I've soiled my hands...

Today I gathered strength enough to pot some of my seedlings. I realised that I wouldn't be able to handel the entire batch so I settled for the eggplants since they looked perky. The project then grew fast; the terracotta pots needed soaking, it looked like I was running out of premixed soil which meant I had to drag out used soil for sterilisation. The used soil was dry as tinder, and I used about five litres (1 1/3 gallon) of water to get it moist enough for the heat of the oven (dry soil smolders and stinks).

After doing all this I had the pleasure to mix my own soil. I brought out one of the vermicomposts and harvested the produce by hand from the top layer. Not the most sofisticated method, but a start. I mixed the compost with sterilised soil, the rest of the premixed soil and water. It'll be interesting to see how it works.

After half a year of testing I can recommend coconut fiber as a grow medium. You may remember that I brought some home from Nordic gardens this spring. Since then I've mixed it with my soil and used it for tomatoes and other plants. Works really well. The fibres add structure to the soil and prevents it from building that crust you'll find in a pot when you try to save a plant you haven't watered for a while. The fibres also makes the soil easier to handle when you dig around in it. The fact that they are sold in briquettes makes them easy to store - a plus when you are gardening in small spaces.

I'll buy a generous amount of coconut fibre when my wallet so allows. Appart from using them in my soil I'll use them as bedding in my vermicompost. I've tried newspaper, shredded egg cartons and moist leaves, and I do suspect that coconut fibre will be the bedding most easy to handle.

Just a test...

Today I parboiled red borecole (kale) and when I poured off the hot water I could see that it had turned smurf blue. I guess my reaction tells quite a lot about me.

Did I scream? - No.

Did I curse those organic methods that clearly had gone too far? - No.

Did I think that the farmer had used smurfs as fertiliser? - No.

Instead I pondered over those blue streaks in my sink "probably the red colour of the leaves turns blue when diluted with water - I wonder if it works as red cabbage too?" If you didn't know it, red cabbage can be used as pH indicator: when the cooking water is basic it turns blue (however not smurf blue), and when the cooking water is acidic it turns red. I found some vinegar and dropped a drip on the blue floods on my chopping-board. Bingo! They turned barbie pink.

I've sometimes pondered to use red cabbage when testing my soil. True, you don't get that colour scale with a head of cabbage like you do when you buy a lithmus paper or one of those kits Patti Moreno is using. On the other hand it's cheap and you can bask in that warm and fuzzy feeling of using only natural stuff.

If I ever run out of lithmus paper I'll try the cabbage method, and I will use borecole. Say watever you like about smurf blue and barbie pink - the colours do cheer you up.

How to test your garden soil (GardenGirlTV)

My plan was to write about soil this week, but since I'm ill I have to "hire" a substitute. There are a lot of interesting stuff in this vid where Patti Moreno analyses the soil in her raised beds with the help of an expert, Mark Highland from Organic Mechanic Soil.

Things you don't do...

Today I had lunch with a friend who grew up on a farm, running around the barnyard, driving tractors and everything else included in the concept. I, on the other hand, grew up in the city close to cars and heavy traffic. To this day my friend doesn't walk close open water (they had a well and a river on the farm) and I was twenty before I realised that the street beneath the sidewalk won't give you a electric shock and kill you when you step on it.

We had some fun over our respective hang ups, and then I said
"But sometimes you get odd knowledge: My father taught me well and hard that you don't plant fir trees on good arable land..."
Before I could finish the sentence I saw her shudder
"No," she said, "you should not plant fir trees on cropland."

It's true. I go nuts if I see fir trees on good soil (for example as a living fence around a house), and apparently I'm not alone disliking the sight. But what's the problem with it? Well, fir trees depletes the soil and acidify it. If you have a good ground you should take care of it!

I have to think in a similar way when I grow stuff indoors. At least one of the plants I've grown poison the place where it stands. The ice plant can grow in salinic soil, and that's why it sees to make its environment more salty. In short it gathers salt in stems and leaves, and when the mother plant rots it releases the mineral into the ground making it unusefull for any other plants but the seedlings from its own seeds.

