A flower’s eye view of me, taking its picture.
While at the incredible Howard County Conservancy today, I accidentally flipped the camera on my iPhone and caught myself in the act.
I look ridiculous taking plant close-ups, yes. Especially with a phone.
I love it. Like stopping to smell the roses, but twice as nice.
First 2012 BBQ Sunday! Quick, yard makeover!
Or just mulch.
Mulch is magical.
It conserves water by retaining moisture, fosters earthworm activity, cools garden beds, represses weed growth and looks good.
Choosing mulch can get highly personal. I like shredded pine bark mulch. Home Depot (yes, I do go there) has shredded bark for about $3 – $4 per big bag (2 cu feet). It breaks down after about six months but, since we aren’t set up for composting, it’s a two for one since the broken down mulch feeds the soil.
Debates on soil needing a nitrogen adjustment vs. not needing one as mulch breaks down seem split. Our plants along the mulched border bed look good, but maybe the the little homemade fertilizer brews are offsetting any mulch effects.
Skip the dyed mulch or check products on the Mulch and Soil Council site to understand what you’re buying. Died mulch may contain treated wood from pallets or construction materials which might undo all your organic gardening efforts.
Twitter was abuzz this morning (April 28th) with talk of mulch. @SeasonalWisdom pointed out the tree rule goes for other plants as well, “Leave space between stems and mulches to avoid pest + pathogen problems.”
Likewise, @GardenManifesto noted “I’ve heard to put on a t-shirt not a turtleneck.” Perfect.
Our soaker hose and its leader hose sorely needed replacing. I like to hide it under the mulch so today was the day. Rats chewed through the leader hose over winter and the old soaker hose earned a few tourniquets last summer.
Rain moved in as we finished, so no after mulch pictures, but just imagine it looking much better than the before pictures.
What’s your preferred mulch? Do you use soakers for any garden beds?
Miss B’s and Mr. O’s beans look great and look huge in their Ben and Jerry’s pints because they’re beans.
Mr. O is out of town but they left a shiny new toddler wheelbarrow in the backyard to share. What better inaugural run than filling it with dirt to transplant a pair of beans!
Don’t take bean growing advice from me, I tried growing them in the fall of 2010 to pathetic results. No matter, it’s spring 2012 now.
B was seriously into getting the first bean into the ground, telling it to do so as I separated the pair and eagerly digging a hole for it. As for transplanting the other into our repaired pot, once she helped fill it with dirt, she was out of there.
She had bigger plans for the wagon.
I posted the pic our two year old eating chives on tumblr yesterday.
The Greedy Gardener summed up in a comment my entire philosophy on the importance of providing real food to our children:
I think the best way to encourage kids to eat veg is to grow it at home – it becomes part of every day life rather than a penance rewarded by cake
I was scarred for life when Bunny (our child’s nickname, one of many) was a few months old and we stayed with friends who had two daughters, about ages 4 and 6. If it didn’t come in a package or look like white pasta, they wouldn’t eat it. Period.
So much packaged food is something to eat, but it isn’t food.
Children 100 years ago didn’t survive on squeezable fruit sauce and puffed toddler snacks. They ate food that was cooked and prepared in a kitchen.
Children of developing countries don’t have Go-Gurt.
Toddlers in India eat – wait for it – Indian food.
Spices and all.
Street food in Rio de Janeiro (and everywhere else we went in Brazil) is real food – kids have cups of fruit, pastries filled with meat and cheese, sticks of roasted cheese…
Not everyone can grow vegetables for their kids or manage a garden – the reality is people work multiple jobs, don’t have the know how to get started, don’t have the hours in the day to get it going or the space for a few containers. But the importance of farmer’s markets and access to real grocery stores (produce at Wal-Mart and Target matters, regardless of the farming practices) is so fundamental.
Smart phones are bringing the internet into households that never before had it (to both low income and rural communities). Buying fresh vegetables, looking up how to cook them and serving them with meals is a vital part of raising healthy kids. Even if only a few times a week, it matters. Adding them to a frozen pizza before cooking it is legitimate.
I’m preaching to the audience if you’re reading this. But realize your influence as gardeners. You can grow a child’s love of herbs, fruits and vegetables:
- Invite a busy neighbor and their child over to pick a few strawberries.
