You Grow Girlâ„¢

It feels like Spring is in short supply, we’ve been cheated out of the whole front end of it here in Eastern Canada, and elsewhere. But I’m looking at photographs I took two years ago and as far as everything that grows is concerned, we appear to be on schedule.

Glancing through scribbles made over the past 3 weeks I find,

“I am encased in ice”. This sounds like the start of a wicked mystery novel. The city was encased in ice…the city was frozen at a standstill…Time had stopped all movement as surely as ice stills a trickling stream.

You may point out that this is just poor writing. But it illustrates the severity of my 2003 late March mindset. And while the trees may be in the same stage of bud as they have been at this time for many years over, it has been so cold. The snow still lingers in dark corners.

To escape the winter, every year, I start vast handfuls of seeds randomly and without consulting a planting guide. I start them much too early and by April my evenings are spent circling the house with water, seaweed fertilizer and, this year’s weapon, “No Damp”. Not a cure for female ills, but a prevention for seedling rot. And it appears to work.

What have I started so far?

Opium poppies (illegal? I heard someone say they were…germinated brilliantly, but look quite straggly now. We’ll wait and see)
Poppies (a nameless red kind –a free packet I got at the Irving station)
Pyrethrum Daisy (poor germination rate)
Nasturtium, climbing
Moonflower
2 varieties of Primula (poor performance, I didn’t give them an adequate cold spell)
Tomatoes, all heirloom; Nebraska Wedding, Yellow Pear, Red Currant, Cherokee Purple
Tomatillo; Rendidora, Purple de Milpa (heirloom)
Hot peppers; Ancho and Mulato (heirloom)
Boldog Paprika. I do very well with this and am growing lots this year. I hang the ripe fruit up to dry outside and pulverize them for cooking all winter long.
Dragonfruit. This is an experiment. I first saw Dragonfruit a few weeks ago at a wine and cheese reception. I spit a wad of the seed filled fruit into a napkin, took it home, dried it out, then planted the napkin. Germination was swift and nearly 100%. The mature fruit is a gorgeous magenta and the inside is white with tiny polka dot seeds. It is the only fruit I know that has no flavour.

The above are currently under fluorescent lights inside the house. Growing in the cooler climate of the sunporch I have, at various stages;

Beans, all heirloom; Cherokee Black, Vermont Cranberry, Dragon Langerie, Black Coco, Beurre de Rocquencourt, Scarlett Runner
Watermelon, Sugarbaby
Angelica (I set the pot in the porch all winter to chill the seeds)
I am also growing Cilantro and Basil on the windowsill, with a sad little Patchouli seedling for company.

This year, so far, I am on top of things. I am managing the overflow of greenery, I am watering appropriately, I have removed all access to growing things from Bunny (my heartbreakingly adorable enemy in the growing game), removed all access to sand-box like materials from Kitty (who makes a joke of the phrase “sterile, soil-less medium”). I have overcome my fear of thinning and have brutally dismantled small and crowded families of vegetables. I have grown to rely on my little re-useable seedling starters from Lee Valley; the planting medium gets packed into self watering cavities and you pop out the seedlings when ready. I have labeled everything. I have learned the trick of planting tomato plants deeper when moving them to larger pot, mounding the soil higher around the base where they will quickly develop new roots. This forces spindly plants to develop into stocky ones. To top it all off, I have prepared my very own garbage pail full of home-made planting mix. Once my seedlings have reached the stage where they want a pot of their own I move them into this mixture of peat, vermiculite, sand, bone & blood meal, and wood ash (to replace lime. I have lots of wood ash around). I plan on creating a richer, third stage medium where I introduce compost and manure.

Continued, non stop planting activity quashes the long dark winters of the mind. I can think of nothing as fun when it’s still too cold to sip your coffee out on the porch. And when your seedlings are all planted and are starting to look after themselves a bit more the other way to forget about frost is to run straight out after work, buy gobs of white rum and Cointreau, stop by the grocery store for fresh produce, mix up repeated batches of strawberry daiquiris with your chums, crank up the 80’s tunes, turn on your web cam and dance yourself stupid until 1am.