Hello again!  There has been exciting progress this past week.  First, here's the garden: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="As of May 19"][/caption] And now...flowers! [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="See them?"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="There they are!"][/caption] Those are both from the same plant, my monster beefsteak that has always been the biggest one.  (I think it needs a name...Beefy?)  But the other beefsteaks are getting flowers, too! [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Pretty"][/caption] Flowers are exciting because flowers mean fruit.  Hopefully good-tasting fruit.  Gotta wait and see! [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Good Beefy"][/caption] It's been raining since Saturday so I haven't had to water at all and I'm hoping for some sunny days this weekend so everything doesn't get too waterlogged.  But the rain has been, for the most part, light and frequent which is how watering should work anyway, so I'm actually kind of thankful for it. I realize I've been focusing largely on the beefsteak tomatoes because they're the biggest, but the beauty queens are getting larger and I'll do a closer look at them in the coming weeks.  The eggplants are still pretty small but I think it's still a bit cold for them.  They apparently do well in hot weather, so once we actually start getting summerish weather I think they'll be happier. On Sunday the rain gave us a bit of a break, so I went outside and retied some of the tomatoes to their stakes and did some weeding.  Now containers usually don't need too much weeding since you use new soil each time, but my big metal planter has had soil in in for a while and look!  Little weeds: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Just ignore the misshapen eggplant"][/caption] So I pulled those little buggers out, trying to get as many of the roots as possible. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Roots"][/caption] And now my tomatoes and eggplants can grow undisturbed (you hear that, eggplant?) While I was weeding, I debated whether I should take the little lower branches and the suckers (that's the actual term, I'm not making stuff up this time) off some of the larger tomato plants.  Suckers are the little shoots that grow from the intersection of the main stem and branches of the tomato plant, and I've been told both to prune them and to leave them on.  Basically it comes down the this:  if you do take those suckers off (ha), the remaining branches get more nutrients and therefore produce bigger fruit.  But if you leave them on you'll get more fruit, though it might be smaller.  If you have a short growing season you probably want to take them off since they'll take nutrients from the rest of the plant and probably not mature in time to produce fruit.  They also tend to make the plant top-heavy, so if you're growing in a small space (yup) they might get too unwieldy.  What to do??  I eventually compromised by pruning some plants and leaving the others undisturbed.  Since then I've decided that I'm going to leave the majority of them on since it's only May and the growing season here is quite long.  If things get too top-heavy then I'll reassess. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Another shot of the garden...cause I felt like it"][/caption] The plan for this weekend is to plant some of the basil outside, since it's getting quite crowded in its little indoors pot: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Excuse my thumb"][/caption] I know it hasn't reached the two-sets-of-leaves phase, so maybe I'll just thin it out a bit since I actually don't need 40+ basil plants.  Maybe one of my dedicated readers wants some?  Let me know! One little basil also somehow crept in to my feverfew... [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="See it?"][/caption] Don't know how that happened. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Traitor!"][/caption] As always, I'll be back next week. Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

Hello again!  There has been exciting progress this past week.  First, here's the garden:

And now...flowers!

 

Those are both from the same plant, my monster beefsteak that has always been the biggest one.  (I think it needs a name...Beefy?)  But the other beefsteaks are getting flowers, too!

Flowers are exciting because flowers mean fruit.  Hopefully good-tasting fruit.  Gotta wait and see!

It's been raining since Saturday so I haven't had to water at all and I'm hoping for some sunny days this weekend so everything doesn't get too waterlogged.  But the rain has been, for the most part, light and frequent which is how watering should work anyway, so I'm actually kind of thankful for it.

I realize I've been focusing largely on the beefsteak tomatoes because they're the biggest, but the beauty queens are getting larger and I'll do a closer look at them in the coming weeks.  The eggplants are still pretty small but I think it's still a bit cold for them.  They apparently do well in hot weather, so once we actually start getting summerish weather I think they'll be happier.

On Sunday the rain gave us a bit of a break, so I went outside and retied some of the tomatoes to their stakes and did some weeding.  Now containers usually don't need too much weeding since you use new soil each time, but my big metal planter has had soil in in for a while and look!  Little weeds:

So I pulled those little buggers out, trying to get as many of the roots as possible.

And now my tomatoes and eggplants can grow undisturbed (you hear that, eggplant?)

