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The Myth of the "Green Thumb"

I get so frustrated when I talk to people about plants and they tell me they "Can't grow anything", or they "Don't have a green thumb". No such thing as a 'green thumb', the best ones are permanently stained, rough and calloused. If I get a further chance to talk to those people, I tell them they they have to kill things to learn how to grow them - and believe me I have killed off just about every living plant variety I've ever grown in some way or another.

People expect plants to be at their best at all times - well, people aren't, so why should the plants be? Often in a commercial greenhouse you don't see the back room or the dump pile where all the sick and dead bodies go. Most commercial growers worth their salt will realize when a plant is 'beyond the pale' and give it the heave-ho. Most "gardeners" I know will nurse along sickly things in their garden, hoping for them to burst forth with life and bloom again. I remember Dad - the gardener I modeled myself on - would babysit small sticks of shrubs hoping for a renewal. Sometimes it worked, most of the time the shrubs would just peter out and die for one reason or another.

Sickly plants attract insects, in general, healthy plants don't. It just seems to be the way of nature to put the limping plants out of their misery. So the key to a green thumb is to get plants that are healthy and growing well in the first place, not the cast offs at the end of the season. Unless you have a specific reason for populating your yard with the cheap, cast-offs, I'd recommend getting the good stuff.

However to have a green thumb - one must know what the "good stuff" is. Sometimes commercial growers - I've found, especially of perennials - will 'push' plants real hard to put on lots of foliage and bloom. What you wind up with is a babied plant in a different mix from your soil that will go home with you, suffer less than consummate care from you and collapse in your garden. Good, green-thumbed gardeners know that one should buy perennials when they are green as they will multiply much more rapidly in the garden. When perennials are in bloom and bud, they are thinking about making flowers and seeds and not very interested in making a home anywhere other than the rich potting mix that they've been in.

Water can be the key to a green thumb. Figure out whether you are a generous waterer or a spare waterer before you invest in houseplants. You can select a peace lily if you tend to drown things or a mother in law's tongue if you forget for weeks. In turn, a greenthumber knows his or her soil type and knows if it is heavy and wet or dry and sandy and ideally selects plants that are adapted to that particular soil. I once offed an entire small orchard by planting trees low in a heavy clay soil. Every one of them sat too wet and died. Lost all my money - they wouldn't be replaced because I had made the mistake and they didn't die until a year later. I have planted many orchard trees since - some flourished, some didn't. Have one spot in my yard I tried for years to get a plum tree to take...never did, so I gave up on a plum for that area and cut the other pollinator plum down as it wasn't bearing any fruit. I also just sacrificed a pretty apricot that had been with me maybe 15 years - no fruit, it doesn't earn a space in my garden.

Right Plant, Right Place is often the key to a green-thumb. In the garden, select plants that are adapted there. Just because rhododrendrons are beautiful in New England, doesn't mean they'll grow well at your humble estate. Even if the climate seems right - we go back to soil - is it a high pH or a low pH? You really need to know this stuff to become a green-thumber.

There's lots you need to know to help plants grow and thrive. Much of it, I think, used to be intuitive and we learned it at our mother or father's knee. Now as people become so removed from the natural landscape, they frustrate so easily if they kill a couple of plants. Green-thumbers always learn from their mistakes. I killed an orchid so quickly in the house I am in right now, I am leery of growing orchids. My brother seems to have a natural affinity for the couple of orchids he cares for and, without much input from him, bloom readily year after year. His orchids could be cleaner, free of debris, and fertilized, but he waves me off as I tend to the other houseplants. He will pass by a drooped out peace lily without batting an eye or picking up a watering can - but he seems to have a knack for them and has learned about the few plants he does grow.