Well, you don't need to let the plants wilter (hard) or rot (haven't tried yet) in the container, but ice plants are among the vegetables I don't put in my vermicompost. I feel the salt from foodscraps are enough for the wormsies to handle. Moreover, everything that goes into the compost travels on to the soil, the plants and then into me. As to salt I suspect that the plants are worse off than me, on the other hand there are other things that will have their impact on me. Used tea leaves and coffee grounds are banned from the compost, eventhough they are said to make a great end result. The coffein would soon end up in a tomato close to me, and even if coffeinated vegetables may appeal to some I have my doubts if it's good in the long run. After all, I will feed these vegetables to my three year old.

I've weighed myself for the first time after joining Sparkpeople.com. One pound lost on one week, wohoo!

Crash course on soil from GardenGirlTV

Boiling and baking

Indoor vegetable gardening is very much about baking and boiling, not the vegetables themselves but the soil and the water. You may have noticed that I sometimes writes that I'm about to sterilise soil.

But why?

As to the soil it's because I recycle it, and will use the same lumps over and over again. To kill all pests, fungus and illnesses left from last time that may harm the plant I sterilise the soil in between uses. My method is quite simple; I put a pan of soil into a heated oven (200¤C/392¤F) and leave it there for twenty minutes. When I bring it out I pour the soil into a big terracotta pot for cooling. Most often I have so much soil I use an extra pan and have to find some extra big pots for the heated stuff. Changing pans and running for extras do give you your daily exercise.

Sterilised soil is completely dead, ie. it lacks germs and fungus that are good for the plants. In general I mix in some unused, unsterilised soil to add them again, but I'm not sure how well this works. Perhaps I should take a look on the specialty shelves for plant protection and see if they have cultures on a bottle (wouldn't be surprised). In the future my plan is to add vermicompost instead, it's not only nutricious but contains those friendly creatures as well.

Water is boiled for another reason. Sweden and Uppsala have very good tap water, you're able to drink it directly from the tap. But in Uppsala it also contains calcium. The calcium accumulates in the pots, forming uggly crusts that are harmful to the plants. To clean the water the easiest method is to give it a quick boil, which releases the calcium, and then let it cool. Then you can see small dustroses on the bottom of the cauldron as well as some flaky dust floating around on the surface – that's calcium. It forms a dustlayer on the sides of the cauldron as well, but you can't see it before you've emptied it.

To save time and energy I boil ten litres (2,6 gallons) of water at the time, and then collect it in a twentyfive litre (6.6 gallon) plastic can. As you may guess I just don't tilt the pot and pour the water directly into it. The weight is not so much of a problem as the fact that this stirs the calcium. Instead I use a siphon; I put the pot on a high place and the can lower, then I take a small hose and put one en into the pot a bit above its bottom. The other end is held lower then the pot and then I suck a bit on it which makes the water flow through the hose, and it'll continue to flow as long as that end is place lower than the highest water surface. Don't forget the cloth if you try this; it's easy to splash some water around when you're trying to get the hose into the can as fast as possible.

You could leave it like this, but I prefer to watch over the process to see that no calcium is sucked into the tube. This means I stand with the hose in hand those five to ten minutes it takes to collect the clear water out of the pot (to avoid being bored I read a book). When there are about two litres (half a gallon) left I stop siphoning and use the rest of the water for cleaning the cauldron – it takes on a milky white colour when I sweep the dish brush around.

New light! New soil?

My plants grows again. The difference with and without grow lights is remarcable. My seedlings litterarly stopped growing between sprouting and the moment I hung a new lamp over them. My amaranth has got new zest for life, the herbs are growing and the tomatoes are thriving to the point it's scary. The two exceptions are the leeks and the carrots, I may have to weed them out early to make place for better vegetables. Normally I'm quite sentimental over my plants but now I have so many fun things on my windowsills that this is easy to do.

One thing I need to do is to refresh my soil. I'm still using that cheap seedling soil that collapses into concrete as soon as it dries. I thought I hade thrown it away, but a finger test in my pots reveals that the soil is hardening. I have better stuff in my cupboards, I only need to sterilise it first and then I mix it into my 'general blend'. It'll be interesting to see if this will have as much ifluence on my plants as the new grow lights.