Starting Seedlings

We started our first seeds of the season indoors this weekend, and had our first “incidents” of the season within 24 hours.

My daughter and I on Saturday morning finally got around to sowing tomato seeds in a peat-pellet tray. The excitement and anticipation never disappoints, as she completely took over once we commenced operations at the kitchen counter. More skilled this year than last, she soaked the pellets, inserted the first tiny seeds into the swollen peat balls, then moved onto the next variety – without assistance or instruction from me. She became somewhat upset when I offered help!

In addition to the tomato seeds, we made a row of six sunflower seeds, which came from a packet given to her last year by my best friend. I’m excited about these, as they are not the “usual” yellow sunflowers. We grew those giants last year with great results, but these flowers come in mixed autumnal tones that should be rich, deep and dark.

We placed the covered tray near a sunny window, and no sooner did our cat Daisy lay atop it, crush the cover, and settle into the depressed “bed” that surrounded her. Not good.

The next morning, I awoke to find the tray overturned and on the floor, with peat pellets in piles. Not good either. I could barely tell if the seeds were still in the soil, much less discriminate between the tomato pellets and the sunflower pellets. That will be more apparent when they sprout, but until then, I need to keep an eagle eye on the tray. Remember that last year, Maisy clipped most of my celery root seedlings along with some others. And once fallen, the cats like to bat around the ball-shaped swollen pellets like toys, leaving looping trails of dirt and flakes of peat in their wake.

The tray is secured shut with a rubber band now and moved to a different window. We’ll keep you posted.

What We’re Growing this Year:
Pole Beans: Yellow Wax, Kwintus Beans, Emerité Filet Beans, Purple Podded pole beans
Summer squash: white and mixed-color pattypan; mixed color eightball zucchini
Winter squash: Butternut, Delicata
Red, White and Purple Potatoes (which we’ll buy and sprout in the coming weeks)
Tomatoes: Black Cherry, Sun Gold Cherry, Black Russian, Husky Gold and a red tomato from seeds given by a friend’s Polish Godmother.
Dwarf bok choy
Lemon Cucumbers

What’s in the Ground Now:
Rhubarb and Bright Lights Swiss chards
Mesclun mix, Mache, Radicchio
Tuscan Lacinato Kale
Sugar Snap Peas
Golden Beets

What I’ll Pick-up at the Nursery after the Last Frost Date:
Either Rosa Bianca or White Eggplant
Purple and Green Basil
Kirby Cucumber plants
Maybe a Roma and/or Big Boy tomato plant or two

Whatever I purchase will be included in this year’s Eco-Nomics, which so far is pretty low.

A Girl Can Dream, Can't She?

Plant, plant, plant your seeds
Neatly in a row
Merrily, Merrily, Merrily, Merrily,
Don’t forget your hoe!

My first garden catalog
Came by mail today
Seeds and vines and roots and herbs
I can’t wait ‘til May.

We won’t wait ‘til then
You know just what I mean
Seedlings started extra early
Will deliver green.

Heirloom tomatoes, climbing beans
Seed potatoes – Wow!
Purple basil, baby squash
I can nearly taste them now.

But first I have to narrow down,
From a thousand items all told
I want them all, I can’t decide
This winter has been so cold.

But spring will dawn, my beds will thaw
My robin will make the scene
But until that day, I’ll close my eyes
And all I’ll do is dream.

Eco-nomics: Harvest

It’s payback.

So far, I’ve harvested four armloads of Swiss Chard, and I’m not kidding about the word “armloads.” Holy mackerel. I’ll conservatively put each at $2.50, considering what $1.29/lb gets you at my supermarket. Some baby leaves have been making their way into salads all along. The chard is also just unbelievable: the colors are so bright, so varied and the volume speaks for itself. Just like “Cannoli 18 Ways,” I’m on my way to writing “Chard 118 Ways.” I love it, as does Mike, but we’re nearing overload. The next bale of greens has my father’s name on it.

