Moldy beginnings

It's seed-starting time! You know what that means, boys and girls? There's bound to be some sort of delightful surprise waiting to greet me.

The story begins when I decided to use 3 25-cell seed starting kits from Burpee. They are little plantable pots made from bamboo that are filled with coir (shredded coconut hulls). According to the instructions, you expand the coir with warm water, plant your seeds, cover with the "germination sheet", and the little puppies will grow into happy food for my belly.

I decided to plant five cells of each seed just in case anyone wasn't feeling like growing for me - and in an ideal situation that would give me 15 different varieties of vegetables and herbs ready for the garden in a few weeks. Broccoli, 5 types of large and small tomatoes, sweet peppers, spicy peppers, lemon balm, basil, sage, and peppermint all went in.

Every little hole I made (with a pen tip) and every little seed I tapped in place made me feel a  tingle of joy. Food! I'm growing it!!! 

They got covered in their germination sheet and placed in the spare bedroom to be kept warm and away from our freaky is-it-spring-is-it-winter weather for a few more weeks.

Germinating happily (or so I thought)

A week later, I have two things to report:

1. I have broccoli sprouting through the surface! I feel like a proud momma...little green sprouts popping up to say "hello".

2. The Burpee pots are all covered in a fine mold. Oh yes...I'm growing things alright.

Here's the broccoli:

Here's the mold:

Naturally concerned, I did some online searches and the consensus seems to be a lack of air circulation since they're locked in a room with zero air flow. 

Recommendations include:

• Allowing the pots to dry out every few days (they've remained damp from that first watering for over a week...so I can see how my little science experiment began)
• Increasing air circulation (window is open even though it's snowing and the ceiling fan is turned on high)
• Drying out the mold using a hair dryer on the coolest setting (feeling a little ridiculous, I hair dried my seed kits for about 15 minutes. Is that enough? Too much? Who knows?)
• Keep them warm from the bottom (two of the three are now sharing a heating pad while sitting in the open window)

My goal is to eliminate as much of the mold as possible while maintaining optimal growing conditions to see if I can get any of the other seeds to poke their little heads up through the dirt.

When I saw the broccoli, I felt an immense sense of pride. Now I'm worried, but still hopeful. 

I'm tempted to talk to the seeds and encourage their little journey upward. Go towards the light, Cherokee Tomato, go into the light!!!

Hens - We have them

We've been on the fence about getting chickens, so I decided we should go meet a few to see what we thought.

I knew I didn't want babies for a number of reasons which narrowed the field tremendously. I came across a few local farmers on craigslist and connected with a nice couple in Leesburg that had a few 8-month-old hens for sale.

Why not visit and just see what they're like? We can decide if we want them after we leave, right?

Three minutes after stepping into the chicken coop, I have a hen in my arms and I'm saying, "We'll take them." As soon as Jae and I were in the car, he turned to me and said, "I thought we were going to think about it, first."

So did I, but their soft feathers and total trust when they were in my arms just won me over. Could you resist THIS?

Exactly.

The problem is that our coop fell through and we're leaving in a few weeks to travel. 

Thankfully, the Bennett's offered to house the two hens (Buff Orphintons) until we get back from our trip. Which gives us a few more weeks to figure out where we'll house them and what the hell we need to get to keep them safe and happy.

On a side note, the Bennett's had a bunch of other animals including a one-day-old lamb! Isn't he cute?!?!?! Momma sheep wasn't too sure about us invading their stall, but baby was super sweet and loved all the attention.

As we left, the Bennett's gave us eggs that our two girls had laid just that morning. 

Our first eggs!!!

IN MY BELLY!

I've downloaded some plans to build our own chicken coop. It will be a lot cheaper, but I'm not sure our relationship can survive the cooperation that will be required. HA!

So, ready or not, I'm a chicken momma now.

DIY Grow Light Stand - my 1st DIY project!

Well, I've done it. I've survived my first DIY project and even though it involved a saw, I still have all of my digits. (My work pants are a little worse for wear with a small hole, but there was no blood so it's a success!)

Because I'm starting all of my edibles from seed and need to sow them indoors, I needed a growing light to encourage the little buggers skyward.

Most of the light stands I found online ran $60-$200 and the $60 stands only have one small light (which is good for growing 12 little pods, but I'll have hundreds).

A little research and I came across this guy's DIY blog: http://www.vegetablegardener.com/item/10376/diy-pvc-grow-light-stand

With my shopping list in hand, I hit Lowe's and a very friendly employee walked me through the store to pick up a bunch of PVC connectors, PVC pipes, light timer, florescent grow lights, and some bolts. Getting a 10-foot long PVC pipe into my Honda hybrid meant going down the highway with about 5 feet of pipe sticking out of the back window, but nothing flew out of the window.

Here is the before:

About an hour later, I finished! 

I would not recommend sawing PVC without a clamp. I was holding it with my hand on the staircase and it wobbled all over the place. This is why my cuts look like California fault lines, but once I jammed them into the connectors, who will know?

The lights are attached with temporary ties, so I still need to get some more permanent method for hanging them, but it works!!!!

Ta da!!!!! (Cat not included)

The lights will be adjustable, so fast growing plants will go under one and slower growers get closer light for longer under the other. I just need to hook the lights into the timer and they will magically treat my soon-to-be seedlings to 12-15 hours of light without me having to remember.