- Let your nieces and nephews smell all your garden herbs and choose a few for dinner. Better yet, make grilled cheese sandwiches in a skillet with the herbs.
- Help the Sunday School teacher do a few lessons on sowing seeds and reaping the rewards (radishes are fast and fun – you can scare up something to grow them in and you can tote back and forth to church for a month).
- Bring bunches of mint to the BBQ and let the kids munch on it and add it to their lemonade.
- Ask your own kids how you should share your garden.
Last spring, Bunny wasn’t quite 2 and I called her over to the chives. “You can eat these, would you like a taste?” She opened her mouth. I gave her a piece and she cried. I gave her a cracker, told her “It’s ok” and that they taste better when added to other foods.
This spring she has been really into smelling everything, especially the rosemary (which I constantly cook with). When we got to the chives, she said they smelled like onions and that she wanted to “taste it.” Her eyes got wide and she said “Those good, mom!”
Now she picks them at will, bringing me a few to eat as we get ready to garden.
DC spring decided to switch gears to cold rain with May a week away.
One last hurrah from the Winter that Never Was.
Checking on the plants in the cold drizzle showed just how far the garden has come since setting the first seed pots in the cold frame two months ago. April weather dipped cooler more often than March and the seedlings have gone through growth spurts between holding steady. The cold frame is protective but only gets a few hours of good sun thanks to the rowhouse canyon of our backyard. Each day their sun time increases thanks to the earth tilting in our favor as spring heads towards summer. Things are growing, albeit a little slowly.
I’m wildly satisfied.
The Update
1. Turnips! The top: March 21st, four days after sowing. Bottom: April 23rd. I need to thin them out.
2. Parsnips! The right: Radishes alongside the parsnips last week. Left: Radishes thinned to let the parsnips grow. Originally sown March 17th.
3. Beets! The top: Sown March 17th. Bottom left: The few that sprouted looking noble last week. Bottom right: Either heavy rains or a bird flatted two, April 23rd. Sadly, I need to thin the few that are growing.
4. The Camilla! Top: The last bloom hanging on five weeks after the first opened. Bottom: Those that let go below it, April 23rd.
5. Zinnias and Marigolds! Top row: Transplanting them from their egg carton seed pots, around April 4th. Bottom: They were the first to get kicked out of the cold frame a few weeks ago. Short, but growing, April 23rd.
6. Chives blooming! This herb box welcomes its fifth season with the same chives, thyme (also blooming) and golden sage (not pictured). I should replant the box but don’t want to touch it (other than my usual fertilizing and mulching), the inhabitants seem happy as is. It survived Snowmageddon and Snoverkill in 2010.
7. Mesclun! Sown March 31st, pictured April 23rd. Tiny salads at our first 2012 BBQ this Sunday!
8. Bush Beans! Top row: Planted by and for toddlers, April 5th. Mid row: They sprouted(!) April 17th. Bottom: Thriving, April 23rd.
9. Wine-Box-O-Root-Veggies! Top row: Prep, sow, grow (radishes a few days past April 5th sowing). Mid row: A few tiny beets on the left, carrots on the right and radishes all over, April 23rd. Bottom: Carrots in front of radishes, April 23rd.
10. Onions! Top: Reclaiming pantry onions for their greens, April 11th. Bottom: The stalks look great and spinach seeds sprouted alongside, April 23rd. I’ll harvest the tops as scallions this weekend, they should regrow.
11. Potatoes! Left side: Planting a sprouted potato so the foliage will hang off our stair rail (just for looks), April 11th. Right side: It’s growing, April 23rd. I do this every year. The pot is too small and it’s never as lush as the ornamental sweet potatoes, but it grows. To really grow potatoes, you do it differently.
12. Fresh seedlings! Left: Balsam, 10 days after sowing. Right: Borrage, 10 days after sowing.
13. Freshly sown! Trying to slip under the wire with this cold snap: onions, spinach and mesclun, sown April 22nd.
14. Tomatoes! I have yet to count how many tomato seedlings we have, same principle as counting chickens before they hatch. I kicked a few out of the cold frame April 20th and two days later the 48-hr cold rain came. I huddled them behind the covered bike to protect them from the 40 mph predicted wind gusts, picture April 23rd.