I’m also up to my ears in cucumbers, which seem early to me this year. We’ve picked at least a pound of kirbies, which barely make it to the table. My daughter eats them straight off the vine – she goes hunting for them, actually. I’m glad I tried something new this year and planted them! The lemon cucumbers are coming in like gangbusters. I’ve picked a few here and there, but come next week, there are at least a dozen that will be ready. Each time I look at the vines, I can’t believe my eyes. I’ll tally those at that time.

The little filet beans are early producers, and at least a pound have come off the vines. They are delicate and sweet, and even the ones that elude us and grow too long are super tender as well. A lot of these little beans go into a pound. If I let them grow larger, the harvest weights would be higher. But I grew these to be picked small. Next time I come into some good tuna steaks, a salad nicoise will be in order, and especially when my fingerling potatoes are ready in the fall.

A big surprise is the Kwintus pole beans. I was not expecting these to come in so early, but MAN – do those vines produce! The beans also grow fast. Those left on the vine for an extra day jump out at you the next, reaching eight inches seemingly overnight. And even at that length with a 1” width, they are tender and stringless – excellent cut on a diagonal and steamed, sautéed or tossed into a hot sausage and peppery pasta dish like the one I made last week for my husband. The beans keep their crunch and their color beautifully when cooked. Plus, we’re up to almost 2 lbs picked. I gave a bag of them to my parents this weekend, with rave reviews when they cooked them. I’ve never seen these at the store, so I’ll just price them as regular green beans, which are $1.29/lb lately.

Volumes of tender green small leaf lettuce along with two very large heads of red loose leaf lettuce have created some great salads. I would easily have spent more than $4 for this at the store – quite a nice return on that impulse buy of two 20-cent seed packets! I can’t wait to plant more in the fall. The lettuces are in pots, so the rabbits haven’t marauded them. The same can’t be said for my four heads of cauliflower. Only one made it to full size and to the table.

We’ve also pulled a few red carrots, but I feel they need a bit more time in the ground. The one pattypan squash picked made its way to the grill – de-lish. Neither is really enough to tally right now, so I’ll omit them.

So, here goes, the first Eco-nomics Harvest Tally:

Chard: 4 @ $2.50= $10.00
Kirby Cukes: 1 lb @ $.99/lb (Shop Rite price)= $.99
Haricot Verts: 1 lb @ $2.49/lb= $2.49
Kwintus Beans: 2 lbs @1.29/lb = $2.58
Lettuces: $4.00
Cauliflower: $1.50
Total Harvest so far: $21.56

Total Expenditures: $49.70
Less Harvest: $21.56
Balance: $28.14

I’m still in the red, so to speak, but we’re getting there. And pretty far along at that.

June is Bustin’ Out All Over

Bustin’? Well, that remains to be seen. But at least it’s off to a good start. Sprouts are sprouting, plants are planted and vines are twining. But my level impatience this year seems higher than ever, if that’s even possible. Here we go, from bed to bed, front to back:

The patch of corn with sunflowers rising in the background is off to a good start. I staggered the planting this year in hopes that the harvest will be spread out over a few weeks.

Red carrots and Swiss Chard varieties are clipping along in the small bed that lies astride the garage. Christmas lima beans and Kentucky Wonder green pole beans are planted to climb the trellises we built last year. It’s hard to believe this small bed used to be my sole planting area.

Lettuces are growing pots, as is my thyme plant. I moved my radicchio to one of the pots from a ground bed due to rabbits. The thyme will be planted on the rim of the main beds, along with a division of my oregano, when I both remember to do it and find time. An impossible combination.

Squash bed (1st/smallest): Winter squashes in alphabetical order from front to back, Buttercup, Butternut and Delicata. The last, large double-mound contains pattypan squash. Three climbing Zucchetta Trombolina plants are near the rhubarb in a corner of the yard.

Middle bed: Lemon cucumbers and Kirby cukes are ready to climb the staked twine. The kirbies also have flowers.

Tomatoes: Area is packed full, but plants are small. Why? I have no idea. The soil was pre-warmed, which made them shoot up and produce early and prolifically last year. But considering the size of the plants, I think I could have just skipped the mess, series of incidents and ensuing drama of starting them indoors and instead, direct-sowed the seeds with the same plant size resulting. Such is life. It’s only the first week of June. There’s time. I like to think each little tomato plant is developing a huge set of roots underground, where I can’t see. I attempted to plant them in backwards-alphabetical order starting with “Y”, but that lasted for only 1-½ rows. When I planted the Black Cherry tomatoes (or Black Russian?) before the Sungold Cherries, I wasn’t about to take them up and start over. I figured I’d just remember which was which. [What was I thinking?] I know where the heirloom yellows and two San Marzanos are. The rest will tastily surprise.

