What now?

Patti blogging:

The gardening season isn't officially over, but this year's GG experiment is. Jen and I got vegetables to grow despite our limited experience, and it's been a thrill. Thanks for coming along for the ride.

Plenty of you are enjoying your own crops, too, and some are probably thinking about trying next spring. If you're mulling, let me give you a nudge: Go for it! Start small. You will be glad you tried.

Now, let's tie up some loose ends:

1. To gardeners who are getting more veggies than you can handle, please remember the Foodbank of Southeastern Virginia in Norfolk. It accepts donations.

2. And what about the chocolate pepper I'm growing? It's in a sienna phase and looking loverly. Who knew?

3. After GG goes offline, Jen and I will default to an off-season pastime: When you're not planting, you're planning. I'll still be in containers next year, and Jen will have her yard, but it will be a brand new day.

I'll also be doing something to keep my hands busy; I'm like my Grandma Tims that way. She enjoyed crocheting and tatting (truly a lost art). I go for cross-stitch and, lately, something new ... can you believe some of these are called seed beads?

patti.tims@pilotonline.com

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A season's scrapbook

Patti blogging:

It's remarkable how far the GG project has come. So much learned, so far to go.

patti.tims@pilotonline.com

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Some final thoughts from Greenhorn No. 2

Jen blogging:

As we swelter in the summer stickiness, it seems like a long time ago that I joined Patti's experiment and worried that it was too cold outside to plant.

I'm grateful to Patti for sharing her project with me. We didn't know each other well before, but always have lots to talk about now. We've both learned through trial and error: seeds that never flourished, and plants that thrived. And we're both converts. It's not a question of whether we'll keep gardening once we finish the blog. It's what we'll plant next (I'm thinking peas and spinach).

Looking back, I'm struck by how easy it was to grow some things and not others, when they lived in the same soil. My tomatoes and eggplants have flourished, but there's no sign of my zucchini. I started to think that for a new gardener, the variety of vegetables and their assorted predilections was sort of like what it might feel like to be a kindergarten teacher on the first day of school, facing a classroom full of kids with different personalities and needs.

A few things I will keep in mind going forward:

--The importance of spacing and staking. I'll check seed packets and plant instructions carefully to see how far apart they should be planted. And I might actually follow the instructions this time. I'll also look for varieties of cucumbers, for example, that are better suited to smaller gardens.

--Fewer varieties. I planted a little of a lot in my first backyard garden. But as some of the warm-weather plants grew, I couldn't even find the onions and sweet potatoes I planted. To prevent the tangled mass that part of my garden now is, I plan to focus on maybe seven to ten different types of vegetables so I can keep track of them better. I'm also tempted by the idea of a separate berry patch, however. I'll grow some strawberries yet!

I'd also like to thank all the people who shared their gardening knowledge with us along the way.

Thanks for reading and best of luck with your gardening efforts! We're always interested in how other first-time gardeners are doing, so please feel free to stay in touch and let us know how it's going.

jen.mccaffery@pilotonline.com

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Yo! Yoga for gardeners

Patti blogging:

I was scoping out the Old Dominion University Bookstore today after a visit to Norfolk Ice Cream Co. down the street on Monarch Way, and I naturally headed toward the section on gardening.

I located "You Grow Girl" by Gayla Trail, as I'd hoped, and as I browsed, another title caught my eye.

"Gardener's Yoga: Bend & Stretch, Dig & Grow," a 2005 title by Veronica D'Orazio, has this self-description:

"Gardening is considered a contemplative, gentle pastime, but it makes many demands on the human body. The 21 yoga positions in this colorful guide are intended to energize gardeners so they can enjoy planting, mulching, digging, and harvesting without the aching back and sore knees.

"The first section, 'Breaking Ground,' emphasizes warming up the spine and gently engaging the hips, back, and neck. Section two, 'Planting Seeds,' focuses on standing and balancing poses. The last section, 'Harvest,' covers relaxation, elongating tired muscles, and refocusing the spirit.

