted in the dixie cups are doing quite well (the ones that came up-the seed was like 10 years old). The ones in the milk jug are leggy (same with the tomatillos & ground cherries). I waited too long to cut the top off. I'm trying to work it out with a fan & I'll bury them deep when transplanted. I'm out of practice.

The cucumbers, squash & melon are coming along nicely.  I biffed one of the Thelma Sanders squashes & pinched the stem by accident. I'm not sure it's going to make it so I planted another Thelma seed.

I pulled out the pots yesterday, I need to wash & sanitize them to get them ready for potting up.

It got down to 25'F last night. I brought in the basil & thyme plants that I bought at the grocery store (out of desperation) & re-potted. They seem quite happy. I covered up the rest of the pots on the deck with an old bed sheet. Everything seems to have survived.

DH gave the thumbs up for another raised bed along the south side of the deck. It will be shaded by a silver maple so I've compiled a list of what should be able to grow there-it was surprisingly quite extensive. He wants to wait until May to construct it (hoping that we'll be far enough along on the downside of the virus curve by then-fingers crossed).

I have mapped out the deck/patio/flower bed area on graph paper and am plotting to put in more raised beds there. I have only casually mentioned it as a long term aspiration to DH. I have planted the seed...

Ticks are a problem around here, I have been doing research for non-chemical controls...chickens.  I didn't even mention it to DH. We can have them here with a permit from the town, I'm not sure how it would work with the dogs, they have a very high prey drive but are well behaved. We couldn't have free range (hawks & other birds of prey would be a major issue in addition to the dogs) but maybe a large run & a chicken tractor would work. My neighbors across the street were quite excited when I told them the town allows chickens now so they are thinking about it. He's a grown up Iowa farm boy so he knows what he's doing.

I've been reacquainting myself with seed companies. It's been a few years since I have ordered seed. Most of the stuff I started this year was from saved seeds & I hit up the seed rack at the local garden store back in late February/early March for the leafy-lettucy things. I did a small order from Harris Seed (local) before things got too crazy virus-wise (melon, cucumber & winter squash). I wanted to support a local business but they didn't have much I was interested in. Crosman is also local, they've been around forever & their prices can't be beat. I need to order from them too, they are very old school & don't have anything too fancy but at least I know the stuff they sell will grow here.

I was looking around on the internet for a place to buy the Pellegrini bean & came across Great Lakes Staple Seeds. They've got a lot of good stuff. Unfortunately they aren't shipping right now because they are a two person operation and one person is helping to make ventilators with GM. So I have book marked them for the future & I looked at their reference/recommendation guide for other small seed companies & I found Fruition Seed from the Finger Lakes (!!!!!!). Swoon. I'm in love.  Local, Organic, and a lot of fancy, interesting stuff.  They didn't have the Pellegrini bean but they do have the Haudenosaunee Skunk Dry Pole Bean (!) a pre-Colombian heirloom from the indigenous people of our region. I ordered it along with a bunch of other stuff that I probably don't need. I couldn't help myself.  My pepper seeds haven't germinated (because they are older than dirt) so I will probably order pepper seedlings from them.

Dusting off the old blog...

Corona Virus Quarantine day 17

Welp....here we are. Bizzaro land. The last day in the office for DH was Friday, March 13 (he's been working at home since). We're honoring the quarantine request of Gov. Cuomo by social distancing & only going out when necessary: Grocery store, once to the hardware store and we walk the dogs twice a day in the neighborhood. Not much to do...might as well garden & blog.

I haven't been gardening much in the past few years. The trees grew too tall & shaded my old plot. Last year we took the fence out & I did a lot of container gardening on the deck & patio. A neighbor had cleaned out her garage & was selling huge ceramic pots for $1 each so I scrounged around for cash & bought 15 or so. Score!

This year for my birthday DH got me wood & dirt. He knows how to make a girl happy.  I designed & threw up a raised bed in 2 days. It was a lot of work. DH supplied the muscle. It's 16'x4'x20"- long & skinny. My one trip to the hardware store was for wood & screws. I called the local nursery & they delivered topsoil & leaf/mushroom compost.  I scrounged around in the garage & found my old pea fence & gardening bag with twine. I spaced finishing nails out every 12" & made squarefoot gardening squares with the twine & put up the pea fence.

