Urban Gardening in WS – The Sequel!!

[WSMom]

I’m really hot and needing water so I thought I’d check in while cooling off. This morning I’ve taken a chance and went ahead and put in my tomatoes. The extended forecast calls for nighttime lows of 49-50 degrees, hopefully this will be warm enough.

It is too early for basil though. I’ve killed enough basil starts to finally know better than to push them into the ground before Memorial Day :)!!!

So my lettuce and spinach are nearly ready to start harvesting. I put out the seeds in two week intervals to try and stagger my harvest. I’ve lots of cilantro and parsley ready to start picking too. I’ve put in carrots, beans, peas, leeks, onions, cucumbers, broccoli. I’ve decided to put pumpkins and zuccini in my parking strip so they won’t take over the rest of the vegi space.

By the way, West Seattle Nursery has 4 inch pots of bay plants. Two years ago I planted a little bay shrub (it’s still about 7 inches tall) and I pull the leaves off all of time to use in soups and sauces. Have you ever priced bay leaves at the grocery (very expensive). Bay and parsley are my favorite kitchen plants. Parsley easily grows from seed, and continues to thrive throughout the winter. I use parsley nearly every day cooking dinner. Most soup, sauce, marinade and pasta dishes call for fresh parsley, so it’s very convenient to have it close at hand year round.

I’m so LOVING THIS SUNSHINE!!!!!!!

[Anonymous]

WSMom, can we have dinner at your house? Every day.

[KatherineL]

I have tomatoes and impatiens I started under lights that I’d like to get into the ground. But I’m coming off a bad migraine, and a trip to get planting compost pretty much used me up. Darn it. I have some other flowers to get in, too, as soon as I can.

Shibaguyz, you awe me.

[Shibaguyz]

Coming in from the heat to put on a dry shirt and cool off a bit.

KatherineL – don’t be in awe of us… it’s the prosecco that keeps us going. LOL

WSMom – Our bay tree was part of a purchase of plants we made before we even bought our house. We had a great balcony in our Downtown Seattle apartment so it was one of the plants we purchased for our “hope garden.” Kind of like a hope chest but plants for a garden. Total garden geeks here… Anyway… it is doing very well and we use it a few times a week as well.

Also like some of you have mentioned, we have a TON of herbs doing very well right now. As a matter of fact, we are harvesting a lot of them today so we can dry them. This will also let the plants replenish and grow even more. Gotta start saving up for winter!

Okay… enough sitting inside… although this fan blowing on me feels REALLY good right now. Time to go put in the zucchini and some other goodies.

If you want to see how our Jungle is doing, check out our blog linked in our profile. We did another posting this morning with the latest progress. Anyone else have pics to share?

[Ashex]

I started a garden a couple weeks ago. So far it looks to be putting along. The most recent pictures I have are about 5 days old. I’m a little behind in taking pictures, I’m aiming to do pictures every 3 days and building a grow diary.

I haven’t gotten around to setting up the pages for the grow diary, so here are a couple pictures from the fifteenth:

http://chipnick.com/Bucket/Grow_Diary/5-15/5-15-2008-img_0305.jpg

http://chipnick.com/Bucket/Grow_Diary/5-15/5-15-2008-img_0307.jpg

I’ve since moved the basil out as it was getting scorched from the sun. It’s doing better now that it is in partial shade. I’m going to have to find some herbs to fill in the two spaces in the soda crate now.

[Sue]

I am a would-be gardener who would like to start a small container vegetable garden. Not sure what I’d like to plant, other than tomatoes since my husband is obsessed with them. :) Are there resources that any of you would suggest for a novice on finding out about how to go about growing veggies in containers, what types/size containers to use, and what varieties of plants do well in containers? I’d rather not invest the money in this to go ahead and kill everything. :) I’ve never tried growing my own vegetables before.

[WSMom]

Hi Sue:

I am not an expert, but here’s my method for growing massive quantities of tomatoes every year…

1) Place the plant in the sunniest spot you can find. With our mild climate, tomatos need as much direct sunlight as possible.

2) Water nearly every morning, unless we have significant rain, then you can skip a day, but pretty much I water the roots (not the plant) everyday.

3) Feed your soil with compost. Even folks in apartments can pretty easily have a worm bin, composted soil is amazing.

4) In mid-July or so, take your garden clippers and trim up your tomato plant to force the plant to use it’s energy to produce fruit not more leaves. I cut off the branches with no flowers on them. Here’s a link to show you what I’m talking about: http://www.gardenaction.co.uk/fruit_veg_diary/fruit_veg_mini_project_july_1b_tomato.asp

5) Grow at least one “Early Girl” variety of tomato plant. I’m a big believer in Early Girl’s because I know that I’ll have ripe fruit by August even if we have a cloudy rainy summer. It’s nice to plant other varietals for fun & flavor, but the Early Girls have won my heart by coming through year after year. Last year some folks complained that their tomatoes never ripened, I froze 25 gallons of tomatoes for use this winter (just used the last gallon a couple of weeks ago).

