First harvest of 2020: baby greens (arugula, lettuce and kale) plus cilantro from my back porch container garden. I used it to top a fried egg-sandwich made with chili-garlic mayo on homemade sourdough bread. Yum!
Garden update
Not much happening in the garden yet. It has been a cold and wet spring so far, we even had snow on April 18 and night frost just a few days ago. The radishes are beginning to show, but none of the carrots and only a few of the peas. I reseeded sugar snap peas and rainbow carrots yesterday. The previous carrots were likely washed out, and my guess is that the birds got the rest of the peas. Fingers crossed for this batch. It is supposed to warm up to the sixties in the next few days.
Meanwhile, the porch plantings are making progress, the spring greens are coming in nicely. I also have growing radishes (and hopefully mache), and I sowed chard, kale, cilantro and chives. Of those, only the kale is coming up. Very slowly.
The seedlings are looking good. Pictured above are tomatoes, lettuce and basil. Under the grow light I have going: tomatoes, lettuce, parsley, kale, hot pepper, eggplant, cucumbers, zucchini and winter squash (butternut and delicata).
Re-potting
Today I re-potted my tomato seedlings and sowed cucumbers (Longfellow and Tokiwa), zucchini, butternut squash and Delicata squash indoors (two each). I also set two of my lettuce seedlings outside on my porch. Might have been a bit too early as it will be cold the next few days, but I needed the space under the grow lights.
Seedlings up close
It is snowing today. A cold and wet day in the middle of spring. The forsythia bloom is almost over as are the daffodils. My seedlings are doing well under the grow lights and with the heat mat underneath. I currently have going: 4 tomato varieties (2 each), 2 basil, 2 parsley, a dozen or so head lettuces in different stages (half of them sown two weeks ago, the other half four weeks ago with the majority of the seedlings), 5 Tuscan kale, 2 hot Thai peppers, 1 eggplant (reseeded two weeks ago, only one of those plants came up and there may be a second one just poking out).
Porch Updates
Above you see some garlic from my plot today as it is much more photogenic than sowing seeds in pots on your porch. Today I direct-sowed Swiss chard (Bright Lights), Tuscan kale, cilantro and dwarf peas (Dwarf Grey Sugar) in containers on the porch. The radishes and spring greens are coming in nicely.
Seedlings
Today it will be hitting 60 degrees here in Boston. Spring is in the air. I repotted some seedlings, namely basil and head lettuce. My seedlings are doing fine, everything sprouted except, sadly, the eggplant. I reseeded some a couple of days ago, but the seeds are from last year so maybe that was the reason. Under my grow lights, I currently have basil, tomatoes, lettuce, hot peppers, kale, parsley (it final sprouted!). On my porch I sowed spring greens, arugula, radishes and mache. The spring greens are coming in nicely and some growth is starting to appear in the pot with the radishes/mache. Very exciting. Also, this is happening right now on my back porch:
I also went to the community garden to plant more peas, radishes and carrots.
Last and First
I am down to my last head of home-grown garlic. Luckily, this year’s crop already has a strong showing.
First Outdoor Sowing
Today I sowed peas (Sugar Snaps) and radishes (Early Scarlet Globe) in the garden plot. All of them are old seeds, I just finally managed to place my seed order with Sand Hill Preservation Center today. It rained hard yesterday and the ground was a bit muddy, which should be fine for the peas, but I am not sure if it might have been too wet for the radishes. No rain in the forecast for the next few days, overcast and in the 40s.
Five days ago, I also sowed some old spring greens mix in two large containers on my porch. It is a mix of lettuces, spinach, chard, arugula, mustard and wrinkled cress. It looks as if at least some of the seeds have germinated.
Adjusting to Coronavirus
It is close to the end of March and I am starting to plan the gardening season. We had frost last night and will have more tonight and I am planning to get my peas in the ground in two days when it is a bit warmer again. I also started seedlings yesterday with my daughter. So far, so normal. However, the schools here in Boston have been closed for a week now because of Covid-19. The governor declared a state of emergency five days ago, restaurants are closed or do take-out only, people are encouraged to work from home, grocery stores now only allow a certain number of shoppers inside. The world is a very different place than just a week ago. Everyone is asked to stay home, which is hard for my two teenagers. My 17 year-old daughter copes with exercising, reading and asking me to teach her how to bake bread and how to grow your own food (she never showed much interest in gardening), and become more self-sufficient. So, we started by sowing seeds. For now, we started two types of lettuce (Bronze Beauty and Kagran Summer), eggplant (Ping Tung), Thai hot pepper (should have started those about a month ago, but alas), flat parsley (should also have been started earlier), basil, four types of tomato (Break O’ Day, Dr. Wychee Yellow, Green Zebra, Eva Purple Ball). We set them up under grow lights and with a heat mat in my bedroom.
We will need to adjust our community garden season as well. We will of course not have our annual spring meeting or our spring work day this year. We will need to think about disinfecting shared gardening tools and other surfaces.
So far, gardening has not been restricted by the city or the state, but should there be a “shelter in place” order in the future, we will likely not be able to tend to our plots. On the other hand, growing some of your own food will be more important this year than ever. The borders are shutting down, and migrant workers who pick most of our produce will not be able to enter the country and we will likely experience some sort of food shortage.
I will try to move as much as I can to container gardening at home, as this seems a feasible and safe option. For now, I am planning to grow herbs, tomatoes, lettuce, kale, chard, eggplant, hot peppers.
(Almost) blank canvas
(Plot March 10)
I switched web hosts and because of a glitch I lost my posts from January and February. But there was not much there, except a post from January 11, where I cooked my last home-grown butternut squash. Roasted with thyme and rosemary, and then turned into soup. Delicious!
