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.

Houston, we have a tomato

While on the one hand I have totally given up on the survival of my cucumbers (more on that later) I saw, hiding under the leaves, a tiny green tomato. Apparently my vibrating has been successful (see my previious post on indoor tomato pollination)



I have been successful in keeping Buster from eating things only because it is mostly out of his reach. However, the other day I had his cat tree too close to the tables and now my peas have teeth marks in the leaves. We attempted to coax him away from OUR food by planting gat grass for him -- the idea being he will like it more than the other plants and refrain from munching on them. Unfortunately, while he loves the cat grass he still tried to make a pass at the peas again.





My windowbox garden is coming along nicely, I have tried adding a picture here but it doesn't seem to want to allow it. I think the lettuce finds it a bit hot in the house -- it is looking a little wilty, but otherwise everthing looks healthy.

Except for the cucumbers, which I have given up for lost. Reading on the internet, I've found out that they need eight hours of sun every day, which was fine when they were in seedling pots, but when I transplanted them they were no longer in prime window poition. I may try them once the other plants can go outside. It has been recommended online that for containers dwarf or "bush" varieties are generally more successful. Or I may use the cucumber pot for the strawberries my mom is giving me when they take over her garden. :)

Good news...and bad news

Ok, so first the good news: MOST of my plants are doing incredibly well. My peas and beans are getting nice and bushy and my tomato plants even have little yellow flowers that are begining to open.



I wasn't sure how tomato plants pollinate and since we don't exactly have bees in our house I thought I should look it up. I found a website that said, while tomatoes have both male and female parts on the same flower ("they're hermaphrodites," my friend Anna commented), they don't always get pollitnated properly if you grow them inside. This is because the flowers need the wind to blow pollen onto the stamen. So, it is recommended that you "vibrate" your tomato plants between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. (when the pollen is released) to get everything in the right place. Since I am at work during the day I told Kyle he would have to "vibrate" our tomatoes. He told me he would open the window.

More good news: more rosemary is growing!! In addition to the lone sprout I had before, I now have FOUR more rosemary sprouts (I have decided that the other one is indeed a thyme seed).



At this rate I may be able to cut some rosemary for Christmas!

The other herbs are slowly maturing -- they seemed to stall last week but over the weekend have been growing again. The dill actually resembles dill now and I have been sorely tempted to pluck off a little fern from the top. I suppose I know how the cat feels -- he just has less self control.



And now, the bad news:



My poor cukes. I go back and forth between hoping just one or two will survive and deciding what else I will plant there.

Killer cats, and boyfriends

Things are not going well today, though everthing is still alive...so far.

First off, although the sage is finally coming along, I have exactly two pathetic little rosemary sprouts. And one of those looks suspiciously like a thyme seed that made a border forray into rosemary territory. So, here's hoping that one seedling is a fighter.

Considering my friend Linda says she has been growing rosemary for 20 years and has never successfully started it from seed I don't like my odds.

The next menace to my gardening experiment is fat, furry and black. His name is Buster. He's my cat. And he likes cucumbers. He's managed to munch off two leaves of my cucumber seedlings -- most of which only HAVE two leaves at this point leaving two lopsided cucumber plants.

I hope he has come to the conclusion that vegetarianism isn't his bag -- or maybe this is his way of encouraging me to feed him more of his favourite wet food.

The other menage is named Kyle. He's my other half (not the better one today). He phones me this morning and asks if I think it's okay to leave the window (right next to my seedlings) open when he goes to work. "No," I say "It's still -1 outside." I am informed that he is already too far away from the house to do anything about it.

I can only hope that it has warmed up quickly enough that they haven't frozen. He was only trying to be helpful, putting my cucumbers on the balcony and opening the window. Or maybe he was subconciously exacting his revenge for last weekend, when I accidentally laundered his wallet and phone.

At any rate, keep your fingers crossed for my struggling little sprouts!

(Plant) Baby pictures!

Our tomato seedlings, which have grown a fair bit since we bought them on March 1.



