Virescent

At least until Nature has her way and drowns everything.  We’ve gotten three or four days of heavy rains here, and my plants are getting soggy and depressed. 

But look!

The basil is doing pretty well.  Album of progress is here, but those pictures are already three days out of date.  In between, I went to the Eco-City Summit and my brother’s college graduation in West Virginia.  I’ll post about the Summit tomorrow- still gathering thoughts on that (and my notes must be somewhere around here).  But the graduation, that was cool.  Nicely done, little brother.  Although I thought you were kidding when you threatened to buy a gigantic SUV after school, to cancel out my little hybrid.  Gah. 

Starting with seeds, I’ve grown romaine lettuce, spearmint, cilantro, chives, shelling peas, lavender, and basil to eat- then morning glories, cardinal creeper, and sweet peas to look at. In a couple weeks, I’ll inherit peppers and tomatoes (thanks, dad!). I definitely made mistakes during planting, but my sprouts have turned out to be very forgiving.

To improve in the future, I need to separate seeds when I plant them to make transplanting them less traumatic (for me, anyway), and also to have a better idea of what’s what, and what’s where. For instance, it appears that spearmint has invaded three of the pots, and there are two things growing in the lavender pot, and I have no idea which one is lavender. I’d also like to turn my garden towards more substantial food production, but I’m glad I got herbs and garnishes in now.

One happy side effect of this was getting introduced to a big, supportive group of garden bloggers. Thanks for the comments and suggestions from all of you! Typically when I wrap up a monthly goal, I only post sporadic follow-ups. Gardening being what it is, I’ll continue posting about it frequently, even though I’m shifting focus now.

In May, I’m going to practice local activism. I’ve got the Eco-Summit on Saturday, and I need to become more informed about local politics and sustainability groups, to see how and where I can get involved to advocate my cause- and what kinds of causes are good to advocate.

I’ve never been much for causes. I’m typically quite content to educate myself independently about an issue, decide my own course, and only discuss it with close friends or when somebody else brings it up. I don’t get out and try and change things much, I don’t join groups, and this blog is really the furthest I’ve gotten in trying to convince others to reexamine their own lives. See now, I don’t even talk about that here- I just offer examples of my own changes, and don’t make the leap to advocacy.

Leadership by example is well and good, but I need to start taking bigger leaps. Plus, in order to actually live more sustainably, I can’t just change the way I do small things. I need to work to change the way wasteful systems around me work. A group at MIT published a study on carbon footprints of Americans recently, and concluded that even if you’re doing all you can to reduce, you’re still, on average, emitting so much more than any other country- because of the way our lifestyles are arranged at all levels.

“There’s a certain amount you can do as an individual,” said Timothy Gutowski, the MIT professor of the mechanical engineering class who lead authored the paper, “but if you recognize this is a system-wide problem, you need system-wide attention to the problem.”

That’s going to mean cleaner power, say, solar concentrating power plants plus wind. Better transportation options need to speed to market, probably smaller electric vehicles and smarter mass transit options. Materials like cement and plastics need to be made with far less energy. Cities will have to be redesigned to reduce the need for commuting. More efficient ways of transmitting, storing and using energy at the grid and home levels need to be mainstreamed. What we eat will have to change; the challenge will be making the future food taste as good as the corn-based delicacies that populate our menus now.

Now greenhouse gases aren’t the only measure of sustainability, but they’re a good, quick reference. So if I’m gong to do this right, I need to try and change somethign else besides me, personally. Activism it is.

I’m going to start tonight by having a sit-down with my house mates about how much electricity we use. Wish me luck.

Yesterday afternoon, I moved my plants to larger containers. It wasn’t pretty. Roots were torn, plants were lost, dirty words were said, tiny, heartbreaking plant screams were screamed.

To my plants: I am so sorry, you guys. I was young and naive when I planted you a month ago, and my mistakes have lead to a great ripping of roots and the loss of some of your fellows. They were brave sprouts. You are stronger for having known them, mostly since I’m going to spread you all with their composted remains.

I planted my seeds in pots, too close together, so it was impossible to move them to new containers without damaging everybody’s root structures. I couldn’t get a few of the glories back in the ground. They’re my first casualties. I know now to start seeds in individual containers- I’m already saving TP tubes, I hear they work well. For this year’s crop, though, it was too late.

