If It's For Free, It's For Me: Garden Resources To Get Organized

Picture this: it's three months from now, and time to transplant those meticulously grown tomato and pepper plants (multiple varieties of each, of course). That means it's also time to direct sow beans, and of course, I can't just grow one kind. I take my trusty (beat-up, dirty, and badly organized) garden tool bag, my garden journal (also a mess), my seed packet pile, and my hopefully-still-properly-labeled transplants.

Then I start to wonder which plants will go where and in what order. I start jotting down some scribbly notes which make perfect sense at the time but won't make any sense in a month when stuff starts growing. At the exact moment I realize my plant tags have faded in the sun and I can't tell hot vs. sweet peppers, I will also remember that I never made a proper map of the layout. Problem. The beans don't look happy either. Were they bush beans or pole beans? Were they shelling beans or fillet beans? Suddenly, meal times become a dangerous game of Russian roulette. "Here Tom, I sauteed some Italian frying peppers" "Are they hot or sweet?" "Erm, not sure" [watches as Tom pops one into his mouth, pauses, then makes The Face] "Yes, then those would be the hot ones."

I always garden like I am being chased by a live tiger, when the tiger is in fact made out of a giant to-do list shaped like a tiger and given tiger-like properties by my active imagination. Obviously, rushing around leads to an inattention to detail that produces some crappy results. Can I be saved from myself? Who knows. But with a stubborn two feet of snow still on the ground, now is the time to get some organization skills in place. Google, take me away!

Seed Starting Chart: Organic Gardening Magazine kept a seed starting chart housed on its website for years, and now that I need a fresh copy, it is nowhere to be found. Basically, it consisted of a list of common garden veggies, how long they take to grow from seed, and how many weeks before or after your last frost date that they should be planted. I always printed the sheets and kept two calculations - one for my "early" crops that would go out under protection from the cold (April 1st), and my "late" crops that would go out on time (May 15th). Once I decided my two planting dates, I would go backward from there and calculate when precisely to start the seeds which was an elaborate pain.

But hark! Having been forced to look for an alternative chart to share on my blog, in no time at all I found this wonderful excel spreadsheet that does the math for you. Check out the "lazy gardener's seed starting chart" at You Grow Girl. All you have to do is download it, and enter the date for your time zone. It even provides a link to the Farmers' Almanac list of frost free dates by region. This is already a huge improvement over my pencil scribble list.

Online Garden Planners: I still love my pencil/graph paper/college rule notebook. I do. But my vegetable garden has grown exponentially over the years, and I can't keep my paper templates in order. I don't have enough room to view the entire garden on one page per season as an aerial map overview, and it's really hard to keep track of crop rotations. I think my solution is to get some helpful software.

This will be my first computer-oriented gardening year thanks to Mother Earth News and their online vegetable garden planner. Although it does not belong in this article since it's only free for the first month, you can practice on the demo to see how it works and decide ahead of time whether it's worthwhile for purchase. I did the 30 day trial so I could actually start putting in my garden dimensions, and I'm finding it pretty user friendly. The demo videos show you exactly how to input your garden bed layout with its exact dimension. Once I get the bed layout put into the online map, I can click and drag various fruits and vegetables from the menu into their potential new homes. The software automatically calculates how many can fit in the space I have (which in itself is vastly useful to me since I am a pathological over-planter). Then it will help me use all this information to calculate crop rotations and succession planting. The downside to this is the yearly $24 subscription fee, and the fact that it doesn't SEEM to allow for integrating exact varieties of annual and perennial flowers among the vegetables. It has a placeholder called "flower" but that isn't the level of detail I need. But maybe I just haven't figured out how to do that party yet. If you have a small garden, I believe this application is really over kill, and probably not worth the investment. This year I will have about 18 raised garden beds of various shapes and sizes, so this might be really helpful for me, which saving Tom some unnecessary food-induced pain.

