'Blogger' tool frustration

Can't seem to ever get the layout the way I want. Suggestions?

Like a Kelp Forest

Peas definitely a lot taller than I had anticipated, despite reading about their potential to grow to 8'. Had to go back to the hardware store to get more green bars to expand upward. Can't even get all of them in the shot!

Pretty white blossoms exploded one week and the next week the peas had begun. 

Today I harvested my first small handful. And you might wonder what good is a small handful of peas? I have to say that they are the sweetest most tender snap peas I ever ate. Even my son who doesn't like raw veggies ate one and said 'mmmmm'! Seeing him eat just one was worth the work.

Very hard to keep them for tonight's dinner, the pile keeps getting smaller : )

Snip snip!

Careful harvesting of individual leaves...this is about the fifth or sixth harvest...

Veggie Gardening for Small Spaces Session

Recently, well, really a couple of weeks ago, I attended Vegetable Gardening in Small Spaces at Sloat Garden Center. Lora Kellner the Training Manager, subbed in for the regular instructor; she was very knowledgeable and able to answer a lot of my questions. 

One of the best tips she gave us was to snip off the budding flowers because, as she put it (while covering the ears of the nearest plants), the plants job is to take over the world. Their job in life is to grow, make seeds and spread them, then die. Not feed humans. But we can trick them into making more delicious greens for us by thwarting their plans by denying them flowers. OR she said, you can let them grow flowers which will attract 'beneficials' (bees and butterflies) who will come in and spread the pollen around. We know their job, I don't have to go into it : )

Anyway, a highly recommended session at Sloat for novice urban veggie growers like myself. Session is free to members, and membership is free. Or pay $5 if you don't want to give them your contact info.

I notice that they have EarthBox sessions coming up at their locations in San Rafael and Mill Valley. Check it out!

What's working, what's not

It's been about a month since my last entry. As was expected some things are going well, others not so well.

The peas are going gang busters. Both the EarthBox peas and the standard container peas. Will need to read up on what's supposed to happen next...

The lettuces from the six packs continue to produce large amounts of very delicious greens. I've harvested twice, about the equivalent of six side salads.  On my most recent harvest I took out enough for four large side salads, easily. I think I will start to harvest once a week now. 

Some of the greens have started to produce flowers, but as you can see in my earlier blog, cutting them is the key to continued output.

Sadly my germinated seeds are not working well since transplanted. I have lost about two thirds of transplants and those that remain are not growing fast at all. I think a couple of forces have contributed to this. 

1. I put way too many seeds per germinating pod, meaning that the sprouts were competing with each other for space and water.

2. I brought them out to harden before the first set of real leaves began to show.

3. The roots didn't show signs of busting out of the germinating pods when I planted them, so maybe I should have removed the outer sacks before planting

4. They are planted almost on top of the pea plants which had a good start on them in terms of root base. Maybe the peas are taking all the good stuff?

I will leave them be and see what happens, but I think I'm just pushing the limits a little too far on the EarthBox.

Selfless Trial

My lettuces have been getting bigger, and every day I look at them and wonder, is it time? 

Today it was TIME! Lunch time that is. They say you should harvest in the morning or evening, but when you're hungry, that's the best time to harvest!My plan, to "cut and come again". So I cut the longest leaves and left the rest to grow bigger. I'm a little worried about the cut stems. What will happen? Hopefully they will just wilt and not rot and ruin the rest of the plant.

Here's what I was able to harvest from two six packs of plants after two weeks. Wondering whether things will start picking up, or whether this is about the yield. 

So in the interests of scientific exploration and the safety of my family, I made a decent sized salad with a few pine nuts, shaved p. romano, a spray of olive oil and pinch of salt. It was truly

delicious. Definitely worth waiting two weeks for. I was able to find out in my selfless experiment that it was completely safe, so the next harvest I plan to share : )

PS. Not happy with the way the Blogger publishing tool works. It's really hard to work with and doesn't look like your edits after you post. Anyone have tips to share?

More Peas!