This morning, though, the survivors all looked green and perky. So far, it seems that everybody who got back in dirt is recovering. I hope they believe that today is so nice and sunny out because I wanted to make up for the ravages of yesterday. Also, I planted the chives (with plenty of room to spare), and I’ve got a few sweet peas emerging. So I feel a bit less guilty. Only a bit.

I put up an album. It’s not too horrifying, but I was too busy trying to not hurt the plants too much to get pictures of the worst of it.

Thanks for the advice, Heather! I’ve got them on chopsticks right now, but they’ll grow to about 30″ tall, so I need to find some bigger chopsticks.

In the background you can see my new purple hydrangea. I hope that one day it will grow into a bush. For now, it looks lovely in one of the pots the Gentleman Friend’s mother gave me. (I keep wanting to abbreviate him as “the GF”, but I don’t think that sends a clear message. I’ll type it out until a new, more graceful euphemism is found.)

Garden photos update here. It’s been very cold the last few nights, so I moved most of the sprouts inside for the time being. I think the spearmint has invaded my basil. Also, I started soaking cilantro seeds this evening. This summer is shaping up to be pretty tasty.

Here’s something I’ve learned: Next year, I should plant the seeds individually in small containers to sprout next year, so they transplant neatly and painlessly. I need to dig up the ones I’ve got going and replant them with more space. Since they’re germinating together in little planters, their root systems aren’t neatly separated, and I’m afraid the transplanting shock of pulling their roots apart will anger them. I’m especially worried for the kalanchoe- will he be ok if I dig up the morning glories from all around him, then fill in the hole with new potting soil? Or will he become my first victim of the season?  Only Time Will Tell.

So far, everything except the sweet peas has come up from seed. Those I planted a full inch deep, just like the packet said, so I’ll wait a little while before I start worrying. The shelling pea plants are growing the quickest.

I’m rather suspicious of my success. All I did was collect dirt, pots, seeds, and water. I didn’t even get drainage in most of the pots right, so they’ve flooded twice with the heavy rains the past couple of weeks. And for this, I am rewarded with perky sprouts? Just get a load of that spearmint sprout. He has no idea what he’s getting into. Clearly unprepared for, and unconcerned with, the ravages of my attention. I want him to grow quickly, so I can make tea of him.

I have discovered an effective method for curing the impatience between planting and finding green things: go away for the weekend. Plant Thursday night, make some plans, come back Sunday, and voila! No chance to spend the weekend avoiding one’s phone and staring at dirt, plus rewards when you return.  This has been keeping me calm, anyway.

Eating these guys is the next step that I’m very excited about, but the next actual step is transplanting. I started my seeds close together, like the package said, so I’ll need to thin the morning glories and climbers especially, and the peas, also- there’s one guy who’s struggling in a small pot with two other thriving pea plants. The kalanchoe is now hidden in the glories, but he appears to be doing well. I assume he’s a bit confused about all the (living) company these days, but soon he’ll be moved to safety.

My Gentleman Friend’s wonderful mother gave me a gigantic stash of planters (with a huge spiky bromeliad bonus) this weekend, which is going to make it possible to separate things the way they should be (and decorate my bathroom). For now, though, more photos of the garden tonight are here. I have romaine lettuce, maybe!

I’m also looking for good homes for a few morning glory sprouts. They’re probably best in pots, since they tend to grow quickly and consume yards and native plants otherwise. Want one? or six?

I thought I had plans last night, but I’d gotten the date wrong. Magically, then, a free evening appeared, which I spent playing with my plants on the deck. I put in Spearmint and Romaine Lettuce, and I’m soaking Sweet Pea seeds. So, to date, I have grown from seed:

Edibles: Shelling Peas, Chives, Basil (purple kind), and Lavender

Flowers: Morning Glories, Cardinal Climber, Kalanchoe (by accident)

I also bought a hydrangea bush (which is unhappy, see- the leaves are getting brown and curling up at the edges, and the flowers are drooping- am I over-watering? Or under-watering? Or does it want sun?), and a Rosemary tree.

Oh, and I finally hooked up my composter the night before last. The excellent Biking person gave me a couple jars of good dirt from his yard, so my starting cultures would be good, and so far nothing smells funny. The housemates have all been instructed in the proper use. I still need to weather- proof it better, but it’s happily reducing food scraps as we speak.

