"Plants Want to Grow"

When instructing my girlfriend, who was helping me transplant tomato seedlings, I gave the usual advice to watch with the roots and be careful in general with the little leggy seedlings, but added "don't stress about it too much, whatever we do with them, plants want to grow." A couple of weeks later on my first day at my new farm job, our farm manager quoted the same phrase as one of her favorite sayings, something she had learned from a mentor during her apprenticeship.

This is really key advice. Especially for someone like me who had a hissy fit when she realized that two days after transplanting was the wrong time to leave those tomato plants out in 40 degree weather. I am trying to learn not to stress about my garden, which is something I get so much enjoyment out of when I'm not freaking out. More than half of the 100-plus tomato seedlings that I planted look like they will survive. My 70 or so broccoli are looking big and healthy. My new source of stress? I drew up a garden plan for the approximately 250 square feet of beds I have laid out and realized I don't have room for all my seedings and seeds! Somehow I will figure it out. Next weekend is after the last frost for this area, so I should have lots more updates soon!

Broccoli seedlings - the first ones I planted, not quite ready to go outside.

Tomato seedlings - planted too late for an early harvest, but many did survive the cold weather.

My rough garden plan. Yes, that magnet says "Jesus is coming, look busy."

My Little Seeds are Growing Up!

Actually, all my plants are pretty small still but I didn sucessfully grow sprouts and small seedlings from the seeds. This was the part of the gardening process that I was most concerned about since I've never started seeds indoors. The process went something like this...

1. Purchase from seed catalogue without noting that some plants would have to be started indoors in early spring.

2. Realize that some seeds would need to be started earlier and think "no big deal, I won't be very busy in March."

3. Take out a book on seed sprouting and read that seeds need a constant temperature of 68-74 Farenheit to sprout. Think, "holy crap! it's 55 degrees in our house!"

4. Attempt to devise a growing area that will provide the right heat, not pose too much of a fire hazard and be completely inaccessible to cats who have the amazing ability to jump up to 10 times their body length.

5. After much trial and error (space heater in the closet deemed to risky, discover cats can jump even further than I originally thought) I put together a system on the top of the refrigerator that combines a heating pad (used only at night) and three florescent lights to achieve the correct temperature.

Voila!


Overall I'm pretty pleased with my setup. I can't start too many seeds at a time, but I'm quickly getting through the broccoli and brussel sprouts that needed to be started in March, rotating them out to a spot by the window once the sprouts have become little plants. Soon I'll be able to begin rotating in tomato and lettuce seeds.

Also, greenhouse starter kits cost $50+ and this was altogether maybe $25, since I already had most of the equipment. And the heating pad can be used for things like raising bread dough and making yogurt.

Good Times With Food

Welcome to my blog! I had not been moved to participate in the online community to this extent until I realized that I could harness technology to share my nerdy love of gardening, cooking and canning with anyone who cares to read my posts. This summer I am attempting for the first time to grow a full-scale garden, starting everything from seed. So now you can observe, via the internet, as I regress to Little House on the Prairie-style subsistence living.

While I will probably focus on the growing aspect in the beginning, my hope is for this blog to be a little bit of everything food related - growing, cooking, eating and even storing and then eating later! Thanks largely to Barbara Kingsolver, gardening is the hottest activity to steal from your grandmother since knitting. Much of my motivation for getting so much more involved in the process of what I eat comes from concern about the environment. I hope that for myself and many others, "locavore" living will not be a passing fad but a grounded approach to sustainability that pays tribute to our agricultural heritage.

The rest of the motivation for my endeavors comes from, well, love of delicious food! I'm already daydreaming about summer and the vast quantities of fresh fruits and vegetables that I will consume. And I wouldn't be surprised if a few posts document forays to ethnic restaurants or local fast food favorites. As we know from the SNL ladies who inspired the title of this blog, nothing is more exciting than discussing food. So hang on for a wild ride!