So the next time you see me and if you tell me you"don't have a green thumb"...I will tell you to go out and kill some plants, then learn from your mistakes. If you are too lazy to do that - well - that's just it isn't it?Some people have no interest in the critters that make it possible for humans to be on this planet. So for those of you in the various stages of a black or brown thumb - go pick up a new plant and observe it carefully, "google" it even, and you'll increase your knowledge and range of those plants you have a "green thumb" for.
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Joining Tootsie Time for her "Fertilizer Friday" roundup - check out her group of garden bloggers from around the world.

January Picture Tour

The weather turned brutal this last week. Socked in on Sunday with 12-15" of snow, then Tuesday we fell victim to the "polar vortex" and had temperatures of -18F. My greenhouse fell way below freezing - to 22-25F and some plants suffered or bit the bullet. The Oakland County Greenhouses stayed warm and toasty this year and some folks are harvesting tomatoes and cucumbers. So, to balance it out, we lived through it, and today was a balmy 40+.

Did some harvesting at the Oakland County Greenhouse and transplanted and cleaned in mine. Have some chemical damage on a few plants at OC but that's my fault for failing to read the directions on the insecticidal soap label. Today I've got a picture tour for you of the two greenhouses, here goes:

AJ and I have been going to market on Saturdays at The Old Winery Farmers Market in Farmington and did quite well this week. I gave AJ two tables for produce and he did a great job setting it up and selling it. Lots of color and variety this week and hoping to have more next Saturday.

My little cyclamen plugs that were kind of a surprise in November are rooted in and starting to pop. They'll be doing their thing just in time for Valentine's Day. They're minis and in 3" pots. Am selling them for $3 each.




    

Beautiful bright reds.















Also have a few silver-leaved
cyclamen in pinks from last year that are blooming like gangbusters.

My Meyer Lemon is thinking about blooming, it's been lost in thought quite a long time now...













Have a bunch of herbs in my greenhouse and have been using a bit in the kitchen. They are in 3" and 4" pots, peppermint, thyme, rosemary and sage. The sage froze solid and the top leaves have gone limp. Don't know if it will perk up again or if I just have to wait for them to regrow.

Peppermint

Thyme

Sage

Rosemary

The citronella scented geranium is pouting as it froze too and I had to cut it back severely today. Hoping with a bit of TLC and fertilizer it will push new, branchy growth so I can take cuttings in time for spring sales.

Meanwhile in the Oakland County Greenhouse, where I have the two community garden plots, the lime basil is finally big enough to take a harvest. Quite slow, this variety had a definite citrusy smell and has stayed little. I will be sowing large-leaved basil in some of the bare spots in this plot.

Yes, I KNOW that you should thin seedlings and I did not do that with these carrots. Today I just pulled up handfuls, some with baby carrots to feed to horse, Skipper.

Here's a longshot of bed #1. Have sown beans again on the stakes and have a lovely crop of beet greens in the center. All green, no beet. Hmmm. Don't know what the deal is.

Love Rainbow Chard, looks so great in a salad or just as an ornamental garden green.

More of the golden-stemmed chard.

Longshot of the baby greens growing up in bed #2.

Spinach Bloomsdale. I like this variety for it's vigor, but I don't know if it's the nutrients or what, but it seems to really curl downwards. It has been hit by aphids, but luckily they are becoming scarce at this point.

See the white spots. Chemical damage from too much insecticidal soap.

Here's the culprit. Quart bottle from the dollar store and I overdid the rate of the concentrate. Have thinned it since the damage showed up.

Baby Romaine 'Freckles' in the foreground and a Buttercrunch Bibb in the background.
Freckles has a really pretty maroon-speckled leaf.

Lettuce, some sad dill and spinach. The beds are 6x10', hard to reach in the center, but you sure can get a lot of production out of them.

Nasturtium 'Empress of India' - can't wait to see what color the blooms are. Supposed to be a red-orange. Really pretty leaves and quite different in form from the other greens. Spicy leaves are a great addition to salads or pesto.

