Gardening

Into Every Garden A Little Rain Must Fall

July 6, 2017 by Leah Leave a Comment

Don’t ever let anyone tell you a plant won’t break your heart. You know how sometimes therapists recommend starting with a plant for people who are getting over a bad relationship or trying to move on? I think they do that to be cruel. Because plants will break you. You will pour your heart and soul into them, fill yourself with hope that they will thrive, and just like that they’re dead and you’re alone. The thought is that if you can keep a plant alive, you’re ready for a relationship again, but that is crap. Get a cat. If you can make a cat love you, you’re ready for a relationship.

I love posting pictures of my vegetable garden online. It’s fun to show the harvest we get and then have people over the house to cook meals for them with the food we grew. But there is an ugly side to gardening that every person who’s gotten their hands dirty has experienced. Sometimes there are circumstances beyond your control that cause things to go awry. While it’s great to show the happy successes of the garden each year, I think it’s also important to acknowledge the utter failures and frustrations that sometimes go along with the effort of planting.

This year in middle Tennessee the rain has been relentless. Monsoon levels of rain have poured onto our little garden. While this might sound like a good thing in summer when water from the sky can be hard to come by, the principle of “everything in moderation” definitely applies here. The humidity has been off the charts, and with days and days of downpours (long ones and short ones) that have lasted for weeks/months, my plants have stuck their middle finger high in the air and said, “F this!!!”

After being away on a trip, I came home last night to a graveyard. Rob tried to warn me how bad it was after all the rain, but I thought, “How bad can it be?” Rotten cucumbers that didn’t even have a chance to mature. Peppers on the ground that literally fell off the plant because they rotted off. Basil that had dropped all its leaves (Why??? Why did you let go?!). Tomatoes covered in blight valiantly trying to hang on. And squash that has succumbed to vine borer. I planted the squash later this year after getting some advice from a farmer that planting later helps avoid vine borer. Liar. I have not had a worse year of planting and it broke my heart to see so much effort drowned out by relentless rainy days.

You haven’t lived until a rotten cucumber has fallen through your fingers…

These look lovely! Yay, pepper success!

Nooooo!!!! WHY??????

It looks like a war zone in there…tomato juice everywhere, skin barely hanging on, guts splayed all over the ground. I’ll never be the same.

The thing I have noticed in my garden over the years is that some stuff works and some stuff doesn’t. And every year is different. Something that worked great one year might fail miserably the next. It’s enough to make a person want to throw in the towel and stomp around in the dirt, but this morning, I rolled up my sleeves, put on my big girl sunhat and got down to business. I pulled up all the old beans that were finished, all the rotting cucumbers, all the leafless basil, and most of the weeds that were slowly creeping into every available free space. As for the tomatoes, I’m going to let them ripen and harvest as many as I can before I pull them out.

The beauty of plants is that they can be grown again. I planted some Purple Hyacinth Beans since the hummingbirds love the flowers. Then I planted a different variety of cucumbers that worked well last year. This year I tried a burpless variety and could not have had worse luck with them. I am also re-starting basil, zinnias, and 18 more Martino’s Roma tomatoes under the grow light to see if I can have a second crop that might survive. The weather here is very warm through September so it could work. Again, it’s all an experiment. The flowers in the garden have been thriving with the extra rain, so I’m going to throw some color out there and enjoy the beauty even if it can’t feed us. Sometimes that’s all we can do, take the good with the bad, and know that the sun will keep on shining.

Seed Starting 101: The Dirt On Getting Stuff To Grow Indoors

April 10, 2017 by Leah Leave a Comment

Every year, January rolls around and as I’m recovering from the holidays I get a bright, shiny gift in the mail….my Baker Creek Heirloom Seed catalog. This book is so gorgeously printed that it causes a person to wonder how on earth they can afford to print such a quality piece of marketing material by just selling seeds. I mean….

A friend recommended this company to me several years ago and I’ve never looked back. Forget the tepid, boring, lifeless varieties sold in ugly cardboard displays at big box stores. When I get seeds from Baker Creek, I feel like I’m taking part in a tradition that dates back to ancient methods of farming. I am getting an untainted heirloom product that has been lovingly preserved for generations because of its flavor, hardiness, profundity, and sheer beauty as a plant. Most years, I’ve spent less than $30 on seeds. Considering the amount of produce that comes out of our plot, this is an absolute steal! If I sound a little nuts in the head, it’s because I’ve spent years of my life in the dirt from when I was an awkward wee lass selling tomatoes on the side of the road up to this point where I sweat my arse off in the southern heat of summer, trying to coax food from a clay-hardened ground.