Herbs, some of which are doing very well, others....not so much. The blank space to the far left is sage, the one second from the right on the bottom is rosemary. The basil on the bottom right is doing well, as well as the thyme above it and the tarragon to the left. The dill (second from the left) is slow but this morning it was up a bit more than in this photo taken last night.



The vegetables have taken off like a shot compared to the herbs. Peas in front, then lettuce and beans.



And our cukes! Replanted this past weekend.

Aaaaaand they're off!

Well, it's barely been a week since I planted my seedlings and they are doing fantastically well! (I will post pictures I PROMISE!). I have replanted the cucumbers into the large tub they will live in outside. Unfortunately, since we got more snow they haven't been able to go outside during the days, but hopefully by the end of the week I will be able to put them out on my way to work.

Unfortunately, it looks as though I am not going to be able to grow asparagus. Although I found one book that said it was possible, it seems that they need a much larger container than would be feasible on our balcony.

So, the list of things that are sprouting so far:
Beans -- they are about four inches already, I'm trying to decide how soon I should re-pot them.
Cucumbers -- This is why I am loathe to re-pot the beans yet. On the weekend I re-potted the cukes, as they looked like they were getting too big for the little seed containers. However, the roots were not really developed yet, so when I tried to remove them from the old pot all the dirt fell away and I was left holding the seed. They seem to be doing okay in the new pot so I am hopeful the transplantation wasn't stressful enough to kill them!
Peas -- they started earlier than the beans but have slowed down, they are still just small shoots.
Lettuce -- So far a nice, low carpet of green shoots in the seedling pots.
Basil -- Same as the lettuce
Thyme -- I can't believe how small the seedlings are, the leaves are no bigger than pin heads!
Tarragon -- Same as the thyme.
Dill -- I'm a little bit worried about these, there is one lone sprout popping its head out of the container.
Sage -- About the same condition as the dill, which saddens me, I really love sage. It reminds me of camping with my dad as a kid on the prairies. I remember telling him once (I think I was about six) that they should make perfume out of sagebrush -- afterall it smells so much better than what most women wear. ;-)

I hope the weather improves this week so I can start putting them outside for a few hours a day (my mom says it "toughening them up"). Maybe by the weekend I will re-pot the beans, and have some pictures posted!

A new project!

It seems that I have trouble blogging without some sort of project to write about.

While the project technically started a few days ago, it was this morning, while I was lying in bed admiring my fledgling tomato and cucumber plants that I realised I should blog about it.

As you may have already guessed, it involves gardening. Some of you who know me may be scratching your heads. Yes, I do live in an apartment, and no, other than the juniper we transplanted to the corner of the patio of our last townhouse and a few annuals that died from lack of love (and water), I have never gardened.

Not that there wasn't a green gene in the family. I remember on dark, cold winter nights my mom would pore over seed catalogues, with her pencil crayons nearby to add to her colour-coded maps of our yards. I would point out some beautiful flower I wanted her to buy, inevitably in the wrong "zone" so it would never survive in Calgary, which never seemed to support the flowers I liked. We also had a vegetable patch, with military rows of lettuce, asparagus, carrots, potatoes, peas, beans and zucchini (oh, what an abundance of zucchini! We would be eating frozen zucchini cake and loaf until December!) as well as sweet, luscious strawberries and raspberries, just waiting to be popped in our mouths, fresh off the plant.

Luckily for my fledgling attempts at gardening, our apartment seems well set up for it, with a fairly large south-facing balcony. Earlier this week I purchased some seed trays and seeds (cucumber, lettuce, pea, bean, and a a variety of herbs), as well as a fledgling tomato plant (I always hear tomatoes are difficult so I didn't want to try them from seed). I haven't killed anything in the four days they have been in the house -- in fact the cucumbers are gigantic (by seedling standards) and the lettuce is poking its tiny green pinheads out of the soil.

My plan is that, by starting them early and leaving them out during the day and bringing them in if it frosts, I will be able to start a second batch it I manage to kill these ones before they reach maturity!

I'm already thinking how tasty a salad will be with home-grown vegetables!