Officially Ridiculous

And this is just the beginning.

Group Effort

Tonight the three of us planted tomato seeds--Nyagous, Isis Candy, San Marzano, Gold Medal, and Pink Ponderosa. It was a true group effort, with Nico carefully placing one seed in each tiny soil block. We've come a long way since last year when his "help" was more of a liability than anything else.

We're also hoping the soil block method will be more efficient than past trials. The seedlings that sprout will be transferred to larger blocks, then eventually to the garden or to small pots if they're for giving. Anybody wanna call dibs?

MacGyver Rides Again

We were busy little bees this weekend, seeding and transplanting and improvising hoop houses with clothespins and old fencing. Mark likes to channel MacGyver, and he's got the hockey hair to prove it.

The weather was delightfully cooperative on Saturday, lulling us into a sense of security. Even Sunday afternoon was cool and overcast, perfect for transplanting greens, so we put out the chard, lettuce, broccoli, spinach, and arugula. However, Sunday evening brought hail and thunderstorms. Most of the broccoli and lettuce we'd planted outside was under row covers, but there were a few extras we planted in boxes along the driveway. They got pummeled pretty hard, but it looks like the broccoli and arugula are recovering. The jury's still out on the lettuce. We're fully anticipating an infestation of squirrels next, closely followed by a plague of locusts.

Radishes, spinach, sweet peas, and fennel seeds are all in the ground, and from the safety of our home we started marigolds, calendula, and okra. Mark raised the roof (literally) on the hoop houses, using PVC pipe to get another 18 inches out of our row covers. Last year, the plants outgrew the row covers long before the last frost date of May 15, so this solution should buy us some time.

We are very excited about the tomatoes, which are fast becoming behemoths at 4-6 inches tall, nice and bushy and not leggy at all. They're starting to fill the room with that earthy tomato-plant scent, which has been one of Kate's all-time favorite aromas ever since her very first job in a greenhouse at age 15.

And now Kate will leave you with one final image: Mark, crouched on the floor of the bathroom, with the door locked to keep the mewling cats out while he cuts the bottoms out of a dozen cat-food cans. This is a lot more difficult than it sounds. And a lot more hilarious, although I shouldn't have laughed at the bloodshed. All this to keep the cutworms off the broccoli this year, which is critical--I understand that--but this seems more painful and complicated than necessary.

A Little Patience

Had some broccoli trouble due to overcrowding. Those suckers got big fast. A few of the smaller plants shriveled and died, and the leaves on a couple others started turning yellow. I transplanted the larger seedlings into more spacious containers and all of the plants have rebounded. My conclusion is that the soil blocks are great for starting broccoli but are quickly outgrown after about four weeks.

The alliums continue to do well; not much to report there. The brassicas are also thriving. We planted lettuce, arugula, spinach, chard, and New Zealand spinach, and all had multiple seedlings by the end of the first week. We will be transplanting these and the broccoli into improvised hoop houses at the end of this month.

It's been about three weeks since we planted the eggplants, tomatoes, and peppers, and a few stragglers continue to sprout. All in all, we managed to get 6 Nyagous, 6 Isis Candy, and 7 San Marzano tomato plants, which is right on target for our needs. The hot peppers sprouted quickly, though the sweet varieties have been a little slower to germinate. Top performers include the Ancho Gigante (poblano) and Golden Treasure peppers. Kevin's Early Orange and King of the North have been very slow, yielding only 4 and 3 plants respectively to date. The small quantities of eggplants we planted have yielded two or three of each variety which is more than adequate. The lesson learned in here is the importance of patience, patience, PATIENCE. The old adage is certainly true: A watched plant never grows, but a watched spouse certainly grows angry. Quickly.

