They're Growing Right Up

This is a shot of our collards earlier this week (with our thriving Rocky Top lettuce mix in the background). Perhaps I was the feeling the rush of accomplishment or perhaps it was sheer inexperience that lead me to announce "we'll be eating collards this weekend!"

They are an inch or so taller now. We are not eating collards this weekend.

Yet. We are closer everyday. Our tomato plants chug away in our windows. I had a eureka! moment the other morning, on noticing they were all starting to bend towards the window. So strange, so strange... they couldn't be... are they... is that reaching for the sun?

I turned the trays around and- voilà!- they righted themselves by the end of the day. Now I remember to turn them each day so our stems are fairly even and straight.

With this kind of expertise and natural ability, I feel a show on HGTV or some gardening-minded network is right around the corner...

Always Looking Up

We have sprouts. Or sprouting. I'm not entirely certain what to call them. Seedlings? Whatever these little shoots and small green leaves are, we have 'em.

The tomatoes took off first and the fastest. Originally the Brandywine and the Goldman's Italian-American were going gangbusters, while the Principe Borghese and Riesentraube lagged behind. They have since caught up and I can safely say, of the dozen each planted, we have at least eight little tiny plants per kind, as many as a full dozen for one. The good news came two mornings ago, however, when Matthew sent me a picture of the newly sprouted broccoli. This was our first sprout beyond tomatoes. Since then two of the peppers are showing life, the wild strawberries container is dotted with green and the thyme from Dory's little garden has several shoots. There is growth!

As a first time gardener, I don't yet know what I can't do. While I did read a book and look around for good seeds and I did have a general idea of what was needed (dirt, water, sunshine, right?), I confess to not studying this seed starting business too closely. Now, reading back through old articles on Mother Earth News, I'm realizing all the ways we weren't quite prepared for this. Like starting all your plants in 3 inches or deeper containers. Hmm, pretty sure our sagging and soggy little egg cartons don't quite reach that height requirement. Or the great benefit to having a growing lamp. Our plants look more like dirt on the run, constantly moved around the house to catch the best sunlight and heat throughout the day. I started a faint panic one night, thinking, we're doing it all wrong! We're not prepared! How will we survive the summer?!

I dialed that back pretty quickly and now we have more sprouts. Maybe not all hope is lost, even without fancy growing lights or the common sense to start with real potting plants.

Still, I'm glad of our ignorance at the moment. We're trying veggies we might not have if we had 'known better.' Even if the broccoli goes straight to flower, I'm proud it got going. And I do think we're going to have some winners from these plants. They're just trying so darned hard. They make you want to believe in them.

Seed Fever

This morning, Dory, her arms wrapped around my neck, whispered in my ear, "Let's go see my seeds growing."



One of Matthew's dear, thoughtful co-workers picked up a set of these herb plants for her son and a set for Dory too. This is one of the sweetest gifts I think Dory's ever received. She even labeled each little plant and the garden itself.



Dory and Matthew planted them last night. We checked their progress this morning and, well, not much yet. She was not discouraged. And standing in our kitchen, on a rainy Tuesday morning, with her little monkey arms and legs around me, I wasn't either.

After that, we had tea. Dory served.






If a day can start off this well with no visible seed growth, what will a day with a little visible green be like? I cannot wait to find out.

Seed Starting

(Dory on her John Deere)

Is it March that comes in like a lion? February left like one and March still growls a little. Yet new growth, life and adventure is on the horizon. We started seeds two Sundays ago.

Taking what feels like a lifelong collection of cardboard egg cartons, we got out our seed starter dirt and got going on the dining room table. For anyone who doubts these are the actions of novices, we laid down no towels or newspapers and Dory's first action was to take out a scoopful of dirt, with her little Garfield spade, and pour it all over herself. She announced, this was her shower. I wanted to lecture, on 'where dirt belongs,' I wanted to start sweeping and cleaning up around her. I would have done, too, had not some little instinct, some little voice, called out to me, reminded me of something I already almost forgot- this is supposed to be fun! Dirt is not meant to be tidy, clean, and I expect keeping it to 'where it belongs' is almost impossible. Shower on, little one, shower on.






This was a two step process, playing with dirt with Dory and then actually starting the seeds on the floor of our living room, on a picnic blanket, long after she had fallen asleep, while (talk about getting back to the land!) the Oscars played in the background. We are your modern, homesteading family. In progress.

For the first days my confidence was high, but lately its flagged a little as we see no evidence of growth. Surely its coming. They're in the windows, they're working, surely its coming.

Do we need one of those heat lamps, people? This is my concern.

It's Started...

We ordered seeds Tuesday night. In Friday's mail we found...




Included was a free seed packet for wildflowers and also a note apologizing for any delays as they were swamped with orders. Tuesday night order, Friday morning delivery. Concern about delay in delivery? That is good service.

On Saturday, we went to our local nursery and what an experience. Being afflicted with Budgetus tightus and so shopping very little, I've discovered walking into a store can be sensory overload. This is true especially for little ones. Dory has been to Target a handful of times in her life and the last two times, she looked around in wide-eyes wonder, and said, "Mommy, yook at all dis stuff!" I either want to flee, overwhelmed, or I want to start buying everything (its so cheap!) and so must flee, to protect our hard-earned and carefully rationed budget.

Walking into Stanley's however, was, well, lovely. It was well lit (naturally, from a durable glass ceiling), the air felt clean and clear (from the tables and tables and tables of plants), the sounds were soothing (from the many outdoor fountains, yes something ornamental, to buy, I realize). And their employees weren't just helpful, they were eager. Passionate. Excited to help.

And for someone, such as myself, who knows nothing on this matter of gardening, except what I've recently read or gleaned from conversation, this was of tremendous value. For instance, when you're filling your own beds with dirt, you need lots of dirt. LOTS. My expectation of four or five bags- I was a little off. A cheerful, knowledgeable employee, a woman, in fact, I'd seen at our downtown library's storytime with her two boys, informed me, we need a 'scoop'. She directed us away from purchasing at their store and pointed us towards two different mulch companies where we might get our scoop. The Wow-factor is high with Stanley's folks. We bought a few bags of organic compost, to complement the scoop, a bag of seed starter dirt and (here was my impulse buy) a small impatiens to tend in our window until its warm enough to transplant. That is one draw back to starting with seeds; there's no immediate green something in the house.

Grandpa Mojo kindly and generously donated time and energy into preparing wood for the boxes during the week. He came over Sunday and he and Matthew set to work. Magic happened. Our vegetable beds started to take shape.



The building of the boxes...

Just a few steps closer to our first, real garden, and my dream of a self-sufficient life.


(Somehow I failed to get a picture of the other two finished beds, in daylight, so this will suffice for now.)

There you go. Start some seeds this week indoors (luckily we are an egg eating family, so we'll get some mileage out of all these cardboard egg cartons I've saved). Get our scoop this weekend, mix dirt and let's see what happens.

I must stop here to marvel- this is, I hope, much of our vegetable and fruit consumption for the year. And it fits in a yellow manila envelope and costs less than $3 to ship. Even if half of our garden was a major flop, the money saved (not to mention other factors, fuel, cost to the environment, etc) is immense. We will come out so far ahead. This does not include the great amount of family time, sunshine and enjoyment I expect us to reap as we work this garden together. My only question: why haven't we done this sooner?

Actually, why isn't everyone doing this?