What’s not growing? Basil. After fighting off cutworms, they died after transplanting. They were tiny and I think succumbed to damping off. I’ll try again in a week or so. I’ll also direct sow a few in the big tomato pots when the tomatoes are ready for final transplanting.
Not bad.
Not bad, at all.
The singular last Camilla flower in our garden hangs on. The others, fallen some time ago, lay white among the browned first blooms.
May comes in a few days.
Let’s just say the weekend starts on Friday, for the sake of argument. Then this was quite the weekend.
Friday – Potted up the final tomatoes. They were the last of the peat pots given by a friend. Peat pots are controversial and many gardeners complain about their effectiveness, all I have to say is the DIY toilet paper tube seed pots worked the best of all this season’s methods. We also fixed pots and continued our seedling success (borage and balsam).
Saturday – A friend called Friday with White House Garden Spring Garden Tour tickets. This was priceless. They’re free to anyone who stands in line for them, but standing in an infinite line with a toddler is a high a price to pay. We loved it despite it being more a driveway stroll than a garden tour. The White House Kitchen Garden was THE most meticulously beautiful vegetable plot I’ve ever seen. Kitchen Garden tours are available most Tuesdays and Thursdays to DC area school aged children.
Late Saturday – Second birthday party(!) at a friend’s house. This friend wowed me a few years ago with the quantity of spinach, basil and salad greens she grows in window box planters hung along her DC back yard fence.
Sunday – Earth Day. We really didn’t do anything special, mostly because it’s been Earth Day nearly every day for three months for the toddler – “helping” build the cold frame, finding earth worms, mixing soil, watering seedlings, talking about the flowers coming and going, experiencing the cherry blossoms, going on tulip patrol all over town, planting her own seeds with her buddy – I could not think of anything to do in the cold rain that would make this day stand out to a two-year-old. Besides, she was much more focused on the candy she brought home from the birthday party. The most important thing Sunday – it rained.
One day of rain doesn’t end a drought, but Sunday’s rain was more than we’ve seen in months. More predicted for Monday.
Earth Day celebrates what you can do daily to help the environment. Repairing items instead of throwing them away runs deep in our family.
You don’t always need tools to make repairs. I have an arsenal of adhesives around the house and at our DC record store, Som Records, but I’ve found Gorilla Glue works particularly well for repairing terra cotta (clay) pots.
I posted about pot repair a month ago but this is so easy (and replacing pots adds up), here’s yet more incentive to repair your own.
This is a two-for-one. We found a large pot left for trash on the curb with a big crack down its center. The pot was still in one piece but would break if filled with soil. This is where Super Glue just won’t work. Super Glue (or Krazy Glue, etc) won’t fill gaps between two pieces but Gorilla Glue expands as it dries, making it perfect for this job.
The medium-sized pot is ours. I left it out over winter and it cracked from the few freezes we had. It’s cracked down the side and the bottom is completely separated.
The previous post gives detailed notes on using Gorilla Glue, but the captions here should guide your way.
Note: I am a known over-gluer. I overkill it with the glue just to make super sure it all holds. You don’t have to use this much glue, the bottle directions warn to use sparingly.
Disclaimer: I am not affiliated with Gorilla Glue, but we do share some love on twitter and follow each other.
New Jersey may be the Garden State but Washington, DC, shines with its shoulder-to-shoulder small front yards and block after block of tree boxes. You could take daily photos and create a who’s who bloom calendar for the mid-Atlantic spring through fall.
Thursday brought perfectly curated sunshine and a new crop of flowers after a slight (but very seasonal) cool spell.
I loaded up the toddler wagon with Bunny & Mr. O and we headed over to Bloomingdale. Bunny smelled a Lilly of the Valley and looked at me, “That smells really good.”
Indeed, those tiny pea-sized bells do smell really good.
Miss B (mine) and our buddy, Mr. O, got a good look at their beans pushing through the soil today.
They were thrilled. They both kept coming back to get another look.
In the two weeks since we planted them, we gather round the little basket they’re in and chant “Grow, beans, grow!” whenever we’re in the back yard.
They both stood over the beans this morning pointing, beaming, giggling, and gave a believing “GROW, BEANS, GROW!”
