Harvest Monday and vegetable update

Thinned out lettuce continues to be my Harvest Monday story. On Saturday midday, I checked in on my Minton Stable Garden plot as I waited to receive a walking tour that a BNAN volunteer was leading. We were one of the final stops of the handful of featured Jamaica Plain community gardens, and by that point, only a few people had stuck with it (my theory: the tour shrank as it passed Doyle's), but they were impressed with the attention many people have been giving to their plots. After hearing me ramble on about the history of the garden and showing them the John Carroll memorial and wildflower area, they were interested in what I was growing. So I showed them the lettuces, snap peas (some about 8 inches high), the Chinese cabbage and broccoli raab I had planted from seed about a week ago that were germinating, the strawberries (with small white fruits budding), and the mound of black-eyed Susans (now the circumference of a large hula hoop and in sore need of thinning). As you can probably guess, I was without my camera, so you'll need to rely on older photos and your imagination.Lunch was calling, so before I left, I thinned out the Summertime Iceberg and Forellenschluss Romaine lettuces. To understand why they need to be grown in the sun, one needs only to compare this harvest (above) to the thinner, wimpier leaves picked earlier this evening (below) from the shady backyard garden my daughter and I planted. The MSG crops seem to have more bones to them, and if we continue to enjoy daytime temperature ranges in the 50s-70s, I'll be posting photos of full, crunchy heads by the beginning of June. If you want to compare these lettuces to others across the country and beyond, visit the Harvest Monday posts listed at Daphne's Dandelions.But I don't want to jinx the situation. Anything can go wrong; today I encountered a familiar-looking scourge on my Tyee spinach. Already. I'm beginning to wonder that the only way to avoid leaf miners is to grow spinach in the fall.At home, I've been hardening off my tomato and brassica seedlings. Last week I transplanted my Black Prince and Rose de Berne tomatoes into larger containers and practiced more vigilance in giving them some time on the sunny front porch, and my efforts are paying off. They are catching up to where they probably should be at this time, and I may be able to plant them out this weekend.I can't seem to achieve the same momentum for my broccoli and cauliflower. One year ago today, my Fiesta organic broccoli was not only twice the size as this year's, but already in the ground. This year, I'll be lucky if I can plant out all six of these: two Charming Snow cauliflower, three Fiesta organic broccoli, and the most advanced, the Piricicaba broccoli. I had started four times as many seeds; if I had had more time I would have moved more into larger pots, but I doubt the results would have been different. Now I'm wondering if I can still plant them out this weekend or if I need to wait for them to fatten up a little more. That, along with the arrival of the community garden compost delivery from BNAN and the purchase of a new camera (I've narrowed it down to a particular Canon model) will hopefully happen soon.

There. A harvest.

Finally, my long absence from Harvest Monday has ended. A week or so ago, I commented to Daphne that I would return soon, even with a yield of thinned-out lettuce plants. And here we have them, mainly the Summertime Iceberg my daughter sowed behind our garage sometime in March, the first seeds of our 2010 gardens. I waved hello to my Minton Stable Community Garden plot yesterday as I rode home from a conference that had kept me indoors most of the weekend. My Iceberg and Romaine lettuces as well as my spinach were not as far along, as they were planted a few weeks later, but because they receive more sunlight the leaves were firmer and healthier. Those seedlings will outpace whatever my daughter and I plant in our increasingly shady backyard. Still, we manage to reap enough greens to make the backyard efforts worthwhile. A few years ago, my husband built some boxes along a retaining wall at the edge of our driveway that gets more sun, so I may try some Chinese cabbage and Quarantina Raab, although I probably should have planted them yesterday.

Since I wrote that first paragraph, the lettuce leaves, shown above, were combined with store-bought Romaine, rinsed with boiled water, and consumed in a salad. I'm looking forward to my locally-grown lettuce and other greens making up a larger percentage of our vegetable intake.

For more (and probably better) harvest news, visit the other blogs listed at Daphne's Dandelions that are participating in Harvest Monday.