Instead of paying $85ish bucks plus shipping, I whipped this sad little puppy out for:

2 grow lights = $30

PVC pipe = $6

Connectors = $7

_________________

Grand total: $43 + a wicked sense of accomplishment

Chicken Coop Drama

Well, I was all excited about chickens. I did tremendous amounts of research, connected with a few local folks that have backyard/urban chickens, and bought a chicken coop.

Then, I was panicked. What the HELL am I going to do with CHICKENS? In my yard? In suburbia? Who's going to watch them when we're on vacation? I don't think we have racoons in the area, but what if we do and they try to kill my flock?

I called to cancel my chicken coop order, but they informed me it was already on the freight truck and it was too late.

This must be a sign from the universe that I'm meant to have a few clucking little hens wandering the yard. I'm leaning towards naming them Thelma and Louise. If I'm going to have hens,  I might as well make them badass, men-hating crazy gals, right?

Anyway - here's the coop I ordered:

The reviews all said good things like: easy to assemble, spacious, sturdy in high wind, easy to move. I plan on making a few modifications to add a reflective roof that will help deflect heat in the summer and increasing security so potential intruders can't get in (racoons, stray cats, etc).

Let's use this image as our baseline. Once I get the coop and assemble it, we'll have a little comparison to see if I am capable of following directions.

I ask myself this question at least once a day: What the hell am I doing?

Before pictures!

Before I actually get started with any landscaping, planting, digging, or growing, I wanted to capture my property in its dead-of-winter before stage. The next few months will be my first time digging in the dirt and making use of this excellent space.

In the front, I have a bed that has a few daffodils poking through and a boatload of weeds and stumps.

On the north side of the house (which gets almost zero sun), I plan on turning these raw pallets into a two-bin compost pile. I'll be painting the outside of the pallets to make them a little more visually pleasing since these will bump up against our neighbor's driveway.

Front side yard on the south side of the house. This area gets full sun all day, so I hope to have a few big beds here to soak up the bright warmth.

The backyard slopes downhill slightly. South is to the right of the photo. There are some large trees on the southside of the property, so some areas of the yard do not get full sun all day. I will have to carefully track the sun to figure out where to place the raised beds for optimal growing.

Backyard on the southside. There is some potential for a few beds here as the trees shouldn't block much of the light until the sun crests the house late in the afternoon.

Our neglected deck. The wood is in terrible condition. I'm not sure how to fix this. But, I hope to have the space lined with flourishing pots and planters by summer.

This is what pots at my house always look like. Full of weeds and stuck in a shady corner. NO LONGER! Soon, these will be teaming with life and soaking up the sun (said with my most optimistic voice).

And there you have it. A lot of potential, but a lot of work also. I'm intimidated about how to start and keep it cheap, but I am very excited by the possibilities.

New beginnings for a non-gardener

I'm terrified of spiders. I hate to sweat. Bugs bother me, too. I enjoy my pretty, well-cared for finger nails. I have a bad back. I've killed almost everything I've ever attempted to grow. And, I'm horribly allergic to mosquitoes.

Add all of that up and what do you have? A crazy woman who is stupidly attempting to homestead.

Here in Northern Virginia, I have about a 1/4 acre lot (just a tad over) with a very modest home. I've got decent sun on part of the property and until now, I've done everything in my power to avoid being out in the yard.

So, why the change?

Frustrated with the lack of organic produce at my local farmers market, tired of paying premium rates for organic produce in the super market that's being shipped from halfway around the world, and a chance encounter with a magazine called Urban Farm led me to pull on my big-girl panties and give this a try.

Being more excited about shopping for products than executing the actual garden, my first step was to decide on seeds.

Everything I've read about organic gardening stresses the importance of companion planting, diversity, and crop variation. I am also a big opponent of Monsanto (read more here), so I opted for heirloom seeds wherever possible.

At this point, I now have seeds for the following:

Arugula, Basil, Green Tint Squash, Sweet Pepper, Cherokee Purple Tomato, Striped Beets, Broccoli, Purple Snap Beans, Bunching Onions, English Peas, Musk Melon, Jalapeno Pepper, Magenta Lettuce, Wild Cherry Tomato, Peppermint, Rainbow Swiss Chard, Sage, Yellow Squash, Pear Tomato, Bush Bean, Lemon Balm, Icicle Radish, Onion, Shallot, Cayenne Chile, Cucumber

Also, I've picked up a handful of flower seeds that are supposed to help with organic pest control.

 

The first half of my seeds. The second half are in transit from Southern Exposure Seed Exchange in Virginia.

I want to start germinating my seeds now since it's only about 7 weeks to the last frost, but we will be traveling to Japan for a week during this period and I'm worried about the seeds drying out (and dying). I'll have to consider what to do about this.

Germinating seeds will happen in these peat pot trays with coir (coconut fiber) filling:

This blog will follow my adventures as I attempt to homestead; a place to share my successes and failures.

My yard has horrible soil, but it's pretty bare so before pictures are coming up next.

Additional plans include worm composting, full composting, organic growing, landscaping, building, raising chickens, installing rain barrels for water collection, and getting down and dirty with Mother Earth.

For every bug, there will be screaming. For every green shoot and edible that pokes through the earth, there will be tears of joy.

I am a most unlikely gardener. This is my adventure.