Here in Nashville we have a saying, “It all begins with a song.” Here in my yard I say, “It all begins with a seed.” The first year I tried growing from seed was a dismal failure. I got all my little cell packs, planted tomato seeds in them and put them in our laundry room which has big windows and lots of natural light. The seeds sprouted, then they kept getting longer and longer, but the leaves weren’t growing, then they sort of rotted off right at the soil line and just died on me. I felt like a total failure as a gardener and bought starter plants that year. To be clear, there is nothing wrong with buying starter plants, however, they do carry risks. Many starter plants come from other parts of the country than where you live, and especially with tomatoes, they are susceptible to carrying blight which will totally ruin your crop and spread like wildfire if not immediately addressed. Some starter plants come pre treated with pesticides which kill bees and other beneficial insects that would otherwise help your plants flourish. And sometimes they are mislabeled, so that lovely mild pepper you thought you were planting is actually a hellfire, rip your throat out, bastion of flame that will burn your molten eyes right out of your head. I speak from experience.

What I love about growing from seed is that the world becomes your oyster in terms of varieties available to you (except oysters are gross, snot on a shell basically, so just use that as a metaphor and know that I don’t actually eat them). Every year I grow squash and beans I’ve never seen anywhere else, except in this garden. I grow tomatoes that cannot be purchased from local farmers or supermarkets. And even flower varieties I would never think to plant because they are annuals have found a home in my flower beds because they are so different and pretty. You just never know! So after that first failed attempt at growing from seed I realized that the single most important factor to starting anything indoors is light. A sunny window might seem like enough light, but odds are your plants will end up leggy with long thin strands of stems they can’t stand on.

LIGHT

I purchased a grow light from Amazon and have never looked back. The Purple Reign light can fit two full flats underneath it, so what I do is I start some and then move them outdoors once leaves are established so I have room for plants like tomatoes and peppers that need constant light and warmth. I have it set up on a timer and leave the light on for 14 hours per day. At this rate, it takes about 4-6 weeks for my tomatoes to reach a stage of health and readiness for the outdoors. I don’t plant anything outside or leave anything out overnight until the temperatures stay above 50 degrees. Typically, I keep the grow light about 2 inches above the plants. As they get taller, you raise the light up so the leaves don’t burn on the bulbs. If the light is kept too high above the plants, the seedlings will grow taller in an effort to reach it which could result in leggy, weak stems.

SOIL

As far as what to plant the seeds in, I use an organic seed starting soil that you can purchase anywhere. The reason I use this and not regular potting soil is that seed starter tends to be more sterile. Potting soil has a tendency to develop fungus gnats which are a total pain. If you notice small gnats flying around your seedlings, create a diluted mixture with a drop of Dawn and some water to make a mild soapy wash. Water the plants with that and it should take care of the problem. This will not harm your seedlings. Seed starting soil is very light, so when you first try to water it, it’ll float on top of the water and really piss you off and make you want to throw things. What I like to do is use a spray bottle to wet the tops of the soil and then I water everything from below by adding water to the trays as needed. The spray bottle is gentler when the seeds are just sprouting and will keep you from drowning the seedlings with a watering can. Once they’ve popped out of the soil I think it’s better to water from below so the stems don’t rot off at the soil line (this is mostly a tomato issue called damping off, which I think is a disgusting name. Imagine using that in conversation. “Oh, how are you today?” “Man, not so great, I’ve got a bad case of damping off.”).

CONTAINERS

Many seed starting kits come with these tiny plastic black cells and I think these things are crap because they are way to small to house the roots of most plants. Your seedlings will need to be transplanted before they’re even ready to go outside. Tomatoes have very deep roots and squash must not be root bound before being planted outside, so I got these 3 1/2 in square pots at a garden supply store for $0.30 apiece (you could order them online too) and I can fit 18 of them in a tray. I put one tomato per pot, one squash plant per pot, and then for herbs and flowers I just drop a bunch of seeds in there and have a cluster in each pot. For peppers, I find they work great in 4-6 cell containers because they grow slower and the plants stay small. I also put my cucumbers in 6 cell containers. Most of my containers are ones I have saved over the years from plants I bought at garden centers, so they are all reused. If you buy berries at the store, the plastic containers they come in are excellent because they have drainage holes built in the bottom. I also don’t prefer peat pots because first of all, the harvesting of peat moss is bad for the environment and screws up a lot of marshy habitats. Secondly, I’ve seen the peat pots develop mold and need to be peeled off anyway before the seedling is planted in the ground, which totally defeats the purpose of planing in a peat pot…I digress. This is just personal preference.

