August 23, Monday

Some reading tells me my garden soil probably lacks healthy populations of root-zone microbes. Solution: compost. Unlikely I will have any this season. Something that can't hurt is a layer of grass cuttings as mulch. So here we are (taken a couple of days later):

Watered it down, then gave the bed a good soak. Frankly I'm not expecting much. Fertilizer has helped a bit. The eggplants are much larger. But there's no sign of blossoms on them or the peppers, and all my tomatoes have been medium-small or less (tho delicious). Need to get serious about compost for next season. In fact, I need to begin my soil prep this fall. Here are my eggplants and peppers:

August 9, Monday, Part 2

Results just in on the tomato bed soil tests:

pH slightly acidic (6.0-6.5)
Nitrogen depleted (none, nada, zip)
Phosphorus deficient
Potassium sufficient

I'm heading out directly with a full dose of the Miracle Grow (3 Tbsp in 3 gallons of water).

Also, here's a shot of the eggplants and peppers after a week with some fertilizer:

Substantial improvement from last week's photo, I think. I hope I got to it in time for our short growing season.

August 9, Monday

Gave the old bed a half dose of the Miracle Grow. Soil test on the new bed is in progress. Tied up 3 tomato branches that were on the ground, all with green fruit. I think I caught them in time.

I've been harvesting at least one tomato per day for the last week or so. Enough for my salad, sometimes more. I'm glad to be getting them so early. None from the CSA yet.

So far all the tomatoes are on the medium-small side, which is not optimal for the breed. Many of the early ones had blossom-end rot--the condition, if not the disease. Some had been lying in the dirt until last week, others not. But we'd gone thru a long rainy spell. A couple were rotting at the top, where they had cracked from rapid growth. More rain sitting in the cracks, I guess. Glad I'm a hobby gardener, not a career farmer.

August 8, Tuesday

As I had suspected, chicken wire secure enough to exclude rodents tended to exclude me too. I pulled part of it down a couple times to tie up the tomatoes, but other than that and some watering, I pretty much let it be.

Sunday was fairly pleasant so I decided to dive in. Removed all the chicken wire. Found the tomatoes in a tangled mass, with some in the dirt and some ready for picking. After much pruning and tying up, we had this orderly scape, along with a small tomato harvest:

Gave two tomatoes to the neighbor who's been mowing my lawn while I let my broken toe mend. Ate one in a Greek(ish) salad. Baked a green one I found on a broken branch. Deeelish!

All season I've noticed that my eggplants and peppers appeared to be alive, but not growing. Finally got my test kit in the mail. Results, as best I can tell:

pH neutral (6.5-7.0)
Nitrogen depleted (none, nada, zip)
Phosphorus adequate
Potassium depleted

Thus inspired, I went to Lowe's yesterday and picked up some:

• Garden Club Select Organic Premium Plant Food (high in N and K)
• Miracle Grow Organic Choice Plant Food Concentrate (all N).

Gave the eggplants and peppers a dose of the Miracle Grow and spread all (1.25 lbs) of the Garden Club slow-release pellets around the base of the eggplants, peppers, and tomatoes. Last night's thunderstorms watered it all in. Today we have this:

If I thought it possible I'd say the eggplants (back row) doubled in size overnight. In any case, I'm hopeful and will give them as much of the Miracle Grow (made from fermented sugar beet molasses) as I think they can handle. Meanwhile all my carrots (tops eaten by vermin in June) are gone.

June 12, Saturday

The last of the carrot tops are gone. So it's squirrels. I'll have to cover the top, too. Not any time soon, but when I grew eggplants a couple years ago the fruit had a tendency to disappear. And last year some of my tomatoes had bites out of them. I sliced off the damage and ate the rest, but it would be nice to harvest whole fruit.

NEXT YEAR: HAVE THE GARDEN COVERED BY JUNE 1.

June 11, Friday

Somebody ate the tops off nearly all my carrots. Last year, rabbits were spotted in flagrante delicto, so I installed this lovely chicken wire. If it's rabbits, they won't get in. Squirrels are another matter.

