The Nature of Gardening

One must truly forget his ideas about himself and world when he tends to his garden. There is no room for the discriminating mind to like or dislike some part of the work. The earth and the plants themselves dictate what is possible and what is necessary.

Yet you have the power to create living creatures this way. These creatures will in turn be destroyed to sustain another being.

All things in life can be approached this way. When you see the situation, leave behind who you were a second ago and be reborn in the moment. Thus the right action will present itself, and you will gain limitless power.

That's all for today. Nothing special to report from garden: it is cold and progress has been slow.

Tending to the seedlings + artsy photo

Garden gone wild.

The weather has been extremely favourable. Kohlrabi was the first to germinate and the seedlings are growing fast. Also beet have germinated, but they are still tiny. The kohlrabi seems to have alreay been infested with a coleopteran evildoer, of which I have a picture here:

Of course, weeds are springing up just as quickly as everything else. After I sowed the seeds I have not picked any weeds, but let them grow. When you pull them out, the earth around them is turned with such violence that I believe it might harm the seedlings of your crop plants when they are still very small. I cleared the kohlrabi patch today, since the kohlrabi seedlings were easily identifiable and had already gained sufficient robustness to survive the upheaval of earth around them.

The garden right now:

When picking weeds and watering your patch, you see a lot of different arthropods. This cocoon-carrying spider was subjected to an unexpected shower:

You've got to work with what you have.

24 degrees!

Hello again.

I had to put all my germinated plants outside. Apparently a mold was growing in the pots and it was making me sick for weeks on end. I put all the seedlings in my greenhouse, but unfortunately that was when the temperature dropped again and they all died. This was just after the last article I posted here. What followed was a period when the days were about +5 degrees centigrade and the nights occasionally below zero.

Right now the thermometer outside my window says it's 24 degrees, so it's time to resurrect this blog. Here's what I've sown last week:

Patch 1.

A. Kale, lehtikaali (Brassica oleracea var. sabellica). I tried these a couple of years ago but with abysmal results. I think it was because they were in a dark spot. Someone told me they grow very large and you can pick leaves from them as the season goes on, so I sowed six of them with generous intervals. They are in the sunniest spot of them all this time!

B. Parsley, persilja (Petroselinum hortense). Alternating rows with carrot, porkkana (Daucus carota subsp. sativus nantaise 2). I've never grown carrots. I know they need a light soil, which they certainly won't have in my garden... but we'll see what happens!

C. Beets, punajuuri (Beta vulgaris). I love these! Easy to grow and yield well.

D. Radish, retiisi (Raphanus sativus) together with kohlrabi (Brassica oleracea Gongyloides group). Both are new experiments for me.

E. Salad. Two varieties in alternating rows. I can't figure out their proper names... but there will be pictures.

Patch 2.

I haven't put anything in patch 2 yet. For the seeds I went to a supermarket (kupittaa City Market) and bought EVERYTHING they had that could be sown directly outside without being precultivated inside. If I find more interesting plants to grow, then perhaps I shall sow something here too.

First aid procedures

Hey. I'm late, I know. I've been living hard and riding fast lately, and finally the busyness caught up with me. Last weekend I worked till 11 pm on friday, slept four hours, went to Helsinki and back, slept another 5 hours, then Helsinki again on Sunday. I was barely alive Saturday and Sunday evenings, so I actually forgot to water my plants and update the blog. But, it's been fun if nothing else!

Some of the chilis are in bad shape. I have given them water, heat and sunlight.

Ramiro looking sick.

Sad Duke is sad. Not so surprising, his friend is a rotting corpse. That happened before my carelessness, for unknown reasons.

As you can see, everyone else is feeling fine! Those are some handsome squash plants.

Next I'll have to make some wooden sticks so that the tomatoes and squash have something to climb along. Otherwise they will grow towards the window and become and one big mess of entangled stems and leaves. That can't happen, because then they will be next to impossible to transplant outside!

Transplantation and germination

Hey! I'm going to Helsinki to educate myself further this weekend, hence the early update.

I have moved most things to the window by now. I had eight cartons with tomato seedlings, and three of these I cut up and transplanted the seedlings each to their own carton. I only did three to see how they take it, because they are so super-delicate and I'm afraid of killing them. I could hear the roots snap on two, but they seem to be fine now!

I arranged the fan and curtains to create a warm microclimate by the window. In this picture, the fan is further away than in reality.

Squash germinating! Transplanted tomatoes looking fine.

