Transplant Pots

I took these pictures back in March when it was actually useful to transplant.  Now that it's May, it's a little late but maybe you can tuck this away for next year.

Biodegradable Transplant Containers

You will need:

• Scissors
• Newspaper
• A bottle
• Tape or liquid glue
• Soil
• Seeds

Soil pictured far right. I'm pretty sure I was sitting on the seed packets.

Instructions:

1. Wrap the newspaper tightly around the bottle. 
2. Glue or tape the paper to itself to form a cylinder. If you use tape, you'll want to remove the tape later when you transplant into the garden.
3. Slide the bottle out of the paper tube carefully
4. Fold one end of the paper cylinder closed and tape or glue shut.  
5. Cut of the excess tube. You want your pot to be about 6-8 inches tall.
6. Fill with soil.* 
7. Plant seeds according to seed packet instructions. Water, etc. You're done!

*Note: With some plants, like tomatoes, burying the plant stem partially helps the plant develop a strong root system. To aid this, don't fill up your pot all the way to the top with soil.  Leave 1-2 inches free so that when your plants grow past the top of the pot, you can add more soil to the pot to bury the stem.

Finished tube for tomatoes. 

Window sprouting line-up. The ghost peppers belong to my husband. They never did sprout.

Stay sunny,

Christine

And the lilac said, "Finally!"

We FINALLY got the lilac in the ground.  Here's the short version on how to plant a lilac shrub:

1. Buy a lilac shrub. 
2. Call your local utilities company to find out where power/electric lines lay in your yard.
3. Ask your fiancé to dig you a big hole.
4. Reevaluate.  Ask your fiancé to dig you a bigger hole.
5. Procrastinate 2 weeks.
6. Cover the bottom of the hole with a layer of garden soil mixed with peat moss/compost.
7. Gently tease out the roots of your lilac plant. 
8. Place the lilac in the hole so that 1-2 inches of the plant peak above the earth.
9. Surround the plant with the same garden soil/compost/peat moss mixture.
10. Build up the area around the plant with more good soil.
11. Cover everything in mulch.
12. Water heavily with plant food immediately after.  

 There you have it. How to plant lilac.  

New plants take 2-5 years to flower, so hopefully we see them closer to 2 years.  I won't be pruning the plant until it gets to be 6-8 ft tall.  Right now, it's about 4 ft tall.  The rule of thumb with pruning a lilac shrub is to cut to the base any stems 2 inches in diameter, and never cut more than 1/3 of the stems.  It will be quite some time before I have to worry about that!


Stay lovely,


Christine

A New Addition to the Raised Bed Garden

As I've probably mentioned a few times, we live down the street from a sort of permanent farmer's market.  They grow corn and loads of petunias, which they sell in giant hanging baskets.  I was drawn into their store the other day because of a giant 30% OFF LILACS AND AZALEAS! sign (woohoo for my lovely lilac).  While wandering around the store, I noticed a table with a little sign that said, FREE.  The table was covered in some sickly looking plants, mainly tomatoes of the roma variety.  When I say sickly looking, I mean practically dead, leaves shriveled, mostly-brown plants.  Call me an optimist (or unrealistic), but I decided to take home a California wonder sweet bell pepper plant.  I already have one California wonder, but it hasn't done much except get big.  No flowers, no nothing.  So, when I saw this California wonder with two wee flowers, I thought, "Why not?"

Most of the leaves had been cut off, but the flowers still grew.

Parsley from Seeds

About a month ago I was in Target's $1 section when I happened upon the cutest little gardening kit.

Product info available at http://www.buzzyseeds.com/

The kit comes with seeds, dehydrated soil, and a little plastic cup.  Instructions are on the back of the cardboard packaging.  All you do is wet the soil, allow it to expand, and then just barely plant the seeds underneath the soil.  I planted 8 of the seeds (about 1/3 of the total seeds) and 100% of them sprouted.  Not too shabby.

It's a parsley victory for this gardener.

The only problem with the kit is that the pot has absolutely no drainage.  This meant that I got a little mold at one point and had to let the soil dry out and the parsley got a bit wilty.  Perhaps poke some holes in the bottom of the plastic pot before planting the seeds in the first place.

From Egg Carton to Pot

Ready to re-pot as of a week ago, to be honest.

Remember my fantastic tutorial on egg carton gardening?  Well, all three types of seeds sprouted.  The cilantro grew fast and furiously, overcrowding and killing off several stalks, despite the fact that I only put one seed per segment.  Two of the three basil seeds sprouted healthy plants, although one took off for absolutely no reason.  Two of the three serrano chilies sprouted, one section sprouting three plants. 

You can tell it's time to re-pot your plants when any of the following occur:

• Your plant reaches a height that is wider than its container
• The roots of your plant attempt to get out of the bottom of the container either by cracking it or finding a hole to crawl out of
• Your plant, after happily growing for a few weeks stops growing abruptly
• Leaves from one plant begin to cover leaves from another plant
• Your plant suddenly wilts over, depressed with his current living situation

All of the above happened for me (sorry, plants) and it was high time to re-pot.