Update on my plot

As the temperatures in Boston yesterday escalated toward the 90s, I biked over to my Minton Stable Garden plot in the early afternoon to see if any seedlings were poking through the soil. At first glance, nothing. Then I crouched down for a closer inspection and there, in between the small rocks and stray blades of salt hay and leaves I found them--My lettuce (above) and spinach (below) I had planted on March 28. I photographed them with the same camera I haven't gotten around to replacing (I have been making good use of the crop feature in my photo application to hide the fuzzy left side of my images).And there were the plants that had decided to sow themselves. I had always wanted to grow raspberries, so I kept a few of the volunteers that blew into my plot last year. And those have multiplied tenfold and spread across my plot. Almost as pesky as bindweed, though not as threatening. I'd love to keep them, but they have entered my perennial section and also taking the space reserved for my pole beans. Anyone want to start their own raspberry beds? I have plenty here just for the digging.

The year in gardening 2009/Resolutions for 2010

My plot back in early September

The past year may go down in history as one of the worst years in gardening, at least in the past decade. Above-average rainfall and below-average temperatures during the crucial months of the growing season resulted in a below-average yield, especially with tomatoes. In November, I abandoned my experiment of determining how much I benefited monetarily from planting and harvesting edibles, reporting a negative balance. And on some days, I spent more time clearing out infected fruits and vegetables than harvesting healthy ones.

The Minton Stable Garden in bloom, August

However, I still find gardening to be a satisfying act, providing physical and emotional benefits to those who participate in it. Another year at the Minton Stable Community Garden led to more friendships with gardeners and other Steering Committee members. A community of bloggers provided advice and ideas for improving my garden practices as well. And the rain had some advantages, including a lower water bill for the community garden (only $141.82, down from last year's $203.40). As long as I have my 140 square feet in JP and land at home, and Massachusetts hasn't yet disappeared under rising sea levels, I'll continue gardening. Here is my second annual set of lists, with items not in any particular order.

Top 5 successful plants:
1. Kentucky Wonder pole beans
2. Fiesta organic broccoli
3. Forellenschluss Romaine lettuce (grown in Minton Stable Garden)
4. June-bearing strawberries (before the botrytis set in)
5. Volunteer raspberries--they liked the fall conditions

Top 5 failures:
1. All tomato varieties (except volunteer cherry tomatoes)--due to below-average temps and late blight
2. Anything I tried to grow in my backyard--too shady
3. Spinach after the invasion of leaf miners
4. Irises I tried to transplant to a sunnier location in front yard--maybe they'll bloom next year
5. Zinnias--planted late and not given enough room

Resolutions for 2010:
1. Continue growing the same volume of tomatoes, trying some different varieties, but make a point of pruning them to strengthen plants and ensure that they get more light.
2. Grow more varieties of broccoli, like Piricicaba and broccoli raab, and other plants, including kale and other greens, coriander, parsley, and other herbs, carrots, and cauliflower.
3. Reduce the size of the strawberry bed to make room for the raspberries.
4. Keep trying to achieve that fall crop of greens, perhaps by planting better varieties sooner, starting some indoors in August so they can grow out back under row covers, or by some other means.
5. Be more aggressive in thinning out perennials, to avoid diseases like powdery mildew or to keep them from taking over my MSG plot. Black-eyed susans, anyone?
6. Take better photos, including sharper close-ups and documentation of the garden over time.

Happy New Year! I'd be curious to read the resolutions of other gardeners.

