aphids!

One of the many benefits of container gardening is that your precious plants are less subject to the pests and diseases that often plague ground gardeners. Soil-born diseases are nil, as most potting soils are sterilized. Likewise, being up off the ground has its advantages: whatever insects are creeping around in your yard dirt probably have a hard time climbing up into your pots. There are, however, exceptions, and one of the most common and most obnoxious is the aphid.

Turns out I have been harboring these monsters. Aphids basically suck leaves and stems dry, and they reproduce very quickly, leaving you with an infestation in no time. I hadn't been looking for bugs, but when my eggplant plants continued to look sad and stunted, I realized I needed to be checking for pests. Sure enough, the underside of the leaves revealed these little buggers, and I promptly took action.

With aphids, you can usually start by blasting them off the leaves and stems of plants with a strong spray from your garden hose. Unfortunately, my watering can can't quite muster the water pressure, and it certainly cannot wash the undersides of leaves thoroughly. On to Option B.

I started by looking up some homemade insecticide sprays online. Aphids are soft-bodied, so they are pretty weak against oils, soaps, spiciness, and a whole litany of other things. The trick, however, is to avoid killing your plants in the process of killing your pests. You can find recipes all over the interwebs (here and here and here), and a former neighbor and gardener extraordinaire passed on her recipe as well. I hodgepodged together a mix of garlic, onion, hot and red pepper, chili powder, and ginger, boiled it down, strained it, cooled it, added a tiny bit of dish soap, and then loaded it up into a generic spray bottle. A healthy initial dose on the eggplants seemed to kill and/or wash away the visible aphids, and left my garden smelling like a wacky chili.

But then the aphids were back two days later. And I noticed that they had also taken up residence on my zucchinis. (Later I realized that the ants that had been crawling all over the zucchinis were actually attracted to sticky sweet aphid byproduct, and I should have seen it as a warning sign...) I sprayed with the spicy mixture again, this time all over the garden. But then the aphids came back. Obviously, this meant war.

After a little bit of internet research and consulting with the friendly employees at the neighborhood organic home-goods store and a gardening shop, the next step up are insecticidal soap sprays. Made of fatty acids, essential oils, and sometimes anti-fungal agents like sulfur, insecticidal soaps are still organic, and theoretically safe to use around children and animals, but definitely more harsh than anything you can make on your stove top.

Today I picked up Safer Brand 3-in-1 Garden Spray at my local hardware store. It includes treatment for mites and fungus as well as insects. The hardware store also carried Garden Safe brand, which was only for insects, but the Safer was a little cheaper, and I figured I could stand to prevent a mite or fungus infestation while I'm at it.

The directions instruct you not to use the spray in bright sunlight or high heat (both of which we have today), so I will wait until this evening to spray.

This is serious war. Hopefully I'll have good news in a few days.

veggie washes

One difference between CSA produce and grocery produce is that you can tell it came out of the ground. This is by no means a bad thing. In fact, I would rather see dirt on my produce and be reminded to wash it well, than to have creepy hidden bugs in my grocery broccoli that I can't see until I've cooked it (true story, totally traumatizing). Especially with lettuce, I have been pretty careful to wash it thoroughly (and judging by the amount of lettuce I've eaten in the past two weeks, I need a salad spinner like nobody's business).

But the question is: do I need to do more than just rinse? I have seen vegetable washes and sprays on the market, at places like Whole Foods and Trader Joe's. I imagine they are pretty safe, or at least they are marketed to combat the unsafe ills of non-organic produce. My CSA is organic, so I shouldn't have to worry too much about the nastier chemicals, but what things other than soil should I look out for? And are the spray washes the answer?

more lettucing than a girl can handle

School's out, I survived, I have settled into summer, and I am loving it. Not only have I had more time to spend in the garden, I've had more time to be a foodie, as well. So, today's blog is going to be about food for a change.

First off, my CSA started last week. I forgot to take a photo of everything that came last Thursday, but it was a monster half-share. An entire grocery shopping bag full of leaf lettuce, as well as a head of romaine, a bunch of green onions, watercress, mushrooms, and probably some other stuff I am forgetting. This week's haul was equally impressive: lots of green onions, some sort of cress, turnips, kale, a head of red lettuce, and my purple broccoli! Oh, and a loaf of bread from Metropolitan, who so graciously serve as the CSA pick-up point.

My container of lettuce alone is making more than I normally eat in salads, so needless to say, I have an overabundance of lettuce in my life right now. I've been trying to make more frequent, bigger salads. It's kind of exhausting, but delicious nevertheless. When the new CSA delivery came today, the worms got a feast of last week's leftovers.

