This Imperfect Plot

Don’t forget: All week long we’re giving away an awesome prize package from our friends at Organic Mechanics. One lucky winner will be selected to receive a care package from Organic Mechanics this week. Here’s what you’ll get:

• (1) 8qt Premium Blend (OMRI listed indoor potting soil)
• (1) 16qt Container Blend (all-purpose outdoor potting soil)
• (1) 16qt Seed Starting Blend (OMRI listed potting soil for seed starting indoors)
• (1) 1.0cuft Planting Mix (OMRI listed compost blend soil amendment – great for building raised bed veggie gardens!)
• (5) 1 lb. Worm Castings (premium soil amendment, great for making worm “tea”, directions on our website’s Products page)
• (1) Organic Mechanics T Shirt (Green, L or XL available)

All you have to do is register here: http://www.organicgardening.com/organic-mechanics-giveaway

Note: Last month we gave away an electric tiller, but we have not heard back from our potential winner yet (I’m looking at you, Minnesota). Be sure to use your real email address so we can contact you and award the prize. If your name is randomly selected, you will receive an email from me about the middle of next week. Thanks!

For more information about Organic Mechanics, go here: www.organicmechanicsoil.com

* No purchase necessary to enter or win.
* A purchase will not improve your chances of winning.
* You are not a winner yet.
* Void where prohibited.
* Must be over 18 to enter, and legal resident of 50 United States or DC and Canada (excluding residents of the Province of QUEBEC)
* Sweepstakes begins at 12:01 a.m. ET April 23, 2012 and ends 11:59 p.m. ET April 27, 2012 with the final drawing on May 3, 2012
* Entries must be received by 11:59 pm (ET) on April 27, 2012
* Click here for official rules.

As the father of two young daughters, I don’t always have enough daylight after work to do any gardening. I get home around six and it’s a whirlwind of cooking, eating, playing, and reading before it’s all said and done. By the time my girls are fed, read, and in bed, it’s somewhere around 8:30 and twilight is just giving way to darkness.

So what’s a gardener to do? Two words: Nighttime Gardening. With that in mind, I’d like to share with you my new homemade video series called “Gardening at Night.” The first episode is called “Slugs Love Beer.” Keep in mind that I’m shooting and editing this myself, and I’m still trying to dial it in a bit. So it’s with some nervousness and potential embarrassment that I give you this:

Organic Mechanic Giveaway

This spring, I’ve been trying out the seed starting mix from Organic Mechanics Potting Soil.  I’ve started tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, tomatillos, parsley, basil, corn and lots of annual flowers in this mix. My seedlings are big, strong, and healthy. The mix holds moisture really well so my flats don’t dry out as fast as some other starting mixes. It’s made from coconut fiber, pine bark, rice hulls, worm castings, and an OMRI-listed organic fertilizer.

And here is your chance to try their line of products. One lucky winner will be selected to receive a care package from Organic Mechanics this week. Here’s what you’ll get:

• (1) 8qt Premium Blend (OMRI listed indoor potting soil)
• (1) 16qt Container Blend (all-purpose outdoor potting soil)
• (1) 16qt Seed Starting Blend (OMRI listed potting soil for seed starting indoors)
• (1) 1.0cuft Planting Mix (OMRI listed compost blend soil amendment – great for building raised bed veggie gardens!)
• (5) 1 lb. Worm Castings (premium soil amendment, great for making worm “tea”, directions on our website’s Products page)
• (1) Organic Mechanics T Shirt (Green, L or XL available)

All you have to do is register here: http://www.organicgardening.com/organic-mechanics-giveaway

Note: Last month we gave away an electric tiller, but we have not heard back from our potential winner yet (I’m looking at you, Minnesota). Be sure to use your real email address so we can contact you and award the prize. If your name is randomly selected, you will receive an email from me about the middle of next week. Thanks!

For more information about Organic Mechanics, go here: www.organicmechanicsoil.com

You’d think I would have gotten a lot of gardening done since my last blog post. You’d be right, too. Luckily, there is no direct correlation between my blogging frequency and my gardening. Here’s what I’ve been working on at home these past few weeks.

In the basement, under lights, I have the following:

Green Zebra tomatoes
Cosmonaut Volkov tomatoes
Indigo Rose tomatoes
Brandywine tomatoes
Amish Paste tomatoes
Sweetie Cherry tomatoes
Toma Verde tomatillo
Corno di Torro sweet peppers
Rosa Bianca eggplant
Jasmine-scented nicotiana
Italian Flat Leaf Parsley
Genovese basil
Sweet corn

I started the corn in newspaper pots. I’ve heard that corn seedlings don’t transplant well, so I’m hoping that I can avoid any issues by simply planting the whole newspaper pot.

