Preventing Leggy Seedlings

Part of learning is going back and realizing mistakes that you unwittingly made. While browsing last spring's seedling pictures, I saw these:

and realized that those tall spindly looking teenager plants are not necessarily the sign of the healthiest plants possible. They show classic symptoms of being LEGGY, and I don't mean they have beautiful gams. (my other 'mistake' was starting from seed several plants that would probably have done better being directly seeded outside during planting time--but I think that the kids really enjoyed seeing the different types of babies, so we'll let that one slide ). Leggy seedlings are tall, thin-stemmed, and sometimes bent over.

Why Do Seedlings Become Leggy?

Seedlings start seeking light as soon as they pop out of the soil. Very eager to soak up that light so that they will survive, they lean and bend toward the light source. If the light is dim, they will start to grow tall and spindly in their efforts to reach up. What they sacrifice with height is stem width. Long, skinny stems will not do as well holding up to the conditions outside, and your plant will not be as healthy and strong as it needs to be to combat pests and diseases, wind, rain, and all of nature's other challenges.

What Can Be Done To Prevent Legginess?

One of the best ways to grow seedlings indoors is to use a 'growlight'. Here is an example of a growlight setup. You can make one yourself, using a florescent light that has both a 'hot' and 'cold' bulb, and building a mechanism which raises the light up as the seedlings grow.

Here's my problem, though...i don't have a growlight setup and I don't plan to make one this year...if ever! If you've got the resources to make one, I say go for it. I am being stubborn and would like to try my luck at windowsill seedlings. After all, what did gardeners do if they wanted to start seeds before they had electricity? Maybe that's a stretch, but it's never far from my mind that if I ever needed to survive without electricity, I could. So knowing how to grow strong seedlings without extra gadgets or power can't do any harm. I'm not saying never, and maybe as I get really into this gardening thing, I'll try fashioning a growlight. But for now, it's good old fashioned sunlight for the Little Hands Garden!

Helping Your Seedlings When you Don't Have Growlights

Here are some tips I found from various sources while browsing the web and gardening books:

1. Place your seedlings in a south facing window.

*make sure your indoor animals are either kept out of the room, or watched carefully. They adore knocking over fragile, precarious-looking objects from sunny windows. Although...this furry love is not looking very threatening.

2. Turn your seedlings daily so that they are not 'reaching' toward the sun in the same direction every day.

3. Try to urge seedlings that are too tall to grow thicker by brushing your hands over them a few times a day or placing an oscillating fan to blow gently on them for a few hours every day. This tricks the plant into thinking that it is growing in a windy environment and releases chemicals in the plant to grow thicker stems to be better able to withstand the supposed windy environment.

4. Keep your seedlings happily watered! Keep their soil damp, misting them once or twice a day (I have found that being in a south facing window warms their soil considerably, and I mist them twice a day). You don't want soaking wet soil, just damp and airy. If you let seedlings go dry, they will put effort into survival and you'll lose potential growth and strength. Baby the seedlings for now, and save the toughening up for later, when you harden them off.

With these tips in mind, come back soon to see how our seedlings have done! In this mini greenhouse we have 3 types of tomatoes: Brandywine, Yellow Pear, and Super Sweet 100 Hybrid. We also have 3 types of marigolds: Jaguar, Lemon Drop, and French Dwarf. The marigolds will be our superheros in the garden when they help us deter pests!

The rest of our veggie seeds are patiently waiting for warmer weather in order to be planted directly into the garden!

