Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance

Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.

That quote is appropriate for me this time of year because my mind is filled with images of overflowing vegetable beds and lush flower rows. Everyday I am out in the elements, carving out time in the day, creating the best possible condition that I can to realize my ambitious gardening goals for this season. You can relate, right?

But the reality is that many seedlings don't survive the transplant from the safety of the starter cells tray to the big bad world of the beds.  



Some of the survivors: Carrots, tomato, green beans



I have a terrible problem in the spring with birds chomping on seedlings. I don't really get it. They aren't eating them because I find the broken off plant laying there in the dirt. While I thought I would be giving away all the tomato seedlings I would not have space for,  I am actually replanting the starts that have not survived. 

So. Frustrating. 

Last year I used twisted metal hangers to keep them away. This year I grabbed, well not grabbed, more like very carefully placed rose bush trimmings around the tomato and bean seedlings to keep the birds away. These tactics work to a certain degree, but are not the perfect solution.

I have to remind myself that as soon as the little plants reach a more mature size the birds won't bother with them anymore. Serenity comes when you trade expectations for acceptance.

What do you mean I can grow carrots?

I am going through some self-reflection right now in my professional life so the ideas of change and exploring what is possible are on my mind. I ask myself often, and I now ask you, what kind of gardener do you want to be? Because you CAN be that person.

I did not really feel like a gardener until I got out of my box planting peas in the spring and tomatoes, basil and green beans in the summer. I grew up in New England, helping my father in his vegetable garden and following my grandmother around her flower beds. So that is where my gardening education started. In the fall, it got cold pretty fast. Everything got killed by frost and that was the end of the season. I have lived in Washington, D.C., for more than 20 years and it has taken me years to get out of that mindset because the climate here is so different.

It all started with carrots! These are the tendersweet variety.

My first step out of the constraints I had wrapped around myself was trying to grow carrots even though I had heard somewhere that carrots are hard to grow. Carrots are not, not, not hard to grow. Put some seeds in the dirt, thin the the seedlings out, pick, wash and BAM, you’re eating carrots you grew in your backyard.  

That small victory lead to not planting pea seeds on St. Patrick’s Day because I was not eating them. Picture me struggling with the temporary nylon trellis every year, and then training the pea plants that would not grab onto it and then shoring up the sagging trellis when the plants go too heavy and then the pods would get too large and inedible because I was not picking them…you get the picture. I was on autopilot and that was taking time away from other more important gardening to-dos.

For the first time last summer I bought a beautiful, bushy fern to hang in my porch. It felt so decadent to plunk down $15.00 at the big box store! I always would have a pang of envy driving by a house that had ferns hanging because they looked so inviting and southern. They are everywhere in my area. What does this northerner know about keeping a fern alive!?! I miss New England, even though I have been gone for more than 20 years, and this was my little way of embracing my adopted home. I am still learning how to deal with the climate and panic-inducing “snowstorms”, but my gardening hobby makes it feel like home.

Those are just a few examples of many ways I challenge myself. The successes and failures are extremely rewarding and I continue pushing my gardening boundaries because it’s so freeing and gives me inspiration.

Photo by Gerd Altmann from Pexels

My 2019 garden goals:

1.       Have a successful plot in the neighborhood community garden (if there is room for me this year) so I can meet some gardeners and donate the vegetables to a local food pantry

2.       Be honest with myself about how shady my yard is getting and learn about what can grow in those areas

3.       Deal with an awful patch in the backyard left by a construction project where weeds won’t even grow

4.       Convince my partner that the new bed I want to dig up with be filled with the beautiful flowers that he loves

So my challenge to you is to put a name on how you are going to break down some of your gardening boundaries in 2019. Maybe you want to introduce one or two new plants or you want to add a new bed to the yard or maybe you want to try growing from seed for the first time. Tell me in the comments how you are going to challenge yourself this year.

Gardening Questions? Contact me

If you have any questions about gardening, please reach out to me in an email. I am happy to help!

Seed Swap Haul

The seed swap I attended last weekend was really fun. There were tons of flowers, vegetables and herb seeds to choose from and the variety was overwhelming. That’s the best part of seed swaps for me, seeing so many varieties all in one place. My haul included kale, dill, sunflowers, heirloom tomatoes and mini pumpkins.

A few of my highlights

Clockwise: False indigo, suyo cucumber, Barry's crazy cherry tomotoes, Cosmic purple carrot

• How could I pass up something called “Barry’s Crazy Cherry Tomatoes”? The package did not have a picture, but the name caught me in a way I don’t think a picture would  have. They are the yellow tomatoes in the photos.

• Pea King Tut Purple were in the goody bag that I received when I registered. I have not grown peas in a few years, but I love the color of these peas! We were given the idea to grow these in a container using a tomato cage as a support. Great idea!

• I love growing carrots; how could I not try Cosmic Purple Carrot? And what’s with my purple vegetable theme?

• The curly Suyo cucumber are something new for me. They look fun and will be perfect in the community garden plot I hope to score this spring (fingers crossed).