Harvest update; the indoor season begins

First, a harvest update; better late than never, I suppose. These last few days we've been enjoying sunshine and temperatures in the sixties. Not only has the weather extended the harvest, but has coaxed my first season raspberry plants to continue producing new berries. Only one of my four plants has quit, leaving pea-sized dried-up remains. Fortunately for me, the other fruits have retained their sweet flavor, which is not always guaranteed to happen this late in the season (the berries in the communal patch at the Minton Stable Garden taste bland and are lacking in juiciness in comparison).Now for some not-so-scientific estimates of the value of my harvest (for more impressive numbers and other gardeners' harvest updates visit Daphne's blog). Based on all of the nearly identical photos I've taken since my last tally, I've yielded the following:

Previous benefits total: $143.18
1/2 pound (estimated) organic broccoli at $2.50/lb.: $1.25
1 package (estimated) raspberries at $3.59: $3.59
New benefits total: $148.02

Current cost total: $171.57
New balance: -$23.55
I have this nifty grow light that has put me in the red this season, so I may as well keep using it. Under a layer of leaves in containers out back, I was pleasantly surprised to find a few German thyme plants still thriving and new parsley rising up over the stumps of what my husband had picked and used in pesto. I potted them in containers I could bring indoors, and plan to keep them alive for as long as I can under the grow light. I placed another thyme plant under a kitchen window; we'll see which fares better. I would like to start some rosemary from seed, maybe some other herbs, as well as lettuce. In a comment she made earlier to my blog Emily mentioned that she was going to sow an indoor garden, and since I still have soil, light, and lettuce seeds, why not?

Update on my plot

As much as I liked being away, I was eager to check in on my plot in the Minton Stable Garden upon my return, especially now that summer has decided to grace us with its presence. I had been concerned that the tomatoes that I had nurtured from seed (for a change) would fall victim to this year's scourge, late blight. Last week, Kathy, another Boston-based blogger, published a photo of how her tomatoes were affected, and since then has reported that her potatoes are also showing signs of damage. Fortunately, I haven't seen any brown spots or rotted stems on my plants in my MSG plot, though there are a few brown spots on a few leaves of one of my plants growing in containers on my front porch. My most advanced is this Cherokee Purple shown here, which has started to flower but can probably use some pruning.My pride and joy of the week is this broccoli which is forming a head, currently four inches in diameter. Actually, all five plants are at a similar stage but this head is the largest. The tomato stems you see in this photo are courtesy of my next door plot neighbor (Not Asa, but the other abutter, whom I still haven't met). Like last year, we are once again on top of each other in some places, though another gardener and I were speculating that her tomato plant shading out my broccoli may be beneficial in this summer heat. I am not used to having such success with broccoli so I'm a little unsure of when to harvest. I'll probably not be eating at home the next two nights, so no later than this weekend, I think.In other vegetable news, my pole beans have started making their ascent, and I have harvested another half pint of peas, though they are pretty much done producing. To no surprise, my remaining two heads of Romaine lettuce have bolted. The sweet basil I planted from seed a month ago in some boxes along a wall behind my house are failing to germinate, so today I planted a row of seeds in my MSG plot where some my lettuce had grown. Better late than never, I suppose. Despite a freezer at home still clogged with pesto from last year's harvest, a year without basil is unthinkable. I may also buy a flat or two to transplant in some containers at home.

My yield has died down a bit since the strawberry-and-lettuce rush, but I still have a little to report since my last tally two weeks ago. Half of my snap peas developed into snow peas, which were selling for $2.99 a pound at the Harvest Coop this week, less than the $4.59 that the snap peas fetched before my Canada trip. So even though my methods for reporting are not so scientific, I'll try to make some adjustments to preserve some amount of accuracy and integrity.

Previous benefits total: $87.07
3/4 lb. snap peas at $4.59/lb.: $3.44
3/4 lb. snow peas at $2.99/lb.: $2.24

New benefits total: $92.75

Total costs so far: $167.07

Current balance: -$74.32

We'll see what the future brings as far as harvested broccoli, pole beans, and tomatoes. The other gardeners I've run into this week are bracing themselves for blossom end rot and more blight. Why do we put all of this effort into our tomatoes (especially heirloom) when the risks of problems are so high? Anyone who has compared a store-bought tomato to one grown at home or even locally knows the answer.