Our neighbors S & J live immediately behind us and my veggies actually live on their property. J is a gardener by profession, so needless to say their garden is spectacular and I can always rely on them for advice, and in a pinch a pot and soil too!

They encouraged me to plant the additional peas in an empty pot they had, and so my garden grows.

This morning we planned an outing to Flora Grubb (see photo at top) with J & S for a pre-planting pick-me up of Ritual coffee and purchase of some herbs and other plants for S & J. Anyone who is even remotely interested in plants or coffee should familiarize themselves with this city gem. Even out-of-towners should plan a visit. Every nook and cranny is impeccably styled and filled with the best and most unusual plants and accessories. The staff is very nice and knowledgeable. floragrubb.com and her blog floragrubb.com/florasblog.

Strange observation of the day... When I planted the peas on the 11th I took the tallest of the bunch. The rest stayed indoors. Now the indoor pea shoots are twice as tall, but with smaller leaves. It seems as if they've decided to put their energy into finding light where the ones outside have found light and now are opening up shop. 

The newly planted peas are planted and waiting for the circular tomato trellis, so they have somewhere to grow. 

Peas Planted!

I planted the peas this afternoon. Seemed like they were getting big and the roots were busting out of the peat pods. It was time.

I have to say I really don't like planting through the cover. I wound up cutting a big slash in the back and put

 in my row. Then I taped the cover closed between shoots with electrical tape. Even still I broke one of the shoots, felt terrible, we'll see what happens.

After I planted I added water by snaking the hose under the cover to make sure that there weren't any gaps. I also filled the reservoir and I was amazed by how much water it took before it started coming out the overflow hole. I'm going to start checking it every other day.

I have about 6 good extra snap pea shoots that I couldn't stuff into my container, I'm leaving room for Oakleaf and Arugulas. Going to see if the neighbors want them. If you want some let me know, going fast!

The Shiso is BARELY sprouting, I have about three sprouts coming up, they are the size of a pair of sesame seeds. Don't know if this is normal, or whether the seeds were maybe older? I could see peas and lettuces being more popular, so maybe these are older?

Starting to 'harden' the rest of the sprouting plants by bringing them outside during the day, but I think I need to wait for first 'true leaves' before they spend the night outside.

My 'Roots'

Here I am as a 'lil Shnarfer with a crop of carrots. We had ROCK hard soil I remember that much.

Anyway, I DO remember, and that's one of the reasons why I'm growing vegetables. I hope my son will remember. He's too young to remember this year's crop, but maybe next year?

Looks like I'm somewhere between two and three here.

I think healthy eating begins with knowing where food comes from. 

Bat Guano & Cheaters

I got started planting today. 

Originally I was going to wait until the seedlings were ready for transplant, but my 6 packs of lettuces were starting to look sad and the whole reason for the Earthbox was not to have to worry about watering. And I was worrying. 

A little background about self-watering containers. The idea is that the one really difficult thing about growing healthy and tasty veggies is consistent water. If allowed to dry at all supposedly an irreversible bitterness is created. Daily watering is needed and in height of summer sometimes twice a day. 

I'm a succulent grower so even in summer I don't have to water every day. I like the idea that with the self-watering container I don't have to be standing over my veggies with a watering can at all times.

The Earthbox has a utilitarian faux terracotta look (they also make green). I added copper tape around the the bottom not in an attempt to make it look better, but in hopes of scaring away snails and slugs.

Here's the inside. Major lame move by company was to use a giant sticker on the perforated tray. Wasn't easy to remove, and as you can see, some still there. I made sure all holes were clear and proceeded with instructions.

Insert pipe into small hole, then stuff soil into openings in the perfed tray and fill bottom with water until it starts pouring out the drainage hole. Then add soil until halfway full, water and pat down. Add soil to top, water and pat down again.

Bat Guano! I almost forgot to mention! In addition to other exciting ingredients like sphagnum and chicken poop, my soil has bat guano! Thrilling to think that I'll be eating veggies that wouldn't exist without bats. Very cool.

