Wind, wind, go away!

Spring here in Las Vegas is a fairly interesting event. It's actually a series of weird weather events that get your hopes up, dash them down, revive them, tease you and then it just goes away and disappears into the summer heat.

Don't get me wrong, I like the Spring and the Fall here. They account for nearly 9 months of the year. Summer is two months of stupid-hot weather with microscopic humidity levels that would shrivel a mummy two sizes smaller and Winter is really about a month of coolish weather interspersed with some freeze-drying wind. But it only lasts a month. I can deal with that. Since Spring and Fall take up so much of our weather-year, we are forced to pay attention to them. And it's not too hard either.

The only thing I dislike about the Spring is the wind. We have serious wind that can last for days and days. I used to ride a bike back and forth to school and I think that's where and when I developed my dislike for wind. It gets bad enough here that no matter how many low gears your bicycle has, you can't go low enough to have enough power to ride into the wind. You actually have to get off the bike and push it. When you don't have to ride directly into the wind, you can develop a sail technique that allows you to move diagonally and use the wind to push you forward. It's kind of like sailing a boat with your body as the sail and the tires on the ground as the keel and the rudder. When the wind is at your back, you can make good time, but it rarely cooperates and goes where you want it to go. You end up pushing into the wind and then pushing your bike.

My plants don't like the wind too much, either. If you water your plants from above, the wind can sap the water right out of the leaf and stem. Then it dries up the ground and blows it away. You could go outside in the morning after a night time wind storm and find your garden in the neighbor's yard or crunched up against the corner of the block wall. It's true! I've had to go get my garden and bring it back.

This past week I transplanted a bunch of tomatoes and peppers into their sub-irrigated planters and had them in a sunny place. I checked the water each day before I left for work and the were fine. The tops of the soil were moist and soft, the plants were smiling and strong. However, I came home from work two days ago and found that the wind had come in for the day. I knew it had because of the mountain of litter and debris that was up against all of the chain link fences in the neighborhood. I also know it because one of my tomatoes had been snapped in two and had been crushed flat.

At first I thought it had been stepped on, but the soil showed no imprint. I did notice some back and forth markings that just fit the arc that the plant would make and I knew it was the wind. This poor tomato plant that hadn't done anything wrong was savagely beaten by the murderous wind. (I only feel so melodramatic when I have grown the plant from seed and have nurtured it for several weeks until it was big enough to transplant. Or when the fruit gets damaged. Or when it's the only one of that variety in the garden. Well, pretty much I get that melodramatic for everything.)

So, I held a funeral and buried the now dead plant in a fitting manner (compost machine) and stuck another seedling in its place. OK, I'm all better now. What was I talking about? Oh, yeah, the wind.

The wind here is tough on gardens. It's another reason to mulch thickly and build sub-irrigated planters and wicking beds. Water is expensive here and there is no discount for wind theft. (I have actually seen completely calm, windless days suddenly receive gale-force winds just as the sprinklers come on and then subside immediately as soon as they go off. Not kidding, I've seen it. I think it's a conspiracy between the water authority and the wind. Somehow they are in cahoots. I can't prove it, I'm just sayin'....

Starting the SIP's for the tomatoes.

I started to transplant my tomato and pepper seedlings into their homemade sub-irrigated containers this weekend. I was able to make and fill 7 of the units with the amount of potting soil/compost blend that I had on hand. I only used containers in the bottom of the 5-gallon buckets for the water reservoirs. I’ve decided that a one-gallon jug from a particular juice company is the best for my needs. When I cut off the cap and the threaded neck, it fits perfectly into the bottom of the bucket. About 50 quarter-inch holes and an inch-and-a-quarter hole for the fill pipe and I was done. A quick drain/overflow hole in the side at the level I want the water to stay and then fill the bucket with the potting mix. I did add some garden lime to the mix and sprinkled some organic vegetable/tomato fertilizer on the top in a ribbon to feed the plant throughout the season.

I now need to make the covers so that evaporation isn’t a problem. I looked at the store and the home center for a suitable plastic trash bag but was unable to find one that would work without being too large for my needs. I’m toying with the idea of using a disk of corrugated sign board from some political signs that I have repurposed. They are lightweight, white for reflectivity and free. If it’s free, it’s for me. I’m going to experiment tonight and see how they work out. If I use them, I may have to anchor them down with some homemade garden staples (also free) because we do have wind here in Las Vegas.