"... This guide draws on that ancient discipline [yoga] to transform taxing activities – from crawling between rows to weed and squatting for hours to plant seedlings to digging out new beds and watering – into rituals of rejuvenation for mind, body, and spirit."

I realize that I, as a container gardener, won't be exerting a lot, but my yard-gardening friends get aches and pains, especially when their excitement is in high gear and they forget to pace themselves. And I'm always up for a good stretch, gardening or no gardening.

If you garden or have a gardener in your life, this might be a great investment. Along with a gift cert for a nice massage.

patti.tims@pilotonline.com

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Digging that feedback

Patti blogging:

We've been hearing from some of y'all who've been following the blog, and we are grateful. Now that we're in the last week of the GG project, our curiosity is ripe.

Rather than go formal and put up a questionnaire, we'll stay informal (at least for this post) and say:

Lettuce hear from you. You can register with PilotOnline.com and leave a viewable comment, or you can hit the e-mail address at the bottom of any post and tell Jen and/or me individually what you think of our few months of bumbling around our gardens. (Can you believe this has been going on since March?)

If there's a DIY gardening blog next spring, reader feedback now could be helpful then. We also enjoy hearing about other people's efforts — what's been working, what hasn't, what you've done with excess zucchini, tomatoes, etc. If you're like our colleague Margo, you bag up tomatoes for grateful coworkers who love tomato sandwiches, which cherry tomatoes are not suited for. Any amusing stories? Serve 'em up.

Pepper us with suggestions. We ask for constructive ideas for any future blog, seeing that we're not experts and the point of the GG experiment was to let readers witness our amateur efforts to get vegetables to grow. Sort of a slow-motion reality show.

We didn't intend to be a question-and-answer forum; we're not qualified, for one thing. Also, there are legit outlets for that, and we've written about them (extension sevices, Master Gardeners, etc.) as we've discovered them. We wanted to try our hands at this the way most people garden: As we had time, and with reasonable expectations and good humor. Have the slices of YouTube vid made you laugh or made you crazy?

So, if you've been following silently and you have something to say, please make our day. As for the puns, I beg your indulgence. I've always had a soft spot for ...

patti.tims@pilotonline.com

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Window views

Patti blogging (and noting that our additions to the blog will end Friday):

I thought I'd share what I see when I look out my windows ... so different from previous years, before I started container gardening.

The balcony view, at left, shows sweet woodruff, a ground cover that does well in shade and has a nice fragrance. I bought it in early spring because I learned years ago that its leaves can be added to white wine to make something called May wine, a European tradition. Thanks, Martha Stewart Living. A German company called Weber also bottles a low-priced May wine, which I wasn't able to find this spring. Maybe it was a casualty of the economy. 

The fire escape view, at right, includes catnip, left, and the chocolate pepper. Last night's rain gust knocked the pepper over on the landing. While I was replacing the knocked-out soil, I saw that the roots have filled the container. Note to self: Next time, bigger pot.

Speaking of peppers, they're starting to turn from green to their brighter colors. The Carmen is blushing real purty:

.

The chocolate pepper's browning up, and I'll give it a few more days before posting a photo.

patti.tims@pilotonline.com

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Yes, we can can

Patti blogging:

As I read Jen's post about canning, and how it isn't for the faint-hearted, a soundtrack came up in my head.

Listen for the fantab drum solo about 3 minutes in.

Take it away, Pointer Sisters and Gaylord Birch:

patti.tims@pilotonline.com

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The complexities of canning

Jen blogging:

As it turns out, canning is even more complex than I thought.

I attended a presentation today at Southern States in Chesapeake with thoughts of figuring out how I could save some of my tomatoes for the colder months.

Bonnie Tazewell, a Virginia Cooperative Extension agent based in Chesapeake, quickly made clear that canning requires time and precision.

“If you don’t have the time to devote to canning, don’t do it,” Tazewell said.

