Seeds started!

My order from The Natural Gardening Company arrived on Saturday. One week turnaround on a holiday week is pretty good! The only issue I had with them is that I got no confirmation of my order. They did send a tracking number when the order was shipped, but up to that point I was wondering if it had gone through or not.

Anyhow, since I had seeds and a 72-cell seed-starting tray, I drove over to Home Depot to pick up a few more seed-starting essentials. I got a small bag of Miracle-Gro Organic Choice potting soil. This wouldn't be my preferred choice of organic seed starting medium, but it's the best I could do on a Sunday in February. I may order some soil from an organic supplier when it comes time to transplant, but the shipping charges are killer on those big bags.

I also picked up a 4-ft. shop light and two fluorescent bulbs to put the seedlings under once they sprout. I would have preferred a 2-ft. light, since I'm somewhat space limited, but they didn't have one that was both small and able to be moved around. In any case, the fixture I ended up with only cost about $8. After standing in front of the bulb selection for a good 15 minutes, I chose one Phillips "Daylight" bulb and one Ott-Lite plant tube (which was about twice as expensive, hence why I only bought one of them). The Ott-Lite didn't have a lumen number on the box, so I'm not sure about the strength, but I've heard good things about the brand, so I'm hopeful. I was planning on getting a timer for the light, but either Home Depot was completely out of simple timers (they had some fancy digital things and lots of outdoor timers) or I wasn't looking in the right place.

One thing I was a little miffed about was that the outdoor garden area was closed. That is, of course, where they keep most of the gardening supplies, including the larger planters that I wanted to check out. So, I still don't know what I'll be putting the seedlings in when they're ready to go outside.

When I got home, I planted the eggplant seeds and some of the lettuce seeds over nine cells each in the seed tray. Then, I covered the tray with the plastic humidity lid and set it on top of the refrigerator. I'm hoping that the heat from the refrigerator plus the ambient heat from running the oven once a day or so will be enough to induce germination.

The "Garden"

Still reading? Good, because now we get to the fun stuff. I've been wanting to grow some vegetables for a few years now. My parents have always had a garden, so when I moved out on my own it was tough not having my own land to dig in. But one of my friends mentioned that she successfully grew some veggies in containers, so I'm going to give it a try. Yesterday I spent some time researching what varieties do well in containers, and I ordered some seeds from The Natural Gardening Company. I chose that e-tailer mainly because they had most of the varieties I was looking for, but also because their site was among the more visually appealing. I admit it, I'm a html snob.

Here's what I ordered:

• Blue Lake pole bean
• Diva cucumber (I was in a spelling bee when I was in 3rd or 4th grade. The word that I missed was cucumber, of all things.)
• Fairy Tale eggplant, which I got mainly because it's a miniature eggplant, which is better for container growing, but also because it's so damn pretty.
• Tom Thumb lettuce
• Carmen pepper
• Red Grape tomato
• Juliet tomato
• Genovese basil

Yes, that seems like a lot. Really, though, I'll probably only keep one plant of each variety, except for the lettuce and the basil, and I may put the basil in the tomato containers, since my parents have done well growing basil right underneath tomatoes. The one I'm most worried about is the beans. I have no idea how many plants I'll need to have a reasonable supply of beans. I'm not a huge green bean eater, but that's mainly because I hate canned or frozen beans. But, I'll figure that out later--I don't even have the seeds yet!

I also ordered a 72-cell seed starter. I'll have to start some of the seeds very soon in order to have sizable seedlings by May. I'm not sure yet where I'm going to set that up. I think the garage will be too cold for a while. Maybe I can set up something in my walk-in closet.

Here's what I still need to get before I can start the seeds:

• grow light
• organic seed-starter mix
• organic compost
• heat mat???
• timer for grow light
• organic fertilizer

A New Blog for a New Endeavor

The first post of any blog is bound to be fraught with banalities. I'm supposed to tell you who I am, why I'm blogging and what I'm going to be blogging about. So, that's what I'll do in as short a space as possible so that we can get down to the real business of this blog.

My name is Heather. I'm a 27 year old, underemployed attorney living in Westchester County, NY. I've tried doing the blogging thing several times before. I have a LiveJournal, which I haven't posted to in a long time, and I have a knitting blog that I haven't updated in forever because, well, mostly I never quite get around to taking pictures of my knitting. But, this blog will be different. Why? Because this blog has a purpose.

In brief, I'm trying to eat better. This has nothing to do with wanting to lose weight or lower my cholesterol. It has everything to do with trying to move as far away from industrial food production as possible. No, I'm not going to move to a commune or become a vegan. I've done the whole vegetarian thing before, and it's not for me. I've come to terms with my consumption of animals, but that doesn't mean I want to eat a chicken that spent its entire life in a cage or a cow that never ate grass. I'm not going to go into all of the grisly details here, but I highly suggest anyone that's interested in this sort of thing read Michael Pollan's book The Omnivore's Dilemma.

What I'm hoping is that keeping this blog will help me organize my thoughts and goals. One of my major goals is to try to eat more local produce and to eat more seasonally. That means I'll have to track down a good farmers' market. I also want to grow some of my own food. The problem with that is that I rent and so I can't really tear up the backyard for a vegetable garden. It's not totally hopeless, though. I'm going to try growing things in containers. I'll also have to learn how to preserve food, which means learning how to can vegetables. Oh, and I want to do all of this as organically and sustainably as possible.

So, here's a list of some of the things you'll find in this blog:

• Accounts of my gardening misadventures including, most likely, what NOT to do.
• Recipes using seasonal produce, including canning recipes that I've tested.
• Reviews of books, magazines and websites that are related to gardening or cooking.
• Reviews of e-tailers, because I love online shopping and am usually too lazy to actually drive around searching for things.
• Maybe, if you're lucky, some pictures.

That's it! Introduction over. Time to get on with the real blogging.