The planting diagram for Earthbox wants two neat rows separated by this strip of fertilizer. So you build a mound down the center and then make a trough in the mound and fill with fertilizer. Here's where I wanted to deviate from instructions. I really want a 'cut and come again' style box, not decapitation, so I would have liked to mix in the fertilizer and filled the container all the way. 

There must be some reason for this. I do know that another one of the benefits of self-watering containers is that your fertilizer doesn't leave out the bottom, since water siphons up, the fertilizer stays put. So this might be why the strip is needed. 

At my parents house we just turn manure into the raised beds and don't use any 'fertilizer' at all. But I don't really have any experience to speak of so I just followed directions.

I pretty much consider this cheating. But look! Lettuce! On the left is 'Molto Mesclun'. Definitely an eye opener for me, I though Mesclun was a type of lettuce, but it really means mixture. This one has 14 heirloom lettuces. Then on the right, 'Bolinas' another mix including Mizuna and Tatsoi.

My plan is to plant the Arugulas, Oakleafs and peas in the back in a staggered way still avoiding the fertilizer strip.

Germination success!

As I mentioned I decided to get a germinating tray. It seemed like an additional expense, and I was already about $80 in the hole. But it has been completely worth it. And if all goes well I'll be using it again and again.

It's a cheap plastic tray with compartments and a clear plastic lid. The base of the tray has a network of troughs that circulate the water, but in reality the condensation drips down, so I'm not sure how useful the troughs are.

The tray comes with peat pods that expand as you add water. 

My whole reason for starting this blog is I made a cool discovery...

Our little house has a heating system that it spotty at best and at night it can dip down to 57. For those of you east coasters that's not that cold. But it's colder than the little seeds like. Apparently 70 is the optimum.

I discovered that placing the tray on the stove top (while the burners are off of course), the temperature inside the tray is 69 even when the house is at 57). Also it's right below a skylight so it's really the perfect spot. Add to that we can keep the stove light on and if it was fluorescent, then the plants would be getting 24hr light and a nice warm temp.

So I reviewed the Earthbox capacity and planting instructions and decided how many of each I wanted to start with. I soaked my pods and planted my seeds per the instructions on the germinating tray. 

I also consulted the seed packets and soaked the peas overnight before planting. 

Within a day or two all the seeds were coming up except the Shiso, which says it needs sunlight to germinate. It's been vacationing outside during the day so we'll see what happens. I may start over with it.

Anyway we are on our way...

My Earthbox begins...

Frustrated by my recent unemployment, and lack of a 'back yard' I decided to try growing my own vegetables anyway in the small alley entrance to our little rented house in San Francisco.

I found reference to a blog in Sunset Magazine, victoryhomegarden.blogspot.com. The first blog I really sought out and read, thank you Sunset and thank you Adriana. I read every entry and decided it was time.

Casually grocery shopping at Whole Foods (yeah, I know I'm crazy to be shopping there while unemployed, but they have my sons diapers of choice, and delicious everything), I happened to see a seed display and noticed that it was one of Adriana's top choice brands. I chose things I thought would grow well in my shady alley: Arugula, Wild Arugula, Oakleaf lettuces, Snap Peas and Shiso (that yummy sushi greenery).

Then I happened to be accompanying my dear friend P, on a trip to Borders. While there I purchased Incredible Vegetables from Self-Watering Containers by Edward Smith. Read it cover to cover (well mostly) that night.

The author of course is trying to sell you his sponsorship self-watering containers available at Gardener's. I didn't want to pay for shipping, or wait an additional minute, so the next day I went to Sloat Nursery. 

I purchased the Earthbox (a self-watering growing kit), some organic soil, and some small Mesclun plants (in case my seeds didn't pop up.) I brought it home and realized that the fertilizer in the Earthbox kit wasn't organic. Since I bought organic soil, and planned to feed the veggies to my son I decided to go back the next day and get organic fertilizer. I also bought copper tape to fence off the slugs and snails and a germinating tray with pods. 

This wound up being a REALLY great decision, because it's working! I've never successfully grown things from seeds, so this is an encouraging start!