Best of Blogs: Best hobby blog finalist

Saturday, March 31, 2007

I'm not sure how this happened but somehow my blog ended up as a finalist in the Best Hobby Blog category for The Best of Blogs Award. I hadn't even realized I was nominated!

So thanks to those who nominated me. I am delighted to know you enjoy reading about my toils in the soil. Even if I never "win" anything for this blog, it means a lot to me to know people find something worthwhile here -- whether it's my trials and tribulations with veggies and herbs, my kitchen-tested recipes, or simply photos of things that delight the senses and spirit.

If you read this blog on a regular basis, or if you're new here and like what you see, head on over to The Best of Blogs and cast your vote for Calendula & Concrete!

You can vote as much as once a day until Friday, April 13 at midnight EDT. Spread the word.

Thanks for your vote!

Have herbs, will (not) travel

Thursday, March 29, 2007

This is the collection of herbs I started from seed in January. I have marjoram, Russian tarragon, Thai basil, summer savory, calendula and parsley.


What I meant to say was: I had all of these herbs, until I transplanted them to a new pot. I thought they would look smashing nestled all together in this brand new terra-cotta pot -- at least until I could move them to their final destination outdoors.

The marjoram and Thai basil settled into their new digs immediately -- clearly the adaptable ones -- but that wasn't the case for the rest. I lost about half the tarragon and calendula. And almost all the summer savory bit the dust within 24 hours. Lesson learned by novice gardener: Some herbs don't travel well. Sow them in a permanent location from the start.

Best of the Garden Blogs - Nominate today!

Wednesday, March 28, 2007

When it comes to the Bloggies, garden bloggers get no respect; there's no category for us. The Webbies don't show us any love either. So we have to thank Colleen of In the Garden Online for creating the Mouse & Trowel Awards -- the first awards show for garden blogs, gardening Web sites and podcasts.


Head over to Colleen's site and nominate your favorite online gardening destinations before April 15. There are categories for Best Design, Best Photography, and Garden Blog/Web site of the Year, among others.

Not sure how to find all the garden blogs out there? Check out Garden Voices, Cold Climate Gardening's Garden Blog Directory, or the Garden Blog Directory of Gardening Tips 'n' Ideas.

Global Worming Worm Tea

Tuesday, March 27, 2007

Kudos to our local NBC news station for featuring a story this evening about a local man who is brewing up something good for gardens -- worm tea! Chip Py of Silver Spring makes Global Worming Worm Tea by keeping about 36,000 red wiggler worms hard at work in several large bins where he tosses his food scraps. Worms eat. Worms poop. Then a blender-like machine is used to force distilled water through a giant tea bag full of the castings. The result is worm tea -- all the nutritious goodies and microorganisms of worm castings in liquid form.

Not worm tea, this is compost tea (husband's science experiment) from last summer.

While I've long known that worms and worm castings are great for the soil, it was interesting to learn that this worm tea can be used as an alternative to insecticides and fungicides. I might give it a try if I have another pesky invasion of whiteflies this year.

The Winning Dogwood

Thursday, March 22, 2007

I was ecstatic to learn last month that I was one of the winners of the first annual Washington Gardener photo contest. I won an Honorable Mention for this photo -- the buds on a dogwood tree at our community garden.


Now I know honorable mention is not quite the same as winning first, second, or third place, but if you'd have seen how happy I was, you'd have thought I'd won the grand prize! I have won contests before, but this was the first time I'd won recognition for my photography.

The photo is now published in the March/April edition of Washington Gardener magazine. A framed print will be on display in an art show opening tomorrow, March 23, at the Adams Bank Lobby in The World Building in downtown Silver Spring. All the winning photos from the contest will be on display there through May 25.

Organic soil amendments for best tomatoes?