Mushroom Barley

I love, love, LOVE barley. This is a great side for just about any meal. Or if you love barley like I do, it's a great lunch all by itself. No matter how hard I keep trying, one of the littles still does not enjoy mushrooms at ALL...but I can tell you first hand that the mushrooms in this recipe are easy to pick out. So that mommy can steal them and add them to her share. ;)

Mushroom Barley (Serves 4) 

2 T. Olive Oil
1 Small Onion, diced
1/4 t. Sugar
1 c. mushrooms, chopped
1 garlic clove, chopped
1 t. Salt, divided
1 c. pearl Barley, rinsed
3 c. chicken or veggie stock

1. In a large pot, heat the olive oil over medium heat.

2. Add the onions and cook for 5 minutes, stirring occasionally.

3. Add the sugar and cook for another 5 minutes or until onions start to caramelize.

4. Remove the onions to a plate and add the mushrooms, garlic and 1/2 tsp salt to the pot. Cook for 3 minutes or until the water from the mushrooms start to evaporate, then remove to a plate and set aside.

5. Add the chicken stock into the same pot and bring to a boil, add the barley, 1/2 tsp salt, reduce to a simmer and cook for 45 minutes or until tender.*

6. Add the onions and mushrooms to the pot to combine and cook until heated through.

7. Serve.

*Cooking in the same pot allows all of the flavors to combine.

Source: www.weelicious.com

Milkjug Cloche

"Cloche" means "bell" in French. There are a variety of uses for the word in English, including a bell shaped hat, a musical instrument...and, our most relevent definition here at LHBH, a protector for plants from cold temperatures. A cloche acts as a mini greenhouse, usually covering one individual plant, trapping moisture and heat, protecting the plant from strong cold winds. Some people spend good money on these beautiful, glass cloches for their gardens:

They really are gorgeous! But here in the Little Hands Garden, I see two problems:

1). They cost money. We don't have a lot of that to go around.

2). They are GLASS. With a handful of curious, learning, tiny children who are welcome to touch almost everything in the garden, a big glass bell seems like a--well, pretty HORRIBLE idea!

I had heard about using a milk jug as a cloche, so we decided to give it a try. Here, Bennet carefully cuts the bottom of a plastic one-gallon milk jug:

We placed it over one of our cabbages (we were pleasantly surprised that three of our cabbages survived the bulk of the winter with no protection at all! Adding a cloche was more of an experiment to see if it would help through the early spring).

For good measure, Simon taped some bubble wrap around it.

After monitering our cabbages for a few chilly weeks, and keeping the cloche on it (a couple of times we had to chase it down after a strong wind, once we had to completely replace it after a VERY strong wind), we saw that the protected cabbage was definitely bigger and more robust!

What a great way to reuse plastic mik jugs! We are saving some up to use more extensively in the garden!

I later saw a picture online of a garden that used milk jugs with a stake through it, to hold it down and to allow the jug to be moved up and down on colder or warmer days. Genius! We will remember that idea.

Book Review: Farm City

You will get a very real, entertaining, touching, sometimes maddening view of urban farming when you read this awesome book! As I mention in my review, the death of animals is involved, but in a respectful way. I can't wait to check out Novella Carpenter's other books. She is full of passion, knowledge, and gritty determination.

Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer by Novella Carpenter

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

This Novella chick is tough. Refreshing, hilarious, full of heart--but tough as nails. Setting up an urban farm in a large vacant lot in the ghetto of Oakland, she weaves a fascinating tale of the joys and frustrations involved. Stolen produce (when she is more than willing to share), massacred, lost, or escapee animals, a wide assortment of crazy neighbors, mysteriously vanishing bee colonies...her frustrations are many. Yet she also has a deep love for her neighborhood and all its quirks, even if she is realistic about its fleeting existence. Through all the relationships forged and hard work done, she and all her neighbors may ultimately move on/be evicted/flee. As attached as she becomes to her little piece of community and land, she must have the grit and strength to start over in a new part of the urban landscape if needed. I really enjoyed her hopelessly optimistic, yet slightly jaded attitude.

Novella Carpenter's sense of community is just the kind of model I think is needed for successful urban farms. She wants to share, deeply wants to get any and all neighbors involved. Many of the books I've read about growing food focus heavily on self-reliance: growing your own food, putting it up for later. But Carpenter wants to spread the wealth, connect people to the garden. Aware that the plot she's gardening on is not even hers, she can't conceive of the idea that she'd own all the food. She considers her neighbors her family--albeit a strange one. Even after nearly being mugged and watching a junkie shoot up right across the street, she is resolved to stay put and make her mark--and not as an outsider, as a real member of this odd, dysfunctional community.