In any event, I am excited to see some new items this week. I have never really cooked with turnips, so that should be an adventure. The purple broccolis look adorable and delicious, too. I don't know that I've ever knowingly eaten cress, and it is a delightful flavor addition to salads. I can't quite pinpoint the taste. Peppery, maybe a little lemony? Whatever. I figure, the less dressing I have to put on a salad, the better, and cress certainly spices things up.

In other news, I think I maybe don't like chard.

I know, I know. It's been so exciting to grow in the garden, but I am struggling with what to do with it in the kitchen. Hank hasn't eaten any since the first time I made him try it (steamed, a little lemon), and I keep wanting to like it, but I don't. The best attempt was to steam it with a load of butter and salt (what isn't improved by that method?), but that was passing at best. Any advice out there? It's so pretty that I don't mind having it as a decorative plant in the garden, but it sure would be nice to avoid letting those pretty colors and vitamins go to waste...

a lesson learned and herbiporn

Could it be? Two posts in two days? Incredible!

Today's post is short on words and long on photoz. I finished my second final paper this afternoon and rewarded myself with some gardening.

As you know, I'm running this garden on the cheap. As such, I cut corners wherever I can. So today, when I went to the local hardware store, I chose the cheap potting soil (we will call it Brand X) instead of Miracle Grow, which I usually get. I hauled 3 bags (60 lbs.0 of it home in my folding shopping cart and brought the bags, one by one, upstairs. Long story short, don't skimp on the potting soil.

Brand X (left) and Miracle Grow (right), after thorough waterings

Brand X essentially turned to sandy mud that wouldn't drain even when saturated. The deck is a muddy mess and I have resorted to leaving the soaked pot in the sun so it will (hopefully) dry out. Seriously, fork over the extra bucks for the good stuff. Because now I have 60 lbs. (400 when wet) of the bad stuff...

But! On to happier, more photogenic topics than mud:

By popular demand, may I introduce my trash pot:

This is where I throw organic matter trash while I'm on the deck (and sometimes I store my trowel in it). You know, old potting soil, thinned seedlings, husks from grilled corn on the cob, etc. A while back, one of my discarded lettuce thinnings took root. I didn't yank it because I figured if it was hearty enough to survive thinning and live in a trash pot, more power to it. It's thriving, there on the left.

In other news, my savage lettuce/chard container is about to explode

The flat lettuce planter has also been doing well since Sprocket has stopped trying to eat the baby lettuces

And now, my pride and joy, the zucchinis!

The shot on the left was taken at 11:38AM today, the shot on the right at 5:19PM. You may have to look at the larger versions (iPhone shots, apologies), but holy cow! All that in 5.5 hours?

It's gonna be a gooooood summer, y'all.

sum sum summertime

It would appear as though summer has arrived in Philadelphia. Without a lot of warning if you ask me...

On the personal front, the last few weeks have been kind of insane. Besides being neck-deep in finals at the moment, I dislocate my left index finger in a bike crash a few weeks ago. Not a big deal in the scheme of things, but it has delayed some of my gardening projects because I'm currently not able to lug a flat of potting soil up to the deck. In any event, I am healing and the papers are (gimp-ily) getting written, so I thought I would take a break from my magnificent tome about 1950s religion to bring you up to date in el jardín.

The second round of eggplant and tomato seedlings are doing much better in their temporary pots. You may recall some poor judgment on my part last month when I tried to plant round one too early. The temporary pots go outside for (usually) the afternoon and come in at night. However, I imagine that the 80-degree weather we have been having will start to keep the nights warm enough for me to plant them soon.

A few days ago, I planted zucchini seeds. I am expecting great things from these little dudes, considering my abundant success with cucumbers last summer (cucumbers, zucchini, same thing. Psh). Hank and I eat a ton of zucchini, so I cannot wait to cook up some of my own pride and joy!

One issue I am beginning to realize may be a problem this summer: wind. Although the deck is protected on two sides by 10' walls, it nevertheless gets very windy. I want to look into making a trellis wind-screen with some sort of aggressive vine. Any recommendations? Flowering is nice, but not necessary, and it has to be container-friendly. Had I realized this earlier, I would have purchased pole beans, which would have fit the bill perfectly, but alas, I bought bush beans or their smaller stature. Anyway, this project is in its infancy, so any suggestions would be muchly appreciated!

That's all on the garden front. I'll be mostly done with school next week, and hopefully by then I will have more exciting things happening on the deck.

Until then, join me in my excitement over the return of good produce to my grocery store! And my CSA starts next week!

Om. Om nom nom.

Update: Upon inspection a few minutes ago, the zucchini have started to sprout! That was superfast. I guess they like torrential rain and hot weather...

tomatoes smell like tomatoes

As everyone else probably expected, breaking the rules didn't go over so well, mostly because we have been having some chilly nights followed by only mildly warm days. The eggplants, heat-lovers they are, are not doing so well. They don't seem dead, they just don't seem very alive either. I have had to keep them under their milk cartons almost every night and they just look sad. I imagine I will have to replace them soon with my indoor eggplant reserve, which should probably be transplanted ASAP or they'll run out of root room. One of the tomatoes* I planted seems to be doing fine (the other was left unattended at the hands of a ruthless killer kitten mere days after I planted it...), although it isn't growing quite as fast as I'd like. Hopefully as the weather gets warmer, this will all straighten itself out.