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

While our tomatoes grew well last summer, I had heard that some gardeners in the D.C. area had a particularly tough time with theirs. In August, Adrian Higgins of The Washington Post wrote about the area's disappointing tomato season in Where's the Beefsteak? Our extreme and varied summer weather was noted as a possible cause of tomato plant failure. We had torrential rains in June, which likely washed away important nutrients like calcium. Then came very dry weather in July, followed by a heatwave in early August. Consistently high nighttime temperatures can cause tomato plants to drop their blossoms and fail to produce fruit.

While the weather is beyond our control, the article included tips on things one can do to try and keep tomato plants healthy: "Use deep, rich soil with sufficient calcium and organic matter. Apply mulch to keep down weeds and blight spores."

Thinking about preparing the ground for this year's tomatoes, I came across Baker Creek's Garden Forum, where someone posed the question: "What do you add to your soil with your tomato plants?" The answers ranged from compost and manure to eggshells, coffee, banana peels, Epsom salts, dead fish carcasses and matches. New to me was the idea of using banana peels (for potassium) and matches (for sulfur and phosphorus). And I haven't the slightest idea what Epsom salts do.

Michael and I usually mix bone meal into the soil when we transplant our tomato seedlings outside. Then we give the plants a periodic fertilizing with fish emulsion. This has worked well for us, but we're always open to suggestions on how to grow a better tomato.

I'm curious to know what others have tried, and to what effect? What's your favorite organic soil amendment for great tomatoes? What has worked best? And why?

Green Thumb Sunday

Sunday, March 18, 2007

Brandywine tomato seedlings... stretching toward the eventual two slices of bread and a thick slathering of mayonnaise. I'm dreaming of fresh tomato sandwiches.


Join

Gardeners and nature lovers share their photos on Green Thumb Sunday.
See who else is participating.

Parsley Shamrocks

Saturday, March 17, 2007

The parsley plants I seeded indoors a couple of weeks ago are getting their second set of leaves now. As if on queue for St. Patrick's Day, they look like miniature shamrocks.

Last year, I didn't have good fortune with my parsley growing endeavors. I sowed seeds directly into the garden -- on about five different occasions in various areas of the plot -- but nothing sprouted until about October. And then the tiny plants went into their dormancy for the winter.


In other years, parsley was very easy to grow from seed, so I'm not sure what made the difference from one year to the next. Perhaps I planted it when the summer temperatures were too hot? Or the soil too dry? In any case, my new parsley "shamrocks" are perfectly content under the grow lights for now. This could be a sign of good luck for the season to come.

Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day: My beautiful weeds

Thursday, March 15, 2007

Against the browns and grays of the as-yet-mostly-blank canvas of my garden plot lie a few dots of eye-catching color. This one in brilliant cornflower blue: Is it not the prelude to the bachelor buttons that will host the bumblebees' dance in May?

And this one? Are its delicate, orchid-pink blooms any less fair than that of Sweet William or Sea Pink?


Ah, but they are just weeds. Ordinary, early-spring weeds. Cursed by us always and rarely given a second look, for a weed by any other name would still be... a weed. That is, except for the moment I took to admire these specimens as beautiful flowers -- done so with the glazed over eyes of an eager gardener who's tired of winter drabness and hungry for spring's feast of color.

My beautiful weeds are my contribution to Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, a monthly event created by Carol at May Dreams Gardens. Weeds probably aren't what Carol had in mind for this, but honestly, that's all I've got blooming right now. Visit Carol's blog to find out what's blooming elsewhere!

The Tiniest Seed

Saturday, March 10, 2007

Seeds of Lobelia Crystal Palace (Lobelia erinus)

This is the fourth year I am starting my garden from seeds, and no seed fascinates me more than the tiny lobelia. Smaller than grains of sand and merely a fraction the size of a pinhead, I know no other seed so nearly invisible. I try to grasp a few in my hand and they sink into the moist recesses of my fingerprints, like tiny brown pebbles lodged in the crevasse of a valley -- practically lost from view.

As tiny as lobelia seeds are, it amazes me that they can grow into anything. What's inside of the Crystal Palace variety is no less than the making of a deep blue universe -- a cluster of starry flowers so vivid they almost pierce the eye. Something so pure. So real. So deep. Is any other flower so intensely blue?

