The Giving Gardens Project

The Giving Gardens Project at Wagner Farms Arboretum could not be a more perfect volunteer opportunity for me.  The project donates land for a garden and the tools to work it.  Volunteers work the soil, plant the plants and maintain them throughout the season.  The crops are then donated to local charities to provide fresh vegetables to people in need.  A group in the community working the land to help another group in the community is about as simple and honest as a charity can be.  I've submitted my application and I am looking foward to the orientation later this spring.

Sprout Clean Up

Today I thinned the sprouts to two per container by snipping the extra sprouts with a pair of scissors. I also reseeded some of the containers that had no sprouts in them. Overall, it looks like about a 75% germination rate. The tomatoes are doing well and seem strong, but the herbs are a little bit slow. I've noticed the upstairs bedroom is very sunny in the afternoon and might move the trays up there.

Victory Gardens

Many towns offer "Victory Gardens" or "Liberty Gardens" for free or little money ($20 per year in the next town over) to local residents. These are areas of land owened by the town split into medium sized plots which are used by people who don't have their own space to grow a garden. The town provides the land and a water hook up. The resident provides the plants, the time and maybe a small fence. In addition to providing the space, this is also a good opportunity to speak with other gardeners about what they are doing and what is working for them. Check your township web site as spring approaches. The posting on the web site for my town is as subtle as "Victory Garden lot applications are now being offered in the Mayor’s Office. For more information contact Leslie at 973-555-1212. ".

Getting Ready For Spring; The First Tilling

Saturday was warm enough and the dirt was soft enough to give the garden the first tilling. The first tilling mixes in the straw, leaves and household scraps that were deposited during the fall and winter and will give it about two months to rot away before the second tilling.

I have a Mantis tiller and I hate it. It is as hard as can be to start and is very unreliable. The only reason I tolerate it is because it was given to me for free by someone else who could not stand it. It is not only me who has this issue as the web is full of postings by others with similar problems. One of these days Sears will have a good sale and I'll replace it with a Craftsman.

Burpee Seed Sprouter

The Burpee Seed Sprouter was only $10.00 at Home Depot and works great. This is much cheaper than a lot of sprouting kits on the web. All the extra water drains away which prevents the mold and fermentation you might get if you try sprouting with just a dish. It is very easy to keep this watered and the sprouts it made were not bitter at all.

The First Sprouts of Spring

The tomatoes have started sprouting! They are about 2 - 3 inches now and growing quickly. I'll thin them to one sprout per container next week. I've read a suggestion to cut out the extra sprouts with scissors rather than pull them out so you do not disturb the roots of the spouts that will stay.

The tomato sprouts in the growing tray:

Japanese Pickles

Japanese pickles are not quite a side dish and not quite a garnish. Those little yellow daikon pickles that come with a curry are a good example. Unlike Western pickles which need take some time to make, many kinds of Japanese pickles can be made in a few minutes and are ready to eat in a day. They do not, however, last forever like Western pickles and need to be eaten in a relatively short period.

A common way of making Japanese pickles is to simply slice the vegetables, coat with salt and place under pressure for half a day. The pressure is often applied with a "pickling stone" which is literally just a good sized rock from outside placed on a board, but you can also buy a "pickling press". Pickling presses are a little over priced because they are imported Japan, but are a little bit nicer than keeping a rock in the kitchen.

One of my goals with the garden this summer is to jar or preserve as much of the vegetables as possible. We tried a first batch for practice, it only took about 10 minutes to make and 1/2 a day to pickle and the results were not bad.

Here are two good recipe books and an example of a pickling press:

Quick & Easy Tsukemono: Japanese Pickling Recipes


Easy Japanese Pickling in Five Minutes to One Day: 101 Full-Color Recipes for Authentic Tsukemono

Tsukemono Japanese Pickle Press 2.2 L

http://www.theblackmoon.com is a good site which goes into more detail and also has a number of simple recipes.

Early Seed Starting

It is probably a little bit early given that the winter has been so long this year, but I am starting the tomatoes and some of the other more delicate plants now. Peas, beans, cucumber, melons, and squash are all a lot more robust and grow very quickly. These varieties will all be started from seed directly in the ground after the frost has passed sometime between March and April.

I'm using some left over containers from plants bought at the nursery last year. They are a little bit bigger than what you normally get at Home Depot, etc ... for starting plants, but there will be less to worry about in terms of the plants getting root bound or needing to move them to a bigger container later.

I'll plant 3 - 4 seeds per container and thin them to 1 plant per container once they sprout. There are 72 containers between the two trays.

The dirt is regular dirt from the garden which has been sifted and cleaned.

I keep them in the living room next to the big picture window. There is also a heat vent right there, so they will be warm at night in addition to getting the sunlight. The living room has the basement under it, so I do not need to worry about the floor getting too cold. Some people will put a heat pad under the seedings, but with this set up I do not think that is necessary. In previous years, I used to put the seedlings next to the patio door where they would get light, but the heat vent was not there and the floor was much colder. This is also a less trafficked area and once they seeds are planted, they will not require too much care other than keeping the watered.



Note also the cardboard under the planters to help keep dirt and water off the carpet.