Planting Season is Here! 04/24/2012
Holy cow! I can't believe how fast the winter has flown by around here...AND it's nearly halfway through spring! My apologies for going radio silent these past few months, but it has been WICKED busy here at Dirt Momma Central...the main reason being that I've been so focused on getting my new online retail store (The Composting Place) up and running. We're now open for business, so stop on by and see what we have in store for you. :-) Speaking of Spring, around here in New England, it's time to start planting seeds. I started a few different varieties indoors back in March, but there are many that can be sown directly outdoors depending on the weather conditions. When you can, it's best to purchase a seed starting kit; otherwise, there are lots of creative ways to start seeds with whatever you can find in the house. You can pretty much re-purpose just about any type of container. Some things you can use are yogurt cups (any size), salad containers, milk/juice cartons, clear plastic soda bottles--pretty much just about any plastic and/or waxed cardboard container will do. Be sure to poke drainage holes in the bottom center and along the outer edges of the container and place on a bed of small rocks in a shallow pan (or other shallow container) for drainage.This week, my 5 year-old daughter and I planted some seeds to get ready for the official planting season. Right now, we have:
I do have watermelon radish, which I plan on sowing outside in the next couple of weeks as long as the temperatures are warm enough, and heirloom beet seeds that will have to wait until late summer (it's too late to plant them now).  Growing tomato and butternut squash seedlings in re-purposed containers. Being a fan of the phrase, "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle," I decided to re-purpose a bunch of food containers to use for growing seeds indoors. Both small and large yogurt containers worked very well, as did the juice, milk and cream cartons. The clear plastic salad container was successful as well. For the small yogurt cups, I poked drainage holes in them and placed them in a tray lined with a bed of small rocks, whereas for the large yogurt containers I just placed a layer of small rocks in the bottom of the container for drainage and then added the soil on top. To create a "greenhouse" environment for the seeds, I covered the small yogurt cups with the top half of a couple of clear plastic soda bottles, bottoms cut off, and covered the large yogurt containers with plastic wrap. With the juice, milk and cream cartons, I placed a layer of small rocks in the bottom, then filled the containers with soil, and used either clear plastic soda bottles (for the cream cartons) or plastic wrap (for the juice and milk cartons) to create mini greenhouses.  I decided to plant lettuce in the plastic salad container, as the cover worked perfectly to create the greenhouse environment that was necessary in getting the seeds to germinate. Unfortunately, I fear I may have left them in the container too long in insufficient lighting, as they have become a bit leggy. However, I did find a good resource that shows how to transplant leggy lettuce successfully. I refuse to be defeated in the land of lettuce! The tomatoes and butternut squash are doing exceptionally well, as are the cranberry and white northern beans that I sprouted from my supply of dried beans I keep in the pantry closet. As the weather is staying a bit more consistent here in New England, I should be able to transplant them outside within the next couple of weeks. Due to the unusually warm, summer-like weather we've been having both in March and April, I feel like I'm a bit behind in my gardening schedule; however, that is not the case, thankfully. In the next blog post, I will share some tips on vertical gardening (my newest obsession!) and include updates of what's growing in the garden (garlic!). Stay tuned! May you have great success during this wonderful growing season! :-) If you enjoyed what you've read, please do share the link to this blog on your favorite social media site and sign up for my newsletter to receive updates on what I've been digging and learn a few tips and tips along the way! Feel free to post comments related to all things gardening below. Thanks so much! Happy digging! 
