birth of my garden

I am attempting a container garden with vegetables this year. I guess I am about 3 weeks or so into the project at this point. My gardening spot is the sunniest area at our rented house - the driveway. We don't use the upper part of the driveway because it's entirely too narrow for modern cars. We live in a Craftsman neighborhood. I figure our house was built sometime in the 1920s. I decided to try growing vegetables in wine barrels. The barrels are plentiful here in Northern California. There is a glut of them advertised on craigslist this time of year. I got my half wine barrel planters for $19 a piece complete with drain holes pre-drilled and 1.4cf of drain gravel in each by driving up to wine country (Santa Rosa in Sonoma County) about an hour drive from here. In Oakland, nurseries sell similar wine barrels for at least twice the price. My barrels were freshly cut, stained red and smelled of wine inside, and some of them had little brass nameplates on them indicating the kind of wine they contained, as in "Syrah" or "Merlot".

The next day I went to a local landscape supply house called American Soil and Stone, located in Richmond, CA. They have a great vegetable garden soil mixture called Local Hero that contains such things as composted chicken manure and composted grape pressings (likely another by-product of the regional wine industry), cocoa hulls, and other such goodies. I also got a 2cf bag of coconut coir to add for water retention. Coconut Coir is a fiber material similar to peat moss, but unlike peat moss, it's a renewable resource and wetlands aren't destroyed to obtain it (as occurs in peat mining). As with the wine barrels, I hauled all this nice poopy soil and stuff with my uncle's truck. In total, I purchased 1/2 cubic yard of soil, the coconut coir, a bag of mulch and an extra bag of the "Local Hero" soil (for good measure) for about $50.

Each of my half wine barrels holds about 30 gallons. I figured I would need about 3/4 cubic yard of soil to fill my five planters (figuring about 8 gallons per cubic foot and 27 cubic feet in a cubic yard of soil). In my purchase from American Soil and Stone I had 19.5 cubic feet of material total (roughly), plus the 1.4 cubic feet of drain gravel for each planter from before. Somehow I ended up with about 8 cubic feet of leftover soil. Maybe someone can tell me where I went wrong with my estimation, but at any rate, I donated the extra soil to a friend's garden.

That week at work I set up a seed sprouting area in my cubicle at work. I got some seeds from OSH - snap peas, Bluelake Stringless Pole Beans, and Sweet 100 Cherry Tomatoes. I also got some potting mix labeled for seed starting. I got a fluorescent plant light from a local aquarium supply store which replaced the standard fluorescent tube in the fixture under a cabinet in my cubicle. I cut down some coffee cups to use as small planting pots, but I also found some Jiffy Pots on sale at Home Depot in which I planted seeds. I made little greenhouses for my seeds using clear plastic trays - a narrower deep one with a wider shallow one for a lid. A heating pad set on low provided some extra warmth to encourage sprouting.

Everything sprouted very quickly, with the exception of about 60% of the peas which rotted rather than sprouting. I am thinking that the added heat was a bit too much. I have started more peas now, but have also direct-seeded some in the outdoor planters, which have yet to sprout. The others that I replanted in my cubicle (about a week ago) are just starting to come up.

Upon thinning my sprouts, I have noticed that there has been almost no root development. This seems very strange since some additional (bean) sprouts that I purchased to augment what I already have started, though only a bit larger, have copious amounts of roots. It my seed starting soil to tight? Did I give too much water? I'm not sure.

Almost everything was planted this past Saturday. I planted two of the Jiffy Pots of beans in addition to the six-pack of seedlings I bought. The beans I starting on my desk seem to be doing about as well as the purchased seedlings, despite the abnormally high temperatures we have had this week, though one of my desk seedlings looks like it won't make it. All the others have put on a new set of leaves since the weekend.

In addition to the beans, peas, and tomatos already mentioned, I am planting Yellow Pear (heirloom) Tomatoes, Black Cherry (heirloom) Tomatoes (and organic ones at that!), Rainbow Lights (hybrid) Swiss Chard, Red Russian (heirloom) Kale, and a barrel of herbs to include (from left to right in the picture) French Tarragon, French Lavender (Lavandula dentata), marjoram, and Narrow-leaf French Thyme (if I can find it - spot reserved in the foreground). I haven't found the variety of thyme I'm looking for, so I may have to settle for English Thyme if it really matters. I also discovered today that the lavender I really want is English Lavender (Lavandula angustifolia), so I may have to plant that in a separate pot somewhere.

I've built tepees for the tomatoes, beans and peas with bamboo poles, harvested from the bamboo patch in our backyard by my roommate, Rob. I plan to loop strips of bird netting around the tepees for the legumes to have something to climb on. I will probably use strips of cloth to tie-up the tomato plants. I may also need to wrap bird netting around the whole shebang if the neighborhood squirrles get too greedy. If that doesn't work I am willing to consider live traps and relocating them to the office park where I work, but I hope it won't come to that. I've direct-seeded the chard and kale in alternating quadrants in one barrel. I'm eager to see if that arrangement works, and if the seeds actually sprout. The Black Cherry and Yellow Pear tomatoes were purchased as seedlings. They'll go in the ground this week. The Sweet 100 Cherries on my desk have just put out their first set of true leaves after three weeks. I didn't realize how long it takes these things to get going, but I'm sure they won't have much problem catching up to the other plants. I guess that's about it. I'll try to update this blog weekly. I hope you all have some comments and stuff for me.


Peace.