Joining bloggers Tootsie Time for her roundup of gardens throughout the world and Carol of May Drams Garden for her Bloom Day . That's the tour for this warm day in January. Keep warm out there!

Flowers So Precious

This time of year, when the snow is piled high around us, I long to see some flower color and form. It's not even February and I'm getting tired of the white, grays and browns around me.

The Amaryllis so far have been a bust. I do have one that's starting to sprout on the kitchen table. We'll see what it does. These are last year's bulbs and I couldn't find any pots I had to put them into a larger-sized container, so they got popped into a similar-sized pot. I don't know if they have enough room to grow roots and be the beauties they were last year.

Didn't order paperwhites and bulbs for forcing - just didn't have the scratch when the time came to get them. Besides, I don't have the requirements, like a dedicated refrigerator, for forced bulbs and didn't have the patience to mess with them.

There is one plant I have great luck with as it likes to grow cool, so I've got a crop of miniatures in the greenhouse right now. Sorry for the wash-out from the flash, but these are my pretty pink cyclamen. If you look very hard you can see a bit of red in the background as well. The pinks are last year's crop, still loaded with upswept blooms. For a bright spot on a cold, January night, cyclamen really do the trick.

The greenhouse has been closed over the New Year's holiday and the aphids have exploded the last time I was there on Sunday. They are so hard to control unless you spray the insecticidal soap almost daily. The new seeds of the various greens are emerging, though and since I ripped it all out due to the aphids, I'll have to sow more arugula.

Just read the Organic Gardening magazines list of things to do in January for zone 6 and they say it is time to sow those long-germinating and teeny seeds. I can't believe it is time already. I have to get a propane heater for the big greenhouse so I can get started with seeding. I probably have over 200 varieties of flowers, herbs and veggies that I want to start!

A Merry Christmas

The holiday season can stir up old memories and feelings of loss this time of year. The cold sinks in around us and it becomes hard to go out and enjoy nature. I hope those of you who read this can cherish your old childhood memories of the holidays and remember those who have gone with a fondness that sometimes only comes with the passing of time.

My family has shrunk to a few - just my brother and the three fur 'children'. But family can be extended to more than just blood relatives. Many people come to the realization that those they are not related to often love them more than their given family.

May all of you find the love in your heart with the spirit of the prophet Jesus and the mystical St. Nicholas, for giving to all those that you are close to. Random kindness to a stranger is always appreciated as well.

A Merry Christmas from Sage Advice Nursery.

Christmas Greens

Haven't posted in a while and you can see why...Nothing much happening at the nursery, we're snowed in. It got sooo cold for a spell, the big greenhouse at Vicki's went down to 10F. There was no way I could heat it with the little space heater and Vicki's goofy electrical system, so I shut it down. The only casualties will be the gerberas and the brugmansias I carefully tended from seed - just no room for either in the little greenhouse. So live and learn. Think I will try and invest in a vent-free propane heater for the bigger greenhouse - that should put out enough BTUs to heat the space.

Rain and freezing rain predicted for the next several days. Hoping the nursery stock doesn't thaw out - that's what takes its toll - repeated freezing and thawing. Not much I can do, but stand by and watch.

Meanwhile, the Oakland County Greenhouse beds are doing remarkably well. We've had a bit of trouble with aphids and my strategy is once a plant gets 'em - out it goes. I found from last year that it just doesn't pay to spray to get rid of them as their numbers explode so rapidly. Pulled all the kale and braising greens, plus the radishes as they were growing slowly and were heavily infested. Today the arugula crop hit the compost pile. I'll try for another batch of it come January. The greenhouse managers did spray neem oil this week in an attempt to get a handle on the buggers but they really can goof up a greenhouse.

Have been scouting my greenhouse to see if my plants are clean - so far, so good. Potted up windowsill herbs today - peppermint, rosemary and sage. Already have thyme, parsley and catnip in the greenhouse, but due to the cold, light levels and the fact that I haven't fertilized - the plants are sitting still. Maybe since Saturday is solstice we'll get some more daylight in the coming weeks and growth will resume again.