Now, about the animals. They are central to her farm; ducks, chickens, geese, rabbits, even pigs. I will warn you--if you are a vegetarian, you may be horrified. Novella is definitely no vegetarian.

For all the dreams I have of transforming the empty plot across the street into a urban farm/permaculture/secret garden, animals have rarely entered those dreams,except the vision of peaceful egg-laying chickens eating up the bugs and nibbling on discarded greens.

The animals that I've never daydreamed about are central to Novella Carpenter's urban farm. While showing touching respect and love for her animals, she also has the will to do them in when the time comes. I think that if one eats meat, she should have this ability--but reading first hand accounts of the actual process made me realize I just may not have the guts face my meat-eating in such a personal way. Though... I really do love chicken. Let's just leave it at this: I'll never view pruners in quite the same way again after reliving the fate of Novella's meat birds. Not to mention the fate of her rabbits and pigs. Her animals are not pets, and she makes it clear.

Every part of this book holds importance, even if the animal harvesting makes me a bit squirmy. Novella Carpenter is a living example of a true urban farmer, and her experiences and insight are priceless to anyone considering the endeavor.

Book Review: Growing, Older

I think Joan Gussow has a lot to offer to those trying to grow their own food. Her experience and personal stories promise to inspire!

Growing, Older: A Chronicle of Death, Life, and Vegetables by Joan Dye Gussow

My rating: 5 of 5 stars

I have a complicated reader relationship with Joan Gussow. I want to say that I love her writing all the way to the end of the earth, but I do recognize some of her quirks that many might find irritating. In some ways, she seems to be a nit-picking old lady, the type you don't want to be neighbors with, for fear that she'll make your life hell. She is very opinionated, a right we all have but especially at the ripe age of 80-something, and there are many times while reading that I get the distinct impression that whatever she says, GOES in the lives of anyone around her.

BUT. That is all the negative I will say. Because, darnit, I can't help it. I really, really love her stories.

She writes with pure heart, holds nothing back, and openly shares everything she's ever learned about food, gardening, our food system, our environment. She is full of facts and important knowledge, and she's not afraid to stick her neck out with unpopular ideas (she wrote and researched many facets of our current agricultural systems long before the topic became mainstream, often facing tough critics). She also shares very personal stories about her sons and late husband, and shows time and again her humanness.

Growing, Older, is a book I will read often. Gussow ponders many of the issues a human being faces as they grow past 'old' into 'elderly', yet maintains her fierce independence and continues to grow most of her food in her (granted, huge) backyard. The Hudson River lies directly behind her, and throughout her insightful chapters there is the constant background threat of her garden being flooded.

Flood, it does. More than once Gussow's gardens have been utterly destroyed by the river's rising banks. The work she must do to repair the damage is exhausting to read about, and yet she's had to do it more than once, and she willingly does it. The answers to the question "Why don't you just MOVE?" emerges in her reflections. For one, she respects what nature has to dish out, and feels she needs to work with the forces around her. Two, the view of the river is so beautiful to her that she's willing to do what she must to live with such a gorgeous natural presence that fills her soul, even if at times it wreaks incredible damage on her livelihood. Many people wouldn't even have the option to move, so to see her succeeding in raising lots of food in a not-always-very-ideal environment is encouraging.

This 'old lady' has a lot of good knowledge to offer, and I feel her words on a personal level. There is so much focus on the negative aspects of growing old that it's no wonder everyone's so terrified of it. Joan Gussow is not terrified of age, but ecstatic about what the years have given her. I've adopted her as one of my role models, hoping I have the wonderful opportunity to also grow old, along with my gardens.