Talk to the people at West Seattle Nursery regarding containers, they have always steered me in the right direction.

I’m a believer in gardening to elevate my mood. Gardening forces me to be outside in whatever weather, it makes me feel good to know that I’m doing something that will benefit the health of not only my family, but in a small way, the earth by improving and enriching the soil. I’m a recent convert to gardening. I started out on Sept 12, 2001 planting a few lavender plants in my front yard while feeling very upset and worried about the state of our world. I remember digging and digging and pulling and pulling weed after weed while praying for the families in NYC and feeling so frustrated that we didn’t have a more reasonable administration to deal with this situation. Day after day, I ignored the laundry piling up and continued to pull up weeds and head to WS Nursery for cheap 4 inch pots of plants to go in place of the weeds. Slowly, I found I was feeling better, my yard was looking better, and that I actually didn’t have such a brown thumb after all. Honestly, if I can have a successful garden, anyone can.

[austin]

Hey Sue! And everyone! And hell yeah WSMom.

I consider myself a fairly novice gardener but have had excellent luck with tomatoes in pots the past couple of years. Due to my newness I usually acquire a few established plants (~12″) to put in my pots in the spring, and they thrive throughout the summer, bearing fruit from july to early october depending on your strain. I don’t have any in yet (tomorrow!) but if I had I would be still using a cloche for these cloudy sub-70s days. I don’t know the size of my pots in gallons; put your arms out in front of you to form an O and that’s about the size I’ve got, though I’ve done it in smaller. Wood, ceramic or metal doesn’t matter as long as it has some drainage. Tomatoes like soil with a neutral PH and I use regular potting soil with compost and a bit of organic tomato fertilizer when prepping it.

In addition to tomatoes I always grow a variety of basil or two since I use a LOT of basil and tomatoes in my cooking. Basil’s a tough plant and will put up with a lot as long as you pinch back the purple flowers before they can go to seed (going to seed will result in a lackluster flavor of your leaf). You can put basil in just about any kind of container with drainage.

Peppers of all types do well in containers but some varieties prefer a hotter, drier climate. I haven’t had a lot of jalapeno luck but my bells do quite well. It’s a little early for peppers though.

You might also consider putting out some nasturtiums and marigolds as a companion to your tomatoes. Flies and aphids avoid nasturtiums and nematodes and white flies are not friends with marigolds.

If you’re willing to venture into vegetable boxes / raised beds (a little more prep work than container gardening but significantly increased room to plant and move about) you might consider looking into carrots, pumpkins, squash, eggplant, corn, and potatoes (all good to go in the ground in the next now to month or two assuming we get some consistent warm weather in that time).

This reminds me, I have some work to do..

[Ashex]

For guides to growing various vegetables/herbs/fruits/plants, I like to go to this site:

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/garden_pubs.html

It has pretty useful pdf’s about plants. Here’s the one for tomatos:

http://www.hort.purdue.edu/ext/HO-26.pdf

[Shibaguyz]

We always like to recommend the two books that have been the main force behind our success in our Jungle.

1. The Maritime Northwest Garden Guide – Carl Elliot & Rob Peterson

2. How to Grow More Vegetables Than You Ever Thought Possible On Less Land Than You Can Imagine – John Jeavons.

The first has been our direct guide to what to plant where. The second deals directly with the BioIntensive method of organic gardening. We are seriously getting WAY more yield this year than last using the methods found here in this book.

Best of luck!!

[Sue]

Wow, thanks for all the really great advice! And here I thought it was too late to get started for the season, so now I’m excited to try it.

I noticed that Seattle Tilth has a container veggie garden class coming up next month, but unfortunately I’m not free that day. For anyone else interested: http://www.seattletilth.org/classes-and-workshops/containergardeningJun

I figure I’ll start small and see how it goes when I feel more confident about it. Last year I actually planted container flowers and didn’t kill them, so that was exciting! You’re talking to the woman who killed a cactus once by underwatering it – LOL! But I”m better now, honest. :)

[meg]

Hi- I would love to be included in any gardening meetups that happen! My partner and I gradually getting our yard toward a future vision of food production/greater sustainability/etc. Thanks!

[Sue]

Same here, Meg – if there is a gathering, please count me in!

[Shibaguyz]

We’ve been trying to put together a time when everyone can get together. I know our schedule is crazy over the next few weeks but I’m sure we could find some time to socialize and have coffee or wine with a bunch of WS Gardeners. :)

Everyone just needs to weigh in with their preferences for meeting times. Sundays are usually really bad for us because that is our market day so we’re up in Ballard most of the morning then putting stuff away, freezing, canning, etc. That’s our only restriction.

[JanS]

bumping this up…here’s a great idea for someone. This would be a wonderful job for a person with a green thumb…your customers would thank you over and over again…

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/07/22/dining/22local.html?th&emc=th

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