It's alive, it's alive!

Yes, you thought my rosemary was dead. But it isn't. And I even have a photo to prove it. So there you have it - it is possible to grow rosemary from seed, it just needs a really sunny window and lots of TLC.

I started them in seedling pots at the beginning of March, then transplanted them to this pot about two and a half months later, when they were an inch or two tall. They definitely don't like the cloudy/snowy days so a south-facing window is a must. Also, I have not transferred these outside with the rest of my plants. After all this work they are NOT going to get frosted on!!

My serving suggestion? Baked potatoes with lots of butter, garlic, fresh rosemary and sage. Or steamed mussels with rosemary and white wine or apple cider. Speaking of dinner...

Farmers' markets are a comin'

The cold weather has effectively slowed the growth of my plants to a crawl, with the exception of the tomatoes, which are inside and ripening at an amazing pace. Tonight we will have ripe tomatoes in our fajitas made from (hopefully) home-made tortillas. I'll let you know how it goes ;).

An update on my rosemary -- I bet you thought it was dead didn't you? Well, after a very slow start and many people telling me it is well-nigh impossible to grow rosemary from seed I have two respectable, 5-6 inch seedlings and a couple of smaller plants. They haven't been enjoying the crappy weather, even inside, but the peppery smell of the rosemary is oh, so pungent when I brush up against one while watering! I can't wait to use some.

For all my vegetables that I can't grow at home I rely on local farmers' market throughout the summer. The Hillhurst-Sunnyside market is opening tomorrow -- you can read about it on my other blog at Fast Forward.

Time for some sun now Mother Nature. Pretty please?

Frosty basil

I thought for sure the basil was a goner. Last Thursday was only supposed to have an overnight low of 5C. Now, I've known the weatherman to be wrong before, so why I trusted him on this occasion I'm not sure. At any rate, Friday morning I awoke to brown-edged, droopy basil and tomatoes.

I didn't get the chance to snap a photo, but it looked dead. Like six feet under, crossing the river Styx kind of dead. I brought it and the tomatoes inside and then left town to go visit my friends in Lethbridge.

While I was gone Kyle did a very good job taking care of everything. The basil made a miraculous comeback and Kyle got to eat all the frost-bit leaves before they fell off. A win-win really. The tomatoes have lost a few leaves, but have also survived the frosting intact. In fact I just had a handfull of cherry tomatoes last night, and a grilled cheese and tomato sandwich with slices of our "Supersonic" variety. Yum. I could eat cherry tomatoes like those every day of my life.

The lettuce and cucumbers that Kyle sowed a week or so ago are starting to poke up. Great timing, considering they are forcasting SNOW tonight. Sigh. Such is the life of a Calgary gardener.

I also was given some chive plants from my friends Cheryl and Lorne in Lethbridge. They have been looking incredibly wilty since the transplant (might have had something to do with the two hour drive back to Calgary they had to endure), but I think they might be almost over the transplant stress -- today they were looking decidedly more upright.

Keep your fingers crossed that everything survives the snow tonight!

Long time comin'

Okay, I freely admit I am a horrible blogger -- I come up with all sorts of things I need to talk about on my blog, but never seem to get down to actually doing it. Bah.

I suppose I will start where I left off last time, with my dying lettuce and beans. Well, they still aren't dead. While plants don't flourish under my care I seem to be able to keep them hanging on to the lowest ebb of life. Which is what my beans and lettuce have been doing for almost a month.

However, the good news is that I'm glad I didn't just rip them out and start again because there are signs of hope. While pretty much every single leaf on the beans died off and I was sure they were dead, now a whole new set of leaves is coming in, and this morning I even counted four flowers! As for my lettuce, after completely hacking it back to virtually nil, the two clumps left have regrown . In fact, I was even able to have some fresh lettuce for my sandwich today. I hope these new leaves are hardy because Buster has decided the empty space beside the lettuce is "kitty-sized" and I have caught him curled up in there.

What I have learned is that my pots are NOT big enough. They seemed enormous when I planted my tiny seedlings in them, but I have had to thin my peas, dill, and beans as they began crowding each other in the, now far-too-small, pots. Thinning is not something I am good at, as you may have guessed from my reticence to dig up my dying beans. Also, Kyle had to be the one to prune our ficus, which really needed it but I couldn't bring myself to start chopping off perfectly good branches. I'm just not good at the philosophy of sacrificing one for the good of the many. But I did do the thinning, and hopefully the remaining plants will thank me!