Leggett Farms

Tiny success.

We've had our first success here at Leggett Farms (which is what I have decided to call my wee vegetable garden. Suck it, spellcheck. No, I do not mean Legged Farms).  Above, you can see my very first cayenne pepper.  The first pepper started popping not too long after I put the plant into the garden bed.  I probably would have had the first growth 2 weeks ago if I had moved the plant sooner.

Protip: big plants don't like living in little Styrofoam cups.

The cayenne plant is about 1.5 ft tall and has a plethora of flowers and buds, all of which have the potential to become chilies like this little guy.  Right now, I'm watering the garden once a day and adding a little Miracle Grow all purpose plant food every 14 days.

Have a spicy day!

Christine

Upgraded Gardening

Look what I made!

It was about time for this blog to go from the "starting small" to the "growing tall."  We bought a house and, after two weeks of being too busy, too tired, and too everything, I finally put together a raised garden.  I used Bonnie brand Raised Bed Kit, which was about $39 and 5 bags of Scott's brand garden soil.  I really should mix in some compost and mulch, but I did this the stupid way, so I ran out of time. 
I had read all sorts of blogs and instructables and Home Depot's weekend projects and everyone said to kill the grass by covering it with newspapers and weights (bricks, stones, etc).  That way you can just rake up the dead grass instead of laboriously pulling it up.  Guess which I did?  Then I broke one of the corner stakes because I decided to be smart and hammer it down before leveling the area. Again, because I'm awesome.  Add to that the fact that I may have waited wayyy too long to plant the zuchinni and cucumber and they both developed Sad Leaf Syndrome (SLS) which is the umbrella term I use for all plant illnesses.
All in all, I'd say that this project was a difficulty level 4 on a scale of 1= I could do this drunk and 10= calling Home Depot crying.  I made it into difficulty level 7 with stupidity, but what can I say- I like a challenge.. that I create for myself.

Have a great week, my fellow brown-thumbed bloggers!

Christine

Houston.. we have sprouts!

Whoaaa

Against all odds, the cilantro, basil, AND serrano chilis have sprouted (far right column).  That packet of seeds traveled all over the world, lived on a bookcase for 2 years, then the bottom of a box for 2, and finally... sprouted.  In fact, they've actually sprouted more little shoots than the basil has. 

In other news, I am sad to say RIP to my original basil, parsley, and rosemary plants.  Some sort of bacteria/fungus took them over.  I'm in the middle of moving, so I kind of didn't treat them until it was too late.  Plus side: I've got new basil on the way!

Progress Report

Tomatoes!

Everything's growing here in Apartment 434! The tomatoes are shooting off like crazy, although one is growing a bit more than the other (who knows why).  I just plucked off the lowest leaves today to reduce the risk of leaf fungus.

Cukes!

Of the craigslist plants, the cucumbers have grown the most in the past week.  It's a good thing we're moving soon or else all these plants would outgrow their plants and need to be repotted.

Baby Basil!

Look what's growing now! The winner of the basil-cilantro-chili race is basil, with a lead of 1 plant.  It looks like the cilantro will be coming up next.  No sign of the chilies (color me unsurprised), but it's too early to say whether or not they'll ever grow. 

Hope you are all growing well!

Christine

Egg Carton Gardening

 

The Supplies

For a basic egg carton garden you will need:

• 1 egg carton (paper works better than styrofoam)
• potting/starter soil
• seeds
• 1 plastic spoon
• 1 sharpie
• scissors

Before starting, decide how many plants you want to sprout.  I decided on 9: 3 sweet basil, 3 cilantro, 3 serrano chilies.  I've never tried growing any of these plants from seed, so I have no idea how successful I'll be.  I'm betting the cilantro will come out the best, since I've purchased Burpee seeds before.  The basil comes from a "Welcome to PNC Bank!" type goodie bag we found in front of our apartment one day.  The chilies.. well.. the chilies came from a restaurant in London called Wahaca.

Great marketing

It was one of my first trips to London, so I was still in my "everything is British and therefore awesome" phase, and thus collected matchbooks and business cards wherever I went.  I thought that this was a match book- it's most certainly not.  That was about 4 years ago.  I just found the seed book (like a match book, of seeds!) at the bottom of a box in the closet and thought... why not?

Anyway, back to the task at hand!  Cut the egg carton to the right size and label the top of each row with the sharpie.  Growing in a row guarantees that you don't mix up your plants if you're sprouting a few varieties (been there, done that).

Gently spoon the soil into each section of the carton.  Once each section is full, I like to add about a teaspoon of water to pre-moisten the soil.   Then, use the back of the spoon to dig a little spot for 1-2 seeds in each section about 1/4 inch deep.  Use the spoon to cover it back up and voila, you have a mini garden ready to sprout.

