Seedlings & sowings

I just realized that what I thought were weeds, might actually be the groundcherries! They look like weeds, perhaps because they are, in fact, considered weeds by many. And if I recall correctly, groundcherry was growing rampantly out on Plan B farm when I was visiting last year. Also, groundcherry is closely related to the tomatillo, which I remember at Everdale confusing with pigweed (before closer inspection). So I may have inadvertantly weeded out some of my groundcherries, but I've saved what I think are two tiny seedlings. The only thing that made these seedlings stand out to me from the other weed seedlings were their fuzzy stems, which I know tomatoes have as well.

Yesterday I began double-digging my fourth raised bed. It's the biggest one so far, and I only got about a third of it fully loosened. That was enough for the time being; I really just had to get two large tomato plants (one Sweetie and one Scotch Bonnet) and several oversized Simpson lettuce seedlings into the ground. Between the two I transplanted a bunch of white globe onion seedlings, which are a companion to both tomatoes and lettuce.

Today I sowed cucumbers, pumpkins, butternut squash, sweet dumpling squash, Pride of Wisconsin melon, and butterfly milkweed. I'm bringing the cucumbers and pumpkins inside during the night since it sounds like they require higher soil temperatures for germination than the other squash (according to the not-so-informative seed packets).

I tried to pick up a rain barrel today from a nearby Freecycler. Unfortunately, it was about 4 inches too wide for my bike trailer, so I had to leave it there. It was big and beautiful – a real functioning rain barrel, not just any old barrel – and it would have worked amazingly. Alas, I just don't have a big enough wagon, and I don't yet know of a local fossil fuel-free wagon producer. ;-)

I was working outside virtually all day today, and that was a mistake. I didn't realize today was a smog day in Toronto. I should have taken a clue from the characteristically orange-tinted sunlight, but I just wasn't thinking. As a result, I've felt a little sick all evening, especially after mowing the front lawn with garden shears. This is the first time I've ever noticed the effects of smog on my health so acutely.

Rain barrel nonsense

About a week ago I encountered my first thunderstorm since living here, and as the rain was pouring I noticed a spout from the roof that was spilling gallons of water onto a patch of gravel. My own personal waterfall, I thought. How delightful.

That, of course, isn't entirely true. My real thought was, as you might guess, how shall I harvest the rainwater? Rain barrel, naturally. But how will I aim the water into the barrel? Use the old duct that's piled among the debris that came with the house (which just happens to be the perfect length). But what should I use for the barrel? For now, the 5-gallon bucket from the shed will do, but I'd ask on Freecycle, I'm sure someone has exactly what you're looking for. (Note that this conversation is fictional; myself and I don't really talk like that.)

Pics for your enjoyment:

I predict the haphazard construction to last one rainfall before it needs to be repaired.

Damping off damping off

After reading farmer Jon's posting in which he mentioned some of his seedlings were damping off, I realized that this was exactly what was happening to my seedlings. I was wondering why my poppy, valerian, and lavender seedlings weren't becoming expectedly big and strong with the warmer sunny weather of the last few days. Instead, they were getting scrawnier and eventually just collapsing and disintegrating, which sounds like exactly what was happening to some of Jon's seedlings.

I think my potting soil was poor. I'd water it, and it seemed to stay moist for a long time. When it finally did dry out, it was extremely dry, crusty and chunky, not fluffy like it was when I first filled the flats. All in all, it didn't seem like a very habitable place for a baby seedling (as nutrient-rich as it may have been). I may also have been watering too often. They say to let the soil dry out completely before completely saturating the soil with water again. This makes the soil inhospitable to the damping-off fungi that like to attack seedlings.

I realized that I really should have sifted my compost rather than just crumbled it through my fingers. I don't know what I was thinking. I guess I just didn't feel like going to the trouble of making a compost screen. So I went to the trouble this morning, and I made a great little sieve (I only needed to make the screen part shown on that page, not the frame it sits on). I found a ½"-gauge screen by the railroad tracks (I actually went there specifically to look for one, too; I also found a perfectly good cooler). I sifted all my potting soil, and already it felt much softer and less chunky.

But I knew I'd need to do more than sift it, because if I grabbed a fistful, it would still stick together in clumps that wouldn't break apart very easily. It seemed I needed the equivalent of peat moss for my potting soil to make it act more like a sponge. But peat moss is a non-renewable resource and its use promotes the loss of wetland habitats. An alternative to peat moss is coconut coir, but it comes from India, so that's out of the question. The more common alternative is vermiculite, but it's mined and its production is very petroleum-dependent, so it doesn't interest me either.

I went back to HtGMV just to make sure they really did say to use one part compost, one part garden soil for making potting soil. Yup, that's what it says. But then I realized that the compost they're referring to is the hypothetical compost that I would have made last year - from vegetable remains, compost crops and yard waste - whereas the compost I had delivered to my backyard seems to be very much manure-based. It's rich, dense and pretty homogeneous. By contrast, compost made from leaves, twigs, stalks and veggie scraps would be (as I recall our garden compost as I was growing up) much more powdery, fibrous, and heterogeneous. Which is possibly why it eliminates the need for a spongy ingredient like peat moss. This is all very speculative, of course.