See how they've grown

My visit Wednesday to the Minton Stable Garden in the rain turned out to bring more relief than I had expected. We have had another week of weather that varied only in the intensity of the precipitation--rain falling in gentle drops, as a fine mist that rendered umbrellas useless, and steady waves of thunderstorms that seemed like they would never end. If the conditions left humans irritable and depressed, how were the plants responding?I had thought I'd seen the end of the strawberries, but still came away with a handful that were in their prime; a few were even the 2008 size. My tomatoes had also shown signs of growth and my pole beans (above), which I thought I had planted a bit late, were about 6 inches high and undisturbed. Also, my echinacea had begun to bloom.
Of course, I didn't need to be concerned for the plants known to endure day upon day of temperatures that often don't make it past 70 degrees F. As you can see in the photo of the vegetable end of my plot, the remaining heads of lettuce had not bolted, and the broccoli had grown a great deal. Despite the tangled mess my snap peas are in, I still harvested about a half pound.A few days ago at the Harvest Coop I noticed that snap peas were priced at $4.59 a pound (which seemed kind of high, so I wondered if the weather was negatively impacting the overall harvest). In total, from my yard and MSG plot, I have picked about one pound total, so now I'll calculate the value of my harvest for the past week:

Previous benefits total: $75.50
1 pound of snap peas at $4.59/lb.: $4.59
1/2 pint of strawberries at $3.99/pt.: $2.00
2 heads of Romaine lettuce at $2.49/each: $4.98

New benefits total: $87.07

Total costs so far: $167.07

Current balance: $-80.00

The garden has grown so much that it's difficult to see across to the plots on the opposite end. Compare this shot with the beginning of the season in late March, and even these photos from early May.And to end, here's my latest garden envy photo: someone already has raspberries!

Not what I ordered

Once in a while, you don't get what you asked for. Like all these extra rainy days. "That's not what I ordered," you say. "I think that was for the other table over there, the one with the drought."The strawberries have definitely had their fill of precipitation as well as temperatures around 60 degrees F. The number of soft and rotted fruits have caught up with the number of healthy ones. As you can see in this photo, taken about a week ago, many of the berries in the shovel appear to have some sort of blight, possibly botrytis, a fungus disease that favors the current weather conditions. I've been doing my best to stay on top of this problem and dispose of the diseased berries, though I'm overdue for a visit to my plot.

Another less serious but notable item that I had not ordered was what appears to be snow peas in my sugar snap pea crop. Another MSG member had mentioned the same situation in her plot. I don't think it's fair to implicate Fedco, since I experienced the same phenomenon with a different brand of snap pea seeds last year. It's not such a big deal anyway, since only a few plants out of the whole crop produce the different variety, and the pods are healthy and fine. But it's a little unnerving to leave a pod on the vine with the expectation that it will puff out into a sugar snap, only to have it become overripe.
What causes this variation? I'm no geneticist, but I wonder if it has anything to do with what I read in this source: "The modern sugar snap pea is the progeny of a cross between a snow pea and an ususual pea that was tightly podded with thick walls." Some kind of cross-pollination issue, perhaps. I'll try to remember to post a photo of some plants in my garden, if it ever stops raining. I've only harvested a few, so far, so I'll keep them out of my latest benefits of gardening statistics.

Previous total (benefits): $29.13
5 heads Romaine at $2.49 each: $12.45
8 1/2 pints strawberries at $3.99 each: $33.92

New benefits total: $75.50

Total costs so far: $167.07

Current balance: $-91.57

I think we're near the end of the strawberries, however. I wondering if I'll be able to fill a pint container with healthy fruit when I visit the plot tomorrow.

The benefits and costs of gardening update

We've been having yo-yo temperatures these past few weeks--a day or two near 80 (as in the picture above) and then back down to the 60s. Luckily the nighttime lows haven't dipped to frost levels so we need not worry much about the welfare of our tomatoes. However, those plants do seem to have gone on strike, refusing to grow. Like the Boston Globe writers who rejected a pay cut, they're unhappy with the conditions.

One bright spot in the overcast weather is that it might help delay my lettuce from bolting, which is good news considering how much there still is. I've picked the equivalent of another Olivia's container of leaves and four small heads of Romaine for potluck and home salads. My not-so-scientific estimate is that two heads is the equivalent of one from the supermarket. At Whole Foods market today, a head of organically-grown Romaine cost $2.49 a head.