June 3, Thursday

One of my pepper plants lost dropped all its leaves after the transplant. NEXT YEAR, HARDEN THEM OFF PROPERLY. I left it in place to see if it would recover, and here it is, bottom left:

May 24, Monday

All my transplants in the old bed were looking a bit pale, and some of the carrot sprouts were badly burned. Probably due to a few days of very hot, sunny weather, and I know I did not harden off the transplants long enough before putting them in. But I thought the weed-block fabric might be contributing by heating the soil, so I removed it. I'll deal with any weeds the old-fashioned way.

I'm leaving it on the tomatoes for now, as they love warm soil.

May 23, Sunday

On this very hot afternoon I placed garden cloth in both beds and installed the poles for tomato trellises.

Measured for holes in the cloth for the new bed. Made fairly large holes to accomodate the in-place tomatoes and dropped the cloth right over them. Easy, but the holes are quite large. For the old bed I just pinned the cloth in place right over the plants, then cut small holes and eased the plants thru. Much more satisfactory. Cut out long sections over the carrots.

Not sure how I feel about having all the water for my vegetables filtered thru plastic mesh. In the end, I may decide to replace it with some sort of organic mulch.

Attached the trellis poles a couple inches behind each pair of tomato plants. Drilled holes at 12-inch spacing up the poles to stretch cord across as the plants grow. I'm using cotton cording salvaged from a much-loved but now defunct hammock.

May 21, Friday

The garden is all in. In the old bed, at the back, 3 eggplants 18 inches apart. In the center, 12 inches from the eggplants, 3 bell pepper plants 12 inches apart. At the front my row of carrots, 12 inches from the peppers.

I left the grass beneath the new bed; it should die beneath the topsoil. I filled the bed with:

• 2/3 garbage can sod, now decomposed, dug up from the old bed when I planted it last year
• 2/3 garbage can mulched leaves from last fall
• 9-1/2 bags (1 cu ft each) mushroom compost
• 3 bags (40 lb each) manure compost
• 1 bag organic potting soil

In other words, I threw everything I had at it and it's still 2-3 inches low. Certainly leaves room for more compost as fertilizer throughout the summer.

I put in 6 tomato plants. They're about 9 inches from each side, so they're separated by roughly 30 inches left to right and 37 inches top to bottom.

Because the plants were large and the bed not full of compost etc, the rootballs of the tomatoes are sitting right on the grass I left beneath it all. I hope that's not a problem. I'm more concerned that I forgot to loosen the existing soil and sod with a garden rake before I filled the bed. In other words, I broke most of the rules. Let's hope plenty of TLC with compensate.

May 19, Wednesday

Had a long silly interior dialog about whether I could fit 6 tomato plants into a new 3'x6' bed. My epiphany was, why not make it a 4'x8' bed? After much to-ing and fro-ing about where to position the new bed where it might get plenty of sun, I put my legendary carpentry skills to work and attached it to the western end of my existing bed.

My very hearty tomato plants are positioned in the new bed, waiting for some soil. They've been in my living room window for several weeks, and outdoors on days when it's been warm. In the existing bed there's a barely visible row of 2 dozen carrot sprouts (click photo for larger version). Above them will go a pair of eggplants and a pair of bell peppers.

April 26, Monday

Tomato seedlings were looking a bit yellow under the grow light so I repotted the remaining 4 as per the others. The first 3 have been sitting outdoors on my south-facing living room picture window ledge to get a bit of direct sun when it's over 60F. All have been growing much more slowly since I'm not warming them from beneath.

Here are the remaining seedlings under the grow light, 3 eggplant and 3 bell pepper. If nothing else, it looks a lot neater.

As for the garden bed, I see fewer lettuce sprouts now than at first. I'm not hopeful. But here are just a few inches of my row of carrots:

I went ahead and thinned them to about 3 inches apart. Don't want no spindly little carrots.

April 19, Monday

Time for an update.

