Lindemann Gardens

03/16/2021

A repost from five years ago, but still relevant if this is your first year in the CSA or your seventh. To this list I would add a nice heavy stockpot for soups, a large stainless steel bowl for salads, and a laptop/tablet for googling recipes.

Here are some kitchen gadgets that I find very helpful for making use of all those CSA veggies. Do you have a favorite tool that makes kitchen work easier?

small blender - Great for making pesto and hummus.
salad spinner - Excellent way to dry lettuce, spinach, Asian greens after washing.
immersion blender - For pureeing homemade apple sauce and squash soups.
lemon juicer - Fresh lemon is essential in hummus and vinaigrette.
Debbie Meyer green bags - I store all my veggies in these in the fridge to extend storage life. They really do work!
a good knife (and cutting board) - Almost all prep of veggies involves cutting. This is one thing not to skimp on.
micro plane - We use ours mainly for grating cheese over salads, pasta or bread. A great final touch to a meal.

03/15/2021

This home-made potting soil sifter is a very handy tool for me during these early months of gardening. A simple wood frame sits on a wheelbarrow. A wood box with a metal screen bottom (I found the screen one day on the side of the road :) sits on the frame and holds the soil/compost mixture. Once the box is full of material, a wooden closet rod is placed between the box and frame to act as a roller bar. I kneel behind the wheelbarrow and push and pull the box back and forth. The roller bar works amazingly well to reduce friction and the whole process isn't too physically taxing. Fine particles drop through and larger particles are left on top. The box is removed and dumped and the wheelbarrow fills up with the potting soil. I can make about 4 wheelbarrows full in an hour. The resulting medium is pretty fine (in all definitions of the word) and is great for starting seeds or potting up plants. I use a ton (probably literally) of this stuff each year, so it is very nice to be able to make my own and not have to purchase it.

03/14/2021

Another cool veggie picture to whet your appetite. This is from last year's week 8 box in early August. The green beans were prolific! Thanks to the diligent regular harvesting help of Elisa, they continued to produce for over two months. Photo credit Sarah Schulwitz.

03/14/2021

The tiny plants seem to be visibly larger by the day. They love soaking up the sun and warm air in the protection of my backyard greenhouse during the day. Since evening temps are still a bit chilly, they still come into the garage each night. Hopefully, they can stay out at night starting in a week or so. With 110+ flats, it takes me around 30min to move them in or out. See if you can identify the kohlrabi, broccoli, cauliflower, cabbage, kale, leeks, onions, shallots, beets, bok choy, and lettuce. Peppers and tomatoes are just starting to germinate on the indoor heat mat.
Bell Cat #1 is fully planted with snow peas, carrots, daikon radish, turnips, Tokyo bekana, dill, leeks, fennel, turnips, arugula, pak choi and more. Most are just starting to pop up through the soil. Bell Cat #2 has pea shoots, mizuna, and a miniature bok choy. Overwintered sweet walla walla onions and bloomsdale spinach are looking good too.

03/14/2021

I have been so blessed this late winter to have great help from friends to complete the construction of the new caterpillar tunnels. Thanks so much to Jake and Amy for putting the plastic on Lucky Cat. As I ran out of t-posts and spa covers (hard to believe, I know), we did a different setup for the end walls. I think it turned out pretty good. As soon as the seed potatoes that I ordered are in, we can get to planting :) Also a fun morning visit from Ed, Tasha, Sam, and Elise. It was fun to show them my home seed starting and greenhouse area. And an impromptu Garden Bell tour to neighbors John and friend Tom. If you're ever in the area or see me in the garden, give me a holler. I'd love to show off the current state of the urban farming operation.

03/08/2021

Thanks to Alicia, Amy, and David who came out Saturday morning to construct the Lucky Cat (caterpillar tunnel at Lucky garden) before the rain came. David and Alicia worked on the center purlin and Amy and I did the wind bracing and cut wiggle wire and channel for the stub wall. The plastic will go on next weekend. The neighbor told me she was impressed how fast it went up. We even had a few minutes to dig holes for future potato planting and relax in the Pop Up Park at Garden Bell.

03/03/2021

What a gorgeous day! The sunny weather reminds me of all the work that needs to happen this month :) Hopefully the reward will look something like these pictures from last year's CSA, week 5, mid-June. Photo credits Sarah Schulwitz.

02/25/2021

Early spring days with their frosty mornings and windy and sunny afternoons remind me of a favorite Charlie Munger quote:

“Spend each day getting a little wiser than you were when you woke up. Discharge your duties faithfully and well. Step by step you get ahead, but not necessarily in fast spurts. But you build discipline by preparing for fast spurt. Slug it out one inch at a time, day by day. At the end of the day - if you live long enough - most people get what they deserve.”

It's not quite the long "arc of the moral universe" as Dr. King put it, but maybe a shorter arc of a lifetime or even the year-long arc of a gardening season. Much of the success of the upcoming summer is being started by gardeners and farmers around the country in these dark and cool months.

The first seeds planted indoors at the end of January are almost ready to move from their small flats into individual 3.5" pots. There they will grow for another 3 weeks and then go into the ground under the cover of a caterpillar tunnel, or into a larger 6" pot for another 3 weeks. The first seeds of sugar snap peas and field peas (for pea shoots) were planted in the caterpillar tunnels yesterday. Soil temps inside the tunnels were 50 degrees at 6" deep and up to 65 degrees at 3" deep, about 10-15 degrees warmer than the open garden.

02/23/2021

One surprising perk of having gardens in an urban setting is the abundant supply of free materials. The frugal side of me is always on the lookout for useful treasures. The willingness to ask is often met with a positive response. I've made friends with a local arborist for wood chips, neighborhood landscapers for chopped leaves, an old poker buddy for horse manure compost, a fellow Boy Scout dad for pallets, a local truss company for lumber wrap tarps, a Garden City spa refurbisher for hot tub covers (great insulation and wind protection), fence companies doing work nearby for old metal fencing, church friends for food grade buckets, a handyman on a next-door remodel for old windows, the manager of an Asian market for discarded plastic bins, and so much more. Some items are delivered right to my fields. And that's not even counting all the cheap second-hand items found locally on Craigslist. I never had so much of a need for all this fun stuff until I had the garden :)