A weekly report of sorts

Yet another of those days. I should have known not to set up four sprouting boxes on a weekday evening! But it didn't take many minutes to drill some ventilation holes, and craft some watering tubes, and mix the soil, and fill the boxes with clay pebbles, soil and seedling soil...

When all those tidbits of chores added up they craved the entire evening. So now I'm sitting here, feeling wrung out. What I really want to do is eating bananacake and chocolate, but I can't abandon Indoor Gardener - especially since I missed an update this Monday. Besides, the quinoa is already peeking some sprouts above the surface! It's part of an experiment; I put the seeds in water overnight in the same way you soak beans and peas before sowing them. I mean, you can see the sprout in the quinoa seed even when it's dry, and it's possible to to sprout it in the same way you sprout mung beans, so soaking should work. Now I keep my fingers crossed that the experiment will continue to be successfull.

The gardens still drink fifteen liters of water every time I water them. Today I topped over fifteen for the first time, but that was because I didn't water the oilseed pumpkin in the Big pot. It needs five liters of its own, so I manipulated the statistics in a way.

The thrips are on the rise again and they are attacking in great numbers. My support in life, the Indoor Hubby, has promised to spray all plants with bokashi fluid while I'm away this weekend (creative writing meeting). After that I'll be thoroughly spraying my crops with water at least once a day. Thrips don't like it wet.

This Monday I visited Plantagen (swedish plant mall) and spent most of my gift certificate. I spent the journey home slightly stooped forward since I carried eighteen liters of soil in my backpack. Soil is heavy! In the big paperbag with handles I only had a small pluggbox, a cultivation gadget I've wanted to have ever since I first heard about it. During the journey home I pondered the fact that I've won two gift certificates in a short period of time, one from a big jewelry chain and one from a big plant mall, and while the jewelry one is gathering dust in my book shelf the plant mall certificate barley arrived before I took a day off to use it.

A look in the green book 090417

I haven't brought it out for a while now - at least not for the blog. The cold from Hell still lingers and my first enthusiasm have waned a bit so my writings tend to be short.

So.

I now know better how much water I use every time I water the gardens. This is what I wrote the 14ht of April
"Water needed 12.3 liters [3.25 US gallons]
Bokashifluid 20 milliliters [0.7 US ounces]"
"Soften 15 liters of water" [4 US gallons]"

12.3 liters of water is the smallest amount of water I''ve used while watering. A sunny day the plants craves up to 20 liters (5.2 US gallons). I start to ponder if I really need to soften all that water, but at the same time I remember those thick, yellowish crusts that developed on top of the soil when I didn't do this, so I press on. Those crust can harbour fungus and I have enough work with fungus gnats and thrips as it is.

The big need for water have made me upgrade my tools. Now I'm not only use the ten liter jam cauldron, I've added the five liter everyday kettle.

6th of April
"Popcorn sprouts ready! Bitter and a surprisingly sweet aftertaste. The seed is still hard - better to be used cooked or as babyleaf."
My quest for sprouts I can eat continues. I liked these popcornsprouts, but the hard corn made them difficult to eat so the can remains in the fridge. I'm planning a larger babyleafgarden with popcorn, sallads and peas. Will be fun!

16th of April
"Had two sugarsnap pods 10g harvest."
Yupp, the modest start of my harvest my friends. 10g (0.35 ounces) sugarsnaps, I'm not exactly calling BBC or CNN, but it is still pretty cool.

Something I will write about this evening is the letter I got in the mail today. I have a habit of attending every contest I can find when I'm visiting a fair, and it turns out I won a gift certificate at Plantagen (swedish plant mall) on Nordica Gardens. Jaaaaaay, I can shooooooooop!

A look in the green book 090313

It's been Friday 13th in Uppsala, which means I'm writing this late at night. Let's take a peek on my records from the last week.

Monday March 9th
Repotted the first 'Enorma' runnerbean. The cheap potting soil is mostly peat moss, bark and sand (surprise). I need to buy some new.
I already knew it! Cheap potting soil is mostly peat, still I was 'thrifty' when I bought my last fourty liters (one bushel). Guess the difference in price; nine kronas (about one dollar)! Bah! And rubbing this soil (which I do when I pondering something during the repotting process) is downright uncomfortable; it's prickly.

Conclusion: Go for the expensive potting soil - the difference in price is not that big.

Tuesday March 10th
Pepper #4 about to break surface
Suger melon 'Early Silverline' #33 about to break surface
Scallions about to break surface
Onion "47, 50 & 51" about to break surface
Yes, I number my seeds. It's easy when you are sowing into eggshell pots; you just take a pencil and write on the shell. Using a pencil is important, since the graphite is nonpoisonous. Then you can write a lot about the plants on a paper using the numbers as references - this way you won't worry about fitting everything in on a small stick of wood (or plastic).