The largest bed starts with watermelon radishes and four cauliflowers. Believe it or not, the three little ones have white cauliflowers growing inside – at a competitive size with that of the large-leaved plant. Behind those, you’ll find the beets. No, I don’t see them either. I have a confession to make: I’m an inveterate bad-waterer. Notice the soaker hoses I bought and put down just this weekend. Thought it was about time. A top dressing of composted leaf humus will be the finishing touch.

Yellow bell peppers, one purple pepper and Rosa Bianca eggplants doing all right. Common basil and lettuce leaf basil in the center of that bed. You’ll also see four celery plants, which I purchased for $2 at the farmer’s market. They don’t count toward the running total, or to the harvest tally. It would be impossible to calculate, since I pick the celery constantly and the stalks regenerate themselves during the summer. It’s a terrific thing to grow for that purpose, since I only need a stalk or two for a grain salad or other dish, hardly ever an entire bunch. Also, hot chili peppers – a pair of plants I found at that bastion of green, the Home Depot. I found a pot that had two tall, strong plants, so I couldn’t resist. My dad (and father-in-law for that matter) can’t wait for them.

Pole beans are also planted in alphabetical order from front to back: Emerite filet, Kwintus and purple-podded. I love garden beans. They’re easy and dependable. Just have your four-year-old poke her finger into the soil, drop the seeds in, and soon enough they’re all vining and twining their way up the poles. The three tee-pees will be just gorgeous once the plants fully cover them and start to flower.

Celery Root surviving. And …

Potatoes! Two russets and a fingerling plant. I can’t believe it! Those spuds I thudded into the ground came up! The plants are strong and actually quite attractive. I had chalked them all up for lost, since our black and white cat, Senor Wences, found the loose and deeply dug soil irresistible for digging and rolling. They truly appeared out of nowhere. The russets surprise me the most, since they were supermarket potatoes from a 5-lb bag, and were probably sprayed with an anti-sprouting agent. Two of two came up. The fingerlings came from potatoes purchased at Whole Foods, labeled organic, and I assume not sprayed with anything. Only one of three came up. Either way, the plants appear to be growing fast, and they are sturdy. I’ve never grown potatoes before and I’m excited to watch them.

Whew! That got long. Maybe June is bustin’ out all over.

Planting Party

It was a happy Mother’s Day. A crisp-breezed, blue-skied, birds-chirping, muddy, grubby, dirt-under-your-fingernails Mother’s Day.

We planted seeds and seedlings all afternoon.

The day started with a brunch at my mom’s townhouse and a stop on the way to purchase a floral hanging basket for her. My daughter and I went to a local nursery and farm where I also picked up a 4-pack of yellow bell pepper seedlings for $1.79. The plants looked terrific, and I’m happy to support that nursery and farm. It’s a small but longstanding business in competition with not one or two but three Home Depots in Bergen County, in addition to a Lowe’s that opened last year.

Plus, the excitement and prospect of planting them that afternoon made me stop by on the way back from my mother’s. I purchased a 4-pack of Rosa Bianca eggplants and a 3-celled pack of Kirby cucumbers that contained six plants.

Once home, my daughter and I got down n’ dirty, building the pole bean teepees and erecting a cucumber contraption we constructed from twine and some old garden edging we found in the shed. We cut holes in the plastic sheeting I’d applied weeks ago to pre-warm the soil, measured, dug, spaced, sowed, planted and watered for much of the afternoon, with, to my memory, just a few breaks: a game of tag, a change from soaked shoes to dry (hers), a change from a soaked dress to dry jeans (ditto), one stop to make a peanut butter and birdseed sandwich to fit into the suet feeder, another to make a peanut butter sandwich for the humans, the unraveling, re-raveling and unraveling yet again of the entire spool of twine, two glasses of pink lemonade, playing with the cats underfoot, an incident involving two bottles of bubbles – it’s a wonder we got so much done!