A few of my tomato plants were getting too big for my grow light setup, so it was time to repot. Drilled some 9/32" holes in the bottoms of 3 of the 12 dozen or so 1-quart yogurt containers I've been saving for some rainy day. Hacked the tops off 3 fatter containers to catch the runoff. Pinched off the seed leaves, popped the root balls out of their fiber pots, and placed them at the bottoms of the yogurt pots. Turned the root balls sideways to bring the lower leaves as near as possible to the top of the pots. Filled with organic potting mix, soaked and drained in the sink, and placed them on a jerry-rigged ledge on my living room window. Am pleased how well they complement my casual decor.

The house is designed for summer shade on the southern exposure, so there is no direct sunlight. Still think it's best to keep them indoors and warm. One of our local Master Gardeners claims tomatoes should not go in the ground a day before May 31 in this area, no matter what; the soil isn't warm enough. As he puts it, "you can always move them to bigger pots". And there you are.

This leaves my grow light setup a bit less crowded, with the lamp hung at a less rakish angle:

In my outdoor bed I have many carrot sprouts but still just a few lettuce. The seeds are from last year, so I don't know what I can expect. Love that fresh-picked lettuce.

April 10, Saturday

Lettuce sprouts already in the garden bed? Maybe a couple. No sign of carrots yet.

April 9, Friday

The true leaves are up for the eggplant and peppers, so it was time to thin and repot. On Wednesday I thinned 3 of the 4 pods for each; the sprouts in the remaining 2 pods were less developed.  Today I repotted the six thinned pods into my 3-in fiber pots.

I placed the pods near or above the top of the pots to bring the plant height as close to the height of the tomatoes as possible. Also, in order to place the pots 3 abreast beneath the plant light, I placed 2 pods of each variety at the edge in their pots. By turning those edges toward the center of the tray, the outer plants are no further from the light than the 2-abreast tomato plants. They're all still shorter than the tomatoes, so the plant light remains aslant. Here's a side view:

From the left we have 3 eggplants, 3 peppers, and 7 tomatoes. At the right I've tucked in the 2 pods not repotted, to replace any repotted plants that fail in the next week; eggplant near the wall, pepper at the front.

The light emits only 2000 lumens, about the same as a 125-watt incandescent. But because it creates little heat, it can be placed very near the tops of the plants. They appear to be thriving, so I guess it's sufficient.

April 3, Saturday

Realized yesterday that I waited too long last year to plant my carrots and spring lettuce. So today I:

1. Loosened the soil in last year's raised bed (3'x6') by plunging my garden fork in as deeply as I could (maybe 10 inches) and wiggling it back and forth. My gurus agree it's best not to disturb the layers of the soil by turning them over, but to loosen them thusly.
2. Strung twine lengthwise across the bed to mark 3 rows 1 foot apart.
3. Sowed carrots in the nearest row (in photo) and red leaf lettuce in the other two. Covered lightly and watered.
4. Mulched between the rows with maple leaves from a pile I didn't bother to clean up last fall. Watered down the mulch.

Here was the result at 7 pm:

If anyone thinks there's something I could be doing better, I'd love to hear it.

Discovered today that my tomatoes suffered from both early blight and late blight last season. Late blight is very destructive but doesn't overwinter. Early blight is more managable but remains in the soil from season to season. This means all my tomatoes will go into my new bed. I had planned to put some of them in both beds. The existing bed will have carrots and lettuce for now, and transplants of eggplant and peppers replacing some of the lettuce in May.

BTW, late blight also affects potatoes. It's the fungus that caused the Irish potato famine.

April 2, Friday

Had an epiphany on my seedling layout. Carefully cut away enough of the pod tray to allow me to place my tomato pots directly on the self-watering mat. Now both pods and pots can drink directly from the self-watering system while being warmed by the rope light beneath the tray. Bingo.

From the left we have 4 eggplant pods, 4 pepper pods, 1 tomato pod with teeny sprout not visible here, and 7 tomato pots:

In fact, I don't see any reason why the pods need to be in a tray at all. They're self-supporting and could sit directly on the mat.

