Cucumbers are up (inside)

The weather here in Boston has been abysmal lately. Constant cloud cover, rain almost every day, and cool temps. Good for the greens in our family garden plot, but not good for starting the cucumber and bean seeds for the 200 Foot Garden.

Even though it's July, I decided to bring the cucumber seed pots indoors and get them on the heating mat and under the lights. Cucumbers like lots of heat when it comes to germination.


Looks like I made the right choice, because they've already sprouted. I'll get them outside on the back porch as soon as possible, but I might keep them under the lights for a few days, if the weather stays this gloomy and cool.

I still have the bean pots on our back deck, but I might bring them inside, too, and see if I can get them some light and heat.

Starting Some Seeds

This afternoon, my son, Noah, and I rounded up a bunch of old plastic yogurt containers that we've been saving for seed starting, filled them with soil, and planted 40 cucumber seeds. And tonight, Tracy planted 50 bean seeds. It's warm enough now that we can just leave them out on our back porch and try to be patient. If they all come up, we'll be in pretty good shape to get stuff actually in the ground and growing in time.

I also shipped off a bag of dirt to UMass for soil testing. I just hope it gets there in one piece.

We got a Yes, now what?

The good news is that we got permission, but that just means that daydreams need to turn into reality. There are quite a few steps that need to happen next.

Yesterday, I gathered soil samples, so we can send it off to UMass-Amherst to get it tested. We need to make sure there aren't high levels of any dangerous metals (lead, arsenic, etc.) that might make our produce unsafe. I gathered 12 soil samples of about 1 cup each, mixed them together, dried them out overnight, and then mixed them all together again, and bagged up 1 cup to send to UMass, along with a check for $13. This is a critical point in the project, though we'll probably have to start planting before we get results, just because time is short. I've got my fingers crossed. If it turns out badly, we'll pull everything up, and help plant flowers.

We need to start some seeds right away! Ideally, as soon as the fence has been replaced, we'll have seedlings available to put into the ground. My son, Noah (age 9) and I counted our our Blue Lake pole bean seeds (100) and cucumber seeds (40) this afternoon. We probably need about 200 plants total, of all varieties. Looks like we already have enough bean and cucumber seeds. There's a chance, we might get some seedlings donated from a local nursery. But tomorrow, I figure we'll start as many seeds as we can in our various containers.

I also ordered seeds tonight--some vining summer squash, Tatume, from Victory Seeds. And since, I was there, I also ordered some Scarlet Runner pole beans (because they'll look nice), some Kentucky Wonder Pole Beans (for variety), and some lemon apple cucumbers (because they'll give some yellow to the wall of green and they're kinda funky looking).

I've started talking to neighbors, looking for volunteers, though I have a lot more work to do on this. I'm hoping to be able to borrow a garden cart from our backyard neighbor, because we no longer have a car (see our Choosing No Car blog).

Tomorrow night, we'll plant seeds using our leftover potting soil, seed starter mix, and worm castings from our worm bins.