We have been using the herbs in all sorts of recipies, from roasted potatoes to fish to Thai curries. The vegetables, on the other hand, I would rather eat straight off the plant, especially our crisp, juicy, "oh my GOD those are good" snow peas. My love of peas has reemerged thanks to those peas -- for a while I was swindled into thinking those limp, thin, sorry excuses for peas you find at the grocery store were what peas were like. Our tomatoes are also pretty good, though I find our large "supersonic" variety a little grainy.

Finally, some before and after photos. The first photo was taken March 27, the second, May 12. What a difference! And if you are interested, you can read my recent article in Fast Forward on apartment gardening.

Snow and dying beans

Yes, it is really the end of April and it's blizzarding in Calgary...again. I always thought the saying was "April showers bring May flowers," but hey, what do I know.

Although I recently harvested almost a dozen beans (which, by the way, were seriously delicious) I am very concerned about the health of my bean plants. They keep dropping leaves and generally look pretty sick. There haven't been any new flowers in a while either. My best guess is that they need more space than the container I currently have them in allows. But, unfortunately there won't be any replanting until the weather shapes up.

On the thread of "things that are dying," my lettuce has also fallen on hard times (maybe this is karma for bragging about having "garden lettuce" in April). Half of it look healthy but half of it has been slowly wilting. I cut out a bunch to see if it just needed more room to grow but no dice, I finally pulled out the last of the droopy leaves yesterday. I just hope the "good half" doesn't follow the same path. (The photo below is before the wiling got really bad, but you can see the left half is not as healthy as the right)

Disaster averted

I've been pretty negligent in posting recently and, consequently, I have a lot of writing saved up. For ease of reading I will break it into a few posts, rather than posting one monster. Work has been crazy and, after spending so much time writing and editing the CMC's newsletter I didn't have much energy left over for other journalistic pursuits!

The disaster I allude to in my post title involves my tomato plants. Calgary experienced a recent spate of beautiful weather (followed promptly by a few inches of snow). A great opportunity to get the plants out on the balcony for a few days right? Well, yes, except for the fact that, since splitting our tomatoes into two pots I have not yet bought another tomato ring. And, of course, as I was moving it it slipped and the main stalk snapped about an inch and a half above the soil.

I was pretty sure the plant was done for, gone the way of my cucumber experiment but, once again thanks to the wonders of the interweb, I learned I might be able to save it. Apparently, by wrapping the stem tightly (like you would cast a broken bone) and leaving it for a few days the tomato can heal the break.

As you can see I wound some fabric around the break (holey underwear is good for something!) followed by some tape and, a week later now, the plant seems to have survived. Sadly, I had to remove all of the baby tomatoes from the vine so the plant could use its energy for healing, so if you have a recipe for green tomatoes let me know! My mom never grew tomatoes because they are difficult to grow, but after this experience I'm pretty sure they can withstand anything.



My healed plant (though I haven't taken the wrap off yet, I'm afraid it won't be totally healed).



And below you can see, my tomato plant that didn't suffer a minor catastrophe is doing okay too, though the tomatoes are so heavy they are weighing down the branches. I'm almost afraid I will have another break to repair. Still no signs of red yet.

More photos

Okay, I will start with some photos I took last Friday but haven't had time to post yet.







Things have changed in a week. The tomatoes are quite a bit bigger (and there are more of them), the bean flowers have turned into tiny baby beans and the peas are beginning to flower. I'm a little concerned about the peas, the leaves on the bottom have dried up and fallen off but I am told that that usually happens and not to worry.

So, instead of worrying I harvested some of my thyme last night for a fantastic meal from Lucy Waverman's cookbook Lucy's Kitchen. It is a fantastic book -- I haven't tried many recipes yet, but the ones I have made are all winners. So far my favourite are her shortbread cookies (the trick is the rice flour).

Last night I didn't make shortbread, I made mustard-crusted halibut with roasted vegetables. Yum. If the thyme is any indication of how good our garden will be, I am a VERY happy girl.