What's up?

Romanesco Broccoli seedlings are among the first-born members of this year's Small-Holdings lineup.  They are still swaddled in a makeshift plant-nursery consisting of seed trays piled on top of the radiator with a 25 watt fluorescent plant bulb and a 60 watt incandescent plant bulb in a clamp lamp. Between the radiator and the 60 watt incandescent bulb, there's enough heat to germinate things like tomatoes and peppers which, much like me, won't come out unless it's almost 70 degrees.  So in case you're thinking you don't have the time or space to start your own seeds, think again- then go to the hardware store.

What you need:

1 radiator- luckily, that came with your apartment. Check!

1 clamp lamp $13 

1 fluorescent strip fixture $8.99 

1 fluorescent tube $6

1 incandescent plant bulb $6.99

Subtotal: 34.98

Plus Seed trays $6 each for 72 cells (that's 8.3 cents per seed)

So if you start 144 seeds, you've spent 24 cents per plant in lighting and heating equipment and 8.3 cents per seed in real estate. So for 32.3 cents extra per seed (which range from 4 to 16 cents each), you don't have to figure out how to get dozens of six week old transplants from the garden center to your house without killing them or wrecking the upholstery in your zip/borrowed/not paid off car. Worst case scenario, you spend about 50 cents per plant plus electricity whereas at the garden center they'd relieve you of about 6 times that much hard-earned cheddar and you'd have to vacuum the car afterwards.  As far as the Dos Manos financial division is concerned, that sounds less like a convenience and more like insult to injury. You could figure in labor costs but seeding is easy and fun and you can do it any time you want while singing along to David Bowie's greatest hits and drinking beer- to me that isn't labor, that's very nearly recreation.

For my seed trays I used a complete setup made by Burpee that comes with the large tray that holds the cells, 9-cell trays, dehydrated coir pellets and a clear top to hold in heat and moisture.  I've been shopping around and this was the only one I could find that doesn't use peat as the starting medium.  Instead it uses coir, a coconut fiber product.  Peat is a non-renewable resource so even though those peat pellets and little peat pots for seeding are natural and biodegradable, you should try not to use them because you can't offset or reverse the environment effects of consuming that resource... and that isn't what organic gardening is all about, is it?  Ask the buyer at your local garden center to stock coconut derived or other sustainable seed starting mediums. The plastic trays are a bit of a bummer but they are both recyclable and reusable.  If you are re-using some old trays from last season, like Dos Manos, just wash them thoroughly in very hot water and your favorite earth-friendly disinfectant to prevent spreading fungus and disease from last year's soil or seedlings.

The Project

Objectives: To use 181 square feet of rented backyard as a means to stay out of Whole Foods all summer; make back my cash investment by the end of September '09 through savings on groceries and sale of surplus produce; leave the soil in better condition than I found it; and have a good time doing it.                         

The Space: A roughly 18x18 foot square behind your average Somerville duplex previously occupied by weeds and an extensive colony of ants.  Last summer I put in a 10x13 foot patio in the center and divided the remainder of the space into 6 beds plus a strip of weeds left in place on which to place the hammock and to remind me of how far Small Holdings Farm has come.  This year I may be forced to plant the squashes under the hammock and displace the weeds.

The above picture is the view from right outside my back door.  That brown patch on the right is 8 feet x 2 feet and was occupied by wildflowers last year. The hay-covered strip to the left of the brick path is 16 inches x 17 feet and is occupied by strawberries and rhubarb, both of which are perennial. That black blob at the end of the hay strip is the composter, a vital part of the Dos Manos team.  The path was a lucky break; I found the brick buried in the yard so I dug it up, washed it off and moved it to where you see it now.

Please excuse the over-exposed look while I'm figuring out how to use this newfangled digital camera.

Along the back fence to the right of the composter is a 6 x 10 foot bed that held tomatoes, zucchinis, bell peppers and some cantaloupes that never made it past tennis ball size, though they were very sweet. All of the crops that grew here last year will have to be planted elsewhere this year to protect against soil-borne disease.  Powdery mildew killed most of the Cucurbits (squashes, melons and cukes) last year so I'll have to be vigilant.

Along the back of the house are two beds. Between the patio and the stones is 23 inches and from the stones to the house is 31 inches. Both are 12.5 feet long.  The row of stone is a mini terrace separating the two different grades so the patio doesn't wash out and mud doesn't collect up against the house in heavy rain. This area gets bright morning sun and indirect afternoon light, making it perfect for things that tend to wilt in hot weather like lettuces, peas and cilantro. I put some dwarf Alberta spruces in the herb bed so it wouldn't look so lonely in the early spring and late fall but they only succeed in highlighting the barrenness of the rest of the yard; Like a big metal American flag on the surface of the moon.  

Along the picket fence is a 9.5 foot by nearly 3 foot strip.  Last year I put in lemongrass, which may or may not come back, a gorgeous pink day lily, morning glories, winter squashes and a couple of cubanelle plants. The winter squashes were the wrong choice for that space because they sprawled.  They climbed the picket fence, which would have been alright except that they were just using it as a ramp to get up the much taller chain link fence and into the neighbor's yard while I was on vacation and they promptly died of powdery mildew as soon as I got home. 

The lesson: butternut squash is a real bummer when you've only got 181 square feet.

The Plants:

Brassicacae:

Early Scarlet Globe Radish

Romanesco Broccoli

Apollo Arugula

Chenopodiaceae:

Chioggia/ Candy Strip Beet

Golden Beet

Five Color Silverbeet/ Swiss Chard

Cucurbitaceae:

Sakata's Sweet Melon

Eden's Gem Melon

Double Yield Pickling Cucumber

Yardlong Armenian Cucumber

Buttercup Squash

Golden Zucchini

Graminae:

Golden Bantam Sweet Corn

Leguminosae:

Amish Snap Pea

Dwarf Gray Sugar Pea

Solanaceae:

Juane Flamme, Martino's Roma, Green Sausage, Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Gold Rush Currant, and Sara's Galapagos Tomatoes.

Orange Bell Pepper

Santa Fe Grande Pepper

Aunt Molly's Ground Cherry/ Husk Cherry

Umbelliferae:

Scarlet Nantes Carrot

Florence Fennel

Grandma Einck's Dill

Giant Italian Parsley

Various Herbs:

Wormwood

Cilantro

Oregano

Sweet Basil

Plus and experimental patch of All Blue Potatoes and anything else I come across in seed form between now and that much awaited last frost!

Last frost blues

The garden is buried in several inches of hay and I'm still zipped up in my down coat.

I'm aching for barefoot weather but it will be a month before even the hardiest plants (the Brassicacae family) will be ready to go outside and another month still for more tender things like melons. 

Every winter I say "I'm not going to tolerate another New England winter, as soon as tomato season is over, I'm out of here!"  But the summer is so gorgeous that the intoxication never wears off until it's too late to make a break for the west coast before snowfall.

So I find myself here, still, buried in goose feathers, begging the universe for an early thaw, compiling charts, calendars and maps, tucking hundreds of tiny seeds into hundreds of tiny holes, waiting.