She showed us evidence of canning gone awry, like a jelly jar filled with florets of mold.

Tazewell gave a brief primer on the basics of preserving foods, then went over pressure and water bath canning. She emphasized that you need the right equipment and know how to operate it.

It all sounds a little too involved for me this year. Though if I ever manage to grow some strawberries, it would be great to save some.

jen.mccaffery@pilotonline.com

P.S. Thanks for the kind words, commenters. We appreciate it!

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What to do with all that produce

Jen blogging:

This article offers 101 options for simple salads. What I love is that most involve like five ingredients or less.

While I can't claim I possess the culinary prowess or resourcefulness to have all these ingredients (like, say, fennel) on hand, even I can find plenty o' quick options on this list.

Yum.

jen.mccaffery@pilotonline.com

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Striking the set, reviewing the show

Patti blogging (and reminding readers that the GG blog will end July 31):

Over the weekend, I started weeding the garden on my fire escape/stairway landing, but not in the usual way. I tossed whole containers, and as I perspired, I analyzed. The cheapo plastic flower boxes I dumped had an uncorrectable design flaw: hollow feet, where moisture could collect, and in spots too fragile for drain holes to be drilled. I wish they had been recyclable, but I don't like to pass along problems. I didn't take a big financial hit, either; these containers came from a dollar-item store. I'll invest in ceramic or wood for next year.

More mulling: I grew cherry tomatoes in a hanging basket; they're doing well, though they might like a deeper growing receptacle next year. Sweet peppers and mint, in elevated flower boxes, are healthy. And the chocolate pepper, in a container that I moved around on the landing, is robust. I wish it were producing more than one pepper at a time, but it's doing fine.

Now, the crops that died – cukes and okra – had two things in common: They were planted in the design-flawed flower boxes, and the boxes sat directly on the landing. During the day, the landing was too hot for bare feet, and now I suspect it might've fried the roots of the plants in their containers. The boxes were nested – each sat inside another plastic box – but still. The landing is wrought iron, and painted black.

The lavender plant, which also sat directly on the landing, looked great until about a week ago, when it began to shrivel. Watering didn't revive it by the next day, so I backed off. And I moved it to the brick windowsill next to the catnip that's been going like gangbusters. Three days later, the lavender still looks ailing, but it doesn't look worse; maybe it'll recover.

I was still thinking about the hot landing when I consulted a library book I had just picked up, in my habit of borrowing books before buying them. Earlier this month I mentioned the work of Gayla Trail, who has a blog and a book called "You Grow Girl." Love the blog, based in Toronto, for its gardeny usefulness. Now, with her book in hand, I am reading a sidebar called "Perfect Plants for a Fire Escape." It is uncanny, and why didn't I find this months ago?

"Fire escapes are a particularly harsh environment – windy, intensely hot, and dry. The metal soaks up heat and reflects it twofold onto plants. But if it's all you've got, go for it! I've seen fire-escape gardens with climbing vines and hanging plants that could put a suburbanite to shame."

It goes on to list some "varieties that can take the heat," most of which are flowers (including marigold, which has a reputation for repelling bugs). Plus lavender, rosemary, tomatillo and tomato.

Now I know: Don't place containers directly on a metal landing. When I type it, it looks embarrassingly obvious. Another obvious thing: I'm buying the book.

Also, a consolation thought: My timing in finding Trail's advice was slow, but my instincts were moving in the right direction. (I suddenly hear Bridget Jones' voice in my head ... " ... ah! New Year's Resolution: drink less ... and quit smoking ... and quit talking total nonsense to strangers ... actually, quit talking, full stop.") Thanks, IMDb.

For next year, maybe I should paint the landing white? I thought about adding one of those cheap, seagrassy-type mats, but I don't like the idea of it getting rained on and harboring mold or some other unwelcome life form. Maybe just keep the floor level clear.

Or ... a new apartment with more garden-friendly spaces? Now I know I've got it baaad.

patti.tims@pilotonline.com

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