At first the seedlings weren't much of an inconvenience. It was pleasant to wake up in the morning and integrate watering the plants with my routine of stoking the wood stove, feeding the dogs, nursing the baby and preparing breakfast for myself. But now that we have soooo many transplants (approx.200), I spend a lot of time on watering. Being under intense light to ensure they don't grow leggy and spindly dries them out. I water at least twice a day and then spray them with mist even more frequently. Well, here is our set up. It looks crazy, but it's working. You can see the lights are very close to the plants to increase the intensity. We turn off the circular light at night. We noticed some of the leaves were curling on the cucumbers and tomatoes, suggesting too much heat.

I've also posted the latest progress on the greenhouse/shed/cabin.

Last week I was interviewed by reporter Bobbi Barbarich from the West Kootenay Weekender newspaper. She is writing an article on practical 'how-to' gardening tips. She came across Urban Roots in stores in Nelson and asked me and the characters featured in Urban Roots on what people could be doing in the garden right now. I suggested starting seedlings indoors and setting up cold frames outside.  Bobbi shared an interesting website with me, which I would like to share with you. It's called You Grow Girl and it is a great resource for novice gardeners.  Gayla Trail outlines simple steps on gardening vegetables and flowers with an easy to follow, humorous style.

Well, the seedlings are really thriving now that they are happy and warm indoors. But we are totally out of space. Stefano will continue working on the greenhouse/shed outside so we can move more plants out of the house. We'll insure it's warmer than the cold frame so that we don't loose any more seedlings. They seem happy in an environment of 10 degrees celsius or higher.

A cold snap has hit Nelson, it was nearly snowing at our place today. Stefano has been putting the seedlings outside in the cold frame (a structure covered with plastic, similar to a green house but with no heat inputs) to harden them off. As a result, we have lost about 25 of our 200 plants. This is a big blow to our production. Even though he put a heater on under the table the plants sit on and a light bulb above to help maintain some warmth, it just got too cold. So we have all our plants inside, cozy and warm, but it's getting cramped. We have plants in the living room, plants on the chest freezer and plants on the kitchen floors. I hope it warms up soon so they can start moving outside again.

Some of our cucumber plants are displaying wilted leaves with white patches and spots. We are not sure what it is. It could be many things such as cucumber mosaic virus. But it is likely that they are getting too much water, and just don't like it.

I just listened to an interview on BBC with Professor James Lovelock, who developed the Gaia theory that the Earth functions as a giant, self-regulating organism. He gives his opinion of how climate change will change the planet. Listen on the link below. It will inspire you to garden, especially in elevated areas, as low-lying land could be flooded in the future. He believes it is possible that of the 8 billion people presently inhabiting earth, only 1 billion will survive extreme climate changes. The cause... starvation...

It's been busy over the past week.  I have hardly had time to think about blogging between taking care of my six month old daughter, flying to Vancouver and interviewing gardeners for Urban Roots.


Our cucumber seedling are growing fast. Their germination time was less than a week. Stefano transplanted them today. The problem is we are running out of space and it's too early to put them in the cold frame outside. Perhaps we'll have to set up more lights or start hardening them off by putting them outside in the sunlight for a few hours a day. If we were in Vancouver, this would not be a problem, it's mild. I believe Vancouver is three weeks ahead of the Kootenays for the growing season. 


This last week, I interviewed two Pauls.  The first Paul runs a business called Urban Acres in Nelson. The concept is based off of SPIN farming.  He considers himself a city farmer. The only difference between Paul's farm and a farm in the country is that his farm is scattered across many urban lots. 


I then interviews solar panel Paul. He has three solar collectors on his roof. The heat generated will by used to warm roof top raised garden beds, a green house, the hot water for the house and the cement floor in the basement. He's just installed the roof top garden bed frame, so I'll be tracking his progress over the course of the summer.  You'll have to watch the next episode of Urban Roots to find out more...


I'm now in Vancouver. I got some footage of the Maple Community Garden that runs along the old train  tracks in Kitsilano. I'd like to find out more about the Society Promoting Environmental Conservation that is involved with the gardens. I'll report more on that later...

Last week I was color copying the Urban Roots DVD cover art to make more DVDs. A stranger approached me in the copy store and handed me some papers and said "Here this will help." I had no idea what he was talking about. I looked more closely at the photocopies and read "North American Biodynamic Sowing and Planting Calendar 2010. It's a chart with zodiac symbols indicating the best times to sow root vegetables and do transplants etc. I still don't entirely understand it. It seems that your plants will grow the best if you time the sowing of seeds and transplants with the moon and stars.

For example, ideal northern transplanting time is: April 19  8am to April 30 6pm.