While I was weeding, I debated whether I should take the little lower branches and the suckers (that's the actual term, I'm not making stuff up this time) off some of the larger tomato plants.  Suckers are the little shoots that grow from the intersection of the main stem and branches of the tomato plant, and I've been told both to prune them and to leave them on.  Basically it comes down the this:  if you do take those suckers off (ha), the remaining branches get more nutrients and therefore produce bigger fruit.  But if you leave them on you'll get more fruit, though it might be smaller.  If you have a short growing season you probably want to take them off since they'll take nutrients from the rest of the plant and probably not mature in time to produce fruit.  They also tend to make the plant top-heavy, so if you're growing in a small space (yup) they might get too unwieldy.  What to do??  I eventually compromised by pruning some plants and leaving the others undisturbed.  Since then I've decided that I'm going to leave the majority of them on since it's only May and the growing season here is quite long.  If things get too top-heavy then I'll reassess.

The plan for this weekend is to plant some of the basil outside, since it's getting quite crowded in its little indoors pot:

I know it hasn't reached the two-sets-of-leaves phase, so maybe I'll just thin it out a bit since I actually don't need 40+ basil plants.  Maybe one of my dedicated readers wants some?  Let me know!

One little basil also somehow crept in to my feverfew...

Don't know how that happened.

As always, I'll be back next week.

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Garden as of May 11th"][/caption] Welcome back!  This will be short because I don't have too much to say (finally!).  Things are moving along and I'm happy to say that thanks to all the sunny days my waterlogged plants have finally dried out and I'm trying to stick to the schedule of watering them lightly every day. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="More garden. Still May 11th"][/caption] I'm being totally serious here when I say that watering every day will be the hardest part.  Mostly because of my job which keeps me away from the house from 8-6 Monday through Friday and my tendency to not go directly home after work.  I'm on the lookout for some sort of self-watering system so I don't have to completely change my lifestyle (and kill my social life) so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!  Sadly I don't have a hose (or even an outdoor spigot) so I'm looking for ideas with some sort of reservoir for the pots.  But for the foreseeable future I'll by relying on my two friends here: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Watering can friends"][/caption] And hey!  Some of the mint was used for juleps on Saturday [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Pretty and tasty"][/caption] But there's still a lot of it.  I have a feeling I'll be cutting this back all summer. Because I can never leave well enough alone, I have been noticing some strange things going on with the lower leaves of some of the plants, like this: I'm hoping this is from transplanting and the leaves getting stuck to each other rather than little insects or slugs, but I'm going to keep an eye on it.  Also I've noticed that some of the little eggplants have what look like little bites in the leaves: But again, I'm going to watch them and see where that goes.  I'm obviously not going to use any pesticides but I know that there are some gentler solutions like diluted soap and water that can help if things really get out of control.  For now the eggplants look pretty good and lots are getting new leaves: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Someone figured out how to use the zoom on her iPhone!"][/caption] This one, however, is worrying me: I think it got pretty wet and maybe never dried out.  We'll see! I've also been reading this book: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Hippies"][/caption] And it's pretty informative!  It's definitely geared more toward those who have an actual yard and garden as opposed to containers, but it has lots of tips on composting, pest control using natural methods, and just general gardening knowledge.  ALSO they totally endorse using your hands instead of a spade to work the dirt (the chapter is called "Spadework?  No Thanks!") since spades disrupt the natural layout of the soil and plants already there.  So hey, getting your hands dirty is fun and helpful! One more random thing:  as I was walking through the Gallery on Sunday I noticed a Pennsylvania Horticultural Society display and stopped to look.  There was no actual person there because the Gallery is eerily empty on Sundays (what's with that?  I love the Gallery) but the display was all last years winners of the City Garden Contest.  Here's the website and pretty much anyone can enter as long as they have a garden!  I'm actually thinking of entering just for fun because sadly there's no cash money prize.  But if anyone's interested the deadline to enter is June 10th and then judging is during July and August.  You can also volunteer to be a judge if you want.  I think it's cool that they have a container garden category, as well as garden block and urban farm categories.  And there's also a children's garden category for all you young gardeners.  Anyway, the rules are basically that the garden has to be within the city limits and it can be an individual or community garden.  I highly recommend checking out the display at the Gallery (it's right inside after you go down the stairs at 9th and Market) if you're interested - I can't seem to find any pictures of last year's winners online but there was one grandfatherly-type man who grew insanely large squash in his little backyard.  I also think it's cool to see what people can do with just a little space. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Tiny tiny feverfew"][/caption] On the indoor front, my feverfew and basil have sprouted and are ADORABLE as little baby plants always are.  I especially like the basil (shh don't tell feverfew!) because they already smell like little mini basils. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Mini basil"][/caption] Since they're still babies I've been misting them and I'm just waiting until they're big enough to put outside.  I've still got more things to start inside so hopefully this weekend is the time for that. That's it!  I'll be back next Thursday with another update. Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

 

Welcome back!  This will be short because I don't have too much to say (finally!).  Things are moving along and I'm happy to say that thanks to all the sunny days my waterlogged plants have finally dried out and I'm trying to stick to the schedule of watering them lightly every day.