It will look interesting to see all the different types and colors of buckets. Most of them are white-ish. Some are gray, some are blue. Most at 5-gallon, some are 4-gallon. I only have round ones right now, I’ve seen square ones, too, but I don’t have any of those buckets, yet. I have about 24 more seedlings ready for transplant but my big problem is the planting mix. I have a compost machine in the backyard and it is doing its thing, but I could use a huge supply of horse manure to go with the straw that I have and really get some compost produced fairly quickly. But because I need about 150 gallons of planting mix, I’m afraid I’m going to have to buy (gasp!) it from the neighborhood garden shop. Now, all I need is a neighborhood garden shop…

I got to work this Monday morning and found that my nasturtiums had all sprouted and grown quite well over the weekend. I only planted them this past Friday in their seedling cups. I’m very impressed. As I mentioned before, I haven’t done much with flowers before so I don’t really know what to expect. This is all very exciting. The idea of new growth is energizing to me. My office cilantro plant is ridiculously large. I’m going to have to eat a bunch of it in my next salad. That’s fine with me, I like cilantro.

My office radishes are weird. Because of the crappy light I have in here, they always get long and leggy. I attached some aluminum foil as a reflector to increase the available light from the west-facing window and that has helped, but they still are weirdly long. I’m wondering if they will bulb out. If they do, I might have some 4” long radishes that were of the round type like a Cherry Belle. It will be interesting to see what they do. I’m also looking at bringing in a floor lamp into which I can place a full-spectrum bulb. I’m sure that would help.

I’m also looking at a 12” x 12” LED light that mixes the red and blue LED’s. I’ve seen them for around $30 so I might save my pennies and buy one. I’ll be the most high-tech thing I’ve ever used in growing anything. This comes from the guy that has a hard time paying for seeds.

Speaking of seed, I guess I have my kids trained right. A couple of my daughters went shopping last Saturday and when they came home they handed me 6 or 8 packets of vegetable seeds. (You can never have too many seeds.) They told me that when they were at the store, they passed a rack of seeds on display and decided that they needed to get me some more. Score! Kids are so smart these days.

I’ll be cutting lettuce greens in the next few days and pulling green onions for salads, too. This past weekend I transplanted a few dozen beets and I am looking forward to both the beetroot and the beet greens. My chard is coming along nicely, both the red and the white stem. My spinach is doing nicely, couple weeks for the first cutting. Since I’ve never grown cabbages before, the fact that they have come up and are doing fine so far is quite a new and exciting thing. I’m not sure why I’m growing them, I guess I succumbed to some of the hype in the garden catalogs this year. Oh, well. I do like coleslaw.

You gotta love onions, I mean really love them

to plant 400 sets. I love onions.

Ummm, cilantro. Makes great salsas and salads.

My cabbages are poking through the straw mulch.

Desktop Farming

It's the 11th of March now and I'm just getting around to starting my flower seeds. I know it's a bit late in the season to do that with most plants, but the flower thing is new to me. I usually only plant and try to grow edible foods. Something as superfluous as a flower just seems a bit wasteful of space. But this year I have gotten over myself a bit and am planting flowers.

It's not that I have anything against the flowers themselves. I don't.  I really like flowers. I like the color and variety they bring into the garden, the yard and the neighborhood when they are in bloom. Actually, my favorite time of the year is when the fruit trees are in full blossom. I love watching the bees and the butterflies doing their thing. (What a life to lead. Your job is to climb in and out of flowers all day. I'm up for it.) I love the giant sunflowers and the bright yellow petals they have. I don't feel like I'm really gardening unless I have some sunflowers. (Yes, I grow them for the seeds, but still...they're flowers, right?)

I was reading some blogs online and came across the idea of edible flowers (Oh, dear.  Maybe I haven't gotten over my preconceived notions as much as I thought.) and wondered what that was like. I think I move in different circles than folks who eat flowers. I've never been served on in a salad in a restaurant. I've never been asked if I would care for some viola on my pork chops, either. Then I remembered that broccoli is a flower and so is cauliflower. So I looked up some of the more popular edible flowers and got some seeds.

My flower starter is the typical arrangement of trimmed shipping box from FedEx, cut-down drinking cups and potting soil. A FedEx large box will conveniently hold 36 cups. That ought to be enough to start with. So I've filled the cups with the potting mix and hydrated it. (It gets so dry here in the desert, even indoors.) I planted two seeds in each cup. I don't think I'll ever get over the idea that thinning plants is wasting seeds, but I'm trying.

So now I'm a flower farmer, too. I've got bachelor buttons, both blue and mixed varieties, shasta daisies, viola's yellow and blue mixed varieties and cosmos and nasturtiums. I know you can't eat all of them, some you just have to endure looking at.  But you know, when I sit down to a wonderful lunch salad decorated with blue and yellow flower petals and red and pink nasturtiums, I'll just put up with decorating my table with a daisy or two. I've eaten lots worse in less decorative circumstances.