I've run into another great website with some truly free garden resources. Myfolia found me on the Twitter account that I can't seem to learn how to properly operate. It appears to be a hybrid garden planner and social networking site for gardeners. A free account let's you set your profile with your plant hardiness zone, which then links you to other gardeners in your area. It has easy connections to Twitter and Facebook, along with Flikr and other photo accounts. Aside from the community garden feel, the account lets you input and track your plantings, add journal entries, make task lists, organize your seed stash, and even arrange seed swaps with other members. This application seems more list oriented than map oriented, so it could be a good addition to the Mother Earth planner. They even have a mobile app so you can update your info FROM YOUR GARDEN! I don't know if I would use it, since I much prefer to write stuff down on random pieces of paper and lose it. Finally, wouldn't it be super neat-o to find other garden nerds in my area besides the only other one I know!?! (That would be you, Dina).

While we're working the free theme.....

Free Seeds: Oh no! This offer ends tomorrow, but I just heard about it. Click the link to the blog for Your Small Kitchen Garden and follow the instructions for getting your own free squash and tomato seeds. Move yourself up higher on the waiting list by sharing the info on Twitter or Facebook! But the generous gardener at this blog stops taking names tomorrow, so get moving.

Ed Hume Seeds will send you a seed packet in the hope that you will donate some of your veggie proceeds to the worthwhile program Plant a Row For the Hungry.

The Dinner Garden has designated national site for picking up your free seed offerings. If you don't have one nearby, you can submit your information via email for delivery via mail.

I'm stopping here, because there seem to be quite a few free seed offers once you start looking around. Also, I have given my self A LOT of homework to do as a result of this article. I need to follow my own advice and get organized.

JOURNAL NOTE: Day 7 of the tomato/pepper/herb seed under lights, and all is quiet. Hopefully by next weekend, I'll have some germination. Talk to you later!

I'm With Fergie. Let's Get It Started!

Even though I'm from Pennsylvania, I'm not referring to the single most important Sunday event in winter. Nor am I referring to the famous burrowing rodent from the western part of the state who pretends to be a psychic. No. Neither of these events leave me with any optimism or hopefulness after this beastly Northeastern winter we've had (and will likely continue to have, regardless of what the garden-gobbling varmint claims). My only source of hope lies in my dingy basement, since it is officially time to start early tomato, pepper and herb seedlings!

Seed starting is the official beginning of my personal spring, which is also the beginning of this year's grand garden schemes and resolutions. To hold myself accountable, 2011's garden resolutions are as follows:

1.) The meticulously chopped and bagged leaves from last fall will be placed on the garden for mulch AS the plants go in, as opposed to AFTER all weedy hell has broken loose.

2.) Trellises will be built and installed AS the plants go in, as opposed to AFTER the plants have hit that gawky teenager growth spurt that leaves them as impossible to manage as human teenagers.

3.) The blog will be ACTUALLY UPDATED and used regularly as a place to record relevant information, instead of being a high school creative writing project. Wherever she may be, Mrs. Timms is not likely reading this and recording my grade in that giant green ledger teachers used in the 80's.

4.) Thanks to this handy online garden planner, I swear to actually document what I plant and where I planted it, abandoning my previous habit of jotting stuff on random pieces of paper, losing it, and having no idea which variety of vegetable I am harvesting.

5.) Lastly, "Laura's Organic Gardening Adventures" will now just be "Organic Gardening Adventures" since Chef Tommy is doing more than his fair share of writing, cooking and hauling stones around. Time to give credit where credit is due.

I mean it, people. I really do. And where I would normally spend the next hour concocting a creative, funny and interesting last paragraph, I will now proceed to resolution #3. Let it be known that on this date, seeds were started in my homemade potting mix (equal parts compost, perlite and peat moss), packaged into plastic grape tomato containers saved from the grocery store, and placed under 4' fluorescent bulbs in my hideously ugly seed starting shelving unit shown here.

Seeds started today ..........

Tomatoes: Garden Peach, Sugar Snacker, Husk Cherry, Beaverlodge, San Marzano

Artichoke: Imperial Star

Fennel: Fino

Peppers: Ring-O-Fire Cayenne, Piquillo

Herbs: Common Sage, Italian Parsley, Chervil, Epazote, Culantro

I put the peppers, epazote, culantro, and artichokes on top of a heating pad, since they seem to need a little more heat to germinate. I have no idea whether the sage will germinate since it's a perennial, and those are usually tricky to start from seed. I'm just going to wing it and see what happens. The rest should be no big deal.