I'm being totally serious here when I say that watering every day will be the hardest part.  Mostly because of my job which keeps me away from the house from 8-6 Monday through Friday and my tendency to not go directly home after work.  I'm on the lookout for some sort of self-watering system so I don't have to completely change my lifestyle (and kill my social life) so if anyone has any ideas, please let me know!  Sadly I don't have a hose (or even an outdoor spigot) so I'm looking for ideas with some sort of reservoir for the pots.  But for the foreseeable future I'll by relying on my two friends here:

And hey!  Some of the mint was used for juleps on Saturday

But there's still a lot of it.  I have a feeling I'll be cutting this back all summer.

Because I can never leave well enough alone, I have been noticing some strange things going on with the lower leaves of some of the plants, like this:

I'm hoping this is from transplanting and the leaves getting stuck to each other rather than little insects or slugs, but I'm going to keep an eye on it.  Also I've noticed that some of the little eggplants have what look like little bites in the leaves:

But again, I'm going to watch them and see where that goes.  I'm obviously not going to use any pesticides but I know that there are some gentler solutions like diluted soap and water that can help if things really get out of control.  For now the eggplants look pretty good and lots are getting new leaves:

This one, however, is worrying me:

I think it got pretty wet and maybe never dried out.  We'll see!

I've also been reading this book:

And it's pretty informative!  It's definitely geared more toward those who have an actual yard and garden as opposed to containers, but it has lots of tips on composting, pest control using natural methods, and just general gardening knowledge.  ALSO they totally endorse using your hands instead of a spade to work the dirt (the chapter is called "Spadework?  No Thanks!") since spades disrupt the natural layout of the soil and plants already there.  So hey, getting your hands dirty is fun and helpful!

One more random thing:  as I was walking through the Gallery on Sunday I noticed a Pennsylvania Horticultural Society display and stopped to look.  There was no actual person there because the Gallery is eerily empty on Sundays (what's with that?  I love the Gallery) but the display was all last years winners of the City Garden Contest.  Here's the website and pretty much anyone can enter as long as they have a garden!  I'm actually thinking of entering just for fun because sadly there's no cash money prize.  But if anyone's interested the deadline to enter is June 10th and then judging is during July and August.  You can also volunteer to be a judge if you want.  I think it's cool that they have a container garden category, as well as garden block and urban farm categories.  And there's also a children's garden category for all you young gardeners.  Anyway, the rules are basically that the garden has to be within the city limits and it can be an individual or community garden.  I highly recommend checking out the display at the Gallery (it's right inside after you go down the stairs at 9th and Market) if you're interested - I can't seem to find any pictures of last year's winners online but there was one grandfatherly-type man who grew insanely large squash in his little backyard.  I also think it's cool to see what people can do with just a little space.

On the indoor front, my feverfew and basil have sprouted and are ADORABLE as little baby plants always are.  I especially like the basil (shh don't tell feverfew!) because they already smell like little mini basils.

Since they're still babies I've been misting them and I'm just waiting until they're big enough to put outside.  I've still got more things to start inside so hopefully this weekend is the time for that.

That's it!  I'll be back next Thursday with another update.