Plastic spoons are great for apartment gardening when you don't want to make a huge mess

Be sure to keep the tray in a warm place (sun unnecessary) and water enough to moisten the soil every other day as needed.  Once the seeds sprout, keep them in the sun as much as possible.  The best part about using a egg crate is that, when the seedlings grow too big for their spots in the carton, all you have to do to remove them is scoop the entire ball of soil out with a spoon (I heart spoons) and transplant into a larger pot.

The Final Product (for now)

 So that's how you plant an egg carton garden.  I only put one seed in each section, so we'll see how this turns out.  I'm thinking that all three cilantro will sprout, 2-3 basil, and maybe one sickly chili.  Time will tell!

Happy Apartment Farming!

Christine

Growing from Seed: Tomatoes

Mmmm.. tomatoes

 As you can see, 1 packet of way more tomato seeds than I can possibly use cost an insane $1.79.  I picked a hybrid because I find that they're more hardy than Big Boy tomatoes.  These are the type of tomatoes you slice up and put on a sandwich, use in bruchetta, stuff with cheese and bake, etc etc. 

Since I'm not one for starter trays, I usually start my seedlings in a homemade pot.  To make, simply wrap a newspaper around a plastic water bottle and glue with non-toxic glue (liquid works better than stick glue). Remove bottle, glue one end shut, and voila, you have a homemade pot.  It's a good idea to set it on a piece of saran wrap in case you over water.

Eight seeds planted- eight sprouts!

The great thing about this technique is that, if you plan on transplanting into a garden, all you have to do is put your paper pot in the ground.  As long as you haven't wrapped the newspaper several times around, the newspaper will biodegrade and your roots will expand into the earth.  I usually cut off the bottom layer of newspaper just before planting into the ground, just in case. 

If you plant too many sprouts in a small container (oops), You'll need to thin the herd.  I left the 2 strongest plants and pulled the rest with a gentle tugging-twisting motion, just in case the roots were tangled.

Finally, when your tomatoes are getting more than 2 leaves, it's time to re-pot.  I picked bright green planters from Target.  The trick to tomatoes is that their stems, when buried underground, become part of their root structure, giving the plant a great head start.  To re-pot, I cut open the side of the newspaper pot and gently separated the two plants.  Then I buried them allll the way up to their leaves in Miracle Gro moisture retention potting soil.  I put the plants pretty deep in the pot so that the leaves were level with the soil, but 4 inches below the top of the pot. 

Let there be light! Tomatoes love sunshine

Now that the plants have had a little more time to grow, I can fill in more soil up to the leaves a second time.  It's even okay (and encouraged) to pluck off the very bottommost leaves and bury the plant up to the second set of leaves.  Once your plant has grown a big strong stem, it's recommended to pluck off the bottom leaves anyway to prevent rot.  I should have fresh tomatoes by mid-June. Mmm. Tomatoes.

May your fingernails remain forever dirty,

Christine

Meet Parsley

The Afro of Plants

Here's my lovely parsley plant.  Unfortunately, this lovely plant grew way faster than I could harvest it and has pretty much outgrown its pot.  It was also sucking up easily 1-2 cups of water a day, drying out the soil by midday.  I recently thinned out a few of the sprouts and it's been much happier.  I'll be happy to move parsley to the garden straight away, since he likes to fan out all over the place and takes a lot of sun.  

As for uses, maybe I need some more! I usually chop up parsley for Italian stir fries, mix it into sauces and soups, and, when it's picnic time, I'll often put parsley in mayo based sandwiches, like watercress mayo or egg salad sandwiches.  

One thing I have learned is that, once you pluck off the 3 terminal leaves from a shoot, that long stem is done producing.  The good news: each stem is attached at the base of the plant to other stems and new stems will sprout.  I was leaving the stems on the plant for a while, which just blocks sunlight from new sprouts coming in.  

Keep growing,

Christine

Beautiful Basil

 

This is my sweet basil plant.  I didn't grow this bad boy from seeds, though that's one of my next sprouting adventures.  I got this plant about 6 months ago from a nearby Giant Food grocery store. It comes from Shenandoah Growers, a regional grower that I've had a lot of success with lately (well, except for a mint plant- but more on that later). 

Basil is relatively low maintenance, though it does prefer regular watering.  I use plastic pots I get from Walmart (they water from the bottom) and Miracle Grow potting soil.

 

Mmmm. Soil. 

To use the basil, just pull of the leaves from the top whenever you need them.  Great for pretty much any Italian dish ever: lasagne, caprese, bruchetta, pesto.  You name it, add basil. It's a good idea to pull off the top leaves from time to time regardless as a way to prune your basil. 

And how much did this all cost me?

• Basil Plant: $3.99
• Plastic Pot: $2.00
• Potting mix: $6.00 for the whole bag, approx $0.01 for this plant

 Total: $5.00

The best part is that just a handful of basil leaves cost anywhere from $5-10 in the grocery store.  Win to the win, baby!