I'm most proud of the San Marzano seeds, since I filched them from Sicily (SSSSHHHHHHH!) in 2003 and the original seeds are still germinating well. I find this variety to be smaller and denser than other San Marzano seeds I've purchased elsewhere. Hopefully I'll get a good crop and save some of the seeds so I can get some fresh stock. I'm equally proud of the Sugar Snacker. I bought this as a plant from a big box store6 or 7 years ago and have never seen it since as a plant or seed. I save the seeds every year. The fruits are tiny, bright orange, and the sweetest cherry tomato you will ever taste. The vines themselves are monstrous, uncontrollable, and produce like crazy. These jerks topple every trellis I've ever made, but they are always worth it.

I usually consider these tomatoes and peppers my "early" plants because they will be put out under protective coverings called Wall-o-waters about two months earlier than is appropriate for my area. The goal, of course, is home grown tomatoes in June. The Beaverlodge variety is an early maturing hybrid with only 55 days to harvest according to the seed packet. So IF I do everything exactly the way I'm supposed to do it (not likely) tomatoes in June should be a cinch this year. Of course, hybrids with that early a maturity date were bred for speed, not flavor, so they probably won't be the most fantastic tasting tomatoes ever. But that first tomato from the garden tastes great every year, no matter what.

That's my story for today folks! By now the game should we winding down, marking yet another winter milestone. And even though I was out today trying to shovel through ice so the mail lady could drive to the mailbox to deliver me her goods, I was using Grandpa Knott's rusty old garden spade to do it. Let the 2011 garden season begin!

Garden Like MacGyver: Seed Starting On the Cheap

The answer is "no" to my 80's reference friends who wonder if I will be teaching you how to make a groundhog-killing bomb with duct tape, matches and a q-tip. But why not use Richard Dean Anderson's beloved character as a source of inspiration for taking those garden supply marketers to task? "Buy these exotic seeds to grow under this elaborate and overpriced lighting system! Grow your seeds in these exact containers using expensive supplies that look suspiciously like crap you have sitting around your house!" Would RDA fall for that? Hell, no! He would have solved the problem, got the girl, and started rolling the credits before you could say "additional charges apply due to shipping weight."

I admit, nothing beats the thrill of that first credit card swipe of the season, especially if you are like me and feel that buying said supply is almost the same as completing the project. But all these little doo-dads and accessories add up fast, and many of them are convenient but unnecessary. Here are some of my favorite ways to re-purpose household stuff for use in your early spring gardening projects.

Instead of buying: Ultimate Seed Cart by Territorial Seed Company - $900 + shipping

Build your own from Home Depot supplies:
plastic slotted utility shelving $35
3 4'long fluorescent shop lights plus bulbs $50
twine $3

OK, so mine is uglier. I admit it. But you're growing seeds, not entering a beauty pageant. Plus with the money you save, you could go to the spa ten times and then enter yourself in a beauty pageant. So there.

Instead of: Seed Starting Kits by Jiffy, Burpee, etc. - $10 and up


Use from the recycling bin:
1.) Blueberry and Strawberry plastic domed containers, and aluminum foil baking trays or pie plates OR
2.) replace the berry containers with egg cartons, yogurt cups or last year's seed trays plus plastic wrap


The key to seed starting is creating a warm humid environment, which is why mass produced kits contain a waterproof bottom tray, a perforated seed cell tray, and a clear plastic dome. The same growing conditions can be created with any kind of catch tray on the bottom, and the berry container, which is the seed tray and dome in one. I like these for lettuce mixes and herbs that grow as a patch as opposed to an individual plant. For plants that may need to be transferred to bigger pots before being put in the garden, like tomatoes, use the egg cartons or small yogurt cups with drain holes punched in. This will help protect the root systems during transfer. Cover with the plastic wrap to keep in the moisture until the seeds germinate.

Instead of: Seedling Heat Mat - $20 and up, depending on the size and brand name

Use from around the house: a regular old heating pad

Some seeds, like peppers, need a heat boost to germinate. A heating pad won't have the bells and whistles of a mat made only to germinate seeds, but it will get the job done. And then when you throw your back out planting those peppers, you can watch it all come back full circle. Cool, huh?