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

Hello again!  Things are moving along in my little corner of South Philly.  My garden has gone from this: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Not really a garden..."][/caption] to this: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="...garden! and..."][/caption] and this: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="...more garden!"][/caption] Nice!  So now everything is outside:  "everything" being the beefsteak and beauty queen tomatoes and the eggplants.  I still have other things to plant outside, like sunflowers and summer squash, but I only have so much precious weekend time.  There are also some tulip and daffodil bulbs that I planted very late in the game that have started blooming so I decided to let them keep going and focus on replanting all the tomatoes and eggplant.  Here is the raised bed now, with daffodils and one red tulip hiding amongst all the mint: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="So much mint"][/caption] A note on this mint:  it's crazy!  But seriously, this is the third year I have had this particular mint plant and every year it comes back stronger than ever.  It requires NO work (except the occasional thinning out of the plants unless I want it to take over the entire backyard) and in the winter I just cut it down and it comes right back up in the spring.  It's great to have though, even just to throw a few sprigs in some iced (or hot) tea or just plain water or iced coffee.  And things like mojitos and juleps are fun (the latter especially if you're having a Derby party this Saturday) but a sprig of mint goes well in pretty much any drink.  You can also throw some leaves in salads and it pairs well with lots of lamb dishes.  Versatile! Anyway, the actual planting of all the tomatoes and eggplants took both Saturday and Sunday afternoons (sure, I could have started in the morning and gotten this done in one day but my weekend mornings are reserved strictly for sleeping and brunching.)  I planted 28 pots in all and went through three BIG bags of potting soil and two smaller ones, plus another bag of my trusty compost.  The biggest obstacle this time around was water.  Thanks to all the rain we've been getting, everything was really wet.  The potting soil had been sitting outside, so all three big bags were wet - the one on the bottom was actually closer to mud than soil.  There are also two large metal planters left over from a previous tenant and they already had soil in them from last year.  Unfortunately that was also pretty muddy and there are no drainage holes in either of them so I had to use other pots.  I actually had some luck with just cutting the bags open and leaving them in the sun for a while to dry out the soil on Saturday, but Sunday I started running out of soil and the sun was not as strong.  Long story short I ended up using one of the metal planters for some beefsteaks surrounded by eggplant: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Please survive?"][/caption] We'll see how that goes.  And here are the plants right after I planted them, looking a little droopy and over-watered and sad: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Sad plants"][/caption] Two days later, they are less droopy but I still haven't watered them yet, which shows how wet the dirt actually was. Another challenge was (again) actually transplanting the plants - untangling them from themselves and attempting to keep as many of the roots intact as possible.  Even the beefsteaks, which were all at least about a foot tall, had insanely delicate roots.  I'm going to get really scientific on you here, so get ready:  roots are really important.  Even more important than the part above the ground, since a plant gets the vast majority of its nutrients and water from the soil (this is also why good soil and compost are important.)  Here's a picture of one of the little eggplant's roots so you can see how big they actually are in relation to the rest of the plant: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="What am I doing with my hand?"][/caption] Kind of like that overused analogy of an iceberg, the biggest part of the plant is actually what you can't see!  So you want to be very careful when transplanting to try to get as many of the roots as possible.  I actually found it easiest to just dig in there with my hands - this way I could feel the roots instead of just shoving a spade down there and breaking lots of them.  Of course, then your hands will end up looking like this: [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Attractive!"][/caption] But getting your hands dirty is fun, right?  I thoroughly enjoy it, but do be prepared to have dirt under your fingernails at all times.  No more manicures for a few months. The plan in the coming weeks is to make sure what's outside doesn't get too wet/dry/cold and give away some of the smaller pots of tomatoes to make room for more plants!  I am also starting some more things inside:  basil and feverfew.  I've never grown basil from seed and I'm not entirely sure what feverfew actually is other than I love the name and it has pretty little white flowers. Just for fun, here's a picture I took of two of the daffodils.  Look at them poking their little heads through the chair! [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Cuties"][/caption] So stay tuned!  I'll be back with another update next week. Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

Hello again!  Things are moving along in my little corner of South Philly.  My garden has gone from this:

to this:

and this:

Nice!  So now everything is outside:  "everything" being the beefsteak and beauty queen tomatoes and the eggplants.  I still have other things to plant outside, like sunflowers and summer squash, but I only have so much precious weekend time.  There are also some tulip and daffodil bulbs that I planted very late in the game that have started blooming so I decided to let them keep going and focus on replanting all the tomatoes and eggplant.  Here is the raised bed now, with daffodils and one red tulip hiding amongst all the mint:

A note on this mint:  it's crazy!  But seriously, this is the third year I have had this particular mint plant and every year it comes back stronger than ever.  It requires NO work (except the occasional thinning out of the plants unless I want it to take over the entire backyard) and in the winter I just cut it down and it comes right back up in the spring.  It's great to have though, even just to throw a few sprigs in some iced (or hot) tea or just plain water or iced coffee.  And things like mojitos and juleps are fun (the latter especially if you're having a Derby party this Saturday) but a sprig of mint goes well in pretty much any drink.  You can also throw some leaves in salads and it pairs well with lots of lamb dishes.  Versatile!

Anyway, the actual planting of all the tomatoes and eggplants took both Saturday and Sunday afternoons (sure, I could have started in the morning and gotten this done in one day but my weekend mornings are reserved strictly for sleeping and brunching.)  I planted 28 pots in all and went through three BIG bags of potting soil and two smaller ones, plus another bag of my trusty compost.  The biggest obstacle this time around was water.  Thanks to all the rain we've been getting, everything was really wet.  The potting soil had been sitting outside, so all three big bags were wet - the one on the bottom was actually closer to mud than soil.  There are also two large metal planters left over from a previous tenant and they already had soil in them from last year.  Unfortunately that was also pretty muddy and there are no drainage holes in either of them so I had to use other pots.  I actually had some luck with just cutting the bags open and leaving them in the sun for a while to dry out the soil on Saturday, but Sunday I started running out of soil and the sun was not as strong.  Long story short I ended up using one of the metal planters for some beefsteaks surrounded by eggplant:

We'll see how that goes.  And here are the plants right after I planted them, looking a little droopy and over-watered and sad:

Two days later, they are less droopy but I still haven't watered them yet, which shows how wet the dirt actually was.

