Lori Finding Joy

Behold:  yesterday a tiny tomato shoot appeared!  (look to the right of the arrrow — it looks weird because the seed pod hasn’t fallen off)

This is one of the Roma cherry tomato plants (the second one I planted also has an inkling of a shoot waiting to unfurl).  Even though all of the plants have a 7-14 day germination I was starting to panic, thinking nothing would sprout.  I’ve had a hard time finding the right spot for these to get enough light and warmth; I’ve been alternating between next to the kitchen sink and on top of the dryer in the laundry room (which has the most southerly-facing window).  I’ve been toying with the idea of buying grow lights, but I’m pretty sure my grandfather didn’t use them and his gardens turned out just fine.  At the same time, I wouldn’t need a huge set up, and maybe it’s worth the extra $30?  Not sure yet.

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I was home sick for a few days with a bad cold, so I got virtually nothing done this week.  I did read “Second Nature: A Gardener’s Education” by Michael Pollan.  It may have been the cold medicine, but I fell asleep a lot while reading it.  I did like his chapter on seed catalogs though, and how the marketing of seeds varies from company to company, from the industrial and utilitarian to the morally self-righteous.  I also liked the chapter on wilderness areas, and the conflict between keeping them wild and keeping them safe for human enjoyment.  We hiked in a number of places last year that had seen the effects of bad storms, and in some spots the trails were such a mess they were not passable, forcing us to wade through streams or go off-trail, something we would normally not do.  But in a true wilderness area no one would be out there with gravel and a chainsaw; it’s a little rich to want to go into the wilderness and then whine about how inconvenient it is.  And I kind of have to wonder if gardening is a similar conceit, at least for someone like me who has utterly no idea of what she is doing.  Pollan writes about how some argue that certain people just have “green thumbs”, almost instinctively knowing how to help plants along, while others argue that gardening is like anything else, a skill that can be learned with time and attention.  Sometimes I think things may just grow in spite of us, rather than because of us, because nature knows a lot more than we do.  But I admit, I was pretty tickled to see my little green tomato shoot, a validation (however small) that things can grow on my watch.

Ok, that might be something of an overstatement.  But!  Seeds!  Are!  Starting!

Wanting to avoid the Big Box store places for this project, after work today I went over to Cluck, an independent (and woman-owned!) urban farm & garden store in Providence.  After I communed with the resident kitty, Max, the nice lady there set me up with some compost soil, seeds and pots, and then I stopped at the hardware store and bought a plastic liner, seed labels (those plastic thingies sticking up with writing on them), and the all-important watering can.  (I also got a new bird feeder, but that’s a story for another day.)

Sort of unbelievably, I already screwed up; the compost mix is supposed to be wet BEFORE you plant the seeds, but I didn’t read that until afterwards, when it seemed really weird that the mix wasn’t absorbing the water.  It’s ok, though – now I know, and there’s time (and plenty more seeds) if these don’t germinate.

For the moment, I’m focusing on tomatoes and peppers since the Farmer’s Almanac says now is the time to start these from seed here in Massachusetts.  I wound up with three kinds of tomatoes (none of which were the varieties I had planned on but oh well), and some bell peppers.  I planted two pots of each, hoping that at least one of each will work out.  I am actually tempted to order another tomato and a couple more pepper seed packets from Johnny’s, but everyone is saying that a couple of good tomato plants can give plenty of tomatoes.  On the other hand, there’s no such thing as too much homemade tomato sauce.

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If you are in Providence, I’d highly recommend stopping by Cluck.  For one thing, it’s in an old gas station and just that alone is interesting, plus there is a whole story about how the neighborhood was aghast at the idea of such a store coming into the neighborhood.  (Because a gas station was better???)  In addition to basic gardening and backyard farm supplies, they have lots of other interesting things, from cheese making kits to beekeeping supplies, cute gardening-themed gifts for kids, and lots of books and tools.  They also offer classes on a range of farm & garden topics.

I’ll admit it:  winter is starting to get on my nerves.  On the plus side, it’s 5:30 as I type this and it is just starting to get dark, so that’s progress.  I miss our walks, and my picture taking, and not having to wear umpteen layers of clothes just to leave the house.  I’m ready for spring, in a big way.

I’m particularly excited that one of our big projects this spring/summer is going to be a garden.  It’s a little hard to plan, since we’re not quite sure where we will be living when it’s time to actually plant the thing, but I’m in full-fledged research mode.  We each have different motivations for doing this.  The VEB simply wants to know where his food comes from.  I, on the other hand, like the challenge:  I want to see if we can do it, actually grow some of our own food.  Also, the conspiracy theorist in me worries that one day we might HAVE to grow our own food, whether it’s because of a power grid failure or the zombie apocalypse, and I want to be ready.

While some of my earliest memories are of following my grandfather around in his garden, I’m not banking on having retained much from that experience.  Because I’m the sort of person who believes there is a book that will tell you how to do pretty much anything, I marched off to Barnes & Noble the other day and bought The Vegetable Gardener’s Bible by Edward C. Smith.  I also bought a Moleskine Garden Journal, just so that when the VEB said “we should keep a notebook on this stuff” I could whip the journal out of my bag and say, “Already done.”  (True story.)  The proof, as they say, will be in the pudding, but at least at the outset I’m finding the book quite helpful in thinking about how we might proceed.  I’m convinced one or two small raised beds are probably our best bet, and since the VEB has enough carpentry skills to build a cat tree I’m banking on him being able to screw together a couple of boards.  We each made a list of what we wanted in the garden, and I made us pick our top 5 choices.  We came up with:

• snap peas
• lettuce (regular, spinach & arugula)
• onions
• peppers
• tomatoes
• watermelon
• strawberries
• cucumbers
• winter squash
• carrots

It remains to be seen whether or not this is a realistic list for first-time gardeners; one of the repeated admonitions is to not start too big, and to start with a few items to see what works.  Plus, on top of the vegetables, we also want some semblance of an herb garden and raspberry bushes.  I want a nice flower patch as well, partly to encourage helpful bugs and, of course, birds.  However, I am confused about the advice to have a birdhouse and birdbath nearby the garden – I understand they eat bugs, but I would think they would also eat the stuff growing in the garden…I mean, isn’t that the point of scare crows?  I also worry about being able to tell good bugs from bad bugs, and then the critter control stuff – deer, skunks and raccoons in particular.  I’m thinking about composting too, and how one might go about that in a smallish amount of space.

I can also see that this is not going to be an inexpensive project.  Since we own nothing in the way of gardening tools or supplies, plus the construction of the raised beds, even BEFORE we buy seedlings this will not be cheap.  (Happily we both have spring birthdays!)  Our motivations are not to save money, but I do plan to keep track of what we spend.  It may turn out that doing a CSA every summer is a better investment for us – we’ll see.  And, since we will be renting, much of what we do will boil down to how much our landlord will let us get away with, and how long we think we will stay.  Still, I’m looking forward to it, however it shakes out!

(Sort of oddly, this is the only garden-ish photo I have, and it was taken on the grounds of Blarney Castle in Ireland.  Go figure.)