2 Comments Happy Holidays, everyone! For those of us in the colder regions of the planet, our outdoor gardening days have come to a lull for now, but that doesn't mean we can have fun indoors! Back in around September/October, I was at my favorite local gardening center to purchase "just one thing" that I needed to prepare my garlic bulbs for planting. While my daughter and I were walking around outside--she loves to go visit the Koi fish in the water feature they have set up...I SO want one in my yard!--we came across some tables of what looked to be worn out end of season plants with the most dangerous word posted that no gardener worth her salt can ever pass by: CLEARANCE. So I decided I was going to just take a peek (t'yeah, right!) and see what they had to offer. To my great delight, there were 3 small pots of white sage for $1 apiece and one solitary rosemary plant for $2. It was all I could do to not do the "happy dance" right then and there! Meanwhile, my daughter is anxiously trying to pry me away so that she can go in the gift shop and add things to her "Santa List". And of course I bought up all three sages AND the rosemary plant. I would have been remiss not to. ;-) To go back a little bit: rosemary happens to be one of my all-time favorite herbs, but my track record of keeping them alive has pretty much been 0-4...until now. After doing some research on why my rosemary plants would die and reading about how "easy" they are to grow (HAH!), I finally found the proper way to grow one and was determined--NOTE: on a mission from God--to successfully grow a rosemary.  Fig. 1 - Root ball after cutting away the excess and gently shaking it out. I got the rosemary home and found that it was completely root bound and wrapped up around itself in the soil. With a pair of clean, sharp pruners, I made four cuts up the sides of the root ball. Then I cut away some of the excess root and gently shook out the remainder (see Fig. 1).  Fig. 2 - Pot with layer of rocks (left) Organic potting soil/sand mix (right). Next, I mixed some sand in with some organic soil--roughly about 50/50 sand/soil with just slightly more soil than sand. Then I put a layer of small rocks on the bottom of a pressed paper pot to ensure good drainage (see Fig.2).  Fig. 3 - The finished product. :-) To pot the rosemary, I covered the rocks with layer of the sandy soil mix and placed the plant on top. Then I surrounded the plant with the remainder of the sandy soil and gently patted down the soil around the plant and watered it with a liquid seaweed & water mix (see Fig. 3). A few things to keep in mind about caring for rosemary:
For more information on growing and caring for rosemary, here are a few websites that you may find to be helpful: Rosemary - You Can Grow the Herb Rosemary Herb Gardening.com - Growing Rosemary Fine Gardening.com - Rosemary Outdoors and In It's been a couple of months since I re-potted my $2 rosemary plant, and I'm happy to report that--after some minor needle loss at first--it's doing extremely well. My first successful rosemary plant...woohoo! :-) ***2/28/2012 UPDATE*** My rosemary plant is doing great! During the past week, several of the lavender flowers have bloomed on it. I'm super psyched! The only thing I've noticed is that the plant does not have a very strong scent like I've typically noticed in rosemarys. Will be doing some research on that. **************************** May this article help you achieve success with your rosemary plants. Please post your rosemary-growing stories below and share any tips you may feel would benefit the rest of us. I look forward to reading them. If you enjoyed what you've read, please do share the link to this blog on your favorite social media site and sign up for my newsletter to receive updates on what I've been digging and learn a few tips and tips along the way! Feel free to post comments related to all things gardening below. Thanks so much! Happy digging! :-) - Dirt Momma It's Been A Busy, Busy, BUSY Autumn... 11/14/2011
I can't believe how quickly the past several weeks have flown by! In just over a week, we're going to be celebrating Thanksgiving Day and then the holiday season is underway...holy cow!!! As a result of keeping super busy in the garden to prepare for the winter season, a lot has happened outside in the garden and inside with my potted plants. But first...  My Sweet Potato Harvest! Soooooooo, my first experience growing sweet potatoes from slips cut from a grocery store organic sweet potato was NOT the huge success I was hoping for. Of the several slips I planted, two survived through the summer--until one of them broke apart and never produced any tubers. Fortunately, I did end up with one successful plant, which produced 3 small, yet decent-sized, tubers that I've decided to store and save for next year's crop. The way the weather's been here in New England, I almost could have left the sweet potato plant in the ground just a bit longer, but at the time that I dug these up, we were expecting overnight temps in the 20s and I didn't want to risk losing the tubers to the sudden extreme drop in temperature. Of course TODAY it was in the high 60s--this after dealing with an unusually early "nor'-easter" the weekend before Halloween and getting 4-5 inches of snow on the ground! That's New England weather for ya! :-) The Garlic Has Been Planted! Around mid/late-October, I finally got around to planting the garlic cloves that I purchased from Green Mountain Garlic. I have about 40 cloves of garlic planted--both hardnecks and softnecks--and topped with a layer of hay and a layer of shredded leaves as mulch. Prior to planting the cloves, I soaked them in a liquid seaweed/baking soda/water mix to prevent fungal growth. I'm really looking forward to seeing them sprout this spring! Growing Winter Ground Cover I've decided to experiment with growing winter ground cover in one of my raised beds in order to add nutrients to the soil. Around the first weekend in November, I planted crimson clover, rye grass and hairy vetch, which have already started sprouting. The plan is to turn them over in the spring, just after the frost, so that the plants have time to compost before the planting season--I'm thinking of growing pumpkins next year. The Demise of the Cherry Tomatoes Around late-September/early-October, we were able to start harvesting the cherry tomatoes that were growing along our front walk among the