Instead of: Adorable Victorian Bell Cloches - $10 to outrageous, depending on size and material

Use from the recycling bin: 2 liter soda bottles with the bottom cut off

Is it ugly? Yes. Is it effective? You betcha! Just like a cloche, the soda bottle makes a mini greenhouse environment and protects the plant from pests. Unscrew the top for air venting. AND when you're done using the soda bottle as a greenhouse, turn it upside down and jam the spout into the dirt at the base of a newly planted perennial or shrub. Fill it water, and let the plant drink the way it wants to - a lot, but slowly. Then, put down the hose, get your own drink, and water yourself at whatever rate and in whatever amounts you choose. Congratulations! You've figured out how to water your plants while doing nothing.

Finally, if you're looking for a way to manage all those seed packets, consider a regular photo album with plastic pockets, like so. With this system, you can alphabetize and organize to your anal retentive heart's content, and still make it fit nicely on a shelf when you're done.
It's possible that the only thing of interest you learned from this entire article is that the carpet in my office is a lovely shade of pink. That's fine. I simply encourage you to do your own MacGyvering the next time you take on a garden project. It can't hurt to save money, save something from a landfill, and save the spirit of his moving theme song from obscurity while you're at it. Thanks, YouTube!

Check Out My Tools!: Must-Have Garden Supplies

That's right, it's product promotion time, but I still don't get any money for this stuff. And because of that, you can wager that I legitimately mean what I say!

My favorite spring garden supplies are as follows:

Reusable velcro ties & bamboo poles

Check out my adorable pea trellis! Bamboo usually comes in 5 or 8 foot lengths so it meets many large scale needs, but can be cut down to any size. It's sturdy, attractive, plentiful and cheap. Combined with reusable velcro ties, you can make all sorts of great garden trellises. Here's a link to a simple bamboo trellis from Organic Gardening magazine.

Using plastic zip ties will give you a tighter connection, but I really like the velcro ones instead. I've had the same ones now for years and they are still going strong. Plus I'm not great at building stuff, so I usually need to reposition the bamboo multiple times and that means going through multiple plastic ties. The velcro adjusts quickly, and then you're off and running!

Wall-o-waters

How do you get the earliest home-grown tomatoes on the block? These guys right here. Each wall-o-water is like a mini greenhouse. A series of tubes is connected in a circle. Fill the tubes half way with water and place in the garden for two weeks to heat up the soil beneath. After two weeks, plant your tomato, pepper, eggplant or other summer crop in the wall-o-water and fill the tubes the rest of the way. That's it. The water in the tubes absorbs heat during the day and releases it at night, keeping your plant at a consistent cozy temperature. By the time your plant grows too big, nighttime temperatures are safe for those tomatoes to be out of the bag anyway. Using wall-o-waters will give you a serious six week head start on summer vegetables. You can easily have an early (with wall-o-waters in late spring ) and late (without wall-o-waters, and planted at the proper time) planting, which can give you a solid harvest from late spring to frost! These are easily found in any garden supply catalog, but I'm not sure you will find them on the shelves at garden store. But they should be!

Soaker Hoses

Good watering is key to a successful garden, and the best way to do it is to send the water directly to the roots of the plant where it belongs. Regular sprinklers waste water by sending it flying into the air to be lost to evaporation or to land on the entire plant as opposed to the soil. Too much water on the leaves themselves can lead to disease and mildew problems. Also, when a lot of water hits dry soil fast, it initially tends to pool up and run off. That's more water literally down the drain.

Using soaker hoses is the "set it and forget it" method of watering. You don't need to move a sprinkler around, or stand there endlessly with the hose nozzle doing it yourself. Lay your soaker hoses out so that they snake all around your garden beds. Connect your water supply and let the hose drip water slowly to the base of your plant and directly to the roots. Leave your water supply on long enough (depending on your soil type) to water 1-2 inches, and do this once a week. To determine how long that takes, put a shallow plastic container with inch measurements on it under your soaker hose and see how long it takes to fill. Again, these are reusable for many seasons and come in 25, 50, 75 or 100 foot lengths. They are easily found at any big box store or garden center.

