Our Kitchen finally resembles a kitchen once again, although the dining room now resembles a green house with a big rack against the sliding door and fluorescent lights hanging from the top of the rack. I transplanted off and on last week. Gardening is such a leap of faith, some of the seedlings I started two weeks ago germinated quickly and became leggy, so last Tuesday night I began transplanting them into larger peat pots and again on Friday night. Many of the seeds simply did not germinate at all, so I am not sure what happened. But I had an extra packet of Roma VF tomato seeds as well as some extra pepper and egg plant seeds so I started more seedling-try try again! So at this point I have transplanted 60 very new and fragile tomatoes, peppers, tomatillos, and a couple egg plants. Technically they are not suppose to be transplanted until they acquire a second set of leaves, so I had to gamble between letting them grow like Jack and the Beanstalk or transplanting them deeply. I decided to transplant. The Tuesday night transplants are a bit leggy but seem to be doing well-I will transplant again when they have developed a few sets of leaves. The most recently transplanted seedlings are buried deeply, so they should have some time to go before they have to be uprooted once again. I think that I keep the people who make peat pellets and pots in business as well as potting soil. During the late winter, spring and early summer I must buy at least a couple hundred pounds of this stuff. I would really like to make my own potting soil this is done by mixing compost and garden soil and then baking it for some time. I have not tried this as it is suppose to STINK and there are limits to what I will do and to how much the CBEN* will tolerate so no organic potting soil for our seedlings. But they are resting comfortably in their new quarters and appear to be growing quite well.
*CBEN-Chief Beneficial Nematode-the other partner in this grand gardening activity (My husband) He chose the name-not me. . If you are so inclined, you can wikipedia Beneficial Nematode. He tends to do much of the heavy work and has been known to grow beautiful peas, lettuce, spinach, cilantro, and basil. He is a very precise and careful gardener. His seeds are always planted very straight and along a string-unlike mine. In past years, he has been spotted at midnight, chasing bunnies out of the garden with a baseball bat! They threw the bat back to him!
As part of my job, I spend my time driving in the Dedham area and on the Endicott Estate are community gardens and a lovely old greenhouse. They sell plants in the spring and mums in the fall. Anyway, I stopped by last spring to pick up a couple plants and watched for a few minutes as they were as they were transplanting seedlings. They have this thingamajig where the potting soil comes down a chute and onto a large table so it can be scooped out from the table or chute-I thought it was pretty cool and mentioned it to the CBEN. We started talking about all of the local greenhouses that use to be within a couple miles of our house-Russo’s-Randolph-where the mega cinemaplex now stands, Meglarini’s-Holbrook and another huge greenhouse that is being disassembled in Holbrook. It is kind of sad, and I have to wonder if people are aware of what we have lost- not only the greenhouses and plants but mostly the knowledge that went along with them. . I have been going up to CN Smith’s in East Bridgewater for years and I vividly remember the second year when I had just put my plants in and within a couple days they were gone- I mean completely gone. I went up to Smiths to get more plants and was talking to one of the owners and I remember him explaining the differences between how mice/voles and rabbits destroy plants-there were other occasions when I had questions and he was always willing to share his knowledge and dispense advice. But as I write this, I realize that those people and places still exist-just not in great numbers. and they tend to be out a little further south- towards Bridgewater, Hanson, and Halifax. So it takes a bit more effort, but definitely worth the trip down Routes 18, 104, or 106. A couple of years ago, I was looking for local peaches to can and happened to find an orchard in Bridgewater. I had to make a couple phone calls and trips to pick them when they were exactly ripe-I quickly found out that a day or two can make a HUGE difference! But I was able to pick enough to can a few jars so it was worth the effort but more importantly I got to know the couple who lived in the house with the peach, apple, and blueberry orchards and bee hives. He was a former plumber who started the farm after retiring. On one trip, I mentioned that I was having difficulty getting the blueberries on my property to produce. He dragged out several notebooks on growing blueberries and as I sat in his driveway and read everything there was to know about growing blueberries and listened as he made suggestions. I dropped by the following summer but his son told me know that he had passed away that spring. I have met so many people who are willing to share their experiences and at times their plants. I have to wonder what these connections are all about- it’s much more than just gardening/farming and growing and then selling plants and food. It’s about loving the feel of dirt squeezed in one’s hands, and watching tomatoes as they begin to blossom and then develop into tiny green tomatoes and then burying one’s nose in a tomato plant and smelling the deep musky aroma. It’s also about watching a bumble bee fly from flower to flower and listening to crickets on a warm summer night, and watching a garden snake as it slithers away. It’s about washing sweat and dirt and off of our faces, hands, and feet at the end of a day spent working in the garden. Those connections are deep, very deep and I think that they bind us together as human beings, plants, insects, and animals and yes, even bunnies and deer!
Happy Gardening! MG
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