Symbolism

 

Before I bought my first gardening book and before I cared about containers that have proper drainage, I knew the importance of having certain plants in the home.  Since college, every time a friend moved to a new apartment I brought them an aloe plant for their kitchen because my family always used it for burns.  I've also kept jade in my apartments because my mother, a former Feng Shui consultant, taught me as a child that jade plants are a symbol of abundance. 

Gardening on a Dime and Avoiding Waste

I recently ran low on supplies for this year's gardening and money is tight this week, so I decided to improvise with some of my seed starting.  For those of you who are also gardening on a budget or just don't like to waste materials that are still usable, here's a technique I put together for using would-be trash for seed starting.  All you need is some used tea lights, an empty rotisserie chicken container, sewing pins, and some coconut coir pellets (about $3 at Loews, the only ingredient I purchased specifically for this project).

How the Flower Show practically ushered in the Spring

The Philadelphia International Flower Show went well last week.  Over 250,000 visitors packed the PA Convention Center's floral oasis, looking for a taste of spring and exotic plants from around the globe.  Looking back, I'm amazed to see that the show seemed to mark the transition from deep winter snow to pre-spring balminess.

Snow, A Blessing And A Curse

As I look longingly out the window every morning at the knee deep snow on the hill outside, I think of the warm spring weather to come and how it seems like it will take months for it to melt.  I've been trying to plan for what I want to grow, where to plant, and how much space I'll need.  In general, I'm anxious to start gardening. But then as I lift my arm to shield my eyes from the ultra bright sun reflecting off the snow, I'm grateful to have the extra light at this time.  That's because, luckily, I decided to start my tomato and pepper seeds indoors on the day after the first big snowfall. 

I planted the seeds in little peat pellets and I'm keeping them moist and toasty in a Jiffy box by my bright window.  And thanks to the snow the seeds have been getting more light by my window than they would normally, I don't even have to use an extra lamp.  For the peppers specifically, I heard they need heat to germinate, and since I have a heat vent by the window I positioned the box over the vent, giving the box just enough heat.  So I haven't had to spend any extra money creating a hothouse environment for the seeds. 

The tall sprouts pictured are my tomatoes.  They come from the seeds of the tomatoes I grew last year.  The little sprouts are peppers from a former co-worker.  It's so encouraging to see plants growing from the seeds I saved last fall.  I have such an abundance I may give some of the tomato plants away and swap the extra seeds. 

The More You Know:
Here is a good site that talks about seed germination with Jiffy boxes and peat pellets. http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/696468/
Storing veggie seeds is pretty easy and fun here's a site for seed saving.
http://www.fedcoseeds.com/seeds/seed_saving.htm
And here's a site that makes seed saving an artsy fartsy endeavor.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/homegrowndotorg/sets/72157623267324767/show/
For seed swaping info.
http://www.seedswaps.com/

Snow day! Having a cat is great, having good neighbors is even better.

First off, to my friends in NYC who apparently saw only a dusting of snow in the last day, I'm both amazed at the difference and totally envious.  Usually the weather in PA is not far off from the NY metro area.  But believe me when I say my area to the south west of Philadelphia had snow up to my upper thighs and hips!


I woke up Saturday with no plan to even set foot outside until Sunday.  I made breakfast and watched the Magnificent Seven on TMC (it's very well done for an old western/Japanese knock-off).  Later I planned to start growing my tomato seeds. But when the snow stopped around 1pm I couldn't help but notice all the neighbors starting to shovel.  I even saw the people next door trying to drive their jeep through the snow to flatten and/or disperse some of the heavy powder.  The jeep revved and sputtered, really tearing through that snow.


As I sat in my pajama pants and t-shirt I thought about how hard everyone was working and it occurred to me that if I waited until Sunday to shovel I might wind up exerting even more energy than them because the surface of the snow could ice over.  So after the movie I dragged myself upstairs and pulled on some layers of clothes.  I strapped my feet into a pair of ultra ugly but functional snow boots. I popped on my mp3 player and went to work.


Outside, my next-door neighbors, a married couple around my age, were finishing their jeep plowing and had started to shovel the snow that remained on the driveway. I said hello, they said hello and we went to work with our mp3 players on.  But once they got to the bottom of their driveway, the wife stepped over to my side and started digging up my drive.  I said, "You really don't have to do that." She said she knows but it's okay, and kept digging up the drive as I dug down.


