Seedlings Gardening's blog

Valentines Flowers

 

Working for a landscaping company with a florist built in has its perks.  I randomly get exotic flowers on my desk & I can make a special order for my sweetheart.  

No regular everyday roses for my honey.  The florist I work with, Mieko, is a Japanese woman that prides herself on doing things differently.  Since, I haven't really had much contact with florists in the past, I just trust that she's right.  I usually buy the seasonal wild flowers from Central Market myself.

I would define the arrangement I brought home today as a gift that will keep on giving and I am so stoked.  The Cybidium Orchid will last for 3 weeks, Mieko says. But the best part is the beautiful red curly willow branches that will eventually grow new roots so we can plant them in a pot to grow a small tree.

Happy Valentines Day

My Mysterious Root Vegetable

 
This plant has been growing in the middle of my chocolate mint since I brought it home from the store last spring.  I never knew what it was and just let it grow there until the other day.  I just uncovered my garden during a break in the cold weather and it was suddenly close to three feet tall.  We pulled it out and found this large root.  

Does anyone know what this is?  The only thing I can think of is maybe Celeriac.  Or it could just be a weed.

My Gardening Christmas Wish List

 
 

I just thought I'd share a few things that are on my list of wants as a budding Gardener:

Felco 2 Pruners Original Design.  Either that or Felco 7 which are more ergonomic.

Right now I have $ 0.99 pruners from Target that don't work very well.  Most of the time I use scissors, but I've used the Felco pruners before and they cut like butter.  They would make things so much easier for me.

The belt holster accessory.

I've gotta have somewhere to put them besides my back pocket.  I've been storing my tools there since my days as an electrician and I'll just forget they're there and just drive around all day sitting on sharp tools.

A broadfork

Ever since I read Eliot Coleman's The New Organic Grower I've wanted a broadfork.  It seems like the perfect tool to avoid re tilling your garden before planting new vegetables.

A blender

I had a Cuisinart dual blender/food processor that I loved, but I slowly blew out the motor.  I think it was coming, but the breaking point was when I tried to make hummus one day.  I bought dry beans because its less expensive and seemed more responsible to get them that way.  I cooked them for an hour and soaked them for 3 days, but the blender just wasn't having it.  I even added yogurt to thin the mix out.  I need a blender with some real power.

A food processor

Same reason as the blender.  I just really like hummus.

A sharp shooter

These shovels seem to help you get deeper faster and sometimes I could use the extra help.

Gardening Questions This Week

 

1. Why did the butternut squash split like that? 

Someone else asked this question on Yahoo answers.  Basically I probably left it on there too long or its due to irregular watering.  In all honesty the cause could have been either.  It has been raining a lot in Austin since September.

     2.  If I left the butternut squash on the plant too long, how do you know when to harvest them?  Another one I harvested from the same plant was so much bigger.

I don't think I left the squash on the vine too long.  Its hard to tell though.  I looked up the question and some gardeners discussed it on Gardenweb.  The most common answers were after first frost & when the stem starts to brown.  One gardener mentioned that they harvest when the squash is completely tan and free of the green stripes.  This one is almost there so I'm guessing it was almost ready, but could have used more time.  The first frost is tomorrow and I didn't want to risk losing the two squash left on the vine so harvested them for a client of the landscaping business I work for.

     3.  Like I mentioned our first frost is going to happen tomorrow and I went to a garden I maintain for the landscaping business I work for today.  I decided that the tomato plants will probably not produce much else this season and that I should pull them.  When I got to the garden they had so many small green tomatoes on them that I second guessed my decision for a moment.  I decided to go ahead with the removal, but felt so guilty for terminating all those tomatoes.  Of course I kept as many as I could, but my question is:  Would the tomatoes have lived to produce ripe fruit when its only supposed to be around 29 degrees?  Or is it just better that I did remove the plants?

I can't find an answer to this one.

 

Row Cover

 
Today Tara and I covered the Olivia restaurant's garden with heavy row cover.  Well, actually we started doing it yesterday.  I thought it would be so easy so we slept in a bit and went to the garden around 9.  First I had to pull a few lettuces that had already started to bolt and replace them with new ones I started from seed at home.  Then we started with the row cover.  

I split a roll of 300' with my boss at the landscaping company so I had 150' approximately of fabric that is 15' wide.  I decided that the easiest least expensive thing to do would be to just lay it on top across the whole garden.  It doesn't really freeze that hard in town here so I just want to provide a bit of protection.  Yesterday we barely finished stretching a run of fabric across a few rows before I had to leave for work.  I guess I didn't really think through the process of getting such a large piece of fabric situated just so and then running back and forth with heavy rocks.  All in all the job took the two of us about 3 hours.  I've never really seen other people put out their row cover on such a large area.  I was thinking of going back next week to adjust a few things.  Any advice for working on a garden while a row cover is up?  I'm not really looking forward to taking it on and off every week to check the garden, or running over there frantically to throw the fabric back on if the weather decides to turn cold again.  But I suppose that's what people do.  We will definitely get faster at it.  Especially now that all the rocks are there.

My Introduction

With a Masters in Architecture under my belt, along with several different real world careers, that don't have much to do with Architecture, I have finally discovered something I'm good at and makes me happy.  I view my discovery as something of an accomplishment. It appears that most people I know in my generation find it difficult to match their values and ambitions with careers. We are often looking for something that brings meaning to our lives. Especially now when it seems that an eventual retirement is not a right for every citizen.  

That is why I at the age of 30, well one month shy of 30, quit my job in order to reinvent myself once again. That was this past May. Now I am a gardener working for a landscaping company maintaining vegetable gardens, bookkeeping and doing the occasional landscape design. And because just being a gardener isn't enough for me, I am starting my own business.

This blog will tell my story of going from an amateur gardener to a business owner and what I learn along the way. While writing I hope to keep a sort of running gardening journal along with notes from books I've read, and advice I've gotten from other gardeners.

Please feel free to leave any reading suggestions or advice.