Special

Feed Me.

Has it really only been two weeks since our last post?! There’s so much dirt to fill you in on...

We’re now in our Spring transition phase, moving away from the generously rewarding picking time, to clearing out and starting over again. There are a number of processes in the works, and are all at varying stages. One of the most fun to witness are the seeds that were sown just a couple weeks ago in their cozy tray-nooks on our balcony that are already granting a robust preview of their miraculous evolutionary destinies. 

Our first pear tomato, sown a couple of months ago...

Amazing also the renewed energies in ourselves as we plot and plan, query and ponder.

Avocodo Sprouting!

Speaking of planning, have you ever heard of Mother Earth News Magazine? Well, it’s pretty great. We subscribed for something ridiculous like $10 a year, plus we signed up to use their garden planner. Ok, this thing is just cool. It helps plan out and design your garden with visual tools, but it also has helpful hints and details about what you’re planning on growing based on the exact area you live in. It even sends email reminders about when to sow what, etc. If you’re a geek like me, check out the site: www.motherearthnews.com 

Do you remember when I mentioned that after we got the regular compost bins (2 big’ns) we also got a worm bin going? Those little squirmy munchers are totally J’s territory, and he’s been doing a superb job of keeping them fed, fat, and happy (we can only assume since they keep eating, producing, and reproducing). He recently started it all over again, dumping the castings and many of the worms into the near-ready compost bin and collecting the “tea”, and one of the things we finally looked into is what to do with it now that we’ve got it. Well, we learned that it (the tea) can be mixed into the soil prior to planting, or used to spray on seeds/seedlings/plants to help nourish and protect them from pathogens and pests. Pretty nifty stuff! For some good info on worm composting, check out this site: http://www.allotment.org.uk/worm-composting/brewing-worm-tea-from-worm-compost.php

The weekend before last, we took a chance when the storm let up to drop by for a quick hello at the garden. We weren’t expecting much, considering that most of the life up there is coming to the end of their cycles. An hour later, we had 5 beautiful beets, a handful of shell peas, and…wait for it…a bouquet of those Cosmic Purple Carrots we’ve been waiting for! Here’s the story: J says, “Hey, should we pull one and just see how it looks?” Me, “Sure, why not?” Now, take a look at our first pull, and imagine a whole lot of hooting and jumping around by yours truly, “WE HAVE CARROTS! WE HAVE PURPLE CARROTS!”

Yes, I really did say and do those things. There we were, all excited, as we started pulling some of the other ones, but guess what we found: we are the proud growers of some very special, very purple, multi-shaped, sized and LEGGED, root vegetables (are they still called carrots when they look like extraterrestrial beings?!).

 Oh well, they still taste like carrots...that's good, right?

The Reapers

My oh my, what a rewarding adventure this has been so far. Not a day - or meal - goes by that we don't recognize our good fortunes in having been open to the opportunity to build and tend this project. Seven months ago, we were your average urban consumers of all things store bought (and grown where and how?!).

Peas GALORE!

The last month has been abundantly overflowing with tasty rewards in the forms of the Lacinato kale, broccoli, golden beets, sage, spinach and Green Arrow shell peas. The carrots have formed a beautiful, dense canopy to cool their burrows, but aren't quite ready to show their lengths above ground; the onions are fattening up nicely; the Sugar Ann snap peas are still showing up in our salads but we can tell they've about run their course; and the Honey Butternut squashes have just barely begun to flower, so we'll be keeping a close eye on them.

A Carrot Canopy

Did we mention that 200+ square feet of raised beds just wasn't enough for us? Well, we decided we wanted to try a little something on our east facing patio that gets some pretty darn good morning sun. A few months ago, J and I were strolling down the street and found about ten or so of these great planters left for the taking outside of one of our local flower shops, Oop's A-Daisy. We're now host and hostess to a Stevia plant, chamomile, peppermint & spearmint, a couple kale plants, some Red Barron onions, and a view obstructing bush of soon to be cherry tomatoes. If you think you don't have anywhere or way to grow, I bet we could help you figure something out :)

Yesterday was a good one to enjoy the afternoon shade with a sweet iced tea, a fresh bag of organic potting soil (E. B. Stone's for flowers & veggies), and our new seed packets littering the little space left on our patio...

                  Summer's All-Organic Line-Up:
Yellow Straight-neck Squash
                    Tavor (globe) Artichoke
      Sweet Pearl Corn
                                 Florence Fennel
                Finger Eggplant
   Green Finger Cucumber
                            (More) Golden Beets
                                                        (More) Red Barron Onion

All of the above are ruminating over germinating as you read, and a few others are to be direct sown as soon as some of the old tenants have moved out of their beds.

Our Current Quandaries
A couple things we're pondering are how to save the seeds of our current harvest and what to do with all the worm tea we've got. J's been so good at feeding those squirmy little ingesting machines that we've got quite a bit of it - but how much water to dilute it with and how to apply; now those are our questions...

 

 

 

Our garden sanctuary

So grateful we are to live in a time when all we have to do is "search" and we find everything we need.