Another challenge was (again) actually transplanting the plants - untangling them from themselves and attempting to keep as many of the roots intact as possible.  Even the beefsteaks, which were all at least about a foot tall, had insanely delicate roots.  I'm going to get really scientific on you here, so get ready:  roots are really important.  Even more important than the part above the ground, since a plant gets the vast majority of its nutrients and water from the soil (this is also why good soil and compost are important.)  Here's a picture of one of the little eggplant's roots so you can see how big they actually are in relation to the rest of the plant:

Kind of like that overused analogy of an iceberg, the biggest part of the plant is actually what you can't see!  So you want to be very careful when transplanting to try to get as many of the roots as possible.  I actually found it easiest to just dig in there with my hands - this way I could feel the roots instead of just shoving a spade down there and breaking lots of them.  Of course, then your hands will end up looking like this:

But getting your hands dirty is fun, right?  I thoroughly enjoy it, but do be prepared to have dirt under your fingernails at all times.  No more manicures for a few months.

The plan in the coming weeks is to make sure what's outside doesn't get too wet/dry/cold and give away some of the smaller pots of tomatoes to make room for more plants!  I am also starting some more things inside:  basil and feverfew.  I've never grown basil from seed and I'm not entirely sure what feverfew actually is other than I love the name and it has pretty little white flowers.

Just for fun, here's a picture I took of two of the daffodils.  Look at them poking their little heads through the chair!

So stay tuned!  I'll be back with another update next week.

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt. Catch up with her continuing efforts to grow food in South Philly by clicking here.

