Spring?

Sue over at The Balcony Garden really nailed it when she said it’s actually February that’s the cruelest month. How can we resist the temptation to put things in the ground when the birds are singing and the jackets absent and the sky looks like this all day long?


It’s especially tricky when you just moved somewhere and haven’t learned the reality of the seasons yet.

Add to this the fact that it’s been 75 and sunny for nearly a week now and the 10-day forecast shows more of the same, and well, you’d be hard pressed to keep me from dashing down to the nursery to load up my radio flyer with an ambitious assortment of goodies.


Is it too early for all this? The nursery was buzzing. I’ll take my chances.

Besides, that’s the beauty of container gardening. If a cold snap threatens, I can just bring them all inside!

Does it get any better?

One Man's Trash...

Gardening changes the way you look at the world. I'm not talking philosophically here, or spiritually, that’s a whole separate post. I mean becoming a gardener means you look at things, physical things, in this different, opportunistic way. You become this scavenger.

When my roommate yesterday cleaned out the crawl space under our house he dragged its contents to the side of the road to be disposed of.

I was aghast.


All this beautiful treasure: some sweet old seat-less rocking chair, fine wood planks to frame a raised garden bed, an empty plastic suitcase to start seeds in… just cast aside, forgotten.

I tried not to be too huffy as I dragged most of it away from the street and back behind the house.

I'm proudest of this gem:
Won’t it be just perfect with some Swiss chard filling up the center and nasturtiums flowing over the sides? It even has wheels! What a find!

Any ideas on what it actually might be?

Aunt Jubilee’s Great Orange Ball of Flaming Fire

The cold snap last week saw the whole neighborhood shrouded in old blankets and flannel sheets as people attempted to protect their greenery from the insidious killing frost. I’ve never seen that before. It looked morbid and tender at the same time.

Not much gardening could be done so I dragged my babies indoors, positioned them under a grow light, and settled in to do some serious botanical research.

I’ve been wanted to learn more about the different tomatoes I might grow, and so I sat down at the computer, typed a few words into the search engine, and thus I began my odyssey into the fantastic, fanatical, endlessly fascinating world of Heirloom tomatoes.

And what a world! Did you know there are over 4,000 varieties of tomato? In the supermarket you’re lucky to find maybe 4 or 5 varieties, and even then they are just this mealy, tasteless, anonymous produce. A mockery of cultivation! A tomato satire!

Spend a few minutes on the internet, however and you’re exposed to a veritable cornucopia of tomatomania. They come in all imaginable shapes, sizes, colors. Red? How passé! Try peach, or black, or eggshell white. Some of them even have stripes.



Some are lumpy and enormous, weighing 3 pounds or more. Some are tiny and sweet, like little candies. Almost all have these fabulous names, like Hillbilly Potato Leaf, Mr Stripey, Nebraska Wedding, Wapsipinicon Peach and my favorite: Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter.

Their descriptions are rapturous. The Ananas Noire Tomato is, apparently:

“a true gem as it features a genuine kaleidoscope of colors between a jade green, a stunning purple and a bright yellow. When sliced, it reveals a bright green flesh with deep crimson streaks of color that has a wonderful sweet, smoky flavor with a slight hint of citrus.”

Might as well by a wine label. And why not? This, I’ve learned is a serious art. Most of these cultivars have been painstakingly perfected over years and years by passionate backyard botanists, then carefully passed on through the generations. It's no hobby.

I spent hours pouring over my choices. A whole world of flavor and texture and novelty has been opened to me. At the moment I’ve narrowed it down to about 97 varieties that I need for my garden . When I come to my senses I suppose I can narrow that down to about ten or so. Stay tuned!

You Say Potato...

My roommate Jerrod walked into the kitchen this morning and wrinkled his nose in the direction of the countertop.

“There’s something wrong with these potatoes, dude.”

“Oh my God, what is it?” I shrieked, rushing to join him.

“Well, for one they’re all nasty looking. And they’ve got like, stuff growing out of them.”


I sighed with relief. “They’re perfect.” I picked one up to examine it, “At least, I think they are…”

I’ll admit they did look a bit suspect, all callused and pink and warty, but the man at the nursery told me that’s what they’d look like, and who am I to question?

I’ve never grown potatoes before. In fact I had no intention of growing them, until last week at the garden center I was arrested by a cheerful, promising display. Five-pound sacks of Red Pontiacs for 2.99 a piece? Why, come summer I’d have enough potatoes to feed the neighborhood! I had to get in on it.

The salesman explained the process: cut them into egg-sized chunks and let them callus over, stick them into average dirt, when the sprouts sprout, mound them in more dirt. Repeat the process for a couple months, then dig your hand into the soil and retrieve your treasure. So simple! So mysterious! How could I resist?

I planted my little aliens in a big pot out in the yard today.

I’ll keep you posted on what becomes of them…

In other news, I’ve planted three types of tomato and one sweet organic basil plant I got at the local grower’s market on Wednesday.


I’ve read they make great companion plants, (the basil influencing the flavor of the young tomatoes), but I have my suspicions that that has more to do with their established culinary association than with any mystic cultivational alliance.

(I don’t think “cultivational” is really a word…)

Either way I’m excited to eat them together!

Stay tuned!

A Borage Plant Grows in Florida.

My story, in a nutshell, is that I move a lot. All my (grownup) life I've never managed to stay put in any house or apartment for all of a year. The reasons for this are manifold (restlessness, escapism, general thirst for adventure…) but probably sort of tedious, so we’ll cut to the chase with this confession: I'm not the most reliable gardener.

I do love plants, however, and nearly everywhere I end up I attempt to grow some. Problem is, to be considered a real gardener one must establish, well, roots. Knowing the soil and the seasons and the subtle, shifting temperament of one’s little Eden is a pretty big part of the picture. True gardeners spend years on one plot consistently observing and nurturing the earth. Their gardens are ever-evolving masterworks of dedication, sweat and loyalty.

I, on the other hand, stick three old pots on my doorstep and call myself a farmer.

But it’s a process; I’m getting there. I’m not quite ready to settle myself and watch the dirt ripen, but eight days ago I moved from an overpriced apartment in Los Angeles to a sweet little house in Tallahassee and here I’ve decided to try and see how much produce I can grow in the instantly gratifying, endlessly forgiving conditions of a container garden.

I’m not sure if my little experiment will work, but I thought it might be fun (or funny) to document the attempt…

And so, without further yammering: welcome to my blog! Come back soon and I might actually have a garden to show you…

'Til then!