Unless I suddenly kill all my seedlings, I will have a nice selection of flowers and herbs to cut come summer. We have negative counter and table space (I have to move stuff to make room to do anything), so where to put vases is always a challenge.
I came across A Can Can and started hoarding cans. I even asked our neighbors for their cans since we don’t go through that many.
I got an idea to solve my lack of vase space issue. I would mount cans on the wall to hold bottles as vases. We rent and the walls are drywall, so the less holes the better.
The solution: The Bottle + Can Bank
Mounting the cans shoulder to shoulder along a plank would enable me to use only two screws to attach the whole thing to the wall instead of a screw for each can.
I made this about six weeks ago and love it.
It took multiple sessions since I can’t really do anything for more than an hour at a time with the toddler at my heels. Once you get your cans and bottles ready to go, it’s a perfect weekend project.
A Few Notes:
- Soak the labels off your bottles. Goo Gone is great for those weird plastic labels that don’t soak off (heating them in hot water will soften the adhesive and allow you to peel off the label but the adhesive left behind won’t scrub off without solvent).
- Most can labels come off without much (if any) soaking.
- I washed my cans out and let them air dry as a little test. I didn’t use the ones that rusted. Though, a nice rustic patina might be just what want.
- To fix the burr left from the can opener, crimp it flat with pliers then apply a fat drop of clear nail polish to smooth it over. Pesky burrs can get multiple layers of nail polish, letting each dry between applications. If your pliers might rough up your cans, place a rag between the pliers mouth and the outside of the can where you’re crimping the burr. Practice on a can you don’t plan to use.
- You’ll need to punch a hole in each can where the screw will hold it to the wood. Make the hole about a half-inch below the can lip to make the screw less noticeable.
- Don’t punch the screw hole too far below the can lip or it will be very difficult to screw the screw into the wood (your screwdriver or drill will be at too much of an angle to engage the screw head if your screw is too deep inside the can).
- Use a primer paint designed for metal, it will provide a lasting base. I overkilled it with primer and a coat of neutral spray paint I found in my paint stash. I finished with a final coat of interior matte white latex I painted on with 2″ brush. It was free from a neighbor and I liked the texture from the cheap IKEA paint brush.
- Whether using a screwdriver or drill, use care attaching the cans to the wood with the screws or you’ll mar the paint on the cans.
- I got my wood as scrap. A little sanding can give old wood a new life. I left mine bare but painting is easy enough.
- Leave two cans unattached so you can hide the screws that mount the wood to the wall behind them. Offset those wall screws from the centerline of the hiding cans so your cans will lay flush when you attach them (after mounting the wood to the wall).
- On Pinterest I found a mirror hanging trick. It’s similar to how I mark anchor placement when fixing wood to drywall and don’t have a helper. You can sink the wall attachment screws through the wood so they poke out the backside just enough to mark the wall where you want to sink your drywall anchors, about 1/8 -1/4 of an inch. Position the wood, tap the screws with your hammer to mark the wall, set the wood aside and sink your drywall anchors (or masonry anchors if installing into brick or concrete) at the marks. Match the wood and screws back up with the drywall anchors and screw them in.
- Two screws through the wood into drywall anchors about 6 inches in from both ends provided sufficient support for the size of my plank.
The late day sun comes in through our back windows and just adores our kitchen. I built the vase bank (the vasery sounds better but I made that word up) to live alongside our kitchen table and the long rays of light writes love letters to it.
I could devote an entire tumblr to this.
I am obsessed with the Trader Joe’s 10 Stem Alstroemeria bouquet. It lasts 10 – 14 days, and for $3.99, it can’t be beat. It’s also like an archaic clock telling me when I need to make a trip to TJ’s. The petals fall off and – Hey what do you know! – it’s time to go to Trader Joe’s!
Soon, like a bank of elevators bearing summer delights, this will present fresh herbs and awesome flowers from our own garden.
June arrived this weekend, despite it being mid-April. With temperatures in the 70s and 80s, DC couldn’t help but be a Home Depot commercial.
However, instead of working on any substantial projects I socialized all weekend. We had friends over Sunday afternoon and relaxed in the backyard instead of working in it.
Friday night: Celebrating with friends and their new restaurant.
