In praise of enthusiastic plants

chard, originally uploaded by jocelynb. Less than 24 hours elapsed between left-hand and right-hand pictures.

I love the plants that are started inside closer to last frost because they're showmen and keeners. I planted swiss chard (variety Five Colour Silverbeet), zucchini (Costata Romanesco, which I had great luck with last year), and cucumbers (Early Russian and Armenian, which by the way is actually a melon) on Saturday. Over the past couple days it seems they've been sprouting one plant per hour.

When I checked the plants yesterday morning when I woke up, there were a couple of slight disruptions in the soil where the chard was about to poke up. By the evening, half a dozen little plants had sprouted and spread their initial leaves. By this morning there were about 15 shoots. No sign of the zucchini yet, but the Armenian Cucumbers are all sprouted, and so are most of the regular cukes. No offense to the slow germinating peppers and asparagus of earlier this year, but these are my kind of plants. I guess because I have the patience of a first-grader!

And I have more of this to look forward to, because the only seeds left to start indoors (this coming weekend) are the melons and squash. I'm going to try two varieties of watermelon (Sugar Baby and Cream of Saskatchewan) as well as Bennings Green Tint squash. And then I will get to wait for all THOSE to sprout.

April 26 2011: Taking the seedlings out for a walk

Once a week or so, I take my older seedlings out of their watering trays and give them some liquid fertilizer. (Once they get their first set of true leaves, they're ready to start getting fertilizer.) I start them on a very dilute mix (one-quarter of its regular strength) and build them up to full-strength fertilizer by the time they're ready to plant outside. My plants are on about half-strength fertilizer right now. You can see most of my seedlings in this picture -- the only ones that aren't down here are the very new ones which haven't sprouted true leaves yet -- chard, cucumbers, & zucchini, and a couple varieties of flowers. (Oh, and the cauliflower and broccoli are still in the lightbox upstairs.) You can also see the totally decrepit old freezer our house's previous owners left in the basement -- it is too heavy to move up the stairs! HOW DID IT GET DOWN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE? Theory: the house was built around it.

I guess I could just give them fertilizer in their usual watering trays, but I'm wary of that because I don't want the fertilizer to collect in there -- it stops being dilute if the plants are sitting in it. So instead I take them out and put them on other trays just for today.

This is kind of a big job at this point, so to help make the work worthwhile I'll leave them sitting out for a couple hours with the fan on. I'm not sure if this is just superstition, but I have heard that setting seedlings in the breeze from a fan helps to prevent damping off.

I'm contemplating starting to move some of the seeds outside during the day -- partly to harden them off, but also partly just because I'm running out of space and lights. If it was just a little warmer, I would consider planting some of the tougher plants out. We are still getting night-time temperatures of 0 or a few degrees below, so I think it's almost time to plant out the artichokes, broccoli and cauliflower. In the meantime, I will just have to keep squishing them in, since I'm obviously not going to stop starting new plants -- that's a little too logical.

Dispatch from the basement (Zone 2 probably)

I have a great feeling of accomplishment because I finally washed all the little pots from last year's seed-starting. This is such a boring job, I never feel like doing it, but now that it's done I do feel good about it.




 

And here is a picture of the first artichoke to poke through. It still has its seed casing stuck to it. I will give it a day or two to see if it can crack it on its own. I've pulled them off in the past (VERY carefully) with no ill effects. But I don't like playing God :)

As of today I am up to 8 asparagus sprouts and 1 artichoke. I've been impressed with the germination of the asparagus. The package said they germinate in 2-8 weeks, and I had my first sprout 10 days after planting. I really think my heat mats help with this. (Yes, the heat mats also constitute playing God. For some reason it's different.)

Outside temperature: -16. Believe it or not this is balmy compared to the -25 to -30 weather we've had for the past couple weeks. Bring on spring!

the umpire calls hotbox

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The Hotbox!
I have 3 little baby asparaguses now so today I moved them into the light box I made this winter. I like to call it the HOTBOX!!! because it reminds me of Wes Anderson.

I made it out of a storage tub on wheels and IKEA components. HOTBOX!

Mini project: self-watering seed starter

Mini project of the day: self-watering seed starter. I'm starting another set of seeds today (artichokes!) and I had some plastic bottles and containers sitting around on my counter I decided to re-use.