Hope you are surviving and even thriving this busy holiday season. May you have a peaceful Christmas and a wonderful New Year.

Nasturtium 'Alaska' bloom

Bed #1, the pole beans were removed after this pic was taken

Pretty colors of baby greens in bed #2

Just starting to harvest this bed, new seedlings in the dark soil

Pretty spinach crop - trying to keep it aphid free

Bull's Blood Beet greens - deep red

In the Dark

It was dark at 4:30 today and out of a gray sky fell a fine drizzle. Not weather conducive to working outside in the nursery, although I have to get out there and move and cut back plants.The dark days before winter solstice are upon us.

Have been working on two websites for two farmers markets. Am bartering website and publicity work for booth space. One market - The Old Winery Farmers Market - is going on now through April every Saturday. I'm selling produce, jams, baked goods, sprouting seeds and I hope to get some spices and teas bagged up for the weekend. The craziest thing I had last week were giant 3' long aloe leaves and I cooked up a couple of samples. I poached the aloe gel cubes in honey with a bit of lime and I must say they were quite good. The other market is the Garden Gate Market at Goldner Walsh nursery in Pontiac. This one is a brand new market starting in spring of 2014 where I'll also be selling produce. Since the market is at a nursery I can't sell the live plants.

The plants have taken a back seat of late. Ordered some herb liners to pot up as windowsill plants and I have a few things I am growing in the greenhouses. Kind of in a transition season. I hate to have heat on in the big greenhouse as there is so little in there, so I have to start filling it up. Will be starting another batch of edible greens in there ASAP.

The plants do very little growing this time of year. Reading up on winter growing, the authors have said that once daylight hours go below ten per day, the plants just kind of sit still. Many varieties of cold weather greens can tolerate the temperatures but don't have enough light to put on much growth. In the community greenhouse, plants are doing well as they were September and October sown but last year the greenhouse growth slowed to a crawl until February. The surprise crop for me are the green beans, long and ready to harvest right now.

The holiday season is here and I am gearing up to do baskets for friends and neighbors. Thank goodness for the dollar store and their myriad tins, baskets and bins. Packed right and with a few strategic bows, I should be able to make some nice gifts. Made a pineapple-ginger jam today, but that is destined for market.

I hope you are adjusting to these dark days as I am and that the holiday spirit is catching up to you. Not just that "gotta buy it now" attitude but one of peace and compassion for one's fellow travelers through life. May your days be merry and bright.

A Very Happy Thanksgiving

Waking up early this morning to put in the roasted butternut squash pie and then the Turkey breast, I am humbled to look back upon this year and the many blessings it has brought. With the Detroit Thanksgiving Day Parade in the background, I am thinking back to the year past and all the people who have helped me put together and run Sage Advice Nursery.

I am grateful for my brother, who has come alongside me and now supports my running Sage Advice. At first he was very hesitant to endorse the business, but now he comes to my open houses and is wishing for me to succeed.

I am grateful for the people who have put in hours of physical work in the business. Without their help, I couldn't have produced all the plants and products that we offer. Their counsel and labor is greatly valued. Thanks AJ, Pam, Erin, Vicki and Paul.

I am especially indebted to Vicki, who has allowed me to take over her yard and fill it with a greenhouse, growing plants and a vegetable garden. Over the year we both became cancer survivors together and got very interested in growing our own, wholesome, clean food. I treasure the relationship I have with her and hope I can build the business and get more to her as my 'silent partner'.

I am grateful for God, nature and all the bounty that is offered to those who work by listening to the earth and the plants. I am still thrilled by the simple miracle of a seed sprouting and growing into a beautiful plant.

I am also indebted to my customers and grateful for their support. Customers become friends and friends become customers - thank you Robin, Margo, Jackie, Sue and Jim, Lenora, Mary Anne, Janet and Steve and all the others who have helped me get beautiful perennial plants into gardens.

