Month: August 2006

Plantarium

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Plantarium

The Gardening Educator in me wants to tell you why products like the Plantarium are not viable tools for growing healthy seedlings. Look for a moment at the product photo. The seedlings inside the vial are very leggy, thin, and weak. They have elongated, delicate stems that will make the transition from the vial to a pot of soil next-to-impossible.

The Gardening Educator wants you to know that you don’t need expensive or fancy gadgetry to grow seeds into seedlings. In fact all you need is good quality seed-starting mix*, and a used plastic container (yogurt containers are good) with a bunch of holes poked into the bottom for drainage.

When the Gardening Educator spots products like this in a store she screams silently inside, “Why?! Why must first-try gardeners be mislead by useless, colourful plastic objects that inevitably result in dead plants and sad hearts?!”

But the Science Geek Kid in me thinks they’re kinda neat.

    Seed-Starting Mix Recipe

  • 1 part peat or coir
  • 1 part perlite
  • 1 part vermiculite

    • optional dash of compost and/or worm castings

Your Gardens

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While harvesting a-plenty from my own gardens, I have been eagerly following the harvest from your gardens. The Garden Show & Tell section of the homepage has been filling up lately with photos of vine-ripened tomatoes and piles of peppers. And I have noticed an abundance of mature garden photos on display in the Show & Tell section of the forums. This predilection to show off our gardening achievments seems to be a huge aspect of the support we need as budding and even seasoned gardeners. Forget pest control tips or fertilizing advice, what we really need is encouragement through the rough patches and lots of high fives before we pack it all in for the winter (or the too-hot summer for the southerners). It’s generally other gardeners who understand both the work that went into producing that first, juicy tomato, and the pride we feel in having grown it.

We’re worse than new parents, albeit new parents who eat their progeny!

Some highlights:

‘Black Pear’ Tomato

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Black Pear Tomato

I would love to bring you more hard-core gardening experience type information but I am completely emersed in the harvest season and relishing the fruits of my labour. I just ate lunch — a fried egg sandwich on spelt toast with a slice of garden tomato, fresh basil, mayo, and oyster mushrooms — and I couldn’t wait to get back to my computer to tell you about the delicious black pear tomato. Perhaps I am glorifying it because it’s the first large tomato of the season and the first tomato is always THE BEST TOMATO THE WORLD HAS EVER KNOWN! However, this tomato was juicy, sweet, and rich tasting. It cut easily into a perfect sandwich slice packed with dense meatiness in the centre and fresh and juicy towards the edges; not at all mushy or mealy. Don’t you think the shape looks like a cute little hobo sack?

I’m definitely adding this one to my list of new faves.

A few tips for container growing:

  • Grow it in the largest container you can find – This variety is an indeterminant which means the plant itself grows quite tall, requiring a lot of root space. I used a plastic garbage can and drilled holes into the bottom for drainage.
  • Grow one plant per container – Do not be tempted to shove a couple of transplants into the same container. That little plant is going to grow up fast. Competition for space in the container will result in a reduced yield.
  • Don’t let the soil dry out completely – Water consistently and give your plant a lot of water each time. I give mine about 4L of water daily! Plants that aren’t watered enough are prone to Blossom End Rot which shows as a mushy black spot on the bottom of the tomato.
  • Fertilize – I fertilize my plants regularly with sea kelp throughout the growing season. You can get it as a liquid concentrate or store up batches of “tea” made by steeping dried kelp meal in mason jars. Kelp meal is high in potassium which is a good plant stress reliever. This will sustain your plant through the odd day of drought and neglect. But of course there are no miracle potions for utter delinquency!

Feed Them to Assorted Mammalian Creatures

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Eggplant Carnage

My first response is a loud string of expletives followed by a very long and drawn, “NOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!”

tomato_bite.jpg
    ‘Black Cherry’ tomato with chunk extraction. Oh the humanity.

A mysterious mammalian creature has been visiting the rooftop deck and taking nibbles out of random produce. We think it may be an opposum this time since one has been spotted climbing the fire escape. I barely broke a sweat over the cucumber left on the vine intact but with tooth imprints, and the assorted tomatoes didn’t freak me out because there are lots more to go around. The cherry sweet peppers were annoying but there is still time for more so I’ve accepted the loss gracefully. But dammit, I have been nurturing that single, perfect ‘Thai Long Green’ eggplant all summer. It was so perfect, and green. WHY!! I don’t even like eggplant. It makes my mouth itch. What bothers me is being robbed of that moment when I can cradle the fruits of my labor lovingly in my arms and capture that moment forever on film… or a digital file. There will be no beautiful ‘Thai Long Green’ eggplant to hold up against the clouds like a tiny UFO. Not this month anyway. There are two more microscopic fruits on the plant that may make it to full-size before the cold sets in.

flyingtomato.jpg
    ‘Golden Delight’ Tomato

I can’t tell you how many times this year I have advised fellow gardeners to accept a certain percentage of loss to our fellow mammalian creatures. We share space with them and have to expect that our tasty homegrown goods are going to be attractive. On the best of days I think of it as doing my part to keep city life alive. While finding my beautiful ‘Thai Long Green’ eggplant half discarded on the fire escape makes my blood boil, spotting a ‘possom scurrying across a city street at night is an exciting surprise. I just wish they’d take the whole thing! It would make me feel a whole lot better about the loss. A half-eaten tomato reeks of a “Yeah, I don’t really care for this one” attitude.

Eggplant Carnage
    My neighbor suggested we send the half-eaten fruit into some kind of CSI-type lab for bite mark analysis.

In the end I know that the best thing to do is just move the plant. My experience has shown that this one is opportunistic and only goes for veggies hanging out in the open. In all cases the fruit was exposed to a railing or like in the case of the eggplant, the entire pot was sitting out on it’s own. When I move the plant into a cluster of other plants the plundering stops. There will be no revenge or attempts to deter the creature with sprays or sprinkled magic powders.

But I will move that eggplant pot with a lot of authority and a very firm hand!