And now the albums: first, of my garden from the night of it’s inception, so you can trace the sprout progress. Also, my peas are growing in fantastic folds, like the one to the left, and these others. And it is really amazing how tiny mint seeds are- compare that to the others I’ve planted.

So far, I’m getting seeds from the grocery store. It’s Whole Foods, and they have a little gardening section, but any ideas on where else I could look for stuff? Their selection is rather limited, and the only other place nearby that carries seeds is Target. The hardware store is pretty far away. Also, I’d like to branch out into the mysteries of plant cuttings (har!). Advice, and bits of your plants, would be greatly appreciated.

I’ve finished my organic vegetarian dinner (don’t be impressed, though, I had a chicken sandwich at a national chain for lunch), and I found a few new colors of hydrangea and mint seeds at the Grocery tonight: good earth day.

I’m impressed with the media: they managed to be breathless about the Democratic nomination and the importance of Earth/Going Green/Climate Change simultaneously. With all the coverage today, though, the best article on the subject was published Sunday.

The NYT Magazine carried an article by Michael Pollen (author of “In Defense of Food” and “An Omnivore’s Dilemma”) on why personal sustainability matters. Sure, it’s easy to win my affection by talking about gardening and Czechoslovakian revolutionaries, but his article touches on more than that. Give it a read, if you’ve ever felt like you can’t do anything about climate change, or need a refresher in today’s sea of greenwashing, or even if you’ve got that notion that only the free market can deal with climate change effectively.  Something for everybody, and well-written, to boot.

From the article (after his request that, as a first step, people attempt to grow something edible):

“[G]rowing even a little of your own food is, as Wendell Berry pointed out 30 years ago, one of those solutions that, instead of begetting a new set of problems — the way “solutions” like ethanol or nuclear power inevitably do — actually beget other solutions, and not only of the kind that save carbon. Still more valuable are the habits of mind that growing a little of your own food can yield. You quickly learn that you need not be dependent on specialists to provide for yourself — that your body is still good for something and may actually be enlisted in its own support. If the experts are right, if both oil and time are running out, these are skills and habits of mind we’re all very soon going to need. We may also need the food.”

Also, he mentioned that Jimmy Carter put solar panels on the White House! Imagine that! Reagan took them right back down, which doesn’t surprise me even a tiny bit, sigh, but they were up there once, and that’s shocking. Why does that have to be shocking?

And in a quick 180, worst coverage of Earth Day goes to WorldNetDaily News. Well, “News”. Their contribution was an article about how uppity women who insist on working out of the home are one of the biggest threats to the environment out there. Maddening, if it weren’t so originally perverse and totally laughable. Found the link through Feministing, who has an excellent response.

It’s the greenish smudge in the middle. I’d read a lot about the difficulty of growing lavender from seed, and my soil isn’t draining well at all (lavender loves to drain!), so I had despaired. But something’s come up. Only one baby lavender, from about 20 seeds, but that’s ok, it’s a start.

Last night, I soaked peas, basil, and a few more climbing guys (which allegedly go nicely with morning glories), and I planted them tonight.

Hopefully their pots will drain better- I filled the bottoms with gravel to give the base some breathing room. Gravel was collected from a defunct water fountain and the side of the road, on my way home (Yes, I washed my hands after, mom). I did have to purchase dirt yesterday, though, which is the most ignominious part of urban gardening. Hypothetically, I could steal it from a public green space in the dead of night, but that’s not fair to my neighbors. Plus it’d be full of puppy doo and broken glass.

HD sells both organic and non-organic dirt!  Well, I got potting soil, but they had “regular dirt” of both kinds too.  I bought the non-organic kind, but I’m wondering the impact of growing vegetables and herbs in it, since it’s got the chemical fertilizers and such.  I’ve got enough for a while, and I won’t waste good dirt, but I should read up more on it and make a more informed decision next time I obtain some. Also, bags of dirt are surprisingly heavy, and I’d like to thank the nice man at Home Depot on 236 who helped me get mine into the car Tuesday afternoon.

(The morning glories and chives are still growing too!)

I was away for about 24 hours and they made their move.  The morning glories are growing like the weeds, which is what various people have assured me they are.  Pretty weeds, though.  I hope they don’t choke out my baby kalanchoe.