AIR/SUN

Once you notice that your seedlings are beginning to look hardy and have strong stems, you can begin what is called hardening off. This is when you take them outside for a portion of the day to let them get natural sunlight and air movement that will strengthen the stems. You have to be careful about this though because sometimes direct, hot sunlight can burn the leaves on a tender seedling. For things like squash or cucumbers, you should be totally fine to put in direct sun (make sure they are watered so they won’t dry out). For plants like tomatoes or certain more delicate herbs, some shade under an umbrella will suffice until the plants are strong enough to handle full sun. Also, don’t accidentally put them outside when a torrential downpour is in the forecast or you will hate yourself.

DIRECT SOWING

There are certain plants that you can absolutely start right in the ground and do not need to start inside ahead of time. Examples are squash, cucumbers, herbs like basil, parsley, cilantro, dill, beans, and leafy greens like spinach and lettuce. Many of these will sprout in 7-10 days and absolutely take off once they’re established. I have chosen to start my squash and cukes ahead of time because I have vine borer and cucumber beetles in this region of the country. I find that giving the plants a head start strengthens them against these pests for a little longer and actually lets me harvest a fair amount before the squash plant needs to be pulled. A farmer recently told me that way to avoid vine borer is to plant AFTER their season is done, which is around the beginning of June. I am going to try this for this season and report back. Vine borer in the South have two rounds, so if I plant in between, maybe I will get less damage. We shall see.

TRANSPLANTING

OK, so you’ve grown these plants from tiny little seeds and they seem so fragile, pathetic really, like a strong gust of wind could blow them to smithereens, or a feisty mockingbird could have its way and decimate an entire row of tomatoes just by tweeting at them. Once I’ve figured out the layout of the garden and where I want the plants to go, I bring out only the ones that are ready to go into the ground, so the others don’t wilt in the sun. For tomatoes, I add crushed eggshells to the hole before planting them because it’s a natural way to add calcium to the ground, which in turn can help keep skins from splitting later on. You can save eggshells in a Ziplock in the fridge or pulse them in a food processor to get them fine enough. I also put a small ring of newspaper around the neck of each seedling which will protect it from cutworms. Cutworms are brown caterpillars that chew the stems of seedlings and kill a plant before it’s even had a chance to start. Tomatoes can also be planted rather deep if the stems are leggy because roots will grow off of the stem.

For squash and cucumbers, I am very careful not to break their stems because they snap a bit easier. I don’t believe in making mounds for squash or cukes, it just seems unnecessary. Plant the soil line of the seedling even with the soil line of the ground. For others, like herbs, just plant as you would any flower that you bought at a nursery. I love grouping herbs like basil as opposed to separating and planting single plants here and there. Keep in mind when you first plant the seedlings, they will look wilty for a bit and you might think they’re going to keel over and die. Keep an eye on them, water them, but don’t over water them (no helicopter parenting), and they will perk up once new roots start growing. Here are a couple of pics from last year. The first one is right after the seedlings were planted and they look sad. Then they perked up…

So that is what I do. A lot of this is personal preference and there are so many other ways to successfully grow seeds indoors, although I do think a light is a necessity regardless. Some things have worked better for me than others, and this year I’m really happy with what’s coming up so far. It’s ALWAYS an experiment. Every year is different. The weather can make or break the season. Too much rain, stuff rots. Too little rain, stuff dries out. Sometimes one variety is a total fail in your area, but another variety of the same thing could become your new favorite that you’ll plant year after year. It just depends!!! Please feel free to comment with tips and tricks that have worked for you. I’m always learning and love to hear what other gardeners have discovered in their own plots. Happy planting!!!

Birds and Blossoms: The Garden Takes Flight

May 18, 2016 by Leah Leave a Comment

A lot has happened in the past month! Gardening, hiking, traveling, friends, home stuff…I’m way behind, so I’m just focusing on the gardening portion of that action. Contain your excitement and hold onto your plants…

This year we added one ton, as in 2,000 pounds, of compost to the garden. While this seems like a lot of compost, it only gave about an inch of coverage to the plot. The city of Franklin has an incredible compost program. The guy who runs it is educated in soil management and has a real passion for what he does, his enthusiasm is contagious. You can go to the compost lot and for $20 per yard (about one truckload), you can get some really rich dirt to add to your garden. We got two yards, dumped it all in there, tilled for a second time this season, and then smoothed it all out before adding plants.

