Rooftop Garden

Way back at the end of March, I posted an entry about my fantasy “summer sunshine paradise” out my kitchen window and on the neighboring rooftop. What began as a modest project of starting seeds on a secondhand shelving unit

has turned into this:

My tomatoes are getting taller, the one cucumber that didn’t die after sprouting has baby cukes already, the freesia and iris are blooming. The replacement cukes and summer flowers I couldn’t plant till May have already made a good start as well.

What follows is a mini-version of Make (which I know you geeks read religiously) — I’m going to tell you how I constructed my tomato boats, for anyone who might be considering planting in a small space like mine.

Garden Weekend

When I lived in Iowa, Memorial Day weekend was the time when everyone planted their vegetable gardens. In those days (before global warming), the early June nights might still be cool but we were pretty well assured that the danger of frost was past and the growing season could begin. I had no gardening experience except what I’d learned from my grandfather, so I planted everything in my Iowa garden that he used to plant in his garden in the north Georgia mountains. And so I can attest that, for a limited time only, okra will grow rampant in Iowa (and since there is virtually no one there who knows what okra is, there’s no one to eat all the excess). Purple hull and lady peas (really not peas but we call them that) also are excellent cultivars in Iowa. (Again, limited acceptance.) Melons are dicey - I think I managed to get one watermelon harvested before frost in three seasons. 

So now I’m gardening in a more southern clime, and this is actually a report on how things are doing. The cucumber vines are blooming and beginning to climb their trelllis. The fig tree has recovered from the Great Easter Freeze, although we may be short of figs this year. Ditto the blueberry bushes. Strawberry season was pretty good for all concerned - the birds, mice, rabbits and me. And for the first time, my pomegranite bush is blooming! Could it be that there will be home-grown poms this year? 

The featured attraction of course is the tomato garden. All of the plants are in the ground now and doing well, including the Hillbillies which, as my faithful readers will remember, were planted separately under the unfortunate waning moon. Most of the tomato plants have bloomed, and several have set fruit already. This weekend, I sprinkled a small pinch of slow release organic fertilizer around all the blooming plants, in an effort to boost production. This is a new thing for me this year so I will let you know if I think it makes a difference. 

The big job for the tomato garden this weekend was STAKING. I do not believe in the “sprawl” method of growing tomatoes. Not here in the south, where sprawl invites pests and fusarium wilt. So, thanks to the help of Goshawk (who made the stakes and cages in return for tomato futures), the plants are staked and caged for the summer campaign. 

                             

Whew. Now I can relax. And think about next year’s garden. Okra? Perhaps a row or two of Silver Queen corn? 

Heirloom Tomatoes: Centerfold

Here are some pictures of last year’s crop of heirloom tomatoes from B Barron, taken in goshawk’s kitchen. (We all live in the same neighborhood.) They were delicious as well as beautiful.

And now, a song:

Heirloom Tomatoes - Planting by the Signs

So, ok, tonight’s the night.

For several years now, I’ve mounted a big heirloom tomato effort in my back yard. I am not sure how I started down the heirloom path, but I’m glad I did. I am fortunate that I have, in my neighborhood, an excellent heirloom mentor, Craig LeHoullier, who is a member of the Seed Savers Exchange. 

My mother reminded me this weekend that my grandfather in the mountains planted his garden by the signs published in the Greer’s Almanac. I can recall as a child reading Greer’s in my grandfather’s den, and what I read then seemed somewhat mysterious and scandalous, with numerous strange pictographs and signs. Alas, I believe Greer’s is history, but the ”planting by the signs” method lives on on the internet, and I guess in the mountains too.   