April 1, Thursday

Was horrified this morning to find my sprouts underwatered and limp. They were damp last night, but not wet. Gave them some nice lukewarm refreshment and they were standing tall within an hour.

My tomatoes have had a pair or two of true leaves since Sunday, so it was time to thin and repot. From each pod with two sprouts, I removed the one with the fewest and smallest true leaves, which was in each case also the tallest. Clipped them at soil level with scissors.

Then repotted the tomatoes. My farmer's eagle-eye hadn't noticed they were growing roots thru the pod netting. Snipped down the sides of the netting, then gently pulled it away. Some of the longer roots were chopped off; the shorter ones pulled right thru. Standard practice would be to leave the netting in place, but I simply wanted it gone. I'm sure I didn't hurt them (much).

Gently placed the rootballs at the bottom of 100% coir pots (save our peat bogs!). All sources recommend planting tomatoes deep, just below the leaves, at each transplanting. The bottom of my 3-inch pots was as deep as I could go. Filled them with potting mix, patted it down very lightly, and gave them a good soak.

Wanted to use a mix of sterile potting medium, compost, and my own garden soil, but could locate no sterile medium in the time I was willing to devote. Settled for Miracle Grow Organic Choice Potting Mix, made up of composted tree bark, peat moss, and sterilized poultry litter. I think it will do.

Here's where we stand this evening:

The grow light is ordinarily only an inch or so above the tallest stems. It's a high-output T5, whatever that is, and generates little heat. I need to work on a better system for supporting my various plantings above the still-operating rope-light warming system.

My eighth and final tomato pod finally has a teeny sprout about to come up; it's the pod at the right of the eggplant and pepper sprouts. That means I'm 16-for-16 when it comes to pods with sprouts. Amazing.

March 23, Tuesday

I now count 4 eggplant sprouts in 3 peat pods, and 3 bell pepper sprouts in 3 pods. Time to remove the plastic dome and lower the grow light.

I have the light tilted a bit to avoid scorching the tomatoes. Should be about an inch above the plants. Now I have to get it on a timer. The rope light is still warming everything from below.

I never thought I'd be at this point in less than a week. I like this system!

March 22, Monday

I'm seeing the hint of 3 tiny eggplant sprouts and 1 tinier pepper sprout from my year-old seeds. Go nature!

March 21, Sunday

I have tomato sprouts! After only 4 days!

Now I have to read up on what comes next. At some point they're supposed to get bright light, but the eggplant and pepper seeds haven't sprouted yet. They're from last year; they may not sprout.

Update: I am to prop the plastic lid open. When the rest of my seeds hav sprouted it's time for sunlight.

March 17, Wednesday

Decided to limit my plantings this year. Tomatoes, eggplants, bell peppers, and carrots. Also plan to add another 3'x6' raised bed. So I'll plant:

4 tomato plants
2 eggplants
2 peppers
Many, many carrots

This will supplement the 20 organic boxes I'm getting from a different CSO this year, First Hand Harvest.

Tomatoes freeze very well, and the others are just plain delicious straight out of the garden.

So today I started seeds. Here's my new Jiffy Self-Watering Greenhouse:

I've soaked the peat pellets and they're all ready for me to tear back the wrapper a bit and pop the seeds in. All the empty cells represent unused peat pellets for next year. The grey circle at the bottom of each cell is a membrane that draws water from below to keep my peat perky. There's a transparent plastic lid to hold the moisture in. It's all reusable, but very flimsy plastic.

I planted two seeds in each cell. If all sprout, I'll keep the most vigorous sprout from each cell, then later select the most vigorous seedlings to transplant. The rest I'll discard, unless Mom wants them.

I'm warming the seedlings to around 80 to encourage sprouting. Here's my low-tech setup:

That's a rope light looped under the greenhouse tray, which is propped up on some foam packaging material. I measured the peat temp with a food thermometer. Varied from 78 to 82 degrees, right where I want it. I'll check it again tomorrow.

Reminder for next year...

Calvin. It's March 1. Be thinking about getting early spring crops in the ground. You will have been late this year.