The strawberries in my Minton Stable Garden plot have not been deterred by our little cold spell. At this point, my family and I have picked about 3 1/2 pints. I suppose I should find a good recipe for a torte in order to keep up; so far the only ways we have been enjoying the strawberries have been 1) straight up, 2) on top of a Junior's cheesecake my husband brought home from Brooklyn last week, and 3) in a fruit cake my daughter baked from a recipe that was part simple cake instructions found on the Internet and part improvisation of what we had in the fridge. I looked for organically-grown strawberries at Whole Foods, but found only the conventionally-grown Driscoll's at $3.99 a pint, so I'll go with that.

Today was not all gain, however. I had to pick up a roll of gardening twine to finish making a trellis for my pole beans to climb; that set me back $2.40, including tax.

So, the up-to-date benefits tally is:
Previous total: $3.59
Container of salad greens: $3.59
2 heads of Romaine equivalent $4.98
3 1/2 pints of strawberries $13.97

Total benefits: $29.13

And the costs:
Previous total: $164.67
Gardening twine: $2.40

Total costs: $167.07

So the total balance taking benefits and cost into account is -$137.94.

If this sort of analysis interests you, then you should also check out Daphne's blog. On the right side she is keeping her tally. She is using a more scientific approach of measuring her yield by the pound; I had thought of doing the same but I don't have a scale and didn't want to add to my expenses. Daphne is also operating in the red, but given the variety and scope of her garden I think she has a better chance than I do of ending the season in the black. I'm looking forward to seeing if she does.

The benefits of gardening and other updates

Some of you may recall that I started my 2009 gardening season with an experiment recording my gardening expenses and comparing them to the estimated costs of the vegetables and fruits that my gardens would yield. My not-so-scientific process began with a general question: Does gardening save money on food costs, and if so, by how much? However, I plowed right into my research with no hypothesis, and three months into the procedure, I am still on the fence, partly due to the amount I have spent so far on a new grow light, salt hay, plot dues, and other expenses.

Since then, a few weeks have passed without a cent going directly into my gardening costs. But now, I can begin estimating my yield. In recent posts I've reported that my family and I have already started enjoying some of the lettuce and spinach. What we began eating every few days has now become what rice is to many other cultures. Now salads must be consumed every day, and no sandwich is permitted to be made without a layer of green. Anyone who walks in the door of our home will not be allowed out without a recycled takeout container of the most recent harvest.

But before I continue on this subject, I'd like to ask: What has happened to some of my spinach? I returned to the Minton Stable Garden yesterday after a few days away to find an ugly blight. Some of the leaves appeared bleached out, while others displayed what looked like bird droppings. I doubt that a flock of birds would hover over a row of spinach and leave the rest of the garden untouched. My husband's theory based on his past experience (although he's away for work and unable to see the problem, let alone meet his salad quota) is that it may be a fungus. From a search through my books and the Internet I learned that too much moisture lingering on spinach leaves can lead to diseases such as Anthracnose (which comes closest to resembling what mine have) and the more threatening-looking blue mold. The rainy, chilly weather of the past few days may be to blame. I bagged up the affected leaves and discarded them. End of story, I hope.

Now, back to the healthy greens harvested--how much are they worth? Since I've been picking leaves and not whole heads or bunches, I'll base my estimation on my experience buying a similar organic product. At this point my daughter and I have picked the equivalent of one container of Olivia's Organics salad mix, perhaps a combination of their Romaine and Spinach products, or another mix. I believe that the last time I saw it at the Harvest Coop in JP it was priced at $3.59 a container, so I'll make the not-so-scientific assumption that I have saved that much in my food budget. So my total monetary benefit of my vegetable and fruit gardening is so far:

1 container* of salad greens $3.59**

*According to the web site, the size is 6/5 ounces.
**In Massachusetts, food from the grocery is not taxed.