I value the friendship of all the other vendors I have met and worked with at the various markets I attend. They have educated me and helped me learn the ropes of 'farmers marketing'. Thanks to Carolyn, Carl, Jo, Debbie, John and Nick, Jerry, Grit, Rob and John. I always look forward to setting up next to you.

I am grateful for my new friend Jean, who is mentoring me about the finer points of selling produce and, by bartering services, is allowing me to participate in the markets that she runs. It has sent me into a new and exciting direction of taking Sage Advice Nursery into a business that not only sells plants but the bounty that they produce.

There is a light snow falling softly on the nursery and yard today. It imparts a coziness to the warmth of the kitchen. The turkey is just about to go in and the pie has just come out and I've made the pineapple-ginger compote to go on top.

The nursery is yet to be put to bed. Plants need to be cut back and put into wintering positions and covered.

Have been thinking hard about my grow list for 2014. Will be doing lots of plants from seed this coming year. Will also be growing more varieties of herbs and getting serious about producing vegetables and some fruit plants for sale in 2014.

Will also be selling produce all year long now as I will be participating in a new farmers market  - The Garden Gate at Goldner Walsh Nursery that will take place on Sundays starting in May. I also hope to set up a small produce buying 'club' or 'co-op' with first some friends and neighbors. With our collective buying power, I think we'll be able to afford to get fresh, mostly organic produce, meat and grains at a decent price.

Finally, I am grateful for this season of winter, a time of reflection and renewal. I am looking forward to the holidays and time with friends and family and a chance to spend time with my 'family' - dog- Griffin, cat - Smokin Jo-Jo, and horse - Skipper.

Thanks too to all my friends that check in here to read the blog. I wish you and yours a very, happy Thanksgiving.

Margaret

Checking in with Tootsie Time this week for her roundup of gardens around the world.

Got My First Bean!

The tall pole beans in the Oakland County Greenhouse garden are starting to produce! This is the first bean I picked. Not quite straight but narrow and with a good 'beany' flavor. I hope to pick enough of these to add to a cold quinoa salad I'm making for a Thanksgiving feast.

The garden is producing like crazy. Lots of lettuces, but the Black-seeded Simpson lettuce has 'stretched' - like bolting, with a long stem, but the flavor of the leaves is still good. Still sweet and slightly crispy. The spinach is bearing small, dark green leaves really well and is a favorite of Vicki's. Feeding about 6-7 people off this bed, so feeling good that it is producing so well.

The next step will be to clear out several areas - like where the Broccoli Raab is and a spot where I'm harvesting lettuce, and to resow. Going to start another crop of radishes which will be about two weeks behind bed two, to keep a succession of veggies coming. I will probably sow more arugula and spinach for harvest when young and tender. They both make great braising greens or are a wonderful addition to soup, but for salads the sweet, young leaves are best.

The later we get into the year, the harder it is to time the growth of the crops. When we go below 10 hours of daylight - which we are just about at - the crops just sit there and stare at you. They don't have enough light to really do their thing so growth slows to a minimum. Once we get into February, light levels come back up and there is quite a surge in growth in the winter garden.

Also have to keep busy sowing in Vicki's greenhouse. Need to clear out all the mums and perennials, clean up the place and get some containers filled for growing greens. I realize it is late in the year, but just last week harvested the rest of the blooms on the mums for market.

We have just started the winter market at the Old Winery Farmers Market in Farmington, Michigan. We've got two booths in the choice, first position. I am blessed to be bartering web-work and publicity help for the booth rental so that frees up the budget for me to get AJ to help me. I've got about 32 feet of tables to fill and it is kind of an involved set-up with sawhorses and plywood, tables and then chairs for us. I am grateful for AJ's help in loading and unloading the van, and he's doing great selling too.

