Tag Archives: challenge

summer = stress?

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Around here, summer is more stressful than the school year. Between work travel, the kids zombie-fying themselves at home while my husband does his best not to throttle them, and the standard demands of housekeeping coupled with the increased yard maintenance, I can’t wait until the smell of sharpened pencils fills the air. Keeping up is always a challenge – one that I’m not exactly rising to this year. But, I soldier on!

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In the meantime, my tomato plants have verily hit the dust (with a few exceptions), but my beans, garlic, and onions have more than made up for the loss.

Oh, do I know my onions. I’ve been sneaking these babies out of their raised beds as I’ve needed them for cooking, which has been great fun in and of itself. This past weekend, I realized I needed to get these buggers out of the ground once and for all (at least the yellow onions, which I planted mid-fall last year). I estimate I’ve probably used about 15 yellow onions so far – and here’s the rest:

Thankfully, we have patient neighbors, who don’t mind (as far as we know, at least) when we make an onion drying rack out of clothesline and a couple of random 1x2s. There’s 47 happy little onions hanging out here – so from a beginning of 80, 62 isn’t too shabby. These range in size from 2-6 ounces, so not grocery store huge, but perfectly acceptable onions nonetheless.

I let a few go to seed just for the heck of it (when was the last time *you* saw an onion flower?):

The seeds are pretty amazing – they look like miniature onions to me, actually. If you follow the stem all the way down you can see how much smaller and less bulbous this guy is compared to his neighbors. But I’m hoping to save some seeds and I figured onions were worth a go, so a smaller bulb isn’t the end of the world.

In other news, the elephant garlic delivered:

This head was about 6 ounces, the largest of the five heads I grew. The smallest, about 3 ounces. Enough to keep us in garlic for a few weeks, at least. The green bean teepee also went nuts – with ten plants, I’ve netted two pounds of beans so far. (You can see the Parisian pickling cucumber plants threatening to intrude on the bean’s territory.)

So not a complete loss by any means, even with disappointing tomato ranks. Basil, dill, chives, and thyme are all doing fine, lemongrass and ginger are happy as clams, pumpkin vines are starting to stretch out. But I’m disappointed in my overall progress, especially considering the massive volume of seeds I purchased in the spring. Here’s hoping I can rally the fall greens in the onion beds and break even.

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Now for the numbers:

A few notes about the newcomers: I had lots of big and little onions, so I’m estimating based on an average of 3.5 ounces per onion. That’s a pretty impressive $25 worth of onions for $2.10 in initial investment. Green beans are also pretty impressive, but that may be because the only green beans in the grocery store were locally grown organic beans. But heck, so are mine.

So far, I’ve ‘earned’ back about one third of my initial investment. Not too shabby, considering I dropped the ball on much of what I wanted to plant!

the all volunteer army

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I’ve grown vegetable plants many, many times before. This is the first time I’ve done so many things from seed. As challenging as nurturing seedlings into full-grown plants can be, babying things from seed adds a whole new level of difficulty. I can’t tell you how many seedlings I’ve seen die from too much water, not enough water, too much sun, not enough sun, or being in the wrong place at the wrong time this season. I’m not sure I’m cut out for this level of commitment every year.

That’s why I’m thankful for the veritable terra cotta army of volunteer tomato plants that I discovered when taking out my (overwhelmingly prolific) pea plants. I’d interspersed spinach seeds in the pea bed, but the peas went nuts and the spinach was crowded out, so I wasn’t expecting much. Imagine my surprise when I saw these lovely offspring from last year’s bumper crop of tomatoes.

(There’s still some straggly peas in there, sorry). I must have pulled out as least as many little plants to sacrifice to the gods of space as what you see freshly mulched above. I decided to keep these guys because, other than Sun Golds, none of my tomato seedlings are turning out well. And by that I mean I transplanted them into large containers over a month ago and they’re still not any bigger than two inches tall.

So this little life lesson is teaching me to be thankful for what I get. Even if I have no idea what types of tomatoes these guys will end up to be. They will still be juicy and delicious and full of seeds for next year’s crop of mistakes.

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What’s a garden post without a victory garden update? Drumroll please…

Now we’re cooking with gas. Told you I had a bumper crop of peas. With one pack of snow peas and half a pack of snap peas, I racked in pounds and pounds of the darn things. This also doesn’t count what I randomly munched on before I got inside to the scale, or the ones I missed picking and found while ripping the fading pea plants out.

You can see that the ridiculously hot weather we had this spring did not really help my greens out much. Same thing with the shiitakes (we have a mushroom log, which is fan-freaking-tastic) – we had four giant ones pop out at once, and then nothing, because it’s been so hot.