What’s in the ground now, coded with an S for “from seed” and a P for “purchased plant”:

Tuscan Kale and white cauliflower (S)
Watermelon radishes, Detroit red beets, golden beets (all S)
Radicchio (S) – my cats are not fending off the rabbits there.
Red Carrots, Rhubarb Swiss Chard & Rainbow Swiss Chard (all S)
One row of corn (S) – two more to come over the next two weeks.
Pole beans: Kwintus, Emerite Filet and Purple Podded (all S)
Winter squash: Butternut, Buttercup and Delicata (S)
Pattypan Squash (S)
Yellow bell peppers (P)
Rosa Bianca eggplants (P)
Lemon cucumbers (S)
Kirby cucumbers (P)

While we were at it, I tossed in three fingerling potatoes that had sprouted in the kitchen, plus a Russet that I cut in half and scabbed over. They went in just around the outer rim of the largest bed. We’ll see what happens there.

Tomato varieties (all S) and celery root (S) are going in soon. Zucchetta Trombolina and Christmas Limas (both S) will have to wait a week more. I didn’t pre-warm that bed.

In hindsight, I’m glad I bought the seedlings this weekend. I felt as if I were cheating in some way, but geez, do I have square footage to fill! After cramming crops into two very small beds near the house for years, I’ve realized that I need to reformulate my mental proportions. The area I ripped up last fall for gardening can hold a lot more that I’d thought.

So, let’s add Sunday’s expenditure to the tally. I had figured early on that only seeds would be part of my Eco-Nomics experiment, but I may as well add the purchased plants. It’s just $5.37, and including it in the running total will make harvest calculations that much easier.

Past total of Seeds,

Peat Pellets, other: $44.33

New Plants: $5.37
Total: $49.70

Sweet Beets

In honor of the little beet seedlings emerging in my cool-weather crop bed, and to do justice to the gorgeous baby beets I came across at the farmer’s market, I prepared a huge tray of quartered, roasted beets.

The small red beets I used were only 79-cents per pound, so I picked up a bagload of them. The beets in my beds are largely golden beets, from a two-year-old seed packet I found while filing away this year’s lettuce seeds. I say “largely” golden because with those seeds, I came across a red beet seed packet from 2004. I threw a small row of them in the soil just to see if they’d come up. One has. But the golden beets are germinating at much better rate, as expected.

The following preparation makes beets that are great hot, cold or at room temperature – toss on a salad, or just sneak a few from the fridge the next day and snack away. And if your beets come with tops (mine didn’t), all the better. Prepare them as a side dish.

Up to 4 lbs small beets, your choice of variety
4-6 T. light, grassy olive oil or canola oil
2 T. Sherry vinegar
2 large garlic cloves, microplaned or finely minced
1-2 T. fresh rosemary, finely chopped
1 t. turbinado sugar
½ T. sea salt
fresh ground pepper, according to taste and to quantity of beets used


Preheat oven to 400 degrees F.
Line a sheet pan or two with foil or parchment.
Scrub beets, trim off rough top end. Dry and set aside.
Combine marinade ingredients thoroughly in a large glass bowl.
Quarter your beets, or cut them into the size desired so they are uniform for cooking, placing them in the marinade bowl as you go.
Stir to coat thoroughly. Let them sit for at least five minutes to allow the color and juices bleed into the marinade, stirring occasionally.
Scatter on the pan(s), ensuring some space between.
Reserve the marinade. You’ll likely have somewhat more than when you started.
Roast for about 1 hour, agitating and turning the beets halfway through.

Taste your marinade and add more Sherry vinegar as desired (I usually do another tablespoon.)
Serve the beets drizzled with the marinade as a dressing. Adjust S & P as desired. Garnish with fresh chopped Italian parsley.
Toasted walnuts and crumbled goat cheese are also good on top, a classic (if not somewhat cliché) addition.
The beet marinade also makes a good salad dressing. Or carrot & celery stick dip.

Survival of the Fittest

My seedlings are fighting against all odds this year, both indoors and out.