Saturday: Wine crate mini garden sprouting, Common Good City Farm Spring Kickoff, strolling through the Park at LeDroit Community Garden Plots, starting Borage and Balsam seeds.
Sunday: Admiring my new potato basket in the kitchen, return to the Community Garden Plots in search of a lost toy, tour of our garden, planting a few neglected DIY potato slips (an old pantry sweet potato to grow as an ornamental, I do it every year in a too-small pot at the top of our back stairs).
It’s springtime. Enjoy it.
Follow up post-publishing:
Love Sown is having an In Bloom link-up!
Thank you, Life on the Balcony!!!
This is too late for many folks, but Victory Seeds has a super simple Average Last Frost Date by State. Just click it.
When to transplant your seedlings depends on the size of their first container. You want to transplant after the first set of true leaves appear. If you started your seeds in individual containers, you have a little time. If you started them in an open flat or peat pellets, get moving before they crowd.
Renee’s Garden has an excellent when-and-how-to page for tomato seedlings, and the UMD Extension potting up tutorial is part of a great series on starting seeds indoors. The Texas A&M Extension has a nice casual page on seed starting, scroll down for transplanting tips.
We started our seeds in DIY toilet paper tubes and yogurt cups. They’ve solely been in our cold frame and are ready for transplanting to larger containers.
I made containers and transplanted the whole lineup of peppers, eggplants and tomatoes.
A Few Notes:
1. I planted the toilet paper tubes with their seedlings. Many already had a few roots poking through and most of the tp rolls had been nibbled on by tiny millipedes inside the cold frame.
2. I transplanted them into decent sized containers so hopefully I won’t have to transplant them again before taking them out of the cold frame for good.
3. It’s been four days since transplanting and all the seedlings look great.
Fresh potting mix for container gardening protects against spreading disease from sick plants to healthy ones. But you don’t have to toss all your potting soil from last year.
I’ve reused old potting soil for a few years and there’s a variety of ways to go about it.
For starters, I’ve been very lucky with disease in my containers – I haven’t had any. If you suspect a failed plant had problem soil, don’t reuse it for containers.
Casual Notes for Reusing Potting Soil
1. Collect it in a bin. I have an old city recycling bin that I’ve always dumped spent soil into. We don’t have a compost bin so I throw away any substantial root balls.
2. Put it in the shade or place a lid on it. I actually store my rolled-up open bags of fresh potting soil on top on my open bin, the whole thing is under our stairs out of the sun. Some folks bake their soil (in the oven) to sterilize it but it’s difficult to rejuvenate once it’s totally dried out.
3. If you have earthworms elsewhere in your garden (or a friend with a worm bin), throw a few in there. This is especially good if your bin is outside and you’ll be in and out of it often, mixing it up, adding and removing soil. They’ll eat the small roots as they breakdown but this isn’t a proper worm bin – don’t go nuts with them. Worms don’t like to be sealed away without air so consider your bin and whether it’s a worm home or worm tomb.
4. Seed starter mix from failed seed starting is great to mix into your spent soil bin. If any seeds sprout when you use your old soil, just pull them like weeds.
5. When using your old soil for containers, mix with new potting soil. I do this right in the container and usually eyeball it at about 50/50. Some gardeners use very little new potting soil, some use very little used potting soil.
6. Used potting soil is great for working into your flower beds when planting new items. I don’t fuss over it much – I dig a hole, add some used potting soil, scratch it around with a hand tool, place the plant, fill, water with deodorized fish emulsion and let the wild worms do the rest.
7. I let it sit over the winter and mix in a little water come spring if the top dried out.
8. I mulch the top of my pots with pine bark chips and these end up in the bin. This helps keep the used soil light enough for container use.
9. Gardening on an apartment balcony? Did you just leave the old soil in your pots over winter? As you replant your pots, turn them out into a tub (or trash can or empty larger pot) and mix with fresh potting soil pot by pot. Stash extra used potting soil in a bag alongside any leftover fresh potting soil. You just saved yourself money (or bought more pots and plants).
Gayla Trail from You Grow Girl offers seasoned advice and, in short, you don’t need to throw it out and blow your budget on all new potting mix every season. Especially nice if you’re trying to keep it organic on a dime.