Her husband finished their driveway with some ice melter, then let the dog out to poop. After that, he joined his wife in helping to shovel my driveway. I was so grateful and told them so but they had their mp3 players on and they just nodded at me.  By the time the loose snow was done the sun was setting.  If I had been alone shoveling I never would have finished by dark.   I thanked them when they finished then I tried scrapping up the last layer of smooshed ice and snow.  I considered running to the store to get ice melt (the one thing I forgot to get the day before) but my mom suggested the extra gallon of kitty litter in the basement.  I sprinkled it all over the driveway and I'll see in the morning how well it works.  It's a good thing I went to Petco last week.


I finally got to start my tomatoes after dinner, while I watching the Temple Grandin movie on HBO.  The tomatoes and other veggies won't be ready for months but I won't soon forget my neighbor's kindness.  They're definitely getting first pick of the crops and I hope they'll enjoy the Philadelphia Flower Show tickets I think I'll leave in their front door.

The passion of the vine

I've been growing passion flower (passiflora) since the beginning of last summer.  Or should I say, I planted the seeds last summer and now I'm finding that some of the seeds are still sprouting.  I planted maybe 8 seeds in a big planter and really didn't expect much because I'd heard they were hard to grow.  I left the planter outside, through last summer's unusual driving rain and sunless days. After a few weeks, around the time I expected to see seedlings, all of the rain mixed with the soil and congealed into clear gelatinous globs.  I had a planter full of damp soil and jelly, until about two months later, when the first seedling popped up.

At first I thought it was a wayward sassafras seed that had taken root.  But as it vined upward I realized that I was in fact dealing with passiflora! The lone seedling grew fast in the corner of the big planter and I bought it a tiny trellis to climb.  By the end of the summer I hoped it would have bloomed in one of the brilliant ways pictured here from Longwood Gardens and University of British Columbia Botanical Garden:

But as the vine grows on I see no crazy alien-looking flowers yet (actually the word "passion" in passion flower comes from the the way the flower looks like Jesus' crown of thorns).

I brought the plant inside when the weather got chilly and I put it in one of those self watering lechuza pots.  And once I brought it in the vine really took off.  The trellis was quickly overcome and the passiflora even tried to wrap its curly little shoots around my mother's jade plant.  To my surprise though, some of the older leaves in the middle of the trellis shriveled up and turned yellow while the outer parts kept growing.

When I asked someone at my local garden center for advice on this, she said the plant naturally thins itself out in preparation for winter.  It knew it would be getting less energy from the sun and therefore didn't need as many leaves for photosynthesis.  Talk about brilliant instincts! 

As if I hadn't learned enough surprising things about this vine, all at once, about a month ago three more seedlings popped out of the soil and started growing like weeds.  That's an 8 month germination period.  I don't know what took so long for them to wake up but once the weather warms I think I need to find a home for all these vines.  I might keep one inside to climb up my bed railing. I'm not sure how well the plant does outside in this zone (6b) but if someone nearby wants to take one off my hands I'm open.  There's four total.  I'm hoping this summer will bring blooms and maybe even some passion fruit.  

How's it growing? Long time no seed.

It's been a while since I last posted and I want to start doing it more regularly because I'm constantly learning new things about the stuff I'm growing and I think I should have some record of whatever the heck I'm doing.  For this post I'll say,the succulents are slowly struggling back to life after the events described in the last post. 

I like to try and find a lesson or at least a bit of serendipity in every mistake I make and I guess my recent outlook on gardening would be that bit of serendipity.  I had two thriving strawberry pots brimming with succulents that are now in shambles.  I've pulled out most of the ones that have started to grow back and transplanted them to more hospitable containers.  Which means I'm left with strawberry pots filled with soil.  So I started thinking today, "Why don't I use them to grow what's meant to grow in them? Strawberries!" Then I thought of the other edible stuff that would probably do well in that sort of habitat, herbs especially.  I'll find as much variety and function for the pots as possible

Lately I've been trying to stop being so consumer driven when it comes to my free time. I still over eat and quitting has been driving me nuts.  But I make clocks when I have the money for parts, I draw, I run, I've even tried teaching myself to knit (although it's getting frustrating trying to learn to knit from a book with only a few black and white photos).  In general, I've gotten more creative in the past year and developed myself from wanting to make "stuff" to trying to make useful things like food.  I saved tomato and pepper seeds from the summer that I want to try growing in a homemade earth box on the back deck since there's not much room in the yard. I also have spinach, lettuce, and nasturtium that I hope to grow in one of those deck railing planter boxes. 

Last year I was starting to get my footing as a gardener.  The succulents were lovely and pretty easy to keep outside.  They'll come back I'm sure. But now I really want to test my skills.  I want beauty and I want function!