Let’s start with the outdoor issues. Cold. Wet. Cloud coverage for weeks on end. Colder yet. Wetter yet. Interminable dampness ensues. My sad excuses for seedlings are largely in a holding pattern. And they’re all cool-weather crops! One bright spot is that four out of six cauliflower seeds sown are somewhat like actual plants. Finally, a ray of hope.

Let’s head indoors now. First, see damping off entry. Twelve of 18 celery root seedlings saved by repotting, with more seeds started in the hope getting an actual crop come fall.

Second, I have [or had, read on] no idea what in the heck has been happening to my tray of tomato varieties. They took seemingly forever to germinate, even keeping in mind my general zeal and ensuing impatience with every single seed. I can never wait to see that first little tooth poke through!

But once they did, the tops kept disappearing. Sometimes it was just one leaf of the original two. Sometimes the seedling mysteriously looked like a withered sprout. Once, a seedling was pulled from the root fully in tact and laid across its peat pellet. It’s a tray with a clear cover that’s pretty much on all the time until germination and a small measure of growth occur. I spent close to two weeks replacing lost seedlings with new seeds. I thought they were safe and secure, but apparently I was mistaken.


One morning, I saw my cat Maisy, a 7-lb ball of fluff and puff, nosing around the tray. Using one claw, she proceeded to pick at and lift the clear cover out of the tiered rim of the tray base. Then, selecting just the right tomato sprout, nipped off the leaves.

“Maisy! Pssst! What are you doing?!!?? Pssst! Get away from there!!”

She turns to me, pricks up her ears, and chirps “Bprrrrt!” as if to say, “Mommy, I don’t know what you’re talking about.” All the while, a tiny tomato leaf is hanging from her fang.

That problem was solved with a wide rubber band around the tray and a small, but heavy, silver dish laid on top to further prevent that lid (and my lid) from being flipped. It worked. Most developed their second set of leaves.

Then, suddenly, half my sprouts were snapped and bent over. Why? I got a clue this weekend when Daisy, Maisy’s sister, was standing on the tray cover, collapsing the top and crushing whatever was under her rear paws. She was hunched on her stalking haunches, chattering out the window to a squirrel who, one, didn’t give a darn and two, cackled back at the cat, taunting and basically driving Daisy crazy. And me too.

It’s like Lord of the Flies in my house, and the seedlings are Piggy.

May is six days away. Planting out is less than 20. And I am, yet again, starting from scratch on my heirlooms.

Oh, and PS: The cat burglar has since clipped three of my “saved” celery root plants. I’m now down to nine.

Damping Off

My celery root seedlings are damping off.

Or, in the least, they’re falling over at a thin point in the root. I’m hoping that potting them in seed cells filled with a soil-less mix will improve their condition.

Damping off is a fungal condition that thrives with too much moisture and too little air circulation. I learned about this very early on in my seedling forays, years ago before my daughter was born. I started seeds in an inappropriate medium: pots and yogurt cups filled with heavy black dirt taken from a bag of topsoil we purchased to fill in some deep divots to the lawn. One day, my tomatoes were three inches high. The next morning, all had fallen over at a rotted point in their severed stems. Hey, I didn’t know!

To be honest, I don’t think my celery root, or celeriac, is truly damping off. At least I hope not. The root structure they develop early on is not like a tomato seedling’s, whose fingers and hairs weave their way through the growing medium. This root vegetable just goes straight down with one thin thread to start, kind of like a carrot. Considered a “challenge to grow,” celeriac also has a long (120-day) growing season. I’m hoping I don’t lose them. If I had to start new seeds at this point in time, there’s a big chance a frost would kill them outside before the crispy, knobby roots are ready to harvest. I’m hoping a deeper planting for support and more light to reduce “stretching” are what my 18 little seedlings need.

I pray that’s all they’ll need … When I came home from work today to take care of transplantation, the peat was very, very wet. I am thinking a little pair of overeager hands has been overwatering. Let us pray.

I also purchased the $3.49 bag of soil-less mix for transplanting any and all seedlings that outgrow their peat pellets. My seed cells are free, left over from last year’s annuals and the flat of purple pansies my mother bought to brighten up her porches this spring.