The new bed.  You can still see the outline of the old bed up in the top left corner. (We're looking E/SE).  The flower bed is the blob in the lower left corner & the circle on the right is the peony bed that needs to be fenced or moved because it always gets clobbered by the dogs.

I have seeds of all different ages. Some of my tomato seeds are really old- I soaked those in bleach solution for 30 minutes before planting-some in the flats, some in little dixie cups, some in a milk jug.   I got out my heat mats, grow lights & seedling flats & got things started. It's a lot harder than I remember. I'm having damping off & leggy seedling issues. I found a bunch of milk cartons in the garage so I'm starting some seeds by the winter sowing method. Fingers crossed.

This is the current starting line up*
*subject to change

Started outside in the garden:
Peas
Fava Beans
Rapini
Carrot
Swiss Chard
Kale
Arugula
Lettuces:

Winter sowing:
Borage
Sunflower
Calendula
Marigold
Zinnia
Parsley
Cilantro
Mentuccia Romana
Shiso
Arugula
Rapini
Kale
Roman Chamomile

Starting inside seedling flat & heat mat:
Tuscan Kale
Basil
Corriander
Lettuce-I think this might be a bad idea
Tomatoes: Black from Tula, Champagne Cherry, Black Cherry, Stupice, Matt's Wild Cherry, Cowlick's Brandywine, JD's Special C-Tex, Tigerella.

Also: DeMilpa Tomatillo & Molly's Ground Cherry

Starting inside Dixie cups & heat mat:
Zucchini: cocozelle & Striato di Napoli
Cucumber
Squash: Thelma Saunders & Buttercup
Melon: Sugarcube
Tomatoes: Champagne Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tigerella, Green Zebra, Black Zebra, Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Purple Dog Creek, Earl's Faux

Starting in a milk jug on a heat mat (I'll pulling out all the stops):
Tomatoes: Champagne Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry, Black Cherry, Tigerella, Green Zebra, Ruby's German Green, Black Krim, Purple Dog Creek, Earl's Faux

Yes, that's a lot of tomatoes. but since the seeds are between 6-10 years old I'll be lucky if a few of them germinate. If, by crazy luck, I have more than I need I'll put them by the curb & give them away for free to a good home.

Oh! I saw my first daffodils this morning. Things are looking up!

Peas & Beans & more...

I started the peas and fava beans last week in newspaper pots under a deli container out in the garden (you can see it under the teepee in the previous picture). Despite the cold (it got down to 20 at night this week and daytime temps were in the 30's) the Alaska peas have started to sprout. Cascadia's aren't coming up but they are old so I don't have high hopes. Fava's haven't come up yet. I set out the spinach and onions (started from seed) in the garden today. They are still in their paper pots. I'll probably plant them later this week.
I saw some daffodils yesterday along the highway-I think it's a warmer microclimate being between concrete sound barriers on either side of the highway. They looked so pretty. My neighbors primrose is flowering- dark blue. Mine aren't doing anything yet but they do look green so that's encouraging.
Wintersowing is going well I have things starting to peek out. I did bring some jugs in the other night when it got down to 20. I also covered some up with a drop cloth. It looks like everything made it. I moved the chard in the garden (the ones that seem to have survived the winter) and I planted more in one of the flower beds.
I need to pot up tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, basil and eggplants this week. I also need to get the sawz-all from my brother to start making Earthtainers (http://earthtainer.tomatofest.com/). I came to the realization that I have WAY more plants than space (especially tomatoes) this year and will need to utilize the deck, patio, driveway and flower beds. I plan on canning and drying this year (total beginner). Come September we're going to have tomatoes coming out of our ears, DH is probably going to kill me! But we use diced, peeled and tomato sauce all year round so as long as they don't go to waste...

Things are growing!

Tomato Update: Black Zebra, Cowlick's Brandywine, Purple Dog Creek, Reifs Red Heart, Box Car Willie, Super Sioux and the 2nd Tomatillo Verde decided to join the party. I checked my wintersown containers and the Bachelor's Buttons are coming up. I dodged the raindrops today and moved some shredded leaf mulch around the flower beds and found all sorts of exciting things going on- Columbines are pushing through, daylillies, nigella, hollyhocks too. I have to look around and see if I mapped the flower beds because some things are coming up and I'm not sure what they are- ergynium maybe? I checked out some of the roses and they appear to have tiny leaf buds! The first bloom of the season is in sight: a purple crocus is up and should be blooming within the next day or two!