Hello food people!  My name is Sarah and sometime this winter I decided to try my hand at growing some vegetables.  Now, I'm going to document it.  Join me! [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Our backyard"][/caption] One of the perks of living in South Philly is that my roommate and I have a nice little patio with a built-in planter and pretty good sun.  Of course my first thought was:  food!  A little background on me:  I don't know too much about plants but my parents are avid gardeners. My father taught high school horticulture (it's totally a class) and my grandmother still has what remains of her farm, so they are my main sources for any plant-related questions.  I have grown (and killed) various plants in the past, from houseplants to tomatoes, but this is my first time growing anything entirely from seed.  So let's get started!  I hope to learn a lot from this and hopefully you will too. Sometime in January I started to feel my annual spring fever, so I somewhat erratically ordered a lot of seeds online.  I feel like I have to come clean here and say that this is not entirely local because the seeds are from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  But I wanted non-genetically modified seeds and I figured heirloom varieties would be fun.  That, by the way, is how I make lots of decisions.  I am not a super-green-thumb or anything, but last summer I was too late to the game to start tomatoes from seed so I bought some young plants from the Lowe's on Columbus Boulevard.  I doted on them, then kind of forgot about them, then overwatered them and the resulting fruit was kind of disappointing.  Basically the fruit tasted...bad.  It wasn't horrible but it wasn't the delicious fresh-from-the-garden taste I remembered as a kid.  I chalked up some of this to possibly distorted memories and changing tastebuds, but I decided to grow things from seed the next time around to see if I couldn't get better tasting produce. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Tomato and eggplant seed packets"][/caption] I started three crops inside:  two varieties of tomatoes (beefsteak and an heirloom called beauty queen) and eggplant.  The instructions told me to start them inside 4-6 weeks before the last frost.  A quick Google search revealed that the last frost for Philadelphia is usually around the middle of April, so I started my seeds in early March.  Now I know that there are seed starting kits and all sorts of special trays and planters, but I don't have that much money or space and I'd rather recycle what I already had.  In our backyard there were a few pots leftover from previous tenants and I gathered a few of my own from thrift stores - I started with three, one for each crop, and then gathered more along the way.  The only thing I know about pots for plants is that they should have some drainage holes in the bottom in case you are like me and tend to overwater - that way the excess water will drain out instead of flooding the plant.  Some of the containers I got from thrift stores didn't have holes in the bottom but it's easy to drill little holes or, in my case, just poke some holes with a knife (be careful!)  Again, going on instinct and various tips, I washed all the pots I was using with all-natural soap (Dr. Bronner's in my case) because I knew that even if I didn't quite get it all washed out it wouldn't be as horrible to the plants as a chemical-laden detergent-based soap. The first nice sunny weekend in March I walked to the hardware store and bought two bags of potting soil.  I had planned on doing a soil test of the soil that was already in my backyard but since it's all in a raised bed and I had already added potting soil to it last year I decided to skip it.  Plus I am doing most of my planting in containers since a lot of the raised bed is occupied by a wonderful little Japanese maple tree which I wouldn't trade for the world but which also doesn't allow for lots of sun.  So plants like tomatoes, that need full sun, will be planted in containers on the sunny side of the yard, away from the tree. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="Eggplant seedlings"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="Beefsteak seedlings"][/caption] I basically just filled up each pot (loosely) with soil, sprinkled the seeds on top, and topped with a little more soil.  Then I watered each one until water ran out the drainage holes, since when you first plant seeds the soil is very dry and seeds need water.  Duh, right?  Seeds also need sunlight, which can be hard to come by in a rowhouse.  We get pretty good light, and it's a good idea to be aware of which way your house or plot is oriented before you start planting.  Philly is kind of at an angle, by which I mean that streets going north don't actually point due north.  But it's pretty close, so facing the Schuylkill is vaguely west and the Delaware is vaguely east.  With that knowledge (and no compass) I've determined that my backyard is about ESE and the front of the house is therefore WNW, or something like that.  Obviously if you have real person tools like a compass you can figure this out exactly.  The only other note on this is that the strongest sun is from the south and the weakest from the north, so for something like tomatoes that need full sun, south sun is best.  Do be careful though, because south sun in the summer in Philly can be very strong and plants will dry out very quickly (as I learned last year) and the sun can even burn the leaves if you're not careful.  Sun is about amount (hours per day) and also strength, so get to know your planting space and how the sun moves through it.  I am lucky to have dealt with this space last year so that I know the sunniest spots and how the sun moves according to season, but a little trial and error doesn't hurt. With that in mind I put my three pots in the front windows, right against the glass (even though they don't need sun until they sprout) and waited, making sure to keep the soil damp.  In about a week I had little beefsteak sprouts!  And about a week after that the beauty queen and eggplant followed suit.  Because the little seedlings were so delicate, I bought a 99 cent spray bottle so that I could mist them and not just dump water on them and knock them over.  They seemed to respond well to the misting (and it was pretty fun) so I kept that up until each plant had two sets of leaves, which is when you can transplant them.  I actually think it was better for me to use larger pots rather than little seedling trays since larger pots hold more dirt which holds more water and therefore doesn't require constant watering like the trays would (although a self-watering system for those would be easy to assemble and would reduce the watering work also.)  Personal preference, I guess. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="Beefsteaks ready to transplant"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="Beefsteak roots"][/caption] The last weekend in March was transplanting time for the beefsteaks, which were getting quite crowded.  I gathered all my pots and two more bags of potting soil and headed outside.  As I was doing this, I remembered reading (in Grid, I believe) that Green Aisle Grocery on Passyunk had local compost for $5 a bag.  Now I know that you can make your own compost and that it's a great way to cut down on waste and all that, but I didn't have any started and I'm not particularly keen on worms and Green Aisle is just a short walk from my house.  I rationalized that at least it was local (South Philly) compost, I was supporting a local business and it was a way to fertilize without using chemicals.  A quick walk to Green Aisle and twenty minutes later I mixed some compost into the potting soil and got to work.  Now this is where something like individual seedling trays would have come in handy - it was very hard to get the first few seedlings out of the pot without breaking them since they are so delicate.  I ended up lifting up the top layer of the soil (the roots only went down two inches at most), setting it on the ground, and gently separating each plant by knocking the soil away from the roots and then very gently pulling the plants apart.  I cannot emphasize enough how gentle I was - even just gripping the seedlings with barely any strength would have killed some of them.  That said, I had so many I wasn't afraid to lose a few and got rid of the smallest ones.  But seeing as how I had raised them from seed I really didn't want to just throw over half of my little babies out.  I ended up saving too many (I do have limited space) but I just couldn't bear to part with them.  So, more pots were gathered - thrift stores are great for this and also I found some groundspeople working at Penn and they offered me as many plastic pots as I needed from the little plants they were planting so it doesn't hurt to ask around.  In the end I ended up with eight pots with anything from three to...many seedlings in them.  And this is where my lack of plant knowledge comes in:  two seedlings were significantly larger than the others, so I put each of those in a pot with only one smaller plant thinking that the biggest ones would be the hardiest, or at least the hardest to kill.  The rest of the normal-sized ones just got a little more space.  The beauty queens and the eggplants were still too small - each plant only had one or two leaves - so I just left those.  I'm still not entirely sure why the beefsteaks are so much larger than the beauty queens or the eggplants, but I'm assuming that since beefsteaks are big tomatoes then the plants must be big plants.  Again, some research beforehand might have been helpful but that's not really how I roll. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="375" caption="Newly-transplanted beefsteaks"][/caption] [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="500" caption="Front window filled with plants"][/caption] Fast forward a month and here we are!  I'm planning to move them outside this weekend since I think we're frost-free (cross your fingers!)  I'm assuming its the compost, but after transplanting the beefsteaks really took off. [caption id="" align="alignnone" width="374" caption="Picture of beefsteaks a few weeks ago"][/caption] This past month I've switched from misting to actually watering with a watering can with one of those drip heads so that I don't just dump water on them.  They got too big for the mister (heh) probably about two weeks after I transplanted them, and they needed more water.  Again, I'm using fairly deep pots but with lots of sunshine I still have to water them every two days or so.  (That week that was gray and rainy I only watered once or twice all week.)  I'm trying really hard to stick to my grandmother's advice of watering little and often, as opposed to a lot and rarely. I'll be back next week with another update!  Also I'll be planting things directly outside, like rosemary, basil, thyme, summer squash and a few various flowers.  I told you I have a lot of seeds. Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt.