*With the help of my dear father I figured out it is indeed a tomato plant. The conversation went a little like this:
Me: Dad, how do I know what I planted is a tomato plant and not purple coneflower?
Dad: Well, tomato plants have a very distinctive smell. Crush a leaf between your fingers and see how it smells.
Me: What do tomato leaves smell like?
Dad: [pause] Well, I guess they smell like tomato plants.
This hunch was later confirmed via an emailed photograph of the plant in question. But just in case you ever mix up your seedlings, the tomato plant is the one that smells like a tomato plant.

The lettuces are doing splendidly (they like cool, wet weather), so well that they are getting pretty crowded in their bucket. So I decided to make a second lettuce planter.

What's that you're saying? What an unconventional planter? Why yes, yes it is! Here's what I did:
Hat tip to Ms. Jess for helping me realize that the extra under-the-bed storage drawer that has had no place in my apartment for at least two moves now would make an excellent shallow planter! Worried that its translucent plastic would cook the roots of whatever I planted, I lined it with black garbage bag (cut one down the side seams and it fits perfectly) and pinned it with clothespins. Inside the garbage bag, I lined the bottom with about 1.5" of styrofoam peanuts. This helps with 1) drainage, or in this case, giving extra water a place to sit that won't water log the roots and 2) keeping the weight of the planter manageable. As an afterthought, I decided to drill a few holes in the very bottom corners of the bin and managed to catch the garbage bag on the drill bit with almost every hole. So, the garbage bags have some holes, but now so does the bin. Breathe, dirt. Breathe! It's not the prettiest solution, but it is doing its job. I planted mesclun mix leaf lettuce around its perimeter and they are sprouting already.

Warning: when using a shallow container, be sure that you are raising plants that are shallow-rooted. 6" is not a lot of dirt! These drawers would make a decent seedling bed that you could transfer plants out of later.

Lastly, I did a little deck clean-up and reorganization today. When we moved into this apartment, we inherited, among other things, a weird wood table/shelving thing that has been sitting on our front balcony doing absolutely nothing. Today I moved it out back to hopefully change up the planter levels (prior to this everything was sitting on the ground looking rather un-landscaped).

From left to right, top: oregano, catnip, chives, pretty flowers; bottom: more flowers, sad eggplants, lonely tomato, big bucket of dirt, lettuces

It looks much nicer now, really. And it will look even better when things warm up more.

breaking the rules

We've had some anomalous weather for the past few days. Today it reached 90 degrees (according to weatherunderground, at least). Yes, that's right. April 7th. 90 degrees. Bizarro. It is supposed to cool down over the weekend, but for now, it is boiling in my apartment, and I got it into my head earlier that things needed to be done in the garden!

My eggplant and purple coneflowers have gotten very big, and if the roots poking out of their peat pods are any indication, it is time to plant them. So the weather is warm, my seedlings are ready, I put soil in more containers over the weekend... sounds like a perfect planting afternoon! WRONG.

According to McGee and Stuckey (and yes, I have a total gardener crush on them), and just about every other seedling instruction resource out there, you have to "harden off" your seedlings. This basically means that you are supposed to take the seedlings outside for a few more hours each day, building up until the seedlings won't get shocked by the temperature change. This can take up to a week.

Psh.

Like I have the patience for that.

M&S, I love you guys, but I don't want to wait a whole week. Besides, I have time to do this now. I'm sure they will be fine.

By way of insurance, I planted two of each and will keep the other seedlings in their trays indoors, and see how things go out on the deck.

Despite the heat, it was very windy today in Philadelphia, so I also made some protective covers for protection. After realizing I planted the eggplants too close together to fit under one half of a milk jug, I exercised some extreme resourcefulness. Gladware! So as long as it doesn't frost sometime in the next few days, they should survive. If not, I always have extras!

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In other news, the weed-flowers are thriving. They seem to really enjoy the heat, and both are flowering. The pansies, on the other hand, aren't huge fans of lots of sun and this much heat, so they are not doing so well. Ah, well. I knew I'd have to replace them eventually.


Finally, the lettuces are doing very well. So well, in fact, that I have had to do some aggressive thinning. In light of my reluctance to let any seedlings go to waste, I am going to eat the thinnings. Thus, I present to you my very first salad:

Yes, that is a real fork. Yes, eating this is going to be more work than it's worth (in fact, washing the stupid things was already more work than it is worth, but...). Just think of it as a micro-micro greens salad.