Aji Amarillo Pequeno, finally. I thought it was lost.

The last chili also germinated, with the seed capsule is stuck to the tip of the seedling. I've had this happen with various plants, and usually I pick it off carefully, but this seedling is still so delicate, I'll wait.

In a few weeks the snow will probably be gone and the work outside will start. Maybe then there will be pictures of something besides milk cartons in this blog :)

A true garden warrior's desk on an ordinary day.

Seedlings of Chili and Tomato

Nothing much to report. Most seeds have germinated.

A friend lent me a fan that blows hot air. After sowing my tomatoes, nothing happened for a few days, but when I activated the fan, they germinated immediately. Correlation does not prove causality, of course.

The fan. Tomato cartons placed in a triangular formation so that each carton can catch as much heat as possible. This is how I made them germinate.

***

The unknown chilis growing well. The Aji Amarillo Pequeno next to it has not germinated at all! But it is the only pair that seems to have failed completely.

Ramiros looking tougher than all the others.

Tomatoes. Most germinated.

***

Within a week I shall transplant seedlings to individual cartons. What they need more of now is light, so I shall attempt to line them up on the windowsill in such a manner that the fan can keep them warm. This will present a new challenge: the fan will probably drop the relative humidity quite low. I have a couple of strategies I am considering for this problem.

This year's plan + New life emerging

Ok, here's my plan for this year. A lot like 2010, but with some additional fun!

This is a preliminary idea of what I'm going to grow. I may add or drop out something:

-Swedes, Brassica rapa. Sown in April-May. Great yield, easy to grow. My favourite! Homegrown Swedes taste very good.

-Parsley, Petroselinum crispum var. crispum. Sown in May. I'm not a big fan of herbs (not very efficient use of resources from a survival-point-of-view), but parsley is pretty fun. They yield lots and are full of nutrients.

-Beets, Beta vulgaris conditiva. Sown in May-June. Yield well, taste good. You can grow them pretty dense in my experience. Will give you a scare when you urinate after eating them.

-Squash, Cucurbita pepo nimba. The package says to sow them inside in jars in April, but that sounds a little late to me. Transplant outside in May-June. I tried these in 2010, but with no success. The things barely survived the transplantation, but they certainly didn't yield anything. Anyway, I hear squash yields well and is supposed to be a fun plant to grow. So we'll see how it works out this time!

-Tiger Tomatoes, Solanum lycopersicum tigrella. Pre-cultivate inside, starting in February (that means now!). Transplant to a greenhouse in May.

-Beans, possibly. Mostly for fun: some varieties become over three meters tall and must be guided as they grow. There are some logistical issues that I need to solve before I can begin a bean-project. I have limited space, and also, I'm a poor student >:( Last season I was working and the expenses from gardening were negligible.

-Bonchi trees. Bonchi means Bonsai + Chile. When I choose what to grow, the survival-factor weighs most (that's why I choose plants that yield well), but this is purely for my own amusement. I stumbled upon the Bonchi-concept when I was considering getting a proper bonsai-tree, and found this page: http://fatalii.net/growing/

***

I was wonderfully delighted to see my Chilis are actually germinating. Here are the two first seedlings, the ones that were large enough to get any good pictures of.

One of the unknown breeds was first!

One Ramiro is also on the way.

Could someone please tell me what that white stuff is? A mold (home, mögel)? More importantly, should I do something about it? Pitäisiko tuolle valkoiselle kasvustolle tehdä jotain? Borde jag göra något åt den vita påväxten?

The red circle indicates a seedling. The unknown seeds seem to be of a quickly germinating kind! It will be most interesting to see whether they continue to display the same vitality later on.

It begins.

New readers, welcome to my gardening blog. Old friends, welcome back! In 2010, I wrote about my garden on this site, tracking the growth and development of turnips, beets, parsley, tomatoes, and a few other goodies. The summer of 2011 I had to take a break since I was travelling in South America. I gave up my apartment when I left, but when I returned, a different apartment in the same house was free... so I'm back.

I'm going to report to you EACH SATURDAY in great detail about what is going on. I'll put pictures in each post. Who wants to read about gardening without pictures, anyway?

Right now it's february and below zero outside. The ground is covered in snow. So why am I starting already? Because some of the stuff I'm going to grow needs to be sown and pre-cultivated inside, starting in february.

In defiance of the cold, deadly darkness outside my milk cartons assume position.

I had to bring in a sack of earth to thaw it. It is taking forever, since the heating in my apartment is barely working.