Ok, time for something happier.

Tomato Planting:

Last weekend, I finished planting my little hardened-off seedlings outside! Here are some photos.

My tomatoes fell over under the grow light and grew in a n “L” shape. I saw this as a ‘fail’ on my part until I tried to plant them in the grow boxes – they were too tall for me to plant straight up and down and still have part of the stem in the ground. But if I planted them sideways, it worked out nicely! It’s almost as if nature planned for them to fall over and send more roots into the ground.

Here are all six Earth Boxes full of heirloom tomatoes. I still have to put up the trellis systems for some of them.

I haven’t had to water them all week! I bought them because they’re self-watering (just pour water down the tube that feeds into the base) and they’re durable.

My only complaint is this: I’ll have to figure out how, why and what to use for the dolomite and fertilizer next year. I don’t plant to spend money on six refill kits if I can do it myself for less.

Here are Earth Boxes and staking systems on Amazon.com:

Here are some articles about making your own self-watering containers:

• Homegrown Evolution: Self-watering containers
• How To Make A Self-Watering Container (using buckets)
• New improved homemade self watering container / Earthbox (using totes)

Cucumbers
I also planted some cucumbers and pear tomatoes in window box planters hanging off of the deck.

You deserve to see reality: This is what it all looked like directly after planting all of those boxes. I’m soaked. Who knew deck farming could be so messy?


Beans and Cucumbers:

I turned over the soil in my raised bed to find oodles of worms, yay!

I companion planted bush beans and cucumbers in my raised bed.

I’m going to stretch a net from the bottom of the raised bed to the top of the fence for the cucumbers to climb. Eggplants, more tomatoes, and herbs will be planted to the sides this weekend.

Crookneck Squash
The squash isn’t really loving the dirt leftover from the clematis vine – too much drainage. To do: mix in 2/3rds soil and save the rest of this peat-like stuff for something else.

French Heirloom Peas:
There are enough on my pea tee-pee for a veggie stir-fry!

Composter:
Just got it, hooray!

What’s next for the grow lights:
I’m still growing some herbs and a few cucumbers that I plan to donate to my son’s school veggie garden. After that? Kitchen grow-light salad!

Hello and welcome to my small-space gardening experiment! I live in a townhouse in Northern Virginia. As part of my greater plan for personal and community resilience, I am:
1. Learning how to grow my own food while the mistakes are cheap
2. Seeing what can reasonably be grown in a townhouse (on the deck, in the courtyard and in the kitchen)

Here’s what I’ve got going on in my kitchen:

The Setup

Shelves: I purchased mine at CostCo and left off a fifth shelf. In hindsight, I would have made about 3 feet of space between shelves for my veggies. They’re similar to the Seville Classics Shelving System with Wheels, Chrome on Amazon.com.

Lights: If I had to do it over again, I would buy one or two of the Hydrofarm 4′ Light Fixtures. They look easier to hang and manage.

Light Bulbs: I use AgroBrite lights (Agrobrite Lights 48
) but I’ve heard that you can use regular flourescent lights as well.

You could also just skip putting together the light fixtures and buy this kit: Hydrofarm Jump Start T5 Grow Light System

Seedling Heat Mat: Gotta have heat. This heat mat looks like it would span the entire shelf: Large Hydrofarm Seedling Heat Mat. I have a smaller two-tray Hydrofarm Seedling Heat Mat

Seed starter kit: I found the Jiffy Greenhouse to be easy to use.

Peat pots: I planted some seeds directly into Jiffy Peat Pot Strips.

The Seeds

I’m growing the following varieties of tomatoes. I was given most of these seeds in a seed swap with a gifted gardener friend at work. (Thanks, Julie, for teaching me everything about tomatoes!):

From Seeds of Change
-Red Calabash
-Amish Paste

From Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello
-Large Red Tomato
-Brandywine Tomato

From Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
-Cherokee Purple

From The Cook’s Garden
- Red and Yellow Pear Mix

Crazy tomatoes my mother-in-law planted (12 of them!). I’ll try to grow them upside-down from the balcony.
- Climbing Trip-l-crop

Other veggies and herbs under the grow lights right now:

from The Cook’s Garden
- Parsley Catalogno
- Basil Marseille
- Stevia

From Southern Exposure Seed Exchange
-Lemon Pickling Cucumber

How to grow:
1. Consult the calendar for your zone to see when you can start most vegetables.
2. Start your seedlings in their little Jiffy greenhouses. Put about 3 seeds in each jiffy pod or peat pot. No lights needed yet. But keep the heat mat on!
3. Set up your lights – hang them from the shelf using a hooks or carabiner
attached to chains.
4. When the seedlings appear, remove the greenhouse cover and turn on the lights for about 14 hours per day. (My times varied and sometimes I forgot to turn on the light. They were fine.)
5. Keep the lights as close to the leaves as possible by lowering them on a a chain. Raise the lights as the plants grow.
6. When the second set of leaves appear, thin the plants to one plant per pellet or pot.
7. Watch them grow! Consult the calendar for your zone to see when it’s safe to plant outside. Don’t forget to harden them off!

Right now, it’s too late to start most summer vegetables indoors. Start herbs and lettuce indoors anytime then pluck what you need while you cook.

Lessons learned the hard way:
I would have had more (much more!) growing, but I didn’t water my seedlings enough before heading out of town for a week and forgot to remind my husband to do it. Almost everything that I had planted in a shallow seed tray wilted and died after a few days of no water. Heartbreaking, but a lesson learned.

Next step for me: plant everything outside!

Some of the items I used: