Death to the chard, long live the seedlings!

I thought I would sow today, but I haven't got any sowing soil. The best I can manage is that magnificent homemade potting soil I made. I think I overdid myself a bit... When the son returns home I'll bring out my worn pans and start sterilizing used soil from my cupboards. Will be interesting, especially when the hubby returns home and ask what's for dinner.

The true answer to that question is probably "something with chard" since I intend to empty that box today. It's interesting, the leaves have been left alone for quite a while and their stems have turned coarse. Normally you can cook and eat them lika asparagus, but when we tried it last time it wasn't a hit. Today I'll probably make a gravystew (it's a swedish thing I think - you make a bechamel and add stuff to it, like finely minced chard - I can't find any proper english word for it, but I may post a recipe later on) on the leaves instead, and add boiled potatoes and smoked pork loin to it, mmmmmmmmm. (And a thought strikes me, if you're a vegan, how do you replace the pork loin? is it possible to grow at home? indoors? I'll never be able to grow normal potted plants.)

Tomorrow it's time for sowing. I have an abundance of egg shells, a large stack of seed envelopes, for some reason with a majority of strawberry parcels, some funny looking containers and a lot of wild ideas.

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.

Next project

Doesn't look good, does it? Seems like only the lemon balm is doing fine. Lemon balm, on the other hand, is among those plants that grows uncontrollably once you've got them started. The only reason this plant is small is my habit of making lemon balm herbal tea every other day. I have no idea why the parsly is white (thrips?) or why the chives are ridiculously thin.

My ignorance is certainly a hindrance. Perhaps the best thing is to dig this garden up, sterilise the soil and start afresh. I dream about using plants from seeds this time, but I have no money to buy the seeds*. Next sowing will be strawberries instead (I have the seeds, the leaves are good for herbal tea and the fruit are good for bribing kids - perfect!)

My seedlings are mostly fine. In some dull thought of doing good I put on the plastic hood on the green house - and didn't see that mildew started to grow on the ice plant pots. I've removed the hood and I hope the molding will die as the air starts to circulate around it. If the ice plants survive they'll probably kill their 'guest' all by themselves. They have a habit of poisoning the soil around them with salt. (Hm, I realise this means I have to create a separate soil bin for ice plant soil. Yes! Another project to loose myself in!)

*If you want to make it possible for me to buy some more seeds do click the banner ads. Google AdSense is kind enough to convert my enourmous revenue from peanuts to swedish kronas ;-)

Smoke gets in your eyes

Right now I'm tidying up my little gardens. They have been abandoned while I've been battling flues and eyeinfections. Every now and then I stop and ask myself if I've really been that ill. In some cases I've been driven to desperat messures. To save the bigger part of my seedlings I planted the tigernuts and nasturtiums in the same container and the same soil as I used for the carrots and the turnips. You shouldn't do that, I've been told, and now I know why. Some desease in the soil, or perhaps some bug on the purslane, have now affected all of the plants in the bin. The leaves of the nasturtiums are all bumpy and have dry areas drained of all moist. Only now do I realise that I should spray them with something, or at least figure out what the problem is.

Unfortunately I'm not coherent yet, and the reason is my eyeglasses. They are sixteen years old. My last pair of contacts was infected with the eyeinfection so I'm forced to use my glasses instead, and they are not up do date with my eyesight. My brain has to put a lot of extra effort on interprete the pictures delivered, and less power are left to actual thinking. The last days have been full of Duh! moments. For one thing I've lost about five dollars paying doubble fees on the bus.

But the worst accident was with the aluminium pan I found in the metal recycling bin. You know; you need some kind of container if you are going to sterilize soil in the oven. I don't want to use our regular kitchenware, and it feels wrong buying new stuff. So, when I found the pan in the metal bin I thought "Bingo! Finders keepers!"

I won't be ashamed of using this pan for soil. The teflon layer inside has been ript several times, the outside is burnt black, and how does a pan like this end up with all those dents? What did they do? Slammed the cupboard door on it? Jumped on it? Ran over it with a car? Perhaps they did all this and some more too, but I can never know for sure.

The pan was smeared in something sticky. The dishwasher would take care of that (dishwasher detergent is extremely corrosive) so I didn't worry about it. On the other hand I smeard some of the goo around while carrying the pan, and when I used the kitchen cloth to remove it I didn't feel like using the cloth for kitchen chores any more. But a stRong woman knows what to do; I decided to boil the germs out of the cloth.

I've actually saved an old saucer just to be able to boil my kitchen cloths. I took the saucer out, filled it with water, added some washing up liquid and the cloth, put this on the stove on the hottest area and myself in front of the computer...

I woke from my computer coma about an hour later smelling smoke. I warned my hubby and returned to the kitchen to get some nose spray (to be able to detect the source of the smoke). I didn't need to sniff around. In front of me I found an dry saucer with a charcoal cloth glaring at me with its embers.

Duh!

I'm going to the optrician at tuesday, and then I'll have to wait a week for my new contacts. Untill I get them I'll try to stay out of the more firery chores of gardening. But I'll sterilize some leca tomorrow - those of you who can; pray for me.