I had some serious problems with the garden last year. The three straight weeks of rain in the beginning of the season pretty much destroyed all the tomatoes and fostered a host of pests that were impossible to get rid of later in the season. I also lost the fight with the weeds and nearly ended up in tears a couple of times as I pulled tree-sized invaders out of the beds. It was too much. So this year, barring bad weather, my way of combatting these challenges involved tilling twice, rotating where everything was located, treating portions of the soil with a mixture of soapy water to hopefully kill any larvae still present, and adding a heavy layer of mulch to the path that will hopefully smother weed growth at least in that section.

I also purchased a grow light this year and grew everything from heirloom seeds so I knew exactly what was going into the garden. Starter plants can often carry diseases, pests, or chemicals that people are unaware of, and I wasn’t taking the chance. I have to admit that when I put those pathetic little seedlings out into the world, I was 110% confident they were all going to die. They drooped and stuck their middle fingers up at me and threatened a mass suicide attempt as I begged them to survive in the cold, cruel world of April. Luckily, the sunshine worked its magic and everything is growing like crazy now…

I’ve never grown spinach before, but since it was the one thing Rob asked for this year, I threw some seeds in the dirt. We have more than I know what to do with. One thing I hate about this is the bugs. I find myself obsessively washing this stuff 8 times, spinning it out, and examining each leaf because creatures stick to these leaves like white on rice. I think in the fall/winter, I’m going to attempt growing some inside under the grow light where I won’t have to worry about tiny invaders.

Three years in, the asparagus has hit its stride. We harvested for about 3 weeks before allowing the plants to grow and replenish their energy. This is probably my favorite vegetable garden plant. It’s so easy. Dig a trench, plant the crowns, cover with a pile of compost/manure, let them grow for two years, and then voila, you have delicious asparagus that tastes better than anything you’ll buy in the store.

Aside from the practical chore of growing food, the flowers around the house have made everything so lovely this year. A group of peonies that were here long before I was were relocated from a shady spot and now look like this…

The winter was so mild that the sage in the herb garden bloomed. The smell is heavenly, like Thanksgiving Day!

Dianthus, euphorbia, and geraniums have brightened everything up, along with yarrow, lavender, clematis, and a few early daylilies…

One thing I’ve noticed while sitting in front of my huge office window is how many birds we have in the yard. There are tons! Woodpeckers, bluebirds, finches, sparrows, blackbirds, warblers, titmouse, juncos, chickadees, a very lively brown thrasher, cardinals, mockingbirds…their colors flit past so quickly that I wonder how often they go unnoticed, how few people stop to appreciate their loveliness. Right now, we have a blackbird nest in the large pine next door, a family of 5 just left the bluebird house, a robin’s nest in an apple tree, a mockingbird nest in the weeping cherry, and I recently discovered a finch nest in the explosion of clematis by our front walk.

Every year we have a family of bluebirds in a little house attached to the back fence. This is the first year I’ve been able to watch them from start to finish. I didn’t actually see any of them leave the nest, although one was perilously close one day, hanging out of the opening, but still too timid to go for it. Yesterday, I saw papa bluebird feeding a speckled fledgling on the fence. Bluebirds really are harbingers of happiness because I feel giddy every time I see them. These pictures were taken over a couple of weeks as they grew, up to the day the last two flew the coop.

Each day the yard looks a little different and I walk around in awe of life and growth and beauty. The ability to hike in the mornings before work has also re-opened my eyes to how incredible this world that we live in truly is. I walk a lot, Rob thinks I’m crazy half the time because on the weekends all I want to do is walk. Mostly, it comes from a desire to be outside, out in the air and sunshine, surrounded by the trees and the flowers as they put on a spectacular show for those who take the time to slow down enough to notice.

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better. ~ Albert Einstein

We Didn’t Win The Powerball: Hello, 2016!