So, let’s add $3.73, tax included, to the Eco-nomics running total:

Past total of Seeds,
Peat Pellets, other: $40.60
Soilless Mix $ 3.73
Total: $44.33

64 Cents

It happens every year.

The lure of the 5/$1 seed stand is just too powerful for me to resist. I picked up both red and green looseleaf curly lettuce plus a packet of chervil seeds. The lettuce seeds make sense on two fronts: except for my radicchio, I have very little salad represented so far in the garden. Second, the fast pace of germination will give me the instant gratification I need right now, since my sugar snap peas – two weeks in the ground – have barely poked through. I need a green fix, and I need it fast!

The chervil was an impulse buy. But in hindsight, a real find. The licorice flavor is a delicate delight. Fresh chervil leaves are perfect to toss into a summer salad of young greens, and excellent in compound butters and vinaigrettes.

The seed packet also reminded me of a dish I make of pan-roasted quail with a fruit glaze and fresh chervil. I haven’t made that in quite a while, but will be sure to when the chervil comes in. Cornish game hens are a suitable substitute for the quail, as I remember oven roasting and giving the hens the treatment for a party of eight, definitely less costly than purchasing 16 quail, but equally delicious. While the herb is used throughout classic French cuisine, you don’t see it too much in this country. The flavor is unexpected on the palate – a subtle surprise that keeps guests guessing.

I can’t wait to plant it.

So, let’s add $0.64, tax included, to the running total:

Eco-nomics Running Tally:

Seeds, Peat Pellets, other: $39.96
3 Packets: $ 0.64
Total: $40.60

And a note: When I filed away the seeds with the rest of my cold weather packets, I came across golden beet seeds from two years ago and red ones from 2004. I had totally forgotten about those! I direct-sowed both - "free" crops - although admittedly, I have lower hopes for the red beets. I sowed many more golden.

Black Gold

Once again, I’ve struck gold: rich, organic matter that I call Black Gold.

Every year, my town makes available composted leaves to its residents. All you have to do is pick it up at the Department of Public Works. I wait for it all winter, and once it’s in come Spring, I hit the road to pick-up a trunk load or two of it. But this year, I’m shoveling humus into bags and bins like there’s no tomorrow. And it never ceases to disappoint.

No, that’s not a fingerprint haze on the camera lens. The humus was actually steaming. It was very warm to the touch, alive in fact. The smell is earthy and hot, sweet yet somewhat less than pungent, like sugary hot cocoa, coffee, a tiny spritz of vinegar and the deep forest. I love this stuff! So do the plants.

And it’s not just the crops. For example, you can top dress around the trunks or bases of your evergreens, in a circle at least the width of the plant in spring and fall. It’s free, natural and healthy “food” mulch for them.

Some of the humus I’ve collected so far has been well blended and integrated into the two designated cool-weather crop beds. After turning them over a second time, my daughter and I put in sugar snap peas this past weekend. The chard varieties will fill out the remaining space come Saturday. The second bed awaits, from front to back, carrots, radicchio, cauliflower and kale.

The overhead shot of the long, oval beds shows two of the three for summer production. They are, for now, just top dressed with about eight inches of the composted leaves. With my work schedule and the DPW yard’s limited hours, my main goal over the past two weeks was simply to back into the dirt bay, fill the bins and bags in the trunk of my car, unload, spread, and head back for more before the yard closes at 3:00 p.m., all weather-permitting. My window of opportunity is basically one day per week. The yard doesn’t have weekend hours until mid-May, and that’s just too late in the season for me. And anyway, after a long and largely indoor winter, it feels great to get down and dirty again.

Once I apply a layer of dehydrated, composted manure, wielding a pitchfork, I’ll turn all of the soil over and integrate the amendments thoroughly into those summer beds. It’s an old-fashioned but tried and true way of doing things. With brand new beds that aren’t as deeply cultivated as my others, it will be somewhat backbreaking this year. But the aches and pains are well worth it: the soil will be aerated, crumbly, well amended and ready to accommodate and nourish tender seedling roots.

Eco-nomics Running Tally:

Seeds, Peat Pellets, other: $36.96
Humus: $ 0.00
Total: $39.96