Seeing Red

!!!

The first tomatoes are almost ready!  They're very nearly perfect.  You may notice that the one on the left has some brown cracks near the stem.  That can happen when you over-prune the plant and cut back the leaves that protect the fruit from sunlight.  Oops.  It's harmless, just ugly.

I've already decided what I'm going to use the fruit for-  caprese salad!

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

Introduction Post

Hello everyone,

My name is Christine and I'm a gardener! Well.. sort of.  I currently live in an apartment on the fourth floor with no yard to claim as my own.  I'm trying to buy a house with my fiance this year, but that's another blog entirely.  I always lived in an apartment in college and had the same problem.  My solution: potted plants.

I've been growing herbs, flowers, and vegetables in pots for years.  I'm here to share my experiences, tips, and failures.  I'll also share recipes I've come up with to use up all the tasty things I grow.

Keep photosynthesizing!

Christine