Extending the Season

A few weeks ago my friend Sally and I held a cold frame workshop at The Woodlands Community Garden. Sally is a community gardening guru, the person who runs the Garden Tenders program at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society that I love so much.



A cold frame is like a mini greenhouse that you can use to cover a small part of your garden or place in the grass to start seedlings in. It warms the air and soil underneath it so you can grow crops even in the snow! Of course, you are limited by the height of the cold frame.



I'm using mine to cover the carrot seedlings I have in my plot with the hopes that I can warm the soil enough to get them to a decent harvest-able size before too long. We used aluminum and glass windows that we picked up for free in the trash, and some recycled plastic wood for the sides. The window simply sits on the top of the frame in our design, but you can attach it with a hinge for a fancier version.



Happy gardening!

ACGA conference: Dale Chihuly and James Turrell

The Franklin Park Conservatory has a very large collection of Dale Chihuly art in their glasshouse. In 2003/2004 they hosted a huge exhibition of his art which the Friends of the Franklin Park Conservatory then bought for approximately $7 million to be on permanent display in the greenhouse.





These huge glass sculptures are hung in the hallways, from the ceiling, and placed amongst the plants in the conservatory. They also have a huge interpretation center with information about Chihuly, videos showing his art-making process, and a gallery space for more art.





In addition, they currently have a light installation in the palm house that was done by James Turrell. He took LED lights and lined the windows of the palm house with color. They turn on at dusk and off at dawn, slowly changing color from blue to magenta to green to white during the night.



During the conference we had access to the conservatory whenever it was open. One night, while everyone was in a conference room watching a movie, I decided to roam around the conservatory. Apparently no one else had this idea because I had the glasshouses completely to myself. I wandered the rooms for two hours through the oxygen-filled humidity, quietly listening to the waterfalls and the fans turning on and off. I also sat in the palm house watching Turrell's light installation change colors from the inside, so slowly I hardly noticed. Magic.

into a truly
curving form
enters my
soul

feels all small
facts dissolved
by the lewd guess
of fabulous immensity

the sky screamed
the sun died)
the ship lifts
on seas of iron

breathing height eating
steepness the
ship climbs
murmuring silver mountains

which
disappear(and
only
was night

and through only this night a
mightily form moves
whose passenger and whose
pilot my spirit is

-e.e. cummings, 1935, No Thanks 36

Mini greenhouse!

I made these little mini greenhouses to start my seeds and I'm seeing some activity in there!



They're basically just plastic sushi containers with a cardboard egg crate inside. I used some fabulous potting soil from a local company called Organic Mechanics; I met the owner when I was volunteering at the Philadelphia Flower Show (he gave a talk on vermicomposting). I covered the top with a thin layer of fine vermiculite, watered and placed on the radiator, which is hopefully around 70 degrees so the little guys will germinate.



I planted Yellow Perfection Slicing Tomato from Seeds of Change and Miniature Red Bell Pepper, Bush Pickler Cucumber, and Sweet 100 Cherry Tomato from the wonderful local D. Landreth Seed Company (I had the novel experience of actually talking to some from D. Landreth on the phone, and I got my seeds three days later. Bonus!).



For another example of egg crate seed starting, check out Phil's blog Phigblog. Phil manages the Philadelphia Orchard Project and coordinates the St. Bernard Community Garden where our current plot is.

Something's Peeking

My first crop! I got these silly little grow-your-own-chives kits as an impulse buy at the counter of the CVS for 50 cents each. Each one comes with a small terracotta pot, a peat pellet, and a packet of chives seeds. Peat begins to dry out almost immediately after you water it so I secluded the whole thing in this makeshift tupperware greenhouse.



I put it on the windowsill by the kitchen sink, next to my coffee plant. Do you like the view we have of the alley and apartment building behind us? It makes me think of these lines from the e. e. cummings poem I posted a little while back:

dead's fine like hands do you see that water flowerpots in windows but/ they live higher in their house than you so that's all you see but you/ don't want to



Lo and behold! Something green this way comes. I have since learned that chives are very difficult to start from seed, which might be why the seedlings (after almost a month and a half now) are weak little things that are still too small to harvest.



But they will have to do for now. I will get my seed order in soon and then I will spend hours dreaming up my garden design for the fast-approaching spring. I've come to the realization that I don't have enough sun exposure to grow food in my "front yard," boo. But the community garden project is a GO!!! (More on that later). So hopefully I will be growing food in my own little plot in the neighborhood soon, ack!

So Long May!

fair ladies tall lovers
riding are through the
(with wonder into colours
all into singing)may

wonder a with deep
(A so wonder pure)
even than the green
the new the earth more



moving(all gay
fair brave tall young
come they)through the may
in fragrance and song



wonderingly come
(brighter than prayers)
riding through a Dream
like fire called flowers



over green the new
earth a day of may
under more a blue
than blue can be sky



always(through fragrance
and singing)come lovers
with slender their ladies
(Each youngest)in sunlight

- e. e. cummings

Midnight at the Oasis

"Cuttings"

Sticks-in-a-drowse droop over sugary loam,
Their intricate stem-fur dries;
But still the delicate slips keep coaxing up water;
The small cells bulge;

One nub of growth
Nudges a sand crumb loose,
Pokes through a musty sheath
It's pale tendrilous horn

-Theodore Roethke