I have heard of this before. A wwoofer who studied permaculture shared her learnings about this with us. She suggested it was best to sow seeds like tomatoes and peas and beans on a full moon because the power of the moon will pull the energy up and make the plants grow faster and stronger. On the other hand, it is best to plant the root vegetables like carrots, beats and potatoes with the new moon, so the roots are not pulled up with the energy of moon but down to the earth.

I lived in a small rural village in Northern Italy last year, and the farmers all believed in the power of the moon. The men would cut their hair on the new moon for the same reasoning as the root vegetables. They wanted full thick hair so they encouraged the roots to go down rather than falling out! I visited an agri-tourism farm that had 40 pregnant goats. When were all the babies due? March 15, the night of the full moon of course. At the time I was also pregnant. They predicted my due date to be Sept.24, however, technology proved more accurate as the date was Sept.15 and surprise surprise, Emily was born on Sept.15. Only 4% of babies are born on their due dates. But I digress. Perhaps humans are more complex than goats and carrots, BUT, we did conceive Emily with a method called LUNACEPTION. This is where the woman sleeps for 14 nights in complete darkness and then sleeps for 3 nights with the light on and back to darkness again for the rest of her cycle. The light encourages the body to ovulate, so if you know you are fertile around the 14th day, you can time intercourse to achieve pregnancy or avoid it.

The parsley sprouted today! It has been 14 days since the seeds were sowed, right on schedule! The tomatoes are looking more healthy now that they are basking in fluorescent light 24/7. Some are sprouting their second set of leaves and the stems are getting fuzzy. It will be time to transplant them soon.

With that in mind, I picked up fertilizer ingredients from PNW yesterday. There are so many recipes for soil mix and fertilizer. I went with what David recommended at PNW, which is:

1 cup lime-oyster shell flour
10-15 L worm castings
1 K (max.) Gaia 444
compost medium

These ratios are per bale, and a bale is 3.8 c.ft

I'll have to start making the soil mix ASAP. I'm going to look into sterilizing garden soil to kill any weed seeds. I believe cooking it in the oven will do the trick. Time to put the turkey roaster to good use...

I bought another tray and moisture dome for peat pucks. Now I have four trays going. I am getting worried that there will not be enough plants ready to sell at the market in May. So I've ramped up the production and sowed more tomato seeds, eggplant and mini red bell peppers.

The other night I watched the documentary "Collapse." The film was a profile on Michael Ruppert, who is an intense conspiracy theorist. I can't say I disagree with his world view but I think there is a more optimistic and positive angle to peak oil and the poised to collapse economy. Anyway, he advocated that everyone learn basic gardening skills. If the economy does collapse, then you can rely on our own self-sufficiency. And if it doesn't happen, learning to garden will give you quality time outside, you'll learn more about the natural world and you'll eat the most delicious and nutritious food you've ever tasted!

The tomato sprouts are leggy, which means they have a very long stem and two little leaves at the top. This is due to lack of light. I am going to leave the fluorescent lights on over night. I may also raise the trays so the plants are closer to the lights. And tomorrow I am going to get all the ingredients to make a soil mix and fertilizer, which I listed in my previous post. It is suggested that the tomatoes be transplanted soon as they may get so tall they will not be able to stay vertical. So to remedy this, they need to be transplanted deep into the soil. By having the majority of the stem under the soil the plant will have more stability.

I pre-soaked some lettuce seeds and sowed them last night in a recycled sprouts container. To my surprise there was on little lettuce sprout standing tall this morning. The flourescent lights really help to accelerate the growing time. I turn the lights off at night and leave them on during the day for 12 to 16 hours.

I have to start thinking about transplanting the plants to new containers so I can continue the rotation of sowing new seeds. Also, there is a critical time for transplanting. The younger the plant the less stunned it will be from the move. If the root system is well established it can take the plant up to two weeks to accomadate the new home soil. From my readings, the best time is when the plant has grown a second set of leaves, or it's first true set of leaves. So, once this happens, I will transplant to coco pots or jiffy pots. I have found a recipe for a soil mix from the Square Foot Gardening book.
     1 part course vermiculite
     1 part screened peat moss
     1 part screened compost
     1 part good garden soil

Add two cups of organic fertilizer
    1 part bloodmeal
    2 parts bonemeal
    3 parts green sand
    4 parts composted leaf mold

I woke up this morning to find that the tomatoes have sprouted!

And now there is a roof on the greenhouse/cabin.

The Basil has sprouted! It's only been three days since sowing the seeds! I am always in awe of the miracle of life.

I just got back from Pacific Northwest Indoor Gardeners. Their customer service is unbeatable. Anyway, I've ramped up the production of starts. I came back with 1000 peat pucks and a couple more trays and moisture domes.

Stefano installed a "starts table" in front of our living room window. The table is made of two saw horses and three boards to make the top. Very simple and easy. Above the table florescent lights are hanging from adjustable chains.  This way the lights can be moved up as the starts grow taller.

Stef continues to make progress on the greenhouse/cabin.