Botanica's Organic Gardening

One book that I have used to help me in learning how to garden is Botanica's Organic Gardening. It has a little bit of key info about a ton of different plants along with photos and several chapters of introductory info. It has essentially the same format as my other gardening book but the information is slightly different.

Are Gardening Books Really Helpful?

I haven't found any of the three gardening books I've read to be especially helpful which is why I started this blog. It seems like true gardening knowledge and success can only be gained through experience so I thought that by documenting my experiences I would help others learn what not to do and help myself remember what goes wrong so that I can improve things in the future. Ultimately, I wonder how much gardening advice it is really possible to give since everyone's garden has its own microclimate and its own set of pros and cons. I think it may only be possible to give out general guidelines, which is what all books seem to do, and then let each gardener learn for herself from experience.

Growing Spearamint

Germinating spearamint, late March

I attempted to grow some spearamint from seed. The seeds are these teeny tiny round things that are so small that you can't help but accidentally plant about 20 of them.


Germinating spearamint, closeup


June 12

This plant is not exactly growing quickly. At this rate, I will never be able to use it for anything.

When I looked at plants at the farmers market today, I noticed that they looked much bushier than the plants I am growing. I realized that obviously more than one seedling had been allowed to grow in the same container. I thought that I was only supposed to keep one in each container, which is what I did with the basil, sage, etc. I'm not doing that with the mint and we'll see how things turn out. Mint seeds are so tiny that it's very difficult to plant just a few. It seems like there are 30 seedlings in here, but I don't think I planted that many seeds. Some of the seedlings are stronger than others.


June 19.



November 8.

At this point I think it's safe to say that this experiment has not been successful. The plants have grown, but at an extremely slow pace. They still are not full size or anywhere near it, and they aren't very green. Some of the leaves are very pale and have brown spots. The most likely culprit is a lack of sunlight. When I pick up a packet of herbs at the grocery store, I always wonder why I bother. It seems to much easier, and a much greater quantity than I can use costs only a dollar at the co-op.

Mold

Here's a mistake I made last spring that I will not make again. I had the brilliant idea of raising my plants up so they would get more sunlight. I put them on wooden TV trays. What I didn't realize is that the wood would grow tons of mold. I'm pretty sure this mold ended up infecting all of the plants that I put on top of these trays, which was most of my plants, and may be why my tomato plants all ultimately died of a disease I could not identify (the gardening books don't cover this one!).

Does a home garden really save money?

I think it's a common conception that growing your own food saves money. After all, you can get 30-50 seeds for $2-4 and grow 30-50 edible items from that. That's practically free food, right?

First, you need to factor in the cost of gardening supplies. For a small container garden like the one you see here, the costs are as follows:

garden spade	$4
fertilizer	6
organic insecticide	6
4 bags of dirt	32
3 bags of Perlite	24
9 large containers	0-90
20 small containers	0-10
12 packets of seeds	0-40
watering can	0-10

In my case, the total cost of my container garden so far has been $170, and it has produced lots of basil, about 30 peas, nine cherry tomatoes, and one zebra tomato. You don't have to be a math genius to realize that my container garden has been a money pit. However, a lot of the costs are start-up costs, and if my garden is more successful in the future, I might get closer to breaking even. There are many ways to reduce your container garden costs, however, and I wasn't aware of all of them when I started out. Here are some important money saving tips:

Fertilizer and insecticide: not essential. In fact, these haven't helped me at all. I wouldn't buy them again.
Dirt: wait for a good sale and buy a bunch. Shop around to see if a small local nursery or a large chain has the better prices.
Perlite: Same goes for Perlite, though I'm not sure it's necessary.
Containers: Especially if you live in an apartment complex, keep an eye on the alley. Where I live, people throw out flower pots and large plastic containers all the time (you'll need to drill drainage holes in the containers, but that's easy. If you don't have a drill, borrow one). Also ask friends for containers and hit thrift shops. If you can't scrounge up everything you need with these methods, most nurseries will sell you cheap black buckets. There's no need to spend $10 and up more per container unless you're really concerned with aesthetics. I can't believe how much these new containers cost!
Small containers: These shouldn't cost much, but they can be free if you save yogurt cups and use those. Don't forget to poke holes in the bottom for drainage.
Seeds: You can save money on seeds by saving seeds. This doesn't always give you useable seeds though, so you'll need to do some research if you want to go this route.
Watering can: This one is easy. Just save a plastic milk jug and use that. If you don't drink milk, buy something else that comes in a jug and when the liquid is gone, you'll have your free watering can.

Cherry and Heirloom Tomato Plants

This plant seems to have contracted a bacterial infection somehow. I never got any tomatoes from it.




I got about 7 cherry tomatoes from this plant. They were good, but not any better flavor-wise than farmers' market tomatoes. The satisfaction factor was short-lived since it took months to grow these things and a matter of seconds to eat each one. Kind of depressing.


This is the end of my zebra tomato plant. It managed to produce one full-sized tomato, but not a particularly good tomato, sadly. It was a bit mealy.



What you see is all I got.




Early on my plants were looking bad. See my post on mold to learn why.




This plant is particularly purplish. My gardening books would have me believe that this means it is lacking a nutrient, but my attempts at fertilizing my plants haven't been successful (though they were for my 3rd grade science fair project).




First signs of a tomato blossom




Here you can see the plants getting larger after transplant and starting to look like real tomato plants.








Cherry tomato

On May 3, I noticed that all of my tomato plants had developed brownish spots with a yellow ring and that the bottom leaves in particular were the most infected and starting to wilt and drop off. I hadn't looked at the plants since April 30, so the problem may have begun sooner.

I do not know what it is or what caused it. The symptoms seem to match the description of early blight in my gardening book.

Prior to developing these symptoms, I watered all of the tomato plants with a fish emulsion fertilzer diluted to 1TB:1/2 gallon of water. I wonder if the fertilizer upset my plants. The reason I added fertilizer is because the leaves were turning a very dark green and the stems and veins were a reddish purple. I thought the reddish purple indicated a need for fertilizer. My dad thinks that the leaves turning dark green was a good sign and that the reddish purple stems and veins were not necessarily a problem.

The heirloom tomatoes seem to be more affected than the cherry tomatoes. I may be trying to grow varieties that are not well-suited to southern California, or that are not disease resistant. Also, tomatoes like heat and sunlight, and have gotten little of either because of the extended rainy season followed by an early gloomy season.


Cherry tomato plant





Cherry tomato plant--this is my strongest, biggest, tallest, and least-affected tomato plant.


Cherry tomato plant