Hello food people!  My name is Sarah and sometime this winter I decided to try my hand at growing some vegetables.  Now, I'm going to document it.  Join me!

One of the perks of living in South Philly is that my roommate and I have a nice little patio with a built-in planter and pretty good sun.  Of course my first thought was:  food!  A little background on me:  I don't know too much about plants but my parents are avid gardeners. My father taught high school horticulture (it's totally a class) and my grandmother still has what remains of her farm, so they are my main sources for any plant-related questions.  I have grown (and killed) various plants in the past, from houseplants to tomatoes, but this is my first time growing anything entirely from seed.  So let's get started!  I hope to learn a lot from this and hopefully you will too.

Sometime in January I started to feel my annual spring fever, so I somewhat erratically ordered a lot of seeds online.  I feel like I have to come clean here and say that this is not entirely local because the seeds are from Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds.  But I wanted non-genetically modified seeds and I figured heirloom varieties would be fun.  That, by the way, is how I make lots of decisions.  I am not a super-green-thumb or anything, but last summer I was too late to the game to start tomatoes from seed so I bought some young plants from the Lowe's on Columbus Boulevard.  I doted on them, then kind of forgot about them, then overwatered them and the resulting fruit was kind of disappointing.  Basically the fruit tasted...bad.  It wasn't horrible but it wasn't the delicious fresh-from-the-garden taste I remembered as a kid.  I chalked up some of this to possibly distorted memories and changing tastebuds, but I decided to grow things from seed the next time around to see if I couldn't get better tasting produce.

I started three crops inside:  two varieties of tomatoes (beefsteak and an heirloom called beauty queen) and eggplant.  The instructions told me to start them inside 4-6 weeks before the last frost.  A quick Google search revealed that the last frost for Philadelphia is usually around the middle of April, so I started my seeds in early March.  Now I know that there are seed starting kits and all sorts of special trays and planters, but I don't have that much money or space and I'd rather recycle what I already had.  In our backyard there were a few pots leftover from previous tenants and I gathered a few of my own from thrift stores - I started with three, one for each crop, and then gathered more along the way.  The only thing I know about pots for plants is that they should have some drainage holes in the bottom in case you are like me and tend to overwater - that way the excess water will drain out instead of flooding the plant.  Some of the containers I got from thrift stores didn't have holes in the bottom but it's easy to drill little holes or, in my case, just poke some holes with a knife (be careful!)  Again, going on instinct and various tips, I washed all the pots I was using with all-natural soap (Dr. Bronner's in my case) because I knew that even if I didn't quite get it all washed out it wouldn't be as horrible to the plants as a chemical-laden detergent-based soap.

The first nice sunny weekend in March I walked to the hardware store and bought two bags of potting soil.  I had planned on doing a soil test of the soil that was already in my backyard but since it's all in a raised bed and I had already added potting soil to it last year I decided to skip it.  Plus I am doing most of my planting in containers since a lot of the raised bed is occupied by a wonderful little Japanese maple tree which I wouldn't trade for the world but which also doesn't allow for lots of sun.  So plants like tomatoes, that need full sun, will be planted in containers on the sunny side of the yard, away from the tree.