I have never been good at making quick decisions, but I had promised myself that by the end of the post I would be able to jump off the fence in one direction or the other. Will the value of my harvest exceed my expenses? My guess is now...maybe next year.

As I finish this up it has begun to rain again in Boston. You might find me in the MSG tomorrow wiping off my spinach. In the meantime, I'll leave you with an image of what's coming into bloom: lupines and poppies from another gardener's plot.

April showers bring...

...Yeah, right. Some flowers, yes, but more work than anything else. May is one of the busiest months for gardening. So much to put in, so much to take out. And a few flowers, too, but in addition to nursing a cold, I've been tackling my to-do list, which has included:
1. Pulling thousands of maple seedlings out of many square feet of garden space in my mostly shady yard--they will grow anywhere.
2. Mowing at the Minton Stable Garden for a few hours. I had signed up to do this last weekend to not only take care of some of my work requirement, but because a friend had also volunteered and there is too much grass for one person to tackle.
3. Taking my broccoli seedlings inside and outside each day for the past week to harden them off.
4. Digging up some of my black-eyed susans, beebalm, and Solomon's seal and bringing them to the Perennial Divide. As you can see in the picture above, BNAN volunteers laid out the donated plants by variety and people who were interested could take one of whatever variety they wanted. I did not find anything that I needed or had the space for, but I purchased a few native perennials from the City Natives nursery.5. Weeding my MSG plot and thinning/harvesting more lettuce and spinach. I like putting bleu cheese and candied walnuts in a salad and making a meal of that.6. Spreading some salt marsh hay on the plot to keep the weeds down. Also, weeding the strawberries and noticing how they are coming along.
7. Planting out some of my broccoli seedlings (my babies!) at the MSG.
8. Keeping my tomato seedlings (still indoors) watered.

And I'm not finished! More weeding, and figuring out when, where, and how to plant the tomatoes. Then it will be time to sow some more seeds: basil, green beans, zinnias, etc. This is the way it is this time of year. When I was working 9+ hours a day in my old job, I couldn't break free until July, and by then it was too late and hot to plant perennials, or to start much of anything from seed. So I am rather fortunate to be able to put in 1-2 hours a day now so I can escape the July heat and reap more benefits later on.

Green vegetable update

After a few days of intermittent rain and gray skies, a clear afternoon presented a window of opportunity for me to get over to the Minton Stable Garden for the primary purpose of thinning out my lettuce and spinach some more. I only had a half hour--it's been a very busy week in other areas of my life--which was really more than enough time for that simple task but whenever I visit the MSG I have to factor in the social time. And when I arrived I encountered Terry, Joe, Jonathan, Ralph, Allan...but since I work from home in isolation, I welcomed it.
As far as thinning goes, I find it difficult to pull up plants that I had just recently nurtured. Apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way. I take the "playoffs" approach, returning to the garden several times throughout the growing period for elimination rounds when I feel that they are too crowded in. At this point, I thinned the lettuce (Forellenschluss Romaine) and spinach (Space), both started from Fedco seeds in late March, to the point where the plants are about two inches apart. I collected the small seedlings that I pulled and incorporated them into a salad I had with dinner last night. I should thin the plants growing in my backyard, which include the same varieties as well as Buttercrunch Lettuce, but I've been too busy to even look at the raised bed behind my garage.

Today I focused on the Fiesta broccoli seedlings that have been growing under lights since mid-March. The time to start hardening them off is now, really, but out of the fifteen plants I have, only about half of them are ready for it.
The rest of them, as you can see below, have issues. The seedlings on the left have become little Bonsai broccoli, not more than about three inches tall. I had started them in the organic growing medium, but these were not among the plants I had transplanted to larger pots with the non-organic growing medium containing fertilizer. I am in the process of making those changes now; we'll see what happens. As for the plants on the right, they started out just fine, but like pretty much all of the seedlings, the new stem growth became thinner and more spindly, and as a result the plants are not staying upright. I tried to find out why. Perhaps the fertilizer was too nitrogen-rich, which could lead to hollow stems. Or maybe it was the fact that from moving plants back and forth to the sink to soak them I had accidently disrupted the circuit of my grow lights, so only one out of the two lights was functioning. I noticed the problem and fixed it yesterday. The soil in some of the pots was low so I added some more to protect some of the roots that were starting to peek through.
I hope to plant out the stronger broccoli plants in my MSG plot in another week. Until then I'll put them outdoors on the porch for a few hours each day, increasing their exposure to natural light and elements.