Dirty Dozen, Clean 15

This is a great article about the "Dirty Dozen", and it's very handy information when you have a strict budget for food (like me) but still want to make the healthiest choices possible. Since organic can be so much more expensive, it's nice to have this guide.

Dirty Dozen and Clean 15 of Produce

by Jackie Pou

A new report issued by the President’s Cancer Panel recommends eating produce without pesticides to reduce your risk of getting cancer and other diseases. And according to the Environmental Working Group (an organization of scientists, researchers and policymakers), certain types of organic produce can reduce the amount of toxins you consume on a daily basis by as much as 80 percent.

The group put together two lists, “The Dirty Dozen” and “The Clean 15,” to help consumers know when they should buy organic and when it is unnecessary. These lists were compiled using data from the United States Department of Agriculture on the amount of pesticide residue found in non-organic fruits and vegetables after they had been washed.

The fruits and vegetables on “The Dirty Dozen” list, when conventionally grown, tested positive for at least 47 different chemicals, with some testing positive for as many as 67. For produce on the “dirty” list, you should definitely go organic — unless you relish the idea of consuming a chemical cocktail. “The Dirty Dozen” list includes:

• celery
• peaches
• strawberries
• apples
• domestic blueberries
• nectarines
• sweet bell peppers
• spinach, kale and collard greens
• cherries
• potatoes
• imported grapes
• lettuce

All the produce on "The Clean 15” bore little to no traces of pesticides, and is safe to consume in non-organic form. This list includes:

• onions
• avocados
• sweet corn
• pineapples
• mango
• sweet peas
• asparagus
• kiwi fruit
• cabbage
• eggplant
• cantaloupe
• watermelon
• grapefruit
• sweet potatoes
• sweet onions

Why are some types of produce more prone to sucking up pesticides than others? Richard Wiles, senior vice president of policy for the Environmental Working Group says, “If you eat something like a pineapple or sweet corn, they have a protection defense because of the outer layer of skin. Not the same for strawberries and berries.”

The President’s Cancer Panel recommends washing conventionally grown produce to remove residues. Wiles adds, “You should do what you can do, but the idea you are going to wash pesticides off is a fantasy. But you should still wash it because you will reduce pesticide exposure.”

Remember, the lists of dirty and clean produce were compiled after the USDA washed the produce using high-power pressure water systems that many of us could only dream of having in our kitchens.

The full list contains 49 types of produce, rated on a scale of least to most pesticide residue. You can check out the full list from on the Environmental Working Group’s website atwww.foodnews.org.

Original Article here

Cucumber Pickles for Lunch

Well, the Little Hands garden has been in a bit of a slumber over the winter.

BUT, we have been dreaming BIG.

I've already scoured the seed catalogs and decided to go with Seed Savers Exchange. I love what they stand for, and I love what they are doing. I stuck to budget (25 dollars including shipping) and sent off my order today.

Over lunch on Friday, I sliced up cucumbers for the kids, and it led into a great discussion. We eat cucumbers quite often around here, but I never thought to make the connection between pickles and cucumbers. Pickles are another HUGE hit around here, but I don't know that I've ever served the two together in the same meal. I had a jar of sliced pickles in the fridge (naturally), so I popped them out and held a slice up.

"What is this?"

"A PICKLE!"

"What is it made up, though?"

"ummm...a pickle?"

I had them hold up a cucumber slice and then put a pickle slice next to it. Each kid immediately saw how similar the two looked. I explained that that sour, delicious pickle was, at one time, a slice of cucumber. The lightbulbs lighting up at that kitchen table could have provided energy for the rest of the day.

Simple concept, but they had never thought of it! I decided, while they were eating their lunches, to talk a little bit about our garden. I found that they missed checking on it every day. They were eager to give me ideas about this spring's garden. I grabbed a piece of paper and taped it to the window to collect their ideas. PICKLES. PIZZA. RAISINS. CARROTS. PUMPKINS. These are the ideas I knew I could expand on...I didn't write down ICE CREAM or CHOCOLATE MILK.