Today, May 1, the moon is waxing in Scorpio where I live. This is a good sign for planting tomatoes. So I did. I planted 21 tomato plants after work today. All of them heirloom varieties and in a totally organic environment. Not that you ask, but here are the varieities:  Cherokee Purple, Cherokee Green and Cherokee Chocolate (all from Craig and great producers here in NC); Eva Purple Ball; Black Krim, Kellogg’s Breakfast; Green Giant; Akers West Virginia; Yellow Pear; Stump of the World; and Nepal. Coming soon from CA are the Hillbilly plants (Craig does not like them so I have to out-source that variety). I will have to plant the Hillbilly plants against the signs, since they are scheduled to arrive in the waning moon. I hope they are up to it.

I will post from time to time as to how things are going. Those who live in the neighborhood will be most interested, as they could be the recipients of the fruits of my labors. 

Stay tuned. 

What’s sprouting?

Unseasonably warm temperatures (it *is* still March, isn’t it?) have me in a definite springtime mood. Some friends speak of a new kind of SAD: not Seasonal Affective Disorder, the diagnosis of wintertime blues; rather Spring Affective Disorder, where the combination of nice weather and long daylight hours fill one’s mind with fun-filled nights and outdoor activities (this despite the early spring being one of the busiest times of the year work-wise).

I have to admit that the time change, which finally hit Europe this week, is a huge boon to post-workday activity, and my evening eating schedule has gone all wonky. Living on the top floor of a building with roof access, I spent many winter nights imagining how I would create there a summer sunshine paradise with my many plants and a reclining chair, where I would while away the hours of thesis research reading, lemonade in hand. The IKEA catalog arrived at just the right moments to keep the fantasy alive. You can see how that got me through the neverending madness that was January, right?

This week I took my first step towards building said oasis when a free shelving unit appeared on my university’s exchange bulletin board. And my plants are doing their part by sprouting from seeds I planted a couple weeks ago.

BBaron posted earlier this month about how far our food travels to land on our plates. Having grown up in a family with a passion for gardening and having survived three winters and springs in Russia, I have been socialized to spend part of one’s summer tending one’s own crop. Anyone who does it knows that you can’t beat the taste of a home-grown tomato. There is no better way to know where your food is coming from than planting, tending and picking it yourself. However, considering I only have planters at my disposal and that I have to carry all dirt used up five flights of stairs, my enterprise is limited. My dad starts his tomatoes in January to ensure an early harvest and already has tall plants. But then, when it’s just me, how many tomatoes do I really need?

I’m interested to know what everyone else is growing this year. My list is after the jump.

Chilean Raspberries 2/$6

I stopped at my neighborhood grocery store last night on the way home from work (I think I may have a more mundane existence than most geeks on this buffet) and noticed as I went down the produce aisle a beautiful display containing tiny cartons of perfect raspberries. A sign next to the display said “Chilean Raspberries 2/$6.” What struck me was not the price of the berries, although it was pretty steep, but the idea that those raspberries had traveled halfway across the hemisphere to get here. In fact, as the crow flies, they traveled about 4700 miles. (The Internet is good for so many things, including looking up distances between two points.) How else would fresh raspberries be available in North Carolina in early March?

I thought piously to myself, “I would NEVER buy such fruit!  Too many food miles!” But then I examined the contents of my shopping cart and found the two items it contained were carrying a not-insignificant mileage burden themselves: organic baby spinach from California (about 3000 food miles); and grape tomatoes from Mexico (about 1500 food miles). I wasn’t so righteous about those items; I bought them and had them for dinner. But the experience did start me thinking…

It’s one thing to talk about eating locally, but another to contemplate that reality in the off-season. What would the produce aisle in my store look like if it contained only those fruits and vegetables that are available fresh locally today, right this minute? My guess is that we’d see sweet potatoes, collard and turnip greens, and maybe some turnips and cold storage apples. YUM.

I’ve seen estimates that anywhere between 10 and 25 percent of the fossil fuels burned in the US are consumed transporting food to and within the country. We in the developed world have come to expect a bounty of fresh out-of-season produce in our stores. So much that it’s trendy to discuss “food miles” and “eating locally” at dinner parties where liberals have congregated. And it sounds like such a good idea - in the summertime.