 

I basically just filled up each pot (loosely) with soil, sprinkled the seeds on top, and topped with a little more soil.  Then I watered each one until water ran out the drainage holes, since when you first plant seeds the soil is very dry and seeds need water.  Duh, right?  Seeds also need sunlight, which can be hard to come by in a rowhouse.  We get pretty good light, and it's a good idea to be aware of which way your house or plot is oriented before you start planting.  Philly is kind of at an angle, by which I mean that streets going north don't actually point due north.  But it's pretty close, so facing the Schuylkill is vaguely west and the Delaware is vaguely east.  With that knowledge (and no compass) I've determined that my backyard is about ESE and the front of the house is therefore WNW, or something like that.  Obviously if you have real person tools like a compass you can figure this out exactly.  The only other note on this is that the strongest sun is from the south and the weakest from the north, so for something like tomatoes that need full sun, south sun is best.  Do be careful though, because south sun in the summer in Philly can be very strong and plants will dry out very quickly (as I learned last year) and the sun can even burn the leaves if you're not careful.  Sun is about amount (hours per day) and also strength, so get to know your planting space and how the sun moves through it.  I am lucky to have dealt with this space last year so that I know the sunniest spots and how the sun moves according to season, but a little trial and error doesn't hurt.

With that in mind I put my three pots in the front windows, right against the glass (even though they don't need sun until they sprout) and waited, making sure to keep the soil damp.  In about a week I had little beefsteak sprouts!  And about a week after that the beauty queen and eggplant followed suit.  Because the little seedlings were so delicate, I bought a 99 cent spray bottle so that I could mist them and not just dump water on them and knock them over.  They seemed to respond well to the misting (and it was pretty fun) so I kept that up until each plant had two sets of leaves, which is when you can transplant them.  I actually think it was better for me to use larger pots rather than little seedling trays since larger pots hold more dirt which holds more water and therefore doesn't require constant watering like the trays would (although a self-watering system for those would be easy to assemble and would reduce the watering work also.)  Personal preference, I guess.

 

The last weekend in March was transplanting time for the beefsteaks, which were getting quite crowded.  I gathered all my pots and two more bags of potting soil and headed outside.  As I was doing this, I remembered reading (in Grid, I believe) that Green Aisle Grocery on Passyunk had local compost for $5 a bag.  Now I know that you can make your own compost and that it's a great way to cut down on waste and all that, but I didn't have any started and I'm not particularly keen on worms and Green Aisle is just a short walk from my house.  I rationalized that at least it was local (South Philly) compost, I was supporting a local business and it was a way to fertilize without using chemicals.  A quick walk to Green Aisle and twenty minutes later I mixed some compost into the potting soil and got to work.  Now this is where something like individual seedling trays would have come in handy - it was very hard to get the first few seedlings out of the pot without breaking them since they are so delicate.  I ended up lifting up the top layer of the soil (the roots only went down two inches at most), setting it on the ground, and gently separating each plant by knocking the soil away from the roots and then very gently pulling the plants apart.  I cannot emphasize enough how gentle I was - even just gripping the seedlings with barely any strength would have killed some of them.  That said, I had so many I wasn't afraid to lose a few and got rid of the smallest ones.  But seeing as how I had raised them from seed I really didn't want to just throw over half of my little babies out.  I ended up saving too many (I do have limited space) but I just couldn't bear to part with them.  So, more pots were gathered - thrift stores are great for this and also I found some groundspeople working at Penn and they offered me as many plastic pots as I needed from the little plants they were planting so it doesn't hurt to ask around.  In the end I ended up with eight pots with anything from three to...many seedlings in them.  And this is where my lack of plant knowledge comes in:  two seedlings were significantly larger than the others, so I put each of those in a pot with only one smaller plant thinking that the biggest ones would be the hardiest, or at least the hardest to kill.  The rest of the normal-sized ones just got a little more space.  The beauty queens and the eggplants were still too small - each plant only had one or two leaves - so I just left those.  I'm still not entirely sure why the beefsteaks are so much larger than the beauty queens or the eggplants, but I'm assuming that since beefsteaks are big tomatoes then the plants must be big plants.  Again, some research beforehand might have been helpful but that's not really how I roll.

 

Fast forward a month and here we are!  I'm planning to move them outside this weekend since I think we're frost-free (cross your fingers!)  I'm assuming its the compost, but after transplanting the beefsteaks really took off.

This past month I've switched from misting to actually watering with a watering can with one of those drip heads so that I don't just dump water on them.  They got too big for the mister (heh) probably about two weeks after I transplanted them, and they needed more water.  Again, I'm using fairly deep pots but with lots of sunshine I still have to water them every two days or so.  (That week that was gray and rainy I only watered once or twice all week.)  I'm trying really hard to stick to my grandmother's advice of watering little and often, as opposed to a lot and rarely.

I'll be back next week with another update!  Also I'll be planting things directly outside, like rosemary, basil, thyme, summer squash and a few various flowers.  I told you I have a lot of seeds.

Sarah DeGiorgis has lived in Philly for five years and is finally starting to feel like a true Philadelphian, though she still detests cheesesteaks.  She enjoys reading, watching bad tv, eating and cooking good food and digging in the dirt.