January 14, 2016 by Leah Leave a Comment

David Bowie has died. Another creator’s voice silenced when the world felt there was still so much to give. A reminder to all of us that life change change on a dime, that it’s never long enough to fully accomplish all we intend. And then there is Alan Rickman…I don’t even know where to begin with this one. He will forever be Colonel Brandon and Severus Snape to me, in that order. He was as dashing a figure as ever there was and such a brilliant actor. He will be missed. Always…

The end of 2015 slipped past quietly. Any time I spend New Year’s Eve at home on Long Island there is nothing to do. Everyone I know up there is praying in the New Year, faithfully on their knees as midnight comes and goes, ushering in the unknown future by acknowledging God first. As a kid this used to drive me crazy. The clock would get closer and closer to midnight and they’d all still be praying…what about the ball drop? What about screaming Happy New Year and singing Auld Ang Syne? What about bear hugs all around and champagne and cheers? Instead, fervent requests for the fate of our country, peace in the Middle East, the homeless in our community…on they prayed through the strike of an old grandfather clock in some distant corner of the house. As an adult, I hold dear their reverence.

It’s a notion that I would love to grab hold of, to say that my faith is strong enough to want to eschew things like frivolous celebration, but is celebration not a prayer of thankfulness itself? I no longer care about a ball dropping in Times Square, but every year when midnight rolls around, the slate is wiped clean, a new day dawns, and I start thinking about new adventures…not what I want to change and inevitably miserably fail at, but where to go, what new things to see this year that will broaden my understanding of beauty and this great, vast world that we live in? I worry that time will elapse and there will be places my heart longs to stand in that will go unseen. Trappings of career, money, house, and family all contribute to the inability to drop everything and go. I want to leave it all behind and hike the Appalachian Trail, to recover bits of myself that have been lost along the way, to look into new faces and experience God on a mountaintop, a
literal mountaintop. But I remain responsible, tied to a life carefully built, tenuously held together, and most of the time, happily walked in. Sigh…

Winter has settled in. Finally! I thought I was a woman tied to spring and could live happily in a world where the temperature is always 72 degrees, but this year I understand that I am a woman of the seasons and each one has its purpose. The frost and cold brings a refreshing comfort in knowing the plants will at last lose the old foliage they’ve been hanging onto, the dangerous bugs will finally die of exposure, and
the bulbs will bloom in spring. The garden that is a blank canvas of tired soil will once again be renewed and ready to receive the new year’s crop. The seeds have been ordered, the grow light is set up, and gardening books are being read. Winter’s bite means that the warmth of spring is on the way.

I have embarked on what I fear will be my total failure as a gardener. I planted seeds. I faithfully ordered the usual stock, with a few new ones thrown in, from Baker Creek Heirloom seeds, but this year instead of purchasing heirloom tomato plants, I’m attempting to grow my own. I tried this a few years ago, but it was
such a disastrous failure that I gave up entirely and have since direct-sown seeds into the ground and purchased tomato plants. But this year, I decided to have another go at it with the knowledge that my
self esteem may be damaged forever. The varieties you can buy in seed form are so much more interesting! It’s like shopping in the shoe department at Walmart versus going to Bergdorf‘s.
When you start from seed, the world opens and the Pradas and Valentinos of tomatoes are suddenly at your fingertips! I’m sticking with mostly heirloom cherry varieties this year since I’ve found that the large
tomato plants have a very small yield and the likelihood that a squirrel will taste my prize tomatoes before I do is infuriatingly high.

Every year in the garden has been a calendar period of sheer experimentation. What will the bugs destroy this year? Which organic spray mixture will actually kill them? Answer: just forget it, you have to kill yourself in order to kill the bugs. How many tomatoes will the squirrels steal and will I get enough sauce to freeze through the winter? Which cucumber variety produces the nicest, straightest fruits without tasting bitter if left on the vine? Why are carrots so stupid? Does the asparagus prefer being uncovered after frost or left to grow through its mulch cover? Why don’t apple trees bloom????? Which basil variety do we prefer? There are so many! How much thinning do beets actually need? Answer: a lot. How many tons of mulch, compost, humus, and manure will it take before my soil consistency is loamy like the community garden at the Warner Nature Center, of which my envy knows no bounds???

I haven’t figured it out yet, any of it. And this year promises to be just as experimental with just as many foot stomping failures that will inevitably make me want to throw garden rakes at our neighbor’s awful,
noisy ducks. The work involved in a garden of our size (19’x35′) is greater than I ever could have realized and the weeds are a particular challenge, a force of evil which cannot be thwarted. I already feel torn between the desire to hike every weekend and the backbreaking work it will take to maintain the garden through the prettiest outdoor seasons of the year. All of it goes hand in hand, really. A friend once said to me that he couldn’t figure out if gardeners were either psychotic or just a bunch of people who love the outdoors. Precisely!