Lobelia seed is nothing short of a miracle.

Lobelia in the shadow of towering Calendula seeds

"I have great faith in a seed...
Convince me that you have a seed there,
and I am prepared to expect wonders."
- Henry David Thoreau -

Tomato vs. Chocolate. No Competition

Thursday, March 08, 2007

We've been gradually working our way through the homemade tomato sauce we stored in the freezer (and so we fortuitously made room just in time to accommodate a new stash of Girl Scout cookies. 'Tis the season, and Thin Mints are my weakness.)

Tomato sauce made from our own tomatoes is delicious in its own right, but it's 10 times better when it's bathing a plateful of homemade ravioli. My wonderful husband made these beautiful gems from scratch. With pasta he stretched into a long strip, he lovingly placed dollops of mixed cheeses and ham, and stamped out these perfectly-square packets of extraordinary goodness. I am a lucky woman, I know.


Now if you're wondering if I helped make the ravioli, the answer is no, only because hubby wouldn't let me in the kitchen. It could have been because a.) he didn't want me getting in his way of the intense pasta-making process. But more likely it was b.) he was cooking up a surprise dessert. (As if homemade raviolis weren't enough, right?)

So I was sitting in the living room, trying to ignore the increasingly loud rumbles from my hungry stomach, when I started to smell... chocolate.

"DO NOT COME IN THE KITCHEN!" Michael called, accompanied by the steady hum of the pasta-stretching machine and the syncopated clanking of various cooking instruments.

What's he doing in there? Making a chocolate cake, too? I wondered.

Moments later, we sat down to enjoy a wonderful pasta feast. Each lovingly crafted ravioli was caressed with the red-ripe riches of last season's tomato crop. The savory sauce was dotted with various herbs, including a few needles of our now-gone rosemary. (Oh, the poor rosemary!) There were memories of gardening days gone by -- and a bit of sunshine -- in every bite.

Afterwards, I felt completely satiated, but not so much so that I wouldn't have room for chocolate cake. (I always have room for chocolate cake). So Michael returned to the kitchen (still not allowing me in) and once again stirred up the chorus of clanking spoons and pots.

Then came the grand finale.

Chocolate ravioli.

Piping hot, preciously puffed-up pockets of homemade pasta... filled with ricotta cheese and chocolate... covered with hot chocolate sauce kissed with a touch of fresh orange.


Tomato sauce? Did somebody say something about tomato sauce?

The tomato sauce was good, but Chocolate Anything will win my heart every time. And presented as an unexpected and lovingly-made surprise from my husband, this was chocolate in its best form.

Wordless Wednesday

Wednesday, March 07, 2007

C for Courgette, Z for Zucchini

Saturday, March 03, 2007

I have been called many things in my life, but this one was a first for me: A Vegetable Goddess.

At least that's what I am in the eyes of Freddie, a seven-year-old boy who is working his way through the A to Z of vegetables in The Great Big Vegetable Challenge. To earn such high esteem from Freddie, all I did was recommend a recipe to help him stomach the current vegetable on the C List -- courgette -- or zucchini, as some of us call it.

I really can't take the credit, though, because the recipe came from The Domestic Goddess Herself -- the one and only Martha Stewart. Her Zucchini Quesadillas are my new favorite way to cook zucchini.

So file this under C for Courgette, or Z for Zucchini, and when your garden produces enormous quantities of whatever you call it, you'll have a great way to use it. Freddie himself says, "10 out of 10!"

The Before Photo

Thursday, March 01, 2007

I always enjoy seeing the "before" and "after" photos that other gardeners post on their blogs. I want to do more of the same on my own blog this year, so today I am posting my garden's before photo. The way before. The before I start hoeing through chickweed. Before I plant the first pea seed. Before I plunge a shovel into the cool ground, christening the canvas of a new gardenscape.

This is the before.

February 24, 2007