Wednesday March 11th
Looked for branches on the way home. Picked a minor forest which I defrosted, cut of the thinnest twigs and pointed at the bottom end.
You should have seen the look on my neighbours face when I met him! I picked the branches from a thining area in our local wood, and was careful to just pick ones that wouldn't be of any real use. Not that I know what the county wants to do with the stuff the remove from the woods, but bigger logs could sure be sold as timber. Minor branches works better in an indoor gardening project, and my plants actually looks trendy with their new trellises. (Aaaaaaaaaaaaaah! Since when am I trendy?! Curse you, Shabby Chick!)

I promise I'll get you a photo later on!

To conclude I can say I've spent most of the week repotting plants. As you already know the oil seed pumpkins almost burst through their shells before I repotted them. Their vigour is fearsome! Yesterday and today I took some vacation from this job, but tommorrow I have at least three plants to work with - if I have enough soil...

***

A small vid for the weekend. Since herbs are one of the top indoor gardening crops I post Patti Moreno's tip on how to freeze herbs, using this you can rotate your herbgarden and won't be locked to grow everything at once.

A look in the green book 090306

As you can see I'm no friend of Photoshop, that purple shine is from the plant light I've hung over the tomatoes. The son was kind enought to give the 'Enorma' bean two sticks, and then he broke the vine trying to help it wrap itself around the support. With such an enthusiasm he'll be a great gardener.

Well, weekend is here! Let's see what's in the green book this time.

Saturday 28th of February "Started some popcorn sprouts."
I read in "Fresh Food From Small Spaces" that it's possible to sprout corn, so I decided to give it a try. Perhaps I mentioned that we have a surplus of dry corn here. Unfortunately the batch is four to five years old. Wednesday the 4th of March two corns had sprouted in an one deciliter starter. I threw away that one and decided to find some fresher corns - preferable ones that are not prepared for microvaweovens. I look for them in my scarce free time (I have a job now, after all).

Sunday 1th of March "The two 'Enorma' seedlings are about twenty centimeters (eight inches) high. What have I gotten myself into?"
'Enorma' is a scarlet runner bean. I sowed them on Sunday, they broke surface on thursday and three days later they were twenty centimeters (eight inches) long. Today, further five days later they've added about fourty centimeters (sixteen inches) to that. Apparently I'm dealing with this round's 'Seymore' 1 & 2, and it's more than time to give them their big, permanent containers. In addition to that four oilseed pumpkin seedlings is growing in egg containers, and they are way too muscular for this. I'm working hard mixing new soil and sterilising terracotta pots to be able to do some heavy repotting.

You may understand why I'm tired. I intend to spend the rest of the evening watching "Open Gardens"; I hope to find one that is entirely edible...

Oh, and I can't resist giving you some friday fun - this one has gone viral incredibly fast:

A look in the green book 090227

Let's see, what have I done lately. Flicker through leaves... ahA!

I've been reconstructing my gardens. When I write this I realise that it's a lot of work, but while I was working I was just annoyed that it went so 'slow'. It took my about a week of solid work, so I'm not sure about that any more.

The twentieth of February I write

Took me two days to sterilize all my soil, Now most of it is gone.

Does this sound futile? It was fun! I mixed the soil with one litre (one third of a gallon) bokashi water and some worm fluid to get microlife and nutrition to the soil. Unfortunately I was out of choir blocks, they would have been just the stuff to improve structure, but since the soil felt fine I hope this batch will turn out alright anyhow.

I have to admit: a couple of day later I bought eight litres of seedling soil and eight litres of container soil (about two and a half gallon) just to be on the safe side.

The twentyfirst of February we find the note

Was sterilizing clay pebbles in the oven but had to stop since the pebbles were exploding.

Oh yes! The pebbles were wet since they hade come straight from the seedling nurseries and in a heat of 200¤C (400¤F) water changes into steam so fast it can't just evaporate slowly through the pores it entered through. The pebbles turned into pressure chambers, and they couldn't take it. From the sound you would've guessed that I was making terracotta popcorn, and this has been the first time I've pondered protective goggles before taking stuff out of the oven.

This is how it looked like when everything had colled and I could open the door.



This week I've also done something I never thought I would do; I've put planted seeds in the fridge for stratification (=putting seeds in a cold place for some weeks to fool them that they've been through winter and can start to grow once out in the warmth again). Keeping soil and fertilizer where you put food is not my favourite idea. On the other hand I really do like to grow ramson and lavender, and they both need some cold weeks before they can sprout. I have to bow to the facts, and view this as an excersise before I sow blackberries...

And last; a small vid for the weekend. I think everyone who have or has had a cat can relate to this:

Simon's Cat 'Cat Man Do'