That's all for today. I would be putting down new mulch right now, if not for the rain. It won't be long before I hit you with my next topic about the BEST organic method of dandelion weed control! Stay tuned!

Product Placement For Which I, Unfortunately, Receive No Compensation: the Earth Box

Two questions: What is the Earth Box? And why are they not paying me to promote their product?

Well, I guess I'm not getting money or other valuable prizes because they don't know me, or care what I say. But I harbor no ill will. And as for what is the Earth Box? We must got back to the beginning - to the one and only Walter Petrosky.

Walter Petrosky is my 70+ year old Polish grandfather from the Scranton area who has 70+ years worth of wisdom to relay. Aside from being my favorite person, my grandfather is my greatest literary influence because of his particular style of leading his stories with the punchline. However, the punchline in his case usually doubles as the moral of the story. For example, my favorite stories by my grandfather begin with this line, delivered with complete sincerity in a strong Scranton accent: "Laura! (Lare-uh!) You gotta be careful with electricity (lektricity). [Pause - lean in for dramatic effect - commence pointing] Because one time, me, Bobby Touch, Jackie Mancuso (Mancuse) went up the (da) Mountain (Moun-un)...." and then things get weird, and there's something about stealing railroad tracks from the coal mine, an exposed 220 volt wire, and now my grandfather has curly hair. That's the best of the "beware of electricity" themed stories, although it would seem my grandfather has electrocuted himself no less than 5 times, and still lives so that we might all learn from his errors. He has also planted garlic upside down and nearly gotten bitten by a rattlesnake while picking blueberries ("We were up the mountain! We got paid five cents a pail! We shared one pair of shoes!"). Hints from Heloise, look out! These are good tips, all delivered Walter Petrosky style.

So how am I going to bring it back around from an elderly Polish man to the Earth Box? Here I go people, check me out. My grandfather has always sponsored my hobbies. Apparently in college, he felt my hobbies were eating peanut butter and drinking A-Treat lemon-lime soda by the case. Walt had that covered. Then when we bought our first house and took up renovating, we received a constant supply of Sears Craftsman tools. Now that gardening is my latest preoccupation, he's on the lookout for new and better gear for me at all times. So when Johnny Schwartztraubber's tomatoes became the talk of the block, my grandfather was on it.

It was explained to me, with much directional gesturing, that Johnny had bigger and more tomatoes on two plants than the guy with the garden across the street, or so-and-so from down the block, and the reason was that he was planting his tomatoes in a raised plastic box on casters. Not one to dilly-dally, I immediately became the owner of two such contraptions.

The Earth Box is essentially a raised bed on wheels. It's a self-watering system, which means that the bottom of the box is a reservoir that holds water and keeps the dirt above it on a perforated platform. The soil absorbs water as needed, keeping itself evenly moist. All you have to do is keep topping off the water. It also comes with the soil, the casters to move it in and out of the sun, a tight fitting plastic mulch cover and fertilizer. The complete instructions detail exactly how many of each type of a variety of seedlings should be planted, how they should be placed in the box and where the fertilizer goes. It's pretty fool-proof and is great for decks, since it's easy to roll around. An additional accessory kit comes with the trellis for tomatoes or other tall plants.

It's fool-proof all right, but how did I fare? Well, pretty ok, even for me. FOR ONCE, I followed the directions when planting my lettuces and only put in as many as they said and arranged them properly. I didn't even water regularly, but was still rewarded with an entire spring's worth of pest-free delicious lettuces that I cut an inch from the root so that they regrew. They were twice the size of the same lettuces that I planted in the garden at the same time. It really and truly rocked. Now, as far as the tomatoes, I couldn't resist the urge to plant only two, and put in three, which was not good. I also didn't keep watering regularly, resulting in something called blossom end rot, where the tomatoes gets black soft spots. The lack of regular watering and tight spacing stressed the plants, and now they picked up some sort of wilt. However, the tomatoes I did get were the first of the season, I believe because the box heats the soil sooner, speeding up the growth process. The tomatoes are still coming, but the ones in the garden are in better shape.