I also started Siberian Kale, Red Russian Kale, Fordhook Chard, and Champion Collards. I transplanted these last weekend, and now they’re out there under a row cover. About 5 days before I transplanted them, I took the temperature of my soil. It was 50 degrees, so I covered that raised bed with black plastic and 5 days later the temp was nearly 60 degrees.

I also have a flat of onion, Dakota Tears & Siskiyou Sweet Walla Walla. That flat gets moved around a lot, usually shuffling back and forth between the kitchen table and the deck.

The peas that we planted around Saint Patty’s Day are sprouting. They’re not doing so well, though. I think I have either cut worms or very hungry slugs. I’m going to pre-sprout some more peas and replant this weekend.

All of these varieties are from High Mowing Organic Seeds. And I’ve been using Organic Mechanic’s Seed Starting Mix.

PS. If you entered the Sun Joe Tiller Giveaway last month, check your email. We’ve selected a potential winner and sent her an email. If this is you, please respond so we can get the prize to you!

Another excellent early spring weekend. Saturday was rainy but Sunday was great around here. Not quite as warm as it’s been, but I’m OK with that. After a week of highs in the 70s, it’s good to get back to feeling like spring again. I thought maybe we missed it and we jumped right to summer.

Yesterday, I was able to get a lot done—turning the soil in some raised beds, weeding, dividing and moving perennials—but I feel like the best work I got done was the imagining. Gardening puts me into a certain kind of mediation. I’m not always aware that it’s happening, and after a few minutes I’ll realize that I’m just leaning on my shovel, looking around, lost in thought. (My wife calls this Spacing Out.) These meditative garden space outs are simply a creative lateral drift that leaves me with good ideas.

Speaking of preparing the soil in spring, now is a good time to mention that this week, we’ll be giving away this cool little tiller/cultivator from Sun Joe:Tiller Joe TJ600E
This medium-sized, no-bend, lightweight electric tiller features a seven inch cultivating depth and four steel blade tines.  TJ600E cultivates a 14 inch wide path in one pass thanks to a substantial 6.5 amp motor.  Made for an average area, this two-handle tiller retails for $159.99.

All you have to do to enter is go here to register: http://www.organicgardening.com/sun-joe-sweepstakes

One lucky winner will win this tiller from Sun Joe. A winner will be selected randomly on Monday April 2.

* No purchase necessary to enter or win.
* A purchase will not improve your chances of winning.
* You are not a winner yet.
* Void where prohibited.
* Must be over 18 to enter, and legal resident of 50 United States or DC and Canada (excluding residents of the Province of QUEBEC)
* Sweepstakes begins at 12:01 a.m. ET March 26, 2012 and ends 11:59 p.m. ET March 30, 2012 with the final drawing on April 3, 2012
* Entries must be received by 11:59 pm (ET) on March 30, 2012
* Click here for official rules.
* Sun Joe, 86 Executive Ave.  Edison, NJ 08817 and Rodale Inc., 400 South 10th Street, Emmaus, PA 18048-0099 are the sponsors of this sweepstakes.

My garden and my blog have a lot in common these days. Both have been dormant and inactive all winter, showing only the occasional sign of life—a post about Christmas trees here, some winter kale leaves there.

And my mind has a lot in common with my compost pile. I’m always adding to it—kitchen scraps of pop culture, grass clippings from the Internet, armloads of leaves from my family tree—and slowly the process of composting and composing continues.

Let this blog post be the first of many for the season. Let this short essay be the potting mix in the seed tray. Let this little story be the newspaper pots all filled up and ready to plant. Let today’s post be the first of the onion shoots poking through soil.

Yes, I feel it. I am waking from my hibernation—as a writer and a gardener.

Two months ago I posted a list of my gardening goals for the year. My first 2 goals are intrinsically connected. The first was to grow only what I start from seed myself. Ambitious? Yes. Impossible? No. My second goal was to grow only High Mowing Organic Seeds. When I wrote to High Mowing, they graciously agreed to supply my seeds this year.  So you can imagine how happy I was when the big envelope from Vermont showed up in my mailbox.

Last week my daughter and I started our onions, Siskiyou Sweet Walla Walla and Dakota Tears, and this morning we saw the first little green shoots. This week we’ll start even more.

And yesterday I was lucky enough to spend some time in the garden. I’m trying out a Sun Joe electric tiller and was able to get a nice patch of garden ready to plant. That little machine has some kick to it. In a few weeks I’ll be posting a review of the tiller and giving one away to some lucky reader. Stay tuned.