Helllllooooo Ladies!

The new roses have arrived! I had a nice little package on the stoop when I got home today-it was like Christmas all over again! They were all neatly packed in damp newspaper and arrived in great condition. I'm going to Syracuse later this week where my friend Renee has a freezer full of fish heads and guts that she'll give me to put under the roses. My lovely husband thinks I'm nuts.

I decided to take the plunge with Winter Sowing after some encouraging words from Catherine at gardnerprogress. I read up on how the whole thing works and figured it might not be too late to do a little this year. I got a bunch of milk jugs that I was saving for the Early Tomato Experiment (that's kind of gone by the wayside) and 2 plastic tubs from BigLots. Drilled holes, made labels, got some more soil at HD. I went with Alyssum, Foxgloves, Cosmos, sunflower, chamomile, nigella and coleus. I also finally got the delphinum pots out of the tupperware container in the fridge and put them in a milk jug. Everything is sitting out on the back deck. I wrapped the heck out of everything with tape-we've got psycho squirrels in the neighborhood and I didn't want to give them an easy target. I did all of this on Saturday-by Monday the Alyssum was starting to sprout-CRAZY!

I also started on my trenching project on Saturday. I got a nice flat, square shovel from Bristol's Nursery- it's a Fiskar's "the Best Shovel Ever" or something like that (late Birthday present from DH). I have to say it's quite nifty. The Y shaped handle is very comfortable and there are little treds on the top of the shovel part for me to jump on to get it to go deeper in the soil. I had read somewhere that Victorian Trenches are very labor intensive and not for the faint of heart... blah blah blah. Whoever wrote that was kind of a whiner. It's really not that bad. I did the beds on the West and South side of the house in a few hours. I think the key is to do it when the soil is nice and damp but not frozen. I can't imagine it would be a lot of fun to do in July when the ground is hard as a rock. Or in January when it is hard as a rock for a different reason.

Tomato Update: I think97 is the final count for the tomato plants. I'm sending out emails to friends asking them if they want any. I sent some down to my SIL in MD along with some Grandpa Otts Morning Glories that I started from seed saved from my house in NC and a rose bush that I propagated from a cutting last summer. I need to take it easy with the tomatoes next year.

I saw a tulip this week- woo hoo!

Winter and Spring Battle it out

What a wild week! I had to go to Connecticut last week for work- rumor has it we had beautiful weather here while I was gone. I came back late Thursday night: the lawns had turned green and I saw my first Daffodil on Friday (4/3). Then the winds picked up the temperature dropped and on Saturday we had rain/sleet/snow and back again. Sunday was nice: sunny and in the 50's then the wind picked up and I woke up at 1:30am Monday morning and everything was covered in snow! We got about 2-3 inches, it snowed all day but it warmed up enough that it didn't stick to the roads and it kind of melted. Today it snowed a little bit but everything has melted.

The forsythia is about ready to bloom. Scilla siberica the little blue star-like flowers are blooming on people's lawns. I think they are beautiful- probably my favorite early spring flower. I have one in the side yard. I think he needs some friends! I potted up some more tomato seedlings today. I have 50+ and still potting. I have to take inventory of what I have and who wants what. 10 are going to my pottery instructor. I have his picked out already and put them in their own tray. I need to save some for my nieces and nephews and a coworker or two and my friend Patti in Ithaca. I don't know what I'm going to do with the rest. NOTE TO SELF: Tomatoes have an excellent germination rate- don't plant more than needed next year!

Pretty much everything I have started from seed has sprouted except the 4 o'clocks (old seed, not properly stored) and the cilantro (used seed from my kitchen cabinet-I thought I'd take as stab at it!) and my pepper "Cherneva chuska" or something like that. The pepper seed is new this year I'm not sure what's wrong with it-bad batch I guess. Jury is still out on the Shasta Daisy's (also old, not properly stored seed) and the cucumbers -that is also new seed maybe planted too deep? Not enough time on the heat mat?

I'm looking into winter sowing for next year. I am using every available flat surface and am running out of room. I won't even start about the heat mat and shop light rotation. I've read some forums where the people swear by wintersowing. I still have some more seed to start for this year, I wonder if it's too late to try it this year....

Above picture is Sedum "Autumn Joy" emerging. Picture was taken on 3/28