The costs of gardening and other updates

Friday afternoon around 4:30, my daughter and I took advantage of the 70-degree heat and headed over to the Minton Stable Garden. The children outnumbered the adults; at one point I counted eight, and those were only the ones that were ex utero. The oldest, my eight-year-old, helped water the plants in our plot. The spinach is now about an inch high, but the lettuce has yet to take off, with a leaf span of not quite a centimeter across.

Also coming up are tulips and a few perennials, including echinacea and black-eyed susans. California poppies, an annual, have self-seeded from last year, their thin, light green tendrils peeking out of the soil. Asa, my plot neighbor, alerted me that her raspberry plants, located about a foot away from the border of my strawberry bed, were starting to send runners underground, and wanted to know if it was okay if she could pull any she found invading my plot. I told her not to worry about it; if she was able to take care of it that was fine, but I didn't mind pulling them out as I handled my regular weeding. The only real issue I had last year with her raspberries involved trying to keep my daughter from eating them.

I took a few photos, including this wide shot above. I try to avoid close-ups of children out of respect for families' privacy. My friend Terry suggested the shot below of this row of plots, starting with mine in the foreground. Next is Asa's and you can see that she has laid down some salt marsh hay to keep down the weeds.

Last year this much was scarce, but nearby Allandale Farm has managed to get a shipment already, so last week we bought a bale of it for the home and community garden plots. This leads me to the latest update of my ongoing calculation of my food growing costs for the season:

Previous total: $120.92

MSG annual plot dues: $28.00

Bale of salt hay w/tax: $15.75

New total: $164.67

It'll take a few months to reap anything to offset these expenses, but it should be worth it.

The costs of gardening: 2009

In a post a few weeks ago, I summarized a few studies on the monetary benefits of gardening.  More and more people are growing their own food, with many seed companies reporting a 20 percent increase in sales.  Not only do many gardeners prefer fresher, more flavorful produce that they know hasn't been sprayed with some unknown pesticide or shipped hundreds or thousands of miles, they believe that they'll cut their food expenses as well.

I've decided to do my own research on the costs and benefits of growing vegetables and fruit over the upcoming gardening season.  Starting with this post, I'll be reporting from time to time on how much I've spent on my own gardens--both community plot and backyard--and come harvest time, calculate the value of my yield based on local prices for similar produce.  I can't promise accurate results.  There's always a chance I'll forget to factor in some expense such as potting soil, and I won't include the costs of tools I already own, or estimate how much I was billed for watering the backyard.  But I'm curious.  Despite all of my years of gardening, I've regarded the activity a hobby, giving little thought to the financial consequences.

My first expense for the 2009 gardening season is this tabletop grow light from Gardener's Supply.  In the past I've had mixed success starting seeds; despite locating my peat pots or plastic trays of tomato seeds in a sunny window, the soil never seems to get warm enough to sustain them, and I've ended up with stringy seedlings that droop over and fail to thrive.  So with the help of a $50 gift certificate, I was able to purchase this modest set-up for $94.48.

I took up a friend's offer to go in with him on tomato seeds.  For others, I placed an order with Fedco: snap peas, spinach, lettuce (romaine and Buttercrunch), broccoli, sweet basil, and thyme.  Subtracting the flower seeds from the order, the total plus postage came out to $16.50.

So, the expenses so far:

Grow light $94.48

Seeds $16.50

Total: $110.98

We'll see if I can avoid buying flats this season, though I wouldn't turn down a few donations.