We had a good first day with a lighter crowd and a bit of everything was selling. Parsnips were the big seller and the jams did well too. Was able to talk with a few people about sprouting their own seeds, as well. Education is a big component of marketing and I am always happy to share with customers recipes, tips on growing and other useful information.

Am really pleased that with the help and contact of market manager, Jean Smith, I am able to offer Michigan-grown, certified organic produce this week. I haven't seen the quality of the product but farmer, Eric has been really straight with me about size and has told me about flavor. I'll have brussels sprouts - outdoor grown, where the colder temps make the sprouts sweeter, onions, radish, garlic, leeks and baby Chioggia beets. Chioggia is an heirloom variety with concentric rings of deep red and white throughout the root. Another bonus is that they don't bleed when you are processing them or cutting them. I am really pleased that Eric's prices are so reasonable that I'll be able to offer this quality product at the same kind of price that I do the conventional produce. So often the complaint about buying organic produce is that the prices are so sky-high but I am so thrilled I can provide it at a great price point.

That's part of the mission this winter. I feel so strongly that folks really need to pay attention to their food and nutrition and that it is so important to create scratch-made, 'real' food. I came to cooking quite late - not until my thirties - and if it wasn't for the food network and cooking demos on TV I don't know if I ever would have learned how to cook. Before that I lived out of convenient, microwave boxed meals, that, while easy, have got no heart and soul, much less nutrition and a high sodium content. It takes planning, forethought and time to cook from scratch but I am of the opinion that food is basically medicine that we take in to nourish our bodies, and cooking one's own home-grown or local farmer-produced food is the best thing we can do for our health.

I have the great privilege this weekend to be on the Fox 2 Saturday morning news. I've been selected as one of the vendors to be interviewed and I am excited to be able to show off this week's offerings. If you are in the area, please come stop by and say 'hi' and check out the wares of the 30 vendors who will be there. We also have a mini food truck rally going on and a free cooking class on Kale pesto. So come get a recipe and take home lunch.

If you can't stop by, thanks for dropping in here to keep up on what Sage Advice Nursery is doing. I am linking this week with friend Tootsie's blog - Tootsie Time  who has a gardener's roundup each week of blogs from around the world. Stop by and see what people on the other side of the world are doing!

Goodies for Market

 Got my sprouting seeds a week ago and have been having a ball trying out some different varieties. Ordered Alfalfa, Red Clover, Radish, Mung Bean, Wheatgrass, Green Peas and Sunflower seeds - certified organic and kosher from Starwest Botanicals. I have started and eaten a mixed salad blend from Dollar Seed and had great success with my new four-tiered sprouter. Also tried mung bean in a canning jar topped with cheesecloth - works great! Just yesterday I started some radish seed and we'll see if they have the peppery taste they're supposed to have.

To the right is a shot of the mixed salad blend. Nice on sandwiches and, of course, great in salads. Very easy to grow sprouts. Soak the seeds for about 4-8 hours, put them into the sprouter or jar with mesh lid, then rinse them two to three times daily and drain. With the sprouter you just pour in water and it trickles through the trays and is collected in the white bottom. Just dump the bottom collection tray before filling it again. When the sprouts have reached the size you want, you can rinse them to wash off the hulls but with little seeds I don't bother with this step. Then, store the sprouts in the fridge.

The four-tiered sprouter is great. The fourth tray is in the fridge with a lid and a finished batch. One can start four different varieties at a time with this or just use two trays at a time - two in the fridge and two in the growing phase.

Got our first snow this week as well. Frosty parsley leaves.

The Nicotiana ;Fragrant Delight' was such a performer going right up until the snow took it out.

Also got a bunch of spices and teas this week from Monterey Bay Spice Company, cinnamon sticks, chai tea, an orange spice tea blend and a few other blends including a mulling spice. Also got do it yourself tea bags that you fill and iron closed that I will fill with some of these goodies.