And so this imperfect plot continues….

My garden at sunrise, early January, as seen from my bathroom window.

Let me be clear: I’m not a New Year’s resolution kind of guy. Which is why this post isn’t really a list of New Year’s resolutions, but more of a list of My Top 10 Gardening Goals for 2012. Ready? Here we go:

1. I will start all of my own seeds.
Last year, I had great luck with the seeds I started indoors and most that I sowed directly. But I also supplemented my plantings with seedlings from the Rodale Institute’s Spring Plant Sale. And what really overcrowded my garden last year were the extra seedlings I brought home from work, things that Doug Hall started in the greenhouse for the test garden, things like tomatoes and peppers, and celeriac. Don’t get me wrong: I appreciate free stuff like you couldn’t imagine. But this year, I’m taking a less-is-more approach—a Thoreau-like tact of simplistic self-sufficiency: If I didn’t start it from seed, then it’s not going in my garden. One possible caveat: Strawberries (see #6).

2. I will only grow seeds from High Mowing Organic Seeds.
I love their seeds. I love their company.

3. I will not over-plant tomatoes.
Every year, I seem to have too many tomato plants. Not this year. No, I will have the exact right number. Whatever that is.

4. I will grow more flowers in my garden.
Last year, I grew zinnias, calendula, nasturtium, and moonflower. This year, I will grow these and more. And I will interplant them among my other crops.

5. I will plant a sunflower house for my kids.
Last year’s fun project was a bean teepee. I might do one of those again, but we’ll definitely grow a sunflower house.

6. I will grow strawberries.
I love strawberries. Why haven’t I grown them before?

7. My garden will be productive earlier in the season.
How? By starting my own seeds indoors, I’ll be able to start my greens and whatnot in February and get them in the ground in March. I might even start some peas indoors to get a jump on fresh peas. Ah, fresh peas. I can’t wait for spring. It’s been a long winter and it’s only early January. Yep, I’m starting to champ at the gardening bit, as it were.

8. I’m going to buy (or make) a rain gauge.
I know how much rain we got last August and September: way too much. But this year, I’d like to be a bit more in touch with my precipitation.

9. I’m going to keep a detailed garden journal.
I have a good memory. For some things. I can remember people’s birthdays like Rain Man can count toothpicks. For instance, today is my Grandmother’s 90^th Birthday. Tomorrow is my cousin Emily’s 25^th birthday. Sunday is my friend Kevin’s 39th. The Monday after next is my nephew Calvin’s birthday. He’s turning 13. Ok. You get the point.

But there are some things that just seem to slip away. When did I plant my potatoes last year? What kind of beans did I plant two years ago? How much rain did we get last June? When did those Mexican Bean Beetles first appear on my bean Teepee? OK, you get the point there too. Yep—garden journal. Count me in.

10. Keep my hopes high & my expectations low.
Not sure if this counts as a goal. But it’s my M.O. and I’m sticking too it.

A few weeks ago, we loaded the kids in the car and drove 2 miles to our local tree farm to tag our Christmas tree. It didn’t take us long to find the perfect Scotch pine—not too big, not too small. We tagged it and will go back in a few weeks to saw it down, tie it to the roof of the car, and bring it home.

Once the business of finding the tree was out of the way, we played hide-and-seek in the tree field. My 3-year-old daughter is sort of new at hide-and-seek, so there was more giggling, screaming, and running than any actual hiding or seeking. It was a great way to spend the morning, and at nap time she slept soundly.

Some people think that getting a live-cut tree is wasteful or bad for the environment, but in fact it’s neither. No, artificial trees are the real environmental Grinch at Christmas time. Artificial trees are usually made from PVC and metal, and most likely imported from China. And there is evidence that artificial trees can lead to dangerous levels of lead exposure. Yeah, no thanks. I’ll take a real tree any day, preferably one that I cut down myself.

Here are my reasons you should cut your own Christmas tree at a local tree farm:

1. Pine-scented air
There’s nothing quite like the smell of a fresh evergreen as it permeates the air of your house. It’s a smell that your kids will love and will forever associate with the holidays and feelings of home.

2. Sustainable agriculture
Christmas tree farming is actually a pretty sustainable business model. The trees that are cut down this year will be replaced by new trees this spring and the cycle of life continues.

3. Support the local economy
When you buy a tree from a local farmer, you are keeping your money in the local economy. Think about how connected our communities would be if we bought everything from the people who actually grew it or made it.