The year in gardening

The year is almost over, and the reflection virus has been unleashed.  Top ten lists are dominating print and online media--the top ten movies, the top ten news stories, etc.  Regarding the gardening season, I have collected my own data on what has and hasn't worked, and made resolutions for 2009 as I put my community garden plot to bed.  Here are my lists, not in any particular order, with a few links to past posts.

The top 5 successful plants in my plot:

1.  basil

2.  June-bearing strawberries

3.  Sungold tomatoes*

4.  eggplant*

5.  California poppies

The top 5 failures:

1.  watermelon* (my daughter really wanted to grow it, but I had my doubts)

2.  bell pepper*

3.  fall lettuces* (Bibb and Romaine, planted too late)

4.  the other heirloom tomatoes* I planted (some had ripened but not without rot, catfacing or other problems)

5.  Scarlet Nantes carrots (they had been covered for a while by squash leaves from a neighbor's plot, and I harvested only about a half dozen)

*started in pots by others, and transplanted

Resolutions for 2009:

1.  Provide more supports for tomatoes, especially large varieties like Brandywine.

2.  Contain the strawberries so they don't spread like crazy.

3.  Grow the following:  green beans (haven't head of any Mexican bean beetle infestations lately, and Curtis's crop left me envious), spinach, brussel sprouts, and broccoli (mildly successful in my backyard, would like more).

4.  Skip the following:  peppers (not reliable), carrots (not reliable plus cheap to buy anyway), and some squash varieties that take up too much space.

5.  Start more plants indoors and sow more varieties into the plot, when possible.

6.  Mulch earlier to combat the spread of pigweed and other weeds.  Try to find salt hay before it becomes scarce.

7.  Plug some important gardening reminders into my calendar (such as starting my fall lettuce earlier, from seed).

8.  And finally, keep up the blog.  The exercise in blogging has helped me expand my knowledge of gardening and connect with other gardeners.  Now that I have a better camera (a Christmas present) and some experience, I hope to reach out to more gardeners and deliver more informative and relevant posts.

Happy New Year!  If you have any thoughts or resolutions, please share them.

A swift demise

I have been meaning to get back to my plot with my camera after stopping by Tuesday afternoon.  What a difference a killing frost makes.  Most of the annual plants in my plot are showing the effects of rigor mortis.  I thought the wind had blown a dead tree branch into the plot; upon closer inspection I discovered it was my eggplant, which had been bearing enough to feed a family the week before, now brown and lying horizontally across my still-proliferating strawberry plants.  There was a stark contrast between the dead and the living.  My lettuce, though stunted, remained crispy and supermarket green while my green peppers, zinnias, and others appeared to have been sprayed with the same can of greenish-brown paint.  All of the color had been leached out of my zinnias.  A graveyard of skeletons,  just in time for Halloween.

I suppose that leaving the camera at home forces me to write more descriptively.  In any case, I just wanted to acknowledge these passings before they are really old news.  There will be more to write about over the next few days: a work day has been added tomorrow and the stones for the John Carroll memorial will be arriving soon.

Update on my plot

It appears that the major frost around here has not occurred.  Nevertheless, I harvested about half of my basil last Friday and made two batches of pesto.  I may have a little bit of time left, maybe a week, before I need to pull out the rest of the basil.  No such urgency is necessary for the few carrots growing nearby; I'd like to wait until I can see the orange peeking out of the dirt at the base of the plant.  We'll see what contorted shapes have developed, though the soil this year hasn't been that rocky.  In years past some of the carrots appeared to have developed legs and even an arm or two before being pulled.

I've plunked down $3.19 a flat at Allandale Farm in an effort to achieve what I've failed to accomplish by seed--a fall lettuce harvest.   The seedlings have been tucked away in unclaimed sunny corners, wherever the strawberry plants and the black-eyed susans haven't taken over.

One sunflower snapped over after a rainstorm in early September and I felled the other last week because it had stopped blooming.  Now my zinnias have better access to sunlight.  As long as the multicolored blooms keep popping open, I can handle the slow death and decline of my garden as the cold breezes and other sensations of fall become harder to ignore.