• False indigo is a native plant that will keep coming back – I love easy plants. I have a new sunny bed in my year because my neighbor recently cut down a very tall tree (it was 50% dead and dangerous) that shaded part of my yard.

Clearing the decks for fall crop

Was I overly optimistic when I declared "There is Still a lot of Summer Left"? It bothers me when the stores and media start rushing fall in August. Halloween candy in the isles at Safeway, the start of meteorological fall, my friends in northern New England reporting a tinge of color in the leaves. Makes me crazy.

Fall Plot Prep
Alas, yesterday I cleared out the beans, pulled the rest of the carrots, picked some kale (my spring plants are still going strong). The Brandywine tomatoes are still really green. Actually all of the tomatoes are still really green. I am now going to remove any flowers that form on the tomato plants in order to direct all of the energy to ripening. And I started the plant list for the fall crop:

• Spinach
• Carrotts
• Radish
• Kale
• Beets
• Lettuce
• Arugula
• Onions
• Garlic

When Are Carrots Ready for Picking
I ask myself this question every time I go in and pull them out. I have been relying on the size of the leaves. Yesterday when I picked all of the carrots that remained in the ground, I discovered that the size of the leaves do not correlate to the size of the carrot. I had one PERFECT beautiful carrot (pictured on the right) and the leaves were quite small. I have other kind of smallish carrots with very large leaves (pictured on the left). Good experiment!

On the left, skinny carrot, dense leaves. On the right "Perfection." Large carrot, no splitting, evenly tapered, straight. Very skinny leaves.

Garden Progress in Mid-July

It has been very hot and humid in the Washington, D.C. area lately, and there has been wonderful rain over the past few days.  Everybody is happy in the garden because they aren't parched-at least for a few days.

Clockwise: Parks Mix zinnia are super cut flowers; funky fresh carrots taste so good; pumpkin; stuttgarter onions are getting picked as the leaves dry out, really great flavor.

S.L.O.W. Tomatoes
A few weeks ago I noticed that my tomato plants were growing very slowly. Fish fertilizer was recommended so I gave it try. Here are after and before photos and the Brandywine has grown a lot with the fertilizer, probably doubled in size. The other tomatoes have grown, too, but not as much as this one. It has started flowering, too, so I am still hopeful that this guy will produce.

Left: Taken July 23 after using fish fertilizer. Right: Taken July 3 before using fish fertilizer.

Are these plants really pumpkins?
I have been documenting my experiment this year to grow pumpkins for the first time. I was able to get two types of seeds at a seed swap this winter-Jacky's and Cinderella. Two Cinderella plants and one Jacky's plant were transplanted early this spring. The Cinderella plants took off (pictured top), growing like mad with long, winding vines, while Jacky's (pictured below) is healthy but much more contained and no vines.

Then Cinderella produced some little fruits that have since all died. I read that it could be that they were pollinated sufficiently. And looking at some photos again, the little pumpkins were not round but kind of flat in the bottom-see the photos below. So I am thinking that the Cinderella plants are not pumpkins after all because of how differently they are growing as compared to Jacky's and the way the fruits looked on the vine. Anybody have any ideas about this?

Are these really little pumpkins or some kind of squash?

Pumpkins Growing Like Crazy

Pumpkins are growing like crazy

My first report on the pumpkin patch was just a couple of weeks ago. I can’t believe how fast these plants are growing. The Cinderella variety seems to be growing better than the Jacky’s variety-kind of overtaking it actually-but I am going to leave it there for now. And the Cinderella plants (in the front in the photo) are performing very differently. One is sending out long shoots and the other is mounding. All of them are flowering so that’s a good sign. I started a small crop of beans in the patch hoping to get a harvest before the pumpkins took over the plot. Now I am not so sure if they will survive…

Onions ready for harvest?
This is another new addition to my garden this year. I put the sets in the ground on March 1. They all came up and look really good. So now I am not quite sure when to pick them.

Clockwise from top left: Cherry tomato, onions, heirloom tomato, lettuce and bell pepper.

Carrots
The Nantes and Tendersweet carrots are looking good, might be ready for picking soon. I did a couple of rounds of seeds back in March and April as some sprouted, some did not. I really like growing carrots.

Tomatoes
Mixed results so far with the tomatoes. A bunch of cherry plants reseeded from last year so I kept one plant to see what would happen. It is looking good, flowering. I bought Brandywine seedlings at a plant sale in the spring thinking I would try heirlooms this year. The birds decapitated the plants recently so they seem a little small for late June.

Lettuce and Pepper
The lettuce is the big surprise this year. Another new entry in the plot this year, all of the varieties (arugula, spicy mesclun, gourmet blend) I planted have performed really well. The “gourmet blend” from Burpee in particular has resisted bolting in the heat and has lived A LOT longer than I anticipated. I preemptively pulled out most of the arugula and spicy lettuce a couple of weeks ago before it really heated up here and would most likely bolt. But this lettuce just will not succumb to the heat. I had planned on using the space the spring lettuce is in to be a summer red bell pepper. I just can’t bring myself to pull the lettuce out so I squeezed the pepper in there, too!