4. Good for the environment
The average Christmas tree is in the ground for up to 15 years before it’s harvested, all the while providing habitat for wildlife and improving air quality by emitting oxygen. Christmas tree farms are a much better use for the land then, say, strip malls or housing developments.

5. You can recycle a live Christmas tree
There are lots of great ways to reuse a Christmas tree
: Chip it up and add it to your compost pile; use the branches to mulch your roses; set the tree up outside and decorate it with bird-friendly treats. Use it as a trellis for your peas or beans in the garden next spring.

6. Fun for the whole family
What a great excuse to go tromping through a field with your kids. Fresh air, sunshine, holiday spirit—It’s a perfect way to spend a sunny Saturday morning in December. Plus, most local tree farms give out cookies and hot chocolate.

7. Save Money
Trees are generally cheaper when you go to a U-cut Christmas tree farm—sometimes by as much as $20 or $30.

8. Did I mention the pine-scented air?
Yes, I did. But it’s worth mentioning again.

You may be tempted to buy one of those precut trees that you see at roadside stands or supermarket parking lots. These trees are generally trucked in from far away, which means they have a slightly larger carbon footprint than a locally raised tree, so if you can, make the trek to your local tree farm.

Where does the time go? December all ready. Let me try to catch you up.

My fall garden, for which I had high hopes in early September, never really came to fruition. I planted a row of beans, a row of kale, a 6×4 bed of carrots, a 4×4 bed of turnips, I planted a few rows of mache, and a few rows of spinach. A pretty good fall garden, right?

Well, I guess I can be too disappointed. I should listen to my own advice. This is my standard piece of advice for new gardeners: Keep you hopes high, but your expectations low.

I’m not sure of the exact rainfall totals, but I know it felt like it rained on my garden everyday from mid-August to late September. My little seeds never really had a chance to do their thing.

Sure, some did. I have exactly 7 carrot sprouts, 2 turnips, about 7 kale plants (I planted three varieties, but only one sprouted), zero beans, zero spinach, and a handful of mache.

I am thankful for what I have. And there is a chance that my seeds will over winter and I’ll have some good things growing early next March.

That’s’ the update on the garden. So much more has happened that you may or may not be aware of or actually care about, but nothing is stopping me from giving you a quick photographic tour of the past few months. Follow me.

We found this bold-faced hornets’ nest hanging in our apple tree. These critters get aggressive in the late summer and early fall, so your best bet is to keep your distance. But once a frost hits, the hornets die off and you can collect the nest for a unique conversation starter. This nest is hanging in my barn now, but I might haul it to work to hang in my office.

I’m proud of the parsley we grew. This is all from the seeds my daughter and i started in the basement last April. We spread it all out on a large sheet of paper. It took a few weeks, but it’s dry now. It should be enough to last us through the winter.

Here’s my fall garden—after a freak October snow storm!

Sadly, we lost this giant oak tree in the October snow. Wet snow on autumn leaves throws off the balance of things.

Click to view a larger image.

We have an old summer kitchen behind our house. It’s been overrun by trumpet vine, a native, yet aggressive vine. It gets beautiful reddish trumpet-shaped flowers that attract humming birds, but I felt compelled to take it down a notch.

And finally, here’s me and my kiddo at the Christmas tree farm near our house. Check out my guest blog at Kiwi Magazine for my 8 Reasons to Cut Down Your Own Christmas Tree.

OK, now you’re all caught up. I’ll try to be more regular with my blogging. -eh

The operative word this week in the Brown Bag Challenge is the word Challenge. By that I mean it has been a very challenging week for lunches, mostly due to my own absentmindedness.

Monday
Monday started out strong: Avocado, tomato & cheese on thick slices of organic whole wheat Italian bread, with a handful of organic grapes and a small bag of Late July peanut butter crackers. My wife prepared this for me, but it required on-site assembly. I sliced the tomato and avocado and started building what turned into what I call a Zoinks! Sandwich. (If you don’t get that reference, you probably didn’t watch enough Scooby-Doo back in the day.) It was very good and wholly fulfilling.

Tuesday
Tuesday, on the other hand, was an utter failure. Not only did I not bring a lunch, but I also forgot to make a lunch. It’s one thing if you make it and leave it on the counter, but it’s something else entirely when you just plain forget about it. I felt like such a failure. How could I possibly live with myself after this? How could I face all of you on this blog, knowing that I let you down?

Hungry, I slinked into the Rodale café with my head hung low and built myself a small salad at the salad bar, avoiding all eye contact with the cafeteria staff and fellow diners. I had fallen so far and wasn’t sure if I could go on.

