Thursday, June 14, 2007

Garden Update 6/14/07

We picked the first of the beans a few days ago. We ate them raw--they were delicious.

We have zucchinis! I think the first ones will be ready to pick in a few days.

Onions are looking better. Okra is growing steadily. I think we will be able to start pulling some red beets next week. (The golden ones appear to be slower-growing.)

The basil is thriving, as are the cukes. Tomatoes are going wild all over the place. I'm beginning to think I should have practiced the one-stem method. I think it may be too late to do it now.

The melon has had a growth spurt and is now sporting many little yellow blossoms.

Tonight I am going to serve salads for dinner. The lettuces will come from my friend D's garden. From my garden, I will add basil and 4 sun sugar cherry tomatoes. I will top it all off with leftover roasted chicken and canellini beans and vinaigrette. Bliss.

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Monday, June 11, 2007

Cut the shit!

I used to be a dog lover, but 15 years of living on Capitol Hill has cured me. I know I should blame the owners and not the dogs. What the hell is wrong with people that they leave their dogs’ shit lying around? The problem is especially noticeable when there is snow on the ground. Too many dog owners appear to be under the impression that dogshit will melt when the snow does.

Of course, Capitol Hill is not alone in housing selfish, short-sighted people. Georgetown is full of them, too. Last week I watched a small (leashed) dog defecate on the sidewalk in front of my son’s school and then gaped as the owner simply walked away. Incredulous, I called after her, “I hope my child doesn’t step in that.” The woman turned and said, in this helpless, whatcha-gonna-do? voice, “I didn’t bring a bag with me.” WTF? Why would you take your dog out for a walk without a bag? I looked her square in the eyes and said, sarcastically, “Nice.” Then she started digging through her purse—gee, she remembers to take her $400 purse with her when she leaves the house, but that plastic bag just slips the mind—and pulled one out, saying triumphantly, “Oh! I found one!” Like I was supposed to congratulate her for cleaning up after her pet.

Lately, you can’t swing a cat in Lincoln Park without stepping in dogshit or being run over by a dog off its leash. It makes me certifiably INSANE. Ape-shit, if you will.

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Thursday, June 07, 2007

Garden Update, 6/7/07

The Sun Sugar cherry tomatoes are turning orange! I also have a few green Dona tomatoes and one green Carmen pepper.

The beans are really growing. I planted the first few squares on April 20th, and they are supposed to take ~8 weeks from sprout (or planting?) to harvest. That means we might have some beans next weekend.

The beets are almost ready—beginning in a week or so, I think.

The basil is thriving, and the oregano looks happier than it did at first. The thyme is still struggling along. The okra and nasturtiums have sprouted.

The onions are starting to look more healthy but are still small and are growing very slowly. The Minnesota midget melon is also a slow-grower so far. The zucchini, on the other hand, is like Audrey from Little Shop of Horrors--it seems to grow inches overnight and is taking over the entire corner of the garden. Looks kinda skeery, too.

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Friday, June 01, 2007

Adventures in Urban Gardening

I have a new hobby: Gardening.


In the city, you ask? Why, yes. My friend K and I are working a 10 x 10 plot in a local community garden.

It’s been a lot of work getting it started. K's husband built us a raised bed with untreated lumber. Then we filled it with a mix of compost, soil, and peat moss.

Next, I planned a square foot garden. It looks something like this:

W

oregano

Thyme

Basil

basil

Pepper

(1)

Pepper

(1)

Bush beans

Bush beans

Cuke

2

thyme

oregano

Basil

Pepper

Pepper

(1)

Pepper (1)

Bush

Beans

Bush

Beans

Cuke

2




pepper

pepper

pepper

Bush beans

Bush beans

Tomato

Red beets (16)

Red beets (16)

Red beets (16)




Bush beans

Bush beans

Tomato

Yellow

Beets (16)

Yellow beets (16)

Yellow beets

(16)




Bush beans (wax)

Bush beans (wax)

Tomato

Onions (16)

Onions (16)

okra






Tomato

Okra

okra

okra




melon


Tomato


Zuke (1)







Tomato









Tomato

I ordered most of my seeds from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds:
  • Contender (Buff Valentine) bush beans
  • Detroit Dark Red beets
  • Golden beets
  • Black Diamond cukes
  • Minnesota midget muskmelon
  • Golden zucchini
  • okra
  • some kind of wax beans

I also ordered plants from the Natural Gardening Company:

  • Tomatoes: Stupice, Sun Sugar cherry, Pruden’s Purple, San Marzano, Zapotec, Dona, and Brandywine
  • Sweet Peppers: Purple Beauty, Corno Di Toro, Ace, and Golden Summer
  • Thyme, basil, and oregano
K also scattered some nasturtium seeds along the path.

The garden layout has been a work in progress. My first error was simply one of stupidity--I didn't follow my map and planted seeds with my garden plan facing west instead of north. This wouldn’t have mattered except the square foot gardening method uses vertical climbs for tomatoes and cukes. Having those vertical climbs on the west side of the garden rather than the north side would have meant that my vertically growing plants would cast shade over their neighbors. So when it came time to plant the tomatoes, I had to pull out some bean sprouts to make room for them.

My next major mistake was instructing K to put the okra between the onions and the zucchini. I thought we had more space there. As you can see above, the okra is too close to the zucchini plant. Once the seeds sprout, we will move the seedlings to the empty squares above the beets.

Where the okra is now, we had planted lettuce seeds. These were a big bust--we only got a few lettuce sprouts, and those refused to grow. I don't know if we planted too late or if our seeds weren't good or what. Luckily, our community garden friend, D, has a bumper crop of lettuces, and she has generously shared her bounty with us.

Our onions have not done very well--they are limping along. This is a mystery, because D gave us these seedlings, and their brethren and sistren are now absolutely thriving in D's garden. But most everything else looks great. And we should have our first harvest in a few weeks: green beans and beets.

K and I take turns watering the garden. It's been so dry that it needs watering every day. I absolutely love doing this. It is so pleasant being there in the evening, just before sunset. I spend a lot of time just standing there, admiring the plants and dreaming of fresh vegies.

We still have a fair bit of work to do. We have to install a vertical climb for the tomatoes and cukes, and we have to move the okra, as I mentioned. We also will need cages for the peppers. Every 2 weeks I've been planting a few new squares of beans, and we'll continue this throught the summer so as to have a continuous harvest of beans. After we harvest the beets (which I should have staggered a la the beans, but I didn't think to do it when I planted them), we will need to plant something in those squares. We could do more beets, staggered this time, and we may use some squares for a few more beans.

I don't know how much, if any, grocery money this will save. Renting the plot costs me $50/year, and K bought the supplies to make the box and stones for the path, and I bought most of the plants and seeds and the vertical climb materials, and we will need to get pepper cages. (Of course, some of those expenses will be one-time costs.) All in all, the author of the book The $64 Tomato may have it right. But I don't care--I have discovered that I am a gardening geek.

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