Things that still look reasonably good in my yard include – the bean teepee (I wanted to do more than one but I ran out of steam), the Parisian pickling cucumbers, dill, creeping thyme, mint, chives, zucchini, onions, garlic, tomatoes, lemongrass. I planted pumpkin seeds but haven’t seen any vines pop up yet, and I didn’t get to a bunch of seeds that I wanted to. But hey, there’s always next year.

grow it yourself.

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I’m working on it, I swear. What Uncle Sam never tells you is how all-encompassing growing things can be. When I’m not out in the garden, I’m thinking about it, cursing it, or dreaming about it. This is not necessarily a good thing.

But – things are starting to progress. Things are sprouting to the point where I feel like I’m not completely useless. The cold frame is done enough that it’s usable (though the windows are not actually attached to the frame at all, making hoisting the darn things a little difficult) and all the seedlings are outside. That is, all the surviving seedlings are outside. I’m not even going to dicsuss how many seedlings looked fantastic one day and dead the next. (Cilantro and romaine, I’m looking at you).

The peas are going INSANE. They’re already waist high and have completely overwhelmed the sad bamboo trellis that worked ok last year. And something has started munching them – though that only started about a week ago, so I consider myself lucky. I drafted my minions to help me wrestle some deer netting (aka nasty spiderweb craziness) and the peas are securely wrapped. Not sure how I’m gonna get to the peas, but that’s a thought for next week.

Now for the real goods: money. I caved and bought some seedlings at the Grow Pittsburgh seedling sale at the Frick greenhouse, mainly because I was unhappy with how my basil was growing and never got around to starting the dill. But! I was only sent two apple trees, not three, so not being charged for the third tree helped balance that out a little. I SWEAR I will buy no other plants or seeds. I promise.

Even better – harvesting has begun:

Yes, I know, it’s pathetic, but it’s only the beginning. In case you’re wondering, I’m weighing everything on our home food scale (that’s the best I can do), and then heading to the grocery store to see what the corresponding price is on the shelves that week. I’d compare it to our local farmer’s market but since that’s only for four hours one day a week and I’m usually doing a screaming trip to the store a half-hour before it closes, I figured this was more realistic.

freaking out.

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I know, I know, I’m working on it, Sam. 

Have you enjoyed the summer weather in March lately? I did, sort of… sometimes with one eye over my shoulder, wondering when Old Man Winter was going to sneak up again. Other times (much more frequently), I posited that we were going to be absolutely screwed when July and August came around if it was already 80 degrees in March in Pennsylvania. Global warming a myth, my Aunt Fanny.

So I’ve been quietly freaking out lately – which I do about everything, more or less. I’m not an easygoing person by nature, not someone who easily gets their zen on (as my yoga instructor will undoubtedly attest). I suspect those people I know who compliment me on my competence don’t realize that I first have to go through a massive freakout before I can get down to bizness. If you don’t believe me, ask my husband. And this wonky weather has not been helping my freakouts about my garden.

Here’s a (partial) list of my garden freakouts in the last few weeks:

  • the aforementioned weather freakout, where I worry about global warming, if the seeds I’ve directly sown will germinate at all when it’s so warm, and whether or not I’ve started my ‘tender annual’ seedlings soon enough to take advantage of this warmer weather.
  • the flipside of the weather freakout, where I worry about snow coming from now until Easter (it has happened in my lifetime, you know – probably when I was a kid, but I know it’s happened), the speed at which we’re constructing the cold frame we decided to build on a whim to make it worth our while to have made the darn thing. Oh, and whether or not I’ve successfully stripped the five gazillion layers of paint off the old windows we bought at Construction Junction so my kids won’t get lead poisoning from the paint flakes when they eat the vegetables. Not that my kids are actually eating their vegetables these days.
  • of course, the tangential freakout to this issue is the one that involves freaking out about the leaded glass windows we bought for the cold frame. Research shows us that we should be ok encapsulating the canes with polyurethane, but come on. Part of my job involves dealing with home rehabilitation. Did I have temporary amnesia when I saw these windows and forget about 1978? Not my finest moment.
  • similar cold-frame related freakouts involve the sourcing of the wood for the frame, how it sits on the ground (and how we need to dig trenches for it to sit in the ground so as to not get cold underneath, thus negating the viability of said cold frame), and how long it took us to get the ground ready for the cold frame at all.

That’s just what I can remember in five minutes of typing. Yes, I need a therapist. Once I get through the rest of my to-do list.

However, in the spirit of fairness, I feel the need to crow about my progress a little. I am not completely hopeless when it comes to starting seeds (as I feared I would be, add that to my freakout list above). Then again, as I told my husband this week, if growing plants were that hard, humankind would not have turned from hunting and gathering to agriculture. Not sure what that says about me, but there you go.