But as I ate my green leaves, I found hope. I thought back on the past month and began to feel an egg of pride hatching in my soul. And you know what? I had done pretty well up until now. I will go on. I will see this challenge to the end. Every hero must go through bad times, must fall from grace. And everyone loves a story of redemption. I will be that hero. I will redeem myself. I will see this Brown Bag Challenge to the end.

Wednesday
And yet our hero somehow manages to almost forget his lunch again, but at the last moment, he grabs from the fridge what he hopes is the remnants of last night’s chicken cutlets wrapped in foil. It isn’t much, but it will certainly count as a brown bag lunch.

It was a small lunch and I was very hungry and totally grouchy when I got home. Hunger always makes me grouchy. My wife asked why I didn’t supplement this measly meal at the café. But I was so grumpy that I couldn’t answer her—I just furrowed my brow and grunted. To make it worse, the power was out when I got home, so I ended up cooking dinner in a quickly darkening kitchen. Luckily we have a gas stove. I made tortellini with sausages and broccoli. It was good and we ate by an eerie combination of candlelight, flashlight, and iPhonelight.

Thursday
Of course I was going to have leftover tortellini with sausages and broccoli on Thursday. I set it all out on the counter—the container of leftovers, a glass bowl to heat it up in, a little bag of Locatelli grated Romano cheese, and piece of bread. You can imagine my surprise when I got to work and had no lunch. I had left it on the counter.

This time I didn’t feel so bad. I had, after all, made the effort of preparing my lunch. I ate another salad from the café and I enjoyed it with my head held high.

Friday
As I sit and write this final Brown Bag Challenge entry, I have a full belly of leftover butternut squash soup. I made it last night. I skinned and cubed the squash and brought it to a boil in vegetable broth. And then as it simmered, I added some halved Brussels sprouts. I caramelized some onions and threw those in too. I crushed up a few of our remaining Black Icicle tomatoes and chopped up a generous handful of fresh parsley. I thought I was done, but my wife had a good idea: Add the leftover tortellini and sausages that I forgot to bring with me for lunch. So today’s lunch contained yesterday’s lunch, sort of like a play within a play.

As this challenge comes to an end, I can safely say that I am a changed man. I will no longer just assume that I’ll grab lunch from the cafeteria. Instead, I will think about my mid-day meal more deliberately. I will exercise a control over my food intake that I had previously given away. Thank you to Healthy Eats for getting me to change the way I think about my food.

I’m taking part in the Brown-Bag Challenge, a month-long initiative to eat consciously and save money by packing a lunch each weekday instead of eating out. Join us here and share what you’re eating on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #brownbag.

At the end of week 4 of the brown bag challenge, I have a few observations to make:

1. I eat a lot of pasta.

2. I will often forget about packing my lunch until right when I’m walking out the door in the morning.

3. I somehow managed to lose that Pyrex bowl. I may have left it in the little kitchen up here on the second floor.

4. I may have lost a little weight, too. I’ve been fastening my belt in the second position for a while now, but on Monday, I had to move to the third hole.

5. According to the Internet, the holes in a belt are just called belt holes. They have no special name.

6. I am slightly disappointed that belt holes don’t have a special name.

Here’s my recap of the week:

Monday
Fusilli with sweet potatoes, sausages, and various other veggies.

Tuesday
Here’s the thing about Tuesday. I packed my lunch, but I never ate it. You see, my wife had a meeting in the building, so she brought the kiddos with her. I entertained the girls while she had her meeting, then we went out to a local coffee shop for lunch. So I give myself credit for packing a lunch of leftover pasta, but I give myself a fail for not eating it. I had a tasty sandwich of salami, asiago cheese, and some kind of special relish from a place called Baked in town.

Wednesday
I ate a leftover cheeseburger. Technically, it was a patty melt. What’s the deal with that? A hamburger on a bun is called a hamburger, but a hamburger on slices of bread is called a patty melt. I don’t get it.

I didn’t pack anything else so I was starving by the time I got home. Starving.

Thursday
I found another leftover hamburger in the fridge. This one had a bun. I also brought some leftover potato wedges. Sort of like steak fries, I guess. And a cookie.

Friday
Another bowl of Fusilli with sweet potatoes, zucchini, onions, broccoli, and Italian sausages. And a cookie.

Sorry for the lack of images. Hopefully, next week I’ll be better at snapping photos of my food before I eat it.

I’m taking part in the Brown-Bag Challenge, a month-long initiative to eat consciously and save money by packing a lunch each weekday instead of eating out. Join us here and share what you’re eating on Facebook and Twitter with the hashtag #brownbag.