The sprouting seeds got individually packaged into 3x5 plastic envelopes and labeled. Got about 10 bags per pound - very generous seed packets. Will be selling them at the Old Winery Farmers Market for $2.00 each or 3 for $5.00.

This is the real simple jar sprouter I made with mung beans on their way.

Also cut all the chrysanthemums in the greenhouse as they were having their last hurrah. Great warm autumn colors. Stripped the stems, trimmed them and bunched them for market.

That's the excitement for this week. Will be headed to the Detroit Produce Terminal in a couple of hours to get produce for market. It will be my first time buying down there so I'm not fully sure of what I am in for. Amazing place - football field sized piles of onions, beautiful boxed produce from all over the world - saw lots of persimmons. some quince, nopales  and other mexican vegetables. For someone whose heart goes pitter-pat at the sight of well-grown fruits and vegetables - it was a beautiful sight.

Jointing Tootsie Time for her Fertilizer Friday roundup of gardens and gardeners from around the world.

The Greens Are a Coming In

Went to the Oakland County Greenhouse this afternoon to trim, thin and harvest. I also had to water both the growing and newly seeded bed. Spent Sunday laying out and seeding the second bed and sowed 17 varieties of greens and herbs. I still need to clean my recently harvested parsley seed and sow that soon too. 

 The first bed is growing by leaps and bounds. When you can watch the bed and track it carefully, you very nearly see the daily growth - something I usually don't observe in the outdoor vegetable gardens as closely. The beans seem to put on 6 inches a day and are starting to twine around themselves up the pole. As you can see, they've hit the tops of their poles and would probably grow to twelve feet if I had the trellis or head room. They've just started flowering so I expect we'll have beans in a couple of weeks.

The lettuces and arugula are planted tightly, so they've been developing long stems that need to be picked off before they go into a salad. The leaves are good and sweet, one friend I gave some to said the lettuces tasted just like butter.

The radishes, now 5+ weeks old, are getting almost too big to pick. Joe, on the greenhouse staff, suggested roasting them with a bit of olive oil and salt and said it takes away any bitterness. I think I'll put them into a mixed root vegetable roast that I plan to do tomorrow.

Love taking pictures of the nasturtium leaves, their variegation is so pretty. This variety is 'Alaska' and I'm hoping it will trail like the ones I planted last year. Haven't tasted these yet, am waiting for some more foliage before I harvest.

Here's an exciting shot of bed #2 . Well, exciting to me anyway. Nothing like a blank slate in which to sow some beautiful seeds. Amended the bed with composted manure as it is a straight peat-perlite mix and added some soil moisture crystals to keep the peat moist. Once that peat dries out, it is hard to get wet again.

Here is that blank slate - not quite so blank anymore. 2 kinds of radishes, 2 kinds of spinach, more dill and broccoli raab - and of course, my favorite - arugula. Had trouble last year with aphids on the arugula and had to rip most of it out. So far we are aphid free but that is subject to change.  Have sowed the new bed at new moon so I expect it will take a few days longer to see the seeds sprout. The first bed I sowed at full moon and the seeds were up in a hurry. So we'll see if the tidal pull has any bearing on the timing.

Just love the bright lime green of the Black-seeded Simpson lettuce played off the dark greens of the beans and other plants. Definitely a candidate for outdoor landscaping - maybe using it as an edging for a flower bed?

As I said - the beans are flowering and here's the proof. First flowers I've seen with lots to come. We'll have to see how well the vines hold up with a load of beans on them. I've been twining them around each other so they can  use the other plants for support.

First small heads on the broccoli raab. So far I've just been eating it raw in salads but the stems and soon-emerging buds will make their way to the skillet in the near future. I probably will saute it in olive oil with a touch of fresh garlic and a splash of good balsamic vinegar. This is the first year I've grown it and so far it's a success.











That's the indoor veg garden tour for today. Have been eating salads daily and enjoying them immensely. Nothing like growing your own food!