After each idea that I wrote down for them, I showed how we could make those dreams come true. Pickles? Sure, let's find room for cucumbers this spring. Pizza? I think we could draw up plans for a pizza patch and grow tomatoes, basil, oregano, and green peppers. Raisins? After discussing that raisins come from grapes and we don't really have the room for a grapevine right now, we let that idea go into the 'future dream pile". Carrots? SURE! Pumpkins? Well, yeah...we already know we can do that!

Here's Brady, enjoying a pickle cumumber 'sandwich'!

Tiniest Radish

Things have REALLY slowed down in the garden. We've been indoors most of the time, focusing on learning and playing. To keep the kids filled with fun summer garden memories, we often look at our garden book (filled with many of the pictures that are on this site, plus more). We still eat lots of veggies, but all of our harvest (and the harvest shared with us from friends and neighbors) are long gone. The last of Uncle Loren's green peppers and onions were used up a couple of weeks ago. So the veggies we eat are from the grocery store--organic when possible, though I admit not always.

What's Up With Sudden Inexpensive Organic?

Incidentally, I've noticed in just the past few weeks that the grocery store I usually frequent (Meijer) has been carrying a LOT more organic produce. Oddly enough, the prices are not that much higher than the conventional produce. This is defnitely a new development, and I'm realizing that the organic 'trend' is becoming much more mainstream in my area. Though I understand that "big organic" companies are not all they are cracked up to be at times (read my review of Michael Pollan's Omnivore's Dilemma for a brief explanation), I do think that having the option of organic is exciting. The fact that the pricetag is barely higher than conventional (at least at this particular store) makes me feel like organic will possibly soon be more in reach for everyone. However, I am a natural skeptic, and I do question the sudden availability. My eyebrows raised when I began to see bags of organic apples, at only a few cents more expensive than conventional apples. I have read that apples, in particular, are extremely difficult to grow organically. So my natural suspicious nature has me wondering: have the government's organic standards suddenly become more lax, and I missed it? Am I being duped here? I've learned to be very cautious of taking anything in our food system at face value. So I'll be seeking some solid answers to this development that seems *maybe* a bit too good to be true. In the meantime, I am buying up this organic produce and we are all enjoying it.

And now, finally getting to the title of this blog entry....you've got to see this radish. I'd given up on making a cold frame for this year, but our radishes and cabbages have hung on and lived. I thought I'd pull one up just to see if the plant was producing anything at all, and there it was! A long and thin, itty bitty radish. In January, with no weather protection at all. If the plants are this determined to make it with no help whatsoever, I am excited to think about what we will be able to produce once we come up with a cold frame or other weather protection! Oh and by the way...this tiny radish may not look like much, but it tasted phenomenal!

Tip-Tomato Paste

Just a quick tip!

I'm sure many people do this, so I'm not claiming the idea.

Several of my recipes ask for just a tablespoon or two of tomato paste. I used to open a can and leave the rest in the fridge, intending to use it at some point (and then it always went to waste).

Now I scoop the remainder of the paste out onto a plate using my cookie scoop . I put the plate in the freezer, and when the blobs of paste are hard enough, put them together in a baggie or freezer container. Each scoop is just about 2 tablespoons. So, when I only need a small quantity in another recipe, I just get a scoop out of the freezer!

Kitchen Tip-Tomato Paste

Just a quick tip!

I'm sure many people do this, so I'm not claiming the idea.

Several of my recipes ask for just a tablespoon or 2 or tomato paste. I used to open a can and leave the rest in the fridge, intending to use it at some point (and then it always went to waste).

Now I scoop the remainder of the paste out onto a plate using my cookie scooper. I put the plate in the freezer, and when the blobs of paste are hard enough, put them together in a baggie or freezer container. Each scoop is ABOUT a tablespoon, so when I need to use a T. or 2 in a recipe the next time, I just get them out of the freezer!

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