I cut this water bottle about in half and turned the top around and stuck it inside the bottom. Easy. The self-watering part actually consists of a hole I punched in the lid, which I then threaded some wick through. I used wick from patio lanterns because I happened to have some sitting around, but I think any cotton string or fabric would do the trick. The final step will probably be a cover of some kind, just until the seeds sprout -- maybe just the working man's greenhouse, saran wrap. So far it seems to be doing pretty well -- I gave it a thorough misting after I put the seeds in, and watched the water move down into the water reservoir via the wick. There is something so satisfying about this, and something so counter-intuitive, to me. I will never really believe in the notion of "self-watering," were the evidence not BEFORE MY VERY EYES.

I love the versatility of plants, the way they grow almost anywhere. I recently picked up a new gardening book and (like every other gardening book seemingly) it features little tomato and chile plants growing beautifully in old olive oil tins. There is something so appealing about these images to me, but I never seem to find any attractive old containers lying around. Everything in my house is clear plastic, and once contained Chinese or Indian takeout, it seems. Oh well. The important thing is that plants WILL grow in there, they just won't look as elegant.

I have a couple more improvised planter projects I've been working on, which I will post over the next few weeks as I start to move plants into them.

The first seeds of spring

The winter is still feeling really bleak here. We woke up this morning to a fresh layer of snow over everything.  Last week it was down to the mid- minus-30s with the windchill. And yet! Today has this note in my calendar: 12W Asparagus. It's hard to believe, but we're about 10 weeks from last frost -- 12 weeks from safe planting. Before I started a garden, I never would have guessed how much this feeling of anticipation and excitement over the year to come could help the last few months of winter go by faster.

So here they are: Asparagus, variety UC-157, an open-pollinated hybrid variety that is supposed to be be an early producer. I pre-soaked them for about two hours and then planted them. (And yes, those are leftover cake container lids helping to keep them moist. That's how I roll: eco-friendly, cheap AND tacky.) I've heard that asparagus are supposed to be tough to start from seed, and maybe not worth the effort -- finnicky, slow germinators, and then at least two years from planting until they actually produce good asparagus spears. I did see some crowns (the one-year-old plants) at garden centres last year, and I was tempted by them, but by that point it was too late in the season to plant them -- and I have also read that they take a long time to recover from transplanting. I don't have high hopes for these ones, but if they're looking at all promising in three months' time, I will find a (permanent, sunny, well-drained, trench-dug) spot for them in my garden. Because, honestly, they are SO GOOD baked in phyllo pastry.

Succulents

I've been just obsessed with succulents lately. I think this post on Apartment Therapy sparked the initial obsession. Look at this amazing planter! I love the range of textures and colours you can find in succulents, the little leaves that just beg to be touched, the spiky otherworldly shapes they grow in. They can grow very close together-- they don't mind being a bit squished.

Here's my version--somewhat crappy photo with my iphone. I picked up the blue container from the discount shelf at Winners. I filled the bottom with styrofoam packing peanuts to make it lighter and to improve drainage-- succulents really don't like having wet roots.

And I keep buying more. I was at the surprisingly awesome Walmart garden centre today and I picked up another bagful:






It's astonishing to me that anything survives our winters, let alone these delicate-looking little plants that look like they grew on another planet. I've already planted a bunch in my outside planters, and hopefully I will get these ones into the ground today or tomorrow. My desk at work is also being overwhelmed by them. The Safeway near my work carries cute little ceramic pots full of succulents too. I'm finding them everywhere.

the May spring fake-out, and the despair that accompanies it.

This happens every year, and every year it's like I have no memory of anything that has happened in previous years. The garden centres are open. There were plants for sale at the farmer's market last week. Therefore, I must shop for plants! And my indoor seedlings are looking bushy and anxious to meet the outdoors. In fact, if anything, I am running out of room in my basement for them. And I have a whole bench full of new perennials and annuals in my living room, under my biggest available window.




Whereas outside it looks like this:




You're mean, Edmonton. We woke up yesterday morning to a huge dump of snow, cold, miserable winds, and a sense of self-pity.

However, when I woke up this morning I know it would be miserable outside, and I also knew there was a chance that I would have a few more sprouts. And lo and behold, the first of the watermelons:




That's a sugar baby watermelon, and even though at this moment it seems unbelievable that it will ever survive outdoors, I know that in a few weeks today will be like a half-remembered nightmare.