Despite the colder weather this weekend (spring is coming right???) preparations for the Community Growth garden are under way. Our to-do list for this week includes finding a source of fertilizer (does anyone know of a horse or chicken farm that would be willing to donate some manure?) and contacting local businesses to get supplies to build a fence and compost bin (anyone good with a hammer?).
While we hope to have a large compost bin available at the garden site, this summer, I wanted to start a bucket of my own at home to help get the process started. So all week, I collected my veggie scraps, eggshells, and coffee grounds in a container in my kitchen. Since I’ll have a garden plot this summer I have no need for the buckets that I grew my tomatoes in last summer. So, this weekend my wonderful husband took a drill to one of my tomato buckets and turned it into a mini-compost bin for me. And since my buckets still contained the dirt and old tomato plants from last summer, I have a great combination of “ingredients” to get things started. So currently, my bucket contains layers of old tomato plants and dirt, dried leaves, and a bunch of kitchen scraps (no meat or dairy!). Here’s hoping it turns into some great compost!
I also finally got around to planting a few seeds this weekend. Katie already has a head start on this one as her tomato plants sprouted weeks ago. If we’re lucky, she might post a picture of them for us! Inspired by this article, I decided to try planting seeds in eggshells this year. Not only is it a cheap and easy way to start seedlings, but when its time to plant you just plop them into the ground, shell and all (the shell provides calcium to help enrich the soil). My only concern is that the seedlings will outgrow the eggshells before its warm enough to plant them outside. Has anyone tried this before - Any suggestions???
Speaking of seeds, from our friend Kevin at Green Planet Grocery:
"We've got seeds on the way, if anyone is interested, let me know. All are organic, most are heirloom. wax beans, pole beans dark red beets, broccoli, rainbow chard, eggplant, kale, snow pea, spinach, delicata squash, tomatoes (brandywine, yellow perfection, cherry, san marzano paste) corn, jalepeno, sunflower and calendula."
So if you’re looking for a great source of organic seeds and want to support a great local business, stop into Green Planet located at 3514 West Genesee Street (across from Target).
And finally, settling in tonight for a lazy Sunday evening, I decided to forgo cooking an actual dinner and instead made this yummy bruschetta out of some homemade bread. While delicious, it really only made me miss the taste of fresh, off-the-vine, sun-ripened tomatoes. So while I only made a simple bruschetta topping out of store-bought tomatoes, I’m pining away for one day this summer when I can pull a tomato off a plant I’ve grown and make this!
Garden plots are still available! If you’re interested reply below or email Jen (magnusonjd@gmail.com) or Katie (katieholland07@gmail.com) for more details.