mums. Four cherry tomatoes had ripened successfully, with several others getting ready to ripen, but unfortunately, as a result of one or two nights of frost (AND the snowstorm!), we lost the entire plant...Boo! And Then There Are The Indoor Projects... Since the end of the summer, I've been experimenting with growing plants from cuttings: namely, African violets and a few varieties of chrysanthemums. In addition, I've found myself the proud owner of three white sage plants and one rosemary plant--all of which I purchased from the clearance/end of season section at Russell's. I think I paid about $1 each for the white sages and $2 for the rosemary. I know last time I promised to share my results on the cuttings, but I want to create a separate post or two that is dedicated to the indoor projects. Stay tuned! If you enjoyed what you've read, please do share the link to this blog on your favorite social media site and sign up for my newsletter to receive updates on what I've been digging and learn a few tips and tips along the way! Feel free to post comments related to all things gardening below. Thanks so much! Happy digging! :-) ~ Dirt Momma A LOT has happened since the last time I posted. The softneck and hardneck garlic that I ordered arrived in the mail, I'm biting at the bit to harvest the sweet potatoes that are growing in my garden and the "tomato fairy" left us a surprise among the mums growing along the walkway in our front yard! First things first: I ordered garlic from Green Mountain Garlic up in VT, and am making preparations to plant the cloves in a raised bed. The folks at Green Mountain Garlic have a great how-to page on their website, but if you need a visual tutorial on planting, harvesting and storing garlic, you can watch the videos below by the nonprofit group Kitchen Gardeners International (KGI):  My happy tomato plant! :-) So, towards the end of the summer, my hubby and I noticed a pleasant surprise growing along our walkway. Somehow, what appears to be cherry tomatoes found their way into the chrysanthemums...and they seem to be quite happy! The picture posted here was taken today with my smartphone. I'm excited to see how well they do this late in the season, and will definitely be doing some research into this, but if you have any information to share, please do post them in the comments section below. Thanks! :-)  And then there are the sweet potatoes... Near the beginning of the summer season, I had planted a handful of slips from a couple of organic sweet potatoes that had sprouted in my pantry closet. Of the several that were planted, only two plants survived. It's been great watching them grow and flourish. I especially love seeing the pretty white and purple flowers that look a little like morning glories. I have another organic sweet potato that is sprouting in the pantry closet that I'm going to try to grow as an indoor houseplant. The only problem I've had with growing them is that something is eating at the leaves. Overall, the plants are very healthy, there's just several holes scattered throughout the leaves. I'm still trying to figure out what is causing it--some type of insect would be my guess--and a safe, organic method to resolve the situation. According to various resources, the best time to harvest sweet potatoes is when the leaves start to die back--usually around October. Many of the websites I came across reiterated the same information reprinted from Rodale's Ultimate Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening; however, there is some really useful information that I found on VeggieHarvest.com that you can read for yourself. That's all I have for today. In my next post, I'll share the results of my experiments with getting chrysanthemum and African violet plant cuttings to root in water, along with any other horticultural updates. If you enjoyed what you've read, please do share the link to this blog on your favorite social media site and sign up for my newsletter to receive updates on what I've been digging and learn a few tips and tips along the way! Feel free to post comments related to all things gardening below. Thanks so much! Happy digging! :-) ~ Dirt Momma  My First Successful Onion...YAY!!! :-) A few months ago, just for fun and curiosity, I decided to plant onions from the sprouts that were growing out of preexisting organic onions that had been purchased at the grocery store. Out of the eight that I had planted, four of them survived. Of the four, I had one that was decent-sized and used successfully in a delicious risotto recipe...yummy! Two of the onions stayed fairly small, although I left them in the dirt as long as possible to see if they'd get any bigger. The fourth and final onion remains to be seen, as it is still resting comfortably in the dirt of my garden. There is a really great article from the National Gardening Association where I learned about growing onions--especially when and how to harvest them: http://www.garden.org/foodguide/browse/veggie/onions_harvesting/501 This post on Maggie's Farm gives a brief "how to" on braiding onions: http://onmaggiesfarm.wordpress.com/2007/08/09/onion-harvest-and-braiding/ Next year, I'd really like to try my hand at growing onions either from seed or seedlings. Until then, I'm making plans to grow garlic this fall for next spring's harvest. There's Green Mountain Garlic up in Vermont from where I'm going to purchase two different kinds of garlic--hardnecks and softnecks. I'm super excited about growing garlic and creating braids to hang in my pantry. If you have any tips on growing onions and/or garlic, please post them in the comments section below. I always enjoy reading them and learning from you all! If you enjoyed what you've read, please do share the link to this blog on your favorite social media site and sign up for my newsletter to receive updates on what I've been digging and learn a few tips and tips along the way! Feel free to post comments related to all things gardening below. Thanks so much! Happy digging! - Dirt Momma Tomatoes and Raspberries...WOOHOO! 07/22/2011
