Desert Times

Well, we've had our first challenge on the Verandagarten. Everything was coming up beautifully so far. Take a look:

Columns from Left to Right: Tomatoes, basil, and lettuce mix. The 4th row from the right has 2 parsley (not germinated yet),

2 dill, and 2 oregano. The last row has cilantro, collards, and kale.

We've been very careful about keeping them watered, well lit, and warm. the heating pad and light stay on most of the time, and at night we cover the box to keep the heat in. They get watered at least once a day, and have been progressing steadily. Last night, however, we went to a seder for Passover, and I couldn't get home to water them. So when I got home this afternoon, they had gone more than 24 hours without water under a lamp the whole time.

Seedlings need a lot of water in general. Some, like tomatoes and basil, need less than others, but they suck it up pretty quickly for all the growing they do (some of these guys have doubled in size in a day!). You can imagine, then, that all my plants had shriveled up and fallen right over since yesterday.

 Looks like it's been a hard day.

Plants are very resilient, though. They looked terrible, but if a little drought could kill a plant, Earth wouldn't have any. It's amazing what a little water can do. Less than an hour after I watered them, they were already starting to stand right up.

Of course, this isn't something I want to happen to my crops. I'm trying very hard to pamper them, at least until they're old enough to transplant into a larger container. This early in their lives, every little problem can have drastic effects on their future size. That said, they're not china dolls. They cling to life like every other living thing on the planet. If you think growing food isn't for you, take heart. Your little seedlings will fight for their lives more than you might think!

Wishing you all the greenest of thumbs,

The Regular Farmer

View South Farm

Well folks, it's a long about time I got around to writing a new post for Regular Farmer. Since I last chronicled my adventures, I have seen an organic farm in the Jordanian desert, stepped on my first nail while wwoofing on Lake Champlain, and spent another glorious season at Mighty Food. Perhaps I'll expound upon those experiences someday, but for now, I look to the future forests of collard greens that currently exist only in my dreams.

And soon enough, in my stomach.

You see, I now live in Jamaica Plain, a neighborhood of Boston with an population as eclectic as it gets. Not so many years ago the hipsters had not yet moved in and raised the number of moustaches per capita to somewhere around .40. With so little facial hair, property values were low and the law meant nothing. Many landlords found that burning their houses down for the insurance money was more lucrative than renting them out. All the paint on said houses ended up in the soil, and thus, growing food in the community garden on my street means eating lead.

My girlfriend, Etta, and I decided to persevere in the face of such hardship, and grow our vegetable garden in pots on the porch. This was the beginning of View South Farm, which will hopefully be feeding us and anyone who's nice to us this summer and fall (we need a red kitchenaid mixer, if you need some ideas).

We started with an order to Johnny's Selected Seeds for a variety of veggies, including Big Beef Tomatoes, collards and kale, cilantro, parsley, dill, and a lettuce mix. For soil, we turned to Boston Gardener up near Dudley Station in Roxbury, an excellent resource for your basic urban-gardening needs. At our kickoff seeding party, which featured the musical stylings of Alex Trott, we filled each cell in a 5x6 egg carton with our soil, planted each seed according to its needs, and snuggled them into their germination station.

Sowing some kale

The germination station, though not as sophisticated as others I've seen, is working beautifully so far. The frame is a cheese box (Thanks to Scott at Singing Cedars!), and inside I've placed a seed-tray heating mat to keep the soil warm for my future dinner. Many seeds need warmth in addition to soil and water to get started. Some, like tomatoes and basil, even like the soil to be 70 or 80 degrees! During the day, I throw open the curtains to give them a little sunlight, but I've been leaving the whole setup under a fluorescent lamp most of the day to make sure the seedlings get as much light as possible.

Complex, I know.

That's it, so far! As you can see from the pictures above and below, we seem to have done something right. Our kale and collards are doing swimmingly, and all the basil has started to come up. I've seen hints of others peeking out from under the soil, but I don't want to count my chickens, so to speak. More updates will follow as our verandagarten, as the Germans might say, springs to life.

The babiest of basils

Until then, I bid you adieu,

The Regular Farmer