Lady of Shallot

The broccoli now has three sets of leaves (this is thrilling news to all of you, I'm sure), and the leeks are thriving. The little tomato, pepper, and eggplant seedlings are sprouting. So far they seem to have beat out the mold that started growing in their warm, damp cells. A light application of peat moss on the surface seems to have done the trick. We're especially stoked to see the shallots sprouting--we're actually growing them from seeds instead of sets. A lot of our choices for what to grow this year are determined by what's expensive at the store, and by what we don't get from our Genesis share. I'm trying to figure out why shallots are so expensive--does anyone out there know? Even the sets were pricey, especially the organic ones.

As we try to find our way in year four of our garden, it's interesting to note the lessons learned by these folks after a decade of gardening. It's encouraging to see that they've learned a lot of the same lessons we have, and that in the end they decided to keep things simple. They attempted a nonlinear planting pattern before settling on traditional raised rows, which makes us a little nervous because we plan on breaking out of the rigid geometry of rectangles this year. It looks like their approach was mostly aesthetic, though, while we're trying a combination of companion planting and permaculture principles. We also don't have the full sun they do, so it makes sense for us to plant little plots all over our property where we can find the best light.

Last weekend we started lettuce seeds indoors, and this weekend we may even plant peas outside. It may seem a bit too cold and too early, but Mike McGrath doesn't usually steer us wrong. He recommends St. Patrick's day as the best time to plant peas in our area, weather permitting. With that said, no seeds will do well in frozen or waterlogged soil, so we will play it by ear.

Chilly Progress

We're making progress indoors, even if the weather outside is not cooperating, what with this week's March nor'easter and all. The broccoli sprouts have second leaves on them already. The germination rate of our leeks could have been better, but there are still new slowpokes coming up every day, and the first sprouts are already getting all gangly. The other alliums--Spanish and red torpedo onions, shallots, and scallions--are already sprouting, and we just planted pepper and tomato seeds last weekend. Since we're always on a mission to speed and improve germination, for the fussier tomatoes and pepper seeds we filled trays with potting mix only halfway, planted the seeds, and then put them on heating mats so there would be less distance for the heat to travel and less dirt to be warmed up. Those mats aren't very strong; in fact, a friend of ours uses more powerful reptile heating mats instead for his copious pepper plants. Right now our seeds are getting all steamy under a layer of plastic wrap; we should see some heads poking up any day now.

Eggshells?

“What is this a photo of?” you may ask. Why, it’s a quart-sized container full of ground eggshells. But why do we have such a thing? Where did it come from? These are all valid questions, and we have the answers, but they may be less than satisfying.

Last year we planted each tomato seedling with 1/2 C. bone meal, hoping to stave off the dreaded blight known as blossom end-rot. We had no previous experience with this heartbreaking scourge, which renders tomato fruit black and rotten on the vine, but we didn't want to take any chances. And whaddaya know--by July we had quite the healthy crop of black, withered tomatoes as far as the eye could see. End-rot is not a disease but rather a side-effect of uneven water supply. Calcium is supposed to help the tomato plant regulate its water intake during periods of drought and deluge. According to Wikipedia, "blossom end rot can happen even though sufficient calcium is present if watering is irregular." Great. So you're damned if you do, etc.

So what the hell does all of this have to do with a quart of ground eggshells? First, Mark is totally anal about the compost and doesn’t like to put eggshells in there because they take so long to break down. This may have something to do with the fact that he is the one who ends up screening the compost and picking out perfectly preserved eggshell fragments. Second, since they are essentially comprised of calcium, Mark now saves our eggshells (along with those of anyone else he can convince) as a readily available calcium source. He painstakingly peels off the inner membrane, air dries them, and then pulverizes them with our industrial-sized mortar and pestle. Sure, we don’t have enough hours in the day to read great books or do laundry in a timely fashion, but somehow we always make time to crush eggshells the old-fashioned way (although I’m not sure there is any other way to crush eggshells, actually). Incidentally, seashells are another great source of calcium. We're investigating beachfront property as we blog.