 My First Patio Tomato Harvest! :-) Despite this outrageous heat and lack of rain these past few weeks, my raspberries and patio tomatoes and doing quite well. It's about 98 degrees here and the lawn is pretty much fried from the raging sun and drought, but I've been harvesting a fair amount of berries from the bushes that my Darling Hubby planted several years ago. At the end of the growing season, I will take the berries that I've stored in the freezer and make homemade jam...my family's favorite! As for the tomatoes: while I'm not a fan of eating them raw, I thought I'd give them a second chance...otherwise, I may try them in a recipe. If anyone has any suggestions, do share them here...I'd love to read them! If you enjoyed what you've read, please do share the link to this blog on your favorite social media site and sign up for my newsletter to receive updates on what I've been digging and learn a few tips and tips along the way! Thanks so much! In the meantime, I'm going to park myself in front of a fan and cool off until this heat wave breaks... Stay cool...literally! :-) - Dirt Momma So, today I was able to get the gardens *mostly* finished. At least they look more like gardens and not jungles requiring of a machete to hack through it. ;-) After a late start--and taking time to mow the back yard (I *heart* my reel mower...yay!)--I was able to finish reorganizing the garden in the back yard and finish off the walkway in the front. Pretty much, all I did was dig up the coral bells out of the garden in the backyard in order to remove the lawn grass that was sharing valuable real estate with them. So much for a simple task; I found myself spending a good half hour or so separating the clumps of coral bells, while pulling out the numerous strands of grass worthy of their own plot of land--all while providing my daughter with a fantastic bouquet of coral bell flowers that my dear hubby, Steven, promptly placed in a nice green glass vase to display on the table on the deck ("Thank you, Mama...can I have MORE flowers?" To which I replied, "No, Anna, you have them ALL."). After I replanted a handful of the coral bells back in the garden, I found myself with orphan bells that were in desperate need of a home. So, off to the front yard I go! Fortunately, there WAS room for my pretty little orphans among the mums, borage and echinacea that was already growing there. I found a nice location toward one end of the walkway and planted the bells there. Once that task was finished, I needed to put down mulch in both the front and back yard gardens. There was very little weeding that was required of me prior to putting down the leaf mulch (thankfully!), so a couple of bucketfuls and--eventually--a whole wheelbarrowful later, I had both gardens mulched and looking pretty much finished for the time being...YAY! So, now I can (sort of) relax for the holiday weekend and focus on entertaining the masses with the fife and drum corps that I'm with. It's always fun parading around Boston all dressed up in an 18th century military uniform while teaching people about the history of our country. But I digress... In the meantime, I will be thinking of other ways to transform my garden into the peaceful oasis that I've always dreamed of having. Have a happy, fun and safe Independence Day weekend! :-) -Dirt Momma Monday, June 27: And So It Begins... 07/13/2011
Over the years, I've considered myself more of a "serious dabbler" in gardening, than anything else. During the past decade or so, I have managed to acquire several books on gardening and even have a lifetime subscription to the National Home Gardening Club. It was only recently that I decided to turn my casual love for gardening into a potential business. About 6 months ago, I found myself signing up for a course to learn how to start and run a profitable online retail business. After much research and a bit of soul searching, I decided to go with selling composting bins and related products. As a result of embarking upon this new-found entrepreneurial adventure, I've decided it would behoove of me to actually get past the "serious dabbler" stage and become "truly serous" about gardening. Hence, this blog... Oh, yes--in my excitement I have purchased additional books on composting, worm composting, hydroponics and organic gardening, and even got excited over the Fiskars reel mower that my dear hubby bought for me (with the promise that I would actually mow the lawn--I won't go near that gas-powered monster if you paid me!), as well as the new pair of gardening gloves that I purchased at Russell's Garden Center (they ARE pretty sweet! Very tough and durable, yet feminine...and they wash easily, too!)--but alas, all the reading and new toys don't mean diddly, unless you actually get out there and start digging! So today I spent about 5+ hours in the backyard digging up my overgrown garden and relocating plants that really needed a better home than where they were stuffed into the dirt just a few years previously. I must say, it was really quite therapeutic; getting in there and clearing out the jungle of misplaced herbs that were overcrowding each other and fighting for their bit of the sunlight. My four-year old daughter, Anna, wanted to help mommy the only way she knew how--by digging up the onions I had just planted! Thankfully, I was able to redirect her energies to collecting the rocks that I was digging up and tossing them into the rock pile that has accumulated over the years (we DO grow rocks very well here in New England...you should see the bountiful harvest from today's gardening event!). Anna decided that she was going to set aside the prettiest ones and start her own personal collection of rocks in her bedroom. At the end of the day, the borage, rue, anise and tarragon have a new home in one of the raised beds my hubby helped build last year, the lavender is happily sunning itself in another location in my garden, and the sorrel has been collected from various locations and is now preparing to flourish in the other raised bed with the onions and sweet potatoes. While there is still LOTS more to do before I feel the gardens are up to my personal standards (there is still the front yard with which to contend--tomorrow's adventure, perhaps?), I feel that today was quite the success...and I have the beginnings of a great farmer's tan to prove it! :-) If you enjoyed what you've read, please do share the link to this blog on your favorite social media site and sign up for my newsletter to receive updates on what I've been digging and learn a few tips and tips along the way! Feel free to post comments related to all things gardening below. Thanks so much! - Dirt Momma | Sign Up For Dirt Momma's Newsletters!About
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