Fri. Feb. 15, 2019: Starting the Indoor Planting

Scallions and leeks, in one of our sunny windows

Even if I’m not good at blogging about it, I AM trying to get a head start on the seeds this year.

I’m determined to expand my vegetable capacity, even though most of it will be in containers. I simply don’t trust the food supply, especially under the current administration. It’s not safe, and I don’t trust them not to try to starve people who disagree with them. Control the food, control the population.

One of my freelance clients warned me about this over a year ago.

So, this year, I thought long and hard about what I like to eat, and what I think I can grow. Because, as we all know, that’s not always the same thing.

I am a cook. I enjoy cooking, and I devour (pun intended) cookbooks the way I do novels. I have a wonderful collection of cookbooks, including several from the Moosewood Collective, Deborah Madison, and Kripalu. Along with all my other Silver Palate, Barefoot Contessa, Patricia Wells, et al.

I’m not worried about growing too much of anything (even zucchini, which used to be a running joke around here), because I can cook it or freeze it or donate it to a food pantry.

Last year, I purchased seeds early and locally from garden centers. Only they were the previous year’s seeds and did not do well. Last year was an awful year for tomatoes — the first bad year we had. Not too great for cucumbers, either.

This year, I ordered directly from the manufacturer.

The seeds in the photo above are the scallions and leeks. The seeds in the photos at the bottom of this post are eggplants. If even half the seeds I planted grow into productive plants, we’ll be doing well.

This weekend, I’m planting the first of the tomato seeds — I bought six kinds of seeds this year, so it will be interesting to see how many productive plants we get.

I bought quite a few pollinator seeds, too, and will invest in small plants, because I want to encourage the bees back into the yard. We don’t use chemicals, so one would think they’d be happy, but we had a wasp problem last year that discouraged them.

Wish me luck! I’ll try to post semi-regularly and keep you up to date on my successes — and failures.

I never forget that I used to live on the Deuce, 42nd St. in NYC, across the street from the Port Authority Bus Terminal, and it was nearly impossible to keep any plants alive!

eggplants, in our other sunniest window

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Falling Behind

the eggplant is even bigger now!

Saturday, April 30, 2011
Waning Moon 4th Quarter in Aries
Saturn Retrograde
Pluto Retrograde
Celtic Tree Month of Willow
Scheduled to post

I’m scheduling this to post, because I’m out the door early to volunteer at a local wildlife sanctuary to help plant a butterfly garden. I’ll have lots to tell next week.

I feel like I’m falling behind; can’t keep up. I’m going to use the lawn mower for the first time this weekend — my yard is starting to look like a hayfield. I pulled up lots of dandelions the other day, and it seems two more came up for every one I pulled!

The back bed just overwhelms me — it will take me weeks to clean it out, weeks to rake and mulch under the trees, weeks to clean up the section between this house and one of the neighbors. I’m doing as much as I can every day that it’s not raining, but I have deadlines — I can’t blow a book contract in order to rake. Or I won’t be able to pay the rent and live here.

I feel very behind compared to the neighbors, but I have to remember that the garden is a work-in-progress, and I’m not just doing my work, I’m catching up on what was left undone by previous tenants.

On a happier note, the Black King Eggplant is huge; the India eggplants are starting to sprout; the zucchini have started to sprout. The foxglove sprouts are so tiny — amazing that some of those stalks will eventually grow to be seven feet tall!

The lilac bush has arrived, and is preparing to bloom. The huckleberry is much smaller than I expected — a huckleberry sprig rather than a huckleberry bush — but it’s adorable.

The pumpkins are doing well, and the strawberries are thriving out on the deck. The borage is large enough so, once I can replace the dinner plate I’ve got under the pot with the proper saucer, I can put it on the deck to protect the strawberries.

There’s a lot to be joyful about; I just feel like I’m constantly behind.

Devon

Zucchini

Saturday, February 19, 2011
Waning Moon in Virgo
Saturn Retrograde
Celtic Tree Month of Ash
Sunny and cold

I know I’m going to regret this, but I’m going to plant zucchini.

How could I possibly regret it? I eat zucchini, I cook with it a lot. I’m planning on growing two kinds of eggplants, two kinds of tomatoes, and peppers. And herbs. So all that’s missing from the mix is zucchini and I’ve got all the home-grown ingredients for one of my favorites, ratatouille. I adore the recipe from the original MOOSEWOOD COOKBOOK.

On Cape Cod, there’s a running joke about zucchini. People who grow them joke about how they sneak around in the middle of the night, leaving baskets of zucchini on other people’s doorsteps — sometimes the doorsteps of strangers. People who don’t grow them joke about finding far more zucchini than they could ever use on the front doorstep when they go out to get the paper in the morning.

But I’m growing it anyway, albeit cautiously, because I want to make ratatouille with home-grown ingredients from my garden.

Hey, I’m growing cucumbers, too, and I’ve already been warned about those . . .

Devon