So if you’ve come to our house and cocked an eyebrow at a row of empty eggshells on our kitchen windowsill, now at least you know why. All I can say is that our tomato plants damn well better appreciate it. We're not even sure that the added calcium will make a difference. Oh yeah, did we mention that the quart-sized container has enough calcium for a whopping 8 plants? Yay. It's three omelets a day from now until May, baby. And the end-rot problem? We're already laying out the plans for our elaborate, state-of-the-art, permaculture-unfriendly drip irrigation system. But that's another impossibly exciting story...

Saucy

For all of my tears over the endrot on the tomatoes, production this year has been pretty good so far. Many of the damaged fruits were salvageable; we just cut off the ends and used those tomatoes for salsa or sauce. I wish I could post photos of their gorgeousness, but our camera is in the shop. I'd estimate that we've been harvesting about 5 lbs a week for the past two weeks.

Yesterday we had the singular pleasure of serving a deceptively simple insalata caprese at a little family party. Why do we even bother eating tomatoes at any other time of the year?

The Nyagous variety are almost black and terrifically sweet, with probably the best flavor I've ever tasted in a slicing tomato. They don't get huge, but I'll take flavor over size any day. The other winner this year is the Isis Candy cherry tomatoes, which are also incredibly sweet. I like them better than last year's Concords, but Mark thinks they're comparable. Regardless, we're growing both again next year.

In the plum tomato category, the San Marzano are definitely superior to Amish Paste. It seems there's something to the hype after all. We only had a few plants from Catalpa Ridge this year, but there will be more in 2009 for sure.

The Furry Yellow Hogs are just that--well, fuzzy and yellow, anyway. They look like strangely shaped peaches, and taste pretty good, too. Even so, they probably won't make the cut next year when we pare down. Mark only wants to do 16 plants, convinced that they'll produce as much as this year's 36 because they'll produce better when less crowded. I'm skeptical.

Playing Ketchup

We transferred the tomatoes on Thursday--all 63 of them. Here are the numbers:

Nyagous: 20 out of 24 (83%)
Isis Candy: 16 out of 24 (67%)
Amish Paste: 15 out of 24 (63%)
Furry Yellow Hawg: 7 out of 12 (58%)
Snowball: 5 out of 6 (83%)

TOTAL: 63 out of 90 (70%)

These are numbers of actual, viable transplants. We had even higher germination rates if you count the discarded stragglers. We’ve allocated space for 30 tomatoes, so we’re ready to start taking orders from our adoring public. We’re predicting a similar surplus for eggplants and okra.

Last night we applied some more liquid kelp to both our indoor and outdoor plants. We gave the plants their first feeding some time in late March. It’s difficult to gauge the impact of the kelp since we aren’t really doing an experiment with a control group or anything like that. The plants certainly haven’t been hurt by the feeding, though. We also sprayed Nico with some kelp. The results are mixed.

In varmint news, we’ve encountered the most cunning perpetrator to date. His name is Leroy and he’s a bushy-tailed, hyperactive cat. He couldn’t care less about the plants but seems to love nesting atop the row covers over our broccoli. We know this because Mark actually witnessed Leroy in (in)action. This explains our discovery of mysterious holes and tears in the row covers earlier in the week. We’re a little stymied by this behavior but there’s no way we’re letting that little runt outsmart us and our opposable thumbs. Next time Leroy gets “The Hose.

After hardening off in the garage for a week, the onions went into the ground on Saturday. The cipollinis took up so little room that we direct seeded all the extra ones we had, and a couple of rows of the Spanish ones as well. It’s almost time to transplant the leeks as well. The direct-seeded lettuce has started to emerge in little patchwork clusters. Our 2-week-old spinach transplants seem to be doing all right in the garden, but there is no sign yet of their direct-sown companions.

I Say Tomato

We're planting tomato seeds right now--Nyagous, Amish Paste, Isis Candy, the strange new Yellow Hog (a gift), and a few ornamental Snowball. Kate thinks we should be liveblogging this, but we don't want to be held responsible for the resulting clinical boredom.

UPDATE: We also planted eggplant tonight--four kinds, if you can believe it: Casper, Lao Green Stripe, Scarlet Chinese, and a special bonus Sri Lankan variety. A veritable passport full!