In the past few weeks, I have:

  • mapped out my garden to date so I don’t have to keep everything in my head. 
  • documented progress on the cold frame project (a joint venture between me and my husband, which could go either very well or very badly. So far, so good). Yes, this picture was taken at night. Don’t ask. 
  • make seedlings grow in containers that were not originally designed for this purpose. With the volume of veg we’re planning on growing this season, this is definitely a Good Thing. 
  • and successfully thwarted several attempts by my dog to sabotage the seedling process. Thankfully, I have no picture of that family mutiny in progress.

All in all, I think we’re coming out ahead. Keep your fingers crossed for me.

And now, the numbers (I know, it’s getting a little unruly):

Not too bad, for getting pretty much all the seeds I said I would get at the beginning of this challenge. I’d say this is a decently stocked produce department. Remind me of this moment of zen when I’m freaking out about drowning in produce in August.

some catching up to do.

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OK, ladies and germs, where exactly did February go? I’m still trying to get through January. It doesn’t help that we’ve had almost no winter to speak of. Today my third grader walked home from the bus stop in shirt sleeves – two years ago this week, we had three feet of snow.

At any rate, time has gotten away from me and I haven’t mentioned two new posts of mine over at the Digging Deep Campaign. So if you have some sugar monsters living in your house, or if you need to know more about the types of urban ag floating around our fair city, check it out.

NOW – onto new business:

I have to admit, all the fantastic posters from the Library of Congress archives are a major reason why I’m doing this challenge.

Today in Victory Garden Challenge-land, I now understand why CSAs have startup costs. Also, why fruit is so freaking expensive. Let me elaborate.

I’ve drafted a sidekick to this challenge – a friend who doesn’t have a lot of growing space but is willing to put some sweat equity into my yard to help produce some, well, produce. So we met for coffee, we kvetched about men, we fondled some seed catalogs, and we made a list of all the veg we wanted to grow this year. Some of which I have tried before, some I have not. We made a long list. A daunting list. But, a list that is probably doable, especially if I draft my family as minions. Then I ordered a big chunk of seeds from that list. And then said to myself, “Oh, Lord, what have I done?”

I bought a lot of seeds.

I also have this crazy idea to grow apple trees into a fence (I am not the first person to have this absolutely mental idea). Dude. Good apple trees are expensive. So I must now figure out how to keep the deer far, far away from my babies.

Drumroll, please….

Yes, I have spent $200 on seeds and apple trees. So far.

I figure if things go crazy and we have more than we possibly could manage I could swing a seedling sale at our local coffee shop. Wish me luck!

victory will be mine!

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Victory garden posters are my favorite wartime artwork (though all propaganda posters are pretty fascinating). Unlike many posters which scared you into working harder lest America fall to communism or the Axis powers, posters promoting victory gardens seem to have been generally positive. And the simple, direct slogans, bright colors, and streamlined designs speak to me – I have several modern gardening posters influencing the way I compost and can in my kitchen. There’s something oddly compelling about a space age pickle, no?

I did a double-take while perusing my facebook feed recently, seeing this vintage poster pop up on High Mowing Organic Seeds‘ page:

Beautiful, right? Gorgeous colors, vibrant and healthy fruit and veg, throw some ribbon in there for patriotism, we’re good to go. But the slogan… wow. It may have meant supporting the war effort during WWII, or be sure to help the boys fight the commies, or whatever it meant back then, but today?

“Grow your own – only way to be sure there’s no pesticides!”

“Grow your own – be sure your children won’t sprout a second head!”

“Grow your own – be sure your sprouts, melons, and spinach won’t kill you!”*

Times sure have changed.

Speaking of changing times, how about this one?

I certainly don’t get the impression that it’s my patriotic duty to do much more than support the 1% these days. Thriftiness will get you nowhere when you’re defeating the enemy by shopping.

In the interest of getting back to simpler times when corporations didn’t rule the world, I’m going to attempt to quantify how much money one could save by being thrifty and growing your own. Let’s call it the 2012 foodmeonce Victory Garden Challenge.

Here’s my rules so far:

  • Keep track of how much money I spend on my garden this year (plants, seeds, dirt, mulch, etc. I’m still undecided about labor costs at the moment, but I’ll probably factor that in somehow).
  • Keep track of how much stuff comes out of my garden.
  • Figure out how much money each unit (tomato? onion? you get the idea) cost to grow.
  • Compare to equivalent produce in the grocery store or at the farmers’ markets.
  • Update regularly to prove I’m actually keeping track of everything.
I’m sure this will evolve as I go, but it at the very least will keep me organized in garden planning. And accountable to boot. Here’s my costs for the 2012 garden so far:

Onions and garlic are in the ground, lemongrass is happily sprouting roots to beat the band. I’m optimistic that terrorists won’t come near my backyard. Deer, however, are a different story.

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*Check the FDA food recall site if you don’t believe me.