My final assessment? If you are a new gardener, or have limited space in the garden, or have ample deck space for containers, or just feel like it, get yourself an Earth Box system. And when you do, take a bit of a time out to thank Walter Petrosky for his enthusiasm, his dedication, and his knack for self-electrocution. Clearly, it has worked out for the best.

Tomato Lust ... Awww, Yeah

Well folks, I have gone and done it. It's April 25th in my zone 6 garden, and my first round of tomatoes is properly planted and watered. I am super excited, and the early pangs of maniacal tomato lust have begun.

If you are not a gardener, you are saying to yourself, "Lady, you are a FREAK. Tomato lust? Seriously? Besides, what's the big deal, anyway. I can get in my car right now and go to the store and get an organic tomato. I have a Whole Foods."

If you are a gardener, you are saying to yourself, "Lady, you are an IDIOT. You're going to lose those to frost, or at least stunt their growth. Everybody knows you don't plant summer crops until at least mid-May, and even then, Mike McGrath says June 1st is better."

To that I say the following:

1.) Whole Foods - well goody for you, but I am not impressed. If you are eating a tomato in April in New Jersey, it is likely not grown in New Jersey, picked green, ripened in-transit with gases, and even after all that, winds up being a variety that doesn't taste that great. AND even if it was grown in New Jersey and picked ripe, it was in a greenhouse, and it's still not the same. If you love tomatoes, and I mean LOVE tomatoes in a somewhat inappropriate way, you must must must grow your own, pick them perfectly ripe, and eat them straight from the vine. Which leads me to my next topic.

2.) Tomato Lust - There are two kinds of tomato lust: the kind that ends in -itis, and the kind that ends in -ism. Tomato Lustitis is a summertime temporary virus. It starts in July and August with the onslaught of the "Jersey Fresh!" signs, and the popping up of random farm stands. You hear your tires squeal at you swerve to the side of the road, hop out of your car, and start buying them by the bushel. Tomato sauce, tomato slices, tomato salad, tomato SALSA, SUN-DRIED Tomatoes, FRIED GREEN tomatoes, T O M A T O I C E - C R E A M!!!! And yet the instant your tomato frenzy reaches a fever pitch, it violently recedes, leaving in its tsunami-like wake nothing but a few leftover skins, and the dull realization that if you see another tomato you will literally throw up in your own shoes.

Tomato Lustism is something quite different. A cross between religion and affliction, Tomato Lustism is a quiet dark force lurking far beneath the surface of many completely normal looking human beings. You might THINK you're having a conversation with someone about current events, but that person is off in his or her own world thinking, "Will my San Marzanos produce enough this year for canning, or will I be stuck with the Romas? And is the cage I built strong enough for the Brandywines? And why won't this person stop talking about Darfur when I have mulch to refresh?"

Not only do these victims think obsessively about tomatoes, but they also possesses a need to grow more tomatoes that ripen earlier, take up less space, and taste better than anyone else's tomatoes. Taking a page from the Book of Dennis Leary, tomato lustism does not lead to other vegetable addictions, but to carpentry (see above image). Only 2.5 people reside in my house, yet a minimum of ten tomato plants will be planted, eight of which will be indeterminate heirloom varieties plus the two token early hybrids, just so I can brag about having garden frnesh tomatoes in early July. Did I lose you at "indeterminate"? It's OK. That means that you are free from the above mentioned illness, and should remain so ... unless you keep reading these posts and find your mind wandering...

3.) In my final point, I speak to other gardeners. Just how do you plant tomatoes in April in a zone 6 garden? Why, with Wall-O-Waters of course! This is my favorite tomato trickery. I start seeds under lights in the basement in February, put out the WOW's in the raised beds in March or April, and ta da! The WOW's warm the soil so you can get your plants in early, and then protect them at night from chilliness. Of course, for best early tomato results, you should put in an Early Girl, or some other super early hybrid, but at the moment I've got 3 San Marzanos, 2 Sugar Snackers, 1 Brandywine and 1 Purple Calabash ready to plant. So maybe none of these guys will be producing in June (my ultimate tomato goal), but my caprese salad is going to be the cat's meow. Now, if only we could get a handle on the homemade mozzarella cheese...but that's another day, another blog entry.