If only I'd had some of that "other" compost to use for my potting soil! But as luck would have it, today just happened to be one of the city's "Environment Days" where I knew they gave away free leaf compost, and it just happened to be within a 25-minute walk from my house, too. Clearly, it was meant to be. I grabbed the biggest knapsack I had, lined it with a couple oversized plastic bags, grabbed a shovel, and headed down. I got there, and there was barely enough left between the tufts of grass to scrape an oversize load into my knapsack. I'll leave you to imagine how uncomfortable the walk back home was. At least it wasn't raining.

I added the sifted leaf compost to my potting soil, and it seemed to improve it a lot. It had just the texture I was looking for. So I resowed most of my seeds, plus tomatoes, groundcherry, and spearmint, using the new soil (I think it's still within 7 days of the new moon) and we'll see if it works a little better.

Cold frame in a day

I built a cold frame! Here is the finished product:

I'm rather proud of myself, actually. (100% muscle power, I'll have you know.) I'll describe how I did it.

I (very) roughly followed these instructions from an article on GreenOptions.com. Actually, I only referred to the article for inspiration and a few tips. Here's what I remember taking away from it:

• Use plywood for the sides
• Use 2"×2" scrap wood pieces for connecting the sides together at the corners
• Attach wooden cleats to the tops of the windows (apparently a cleat is a projecting piece attached to something to prevent it from slipping)
• "Putting insulation on the sides of the cold frame doesn't do much for it, because so much of the heat captured during the day will be lost through the uninsulated window once the sun goes down."
• "... building a back wall for the cold frame from stacked bricks can serve as a heat sink to store more heat gathered from the sun, to help keep the temerature up through the cold night. Building a cold frame against a wall, or into a hillside, where there is more thermal mass to store the heat, can also be a strategy to push it even further."

Here are the ingredients you'll need to build your cold frame:

Note that the small pile of scrap wood depicted above is not an accurate representation of the scrap wood you will actually need. You will discover which pieces of wood you need as you are building (hopefully you like to solve puzzles). Many will need to be cut out of larger pieces of wood, which leads me to the other key ingredient that is not depicted: muscle power. I happened to have plenty to spare; hopefully you do, too. If not, perhaps you could find a neighbour that would be more than willing to show theirs off.

The first thing I did was attach cleats to the windows. You only really need one small piece of wood to attach to the top of each window, but I wanted to prop my windows up a little higher at the top, so I attached a 1"×3" as well. I used Robertson screws (square head), which are the best screws, and if you wish to find them in the States, best of luck. You can stick these screws on the end of a screwdriver and they usually won't fall off, allowing you to screw them in with only one hand. But I found that I eventually needed the force of both hands on the screwdriver to push it down at the same time as turning.

Now, something I forgot to take pictures of was my use of the compost pile for the north wall of the cold frame. I dug a chunk out of my compost pile leaving an approximately vertical, south-facing wall. Then I found a large piece of old countertop (this place has everything; don't worry, plywood would be fine) and propped it up against the compost pile. I then steadied the countertop in front using two cinder blocks that had been sitting by the side of the house - anything big and heavy, like stones from the brook, would work just as well. Then I shoveled compost back against the countertop to (hopefully) turn it into an effective heat sink.

The next piece I made was the front piece, which I arbitrarily decided should be 13" high. I wonder now if I should have made it shorter, because it has resulted in not quite as steep a slope for the windows as shown in the article. I guess your desired slope will depend on different things - the time of year you intend to be using the cold frame, your latitude, maybe more. Anyway, I wasn't much interested in worrying about these details. My plants needed a home!

To make this front piece, I found a plank of wood and cut it to the width of the two windows placed vertically side-by-side (I chose to make a squarish cold frame; if you're making a long rectangular cold frame, cut the plank to the length of the two windows placed horizontally side-by-side). Then I cut two 2"×2" pieces to 13" high, and screwed the ends of the plank to the bottoms of the 2"×2"s.

Then I lay the windows onto the north wall mentioned above, the cleats keeping them in place. I propped them up at the bottom using the front piece. I cut two 2"×2"s to attach to the back wall at the corners (to attach the side pieces). I also cut two 2"×2"s to line the base of the sides, as extra supports. Then I found a big piece of plywood behind the shed, propped it up against one of the sides, and traced where I'd have to cut it. This took some time to saw. Then I screwed the cut plywood piece to the 2"×2" attached to the back wall, the 2"×2" attached to the front piece, and the 2"×2" I cut for the base, as shown in the diagram. I did the same for the other side (using the remainder of the piece of plywood, in my case). Some of those screws were really hard to get into the 2"×2"s. Sometimes I had to take a break half-way through a screw and do something else before finishing it.

Finally, I boarded up the front piece with lengths of scrap wood. And the structure was complete!

I came up with the idea for the mirrors on the sides as I was falling asleep one night. We have this usused bathroom cabinet sitting on our back porch, and I figured I could make use of the mirror doors. I have no idea how much they'll help to gather warmth and light, but it seems logical.

To absorb more of the heat during the day, I placed a flagstone in the middle and surrounded it with bricks and shards of rock.

And we're done.