Cathi's Garden

Adventures in Organic Gardening

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Managing Your Homestead While Traveling

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As I write this I am sitting in a beautiful hotel lobby in Mexico waiting for a group I am escorting to come check out and head home. My best friend of 40 years is arriving later today and we will spend three days together catching up and relaxing.

At home we are having what I hope is the last freeze of the season. I have many seedlings under lights as well as my 5 hens out on the pasture. I have two bee hives enduring the winter and I have a batch of kombucha fermenting in the pantry. Now, I love my family dearly and they lovingly tolerate what many would consider my strange hobbies. They don’t have the same enthusiasm for them that I do. I don’t generally ask them for help when I go out of town except in very limited circumstances.

So what happens when I go out of town? My husband and I have owned Legacy Travel since 1989 so we travel more than the average person. A couple of weeks from now we are on a cruise, later this year we are in Italy, another time this year we go to Africa for a safari. We are both elite travelers with our hometown airline. We travel ALOT.

So what happens with the bees, the chickens, the seedlings, the kombucha SCOBY and the garden when I travel?

You’ve heard the saying “It takes a village to raise a child”? Well, it also takes a village to keep my operation running. I have managed to knit together the help required to keep things humming while I’m out of town. Of course, I also try to plan when I plant and start seeds around when I’ll be home, but that isn’t always possible.

Here’s my team at the moment:

I have a friend who loves to take care of my chickens when I’m out of town. This requires driving out to the pasture twice per day every day as well as worrying about them when they manage to escape their fencing. If I’m gone for more than a few days, I have a young lady who is a local FFA officer who I pay to take care of them.

Then for my seedlings, If I’m just gone a night or two, my husband will water my seedlings. For longer trips, I have hired a middle school girl who lives right across the street from me. I gave her a garage door opener so she could get in and water the seedlings. I showed her what to do and put signs on each tray to remind her of the requirements of each one.

As the season continues, I suspect that I can show her how to harvest things, check to see if something needs additional watering, etc.

All of this to say, “where there’s a will, there’s a way”. Perhaps you have a more willing interested family than I do. If you look around, I’m betting there are solutions. Like everything gardening related, if you take the attitude “I know there is a solution here…what is it?” the solution will eventually become known. Gardening is pretty much a series of solving one problem after another. This is just another one waiting for your ingenuity!

Seed Starting With Soil Blocking. A Basic How-To

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So now you’re convinced that you need to try seed starting by soil blocking. How do you get started?

I mentioned that I started after going to a class by Lisa Mason Ziegler at Mother Earth News Fair in Belton, Texas last year. She has a cut flower farm and is pretty much the queen of this. Her website, The Gardener’s Workshop has complete instructions for the whole process. She has even added online courses.

For me, I started by clearing out some shelves in my garage. I figured I already had shelf space and there was really no reason to purchase more shelves and try to figure out where to put them. Besides, who can’t stand to clear out a garage a bit. My garage is not heated or anything, but it is insulated and it doesn’t get that cold in Texas anyway.

After that I went on my old pal Amazon and purchased gro lights and heated seed mats. Also, be sure to order your soil blockers. These are the ones I chose:

Then next you’ll need to assemble the ingredients for the soil blocking mix. 

16 cups sifted peat moss or coco fiber
4 cups sifted compost
¼ cup greensand
¼ cup rock phosphate powder

I use the coco fiber rather than the peat moss because it is a renewable resource. I also use worm castings rather than the sifted compost because I have a worm bin so it is something I have available.

Here is a video from Lisa where she shows you how to actually make the blocks.

Lisa’s FAQ about seed starting with soil blocking.

Lisa’s “All Things Soil Blocking”.

If you just avail yourself of these resources, you’ll be successfully starting seeds and filling your garden with plants!

Five Reasons You Should Try Seed Starting

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Preparing here to start some zinnia seeds. The soil blocks are ready and I'm about to insert the seeds.
The soil blocks here are ready for the zinnia seeds

I have grown to love seed starting using the soil blocking method and you should too. Read on for five reasons why.

At the Mother Earth News Fair last year I took a workshop by Lisa Mason Ziegler on the subject. I had never really done it. Not successfully anyway. I either bought starts at a garden center or stuck seeds in the ground and hoped for the best, with varying (mostly bad) results.

While I was still in the class I got on the Amazon app on my phone and ordered soil blockers that were waiting for me when I got home. The next weekend I assembled the ingredients for the soil blocking mix and got started. My maiden seed blocking voyage included zinnias and marigolds.

It was fascinating to watch the seedlings sprout. The germination rate was amazing. Pretty much all of the 16 blocks resulted in a flower.

A Tray of Broccoli and Brussels Sprout seedlings
This is a tray of broccoli and brussels sprouts seedlings.

The thing about starting seeds inside in controlled conditions is that almost all of the seeds germinate (assuming you have good seeds) and do so quickly. When you put seeds in the ground, you can’t control the temperature and light that they receive. In fact, this year two of the things I have started are lettuce and spinach. A couple of weeks before I started them indoors, I had put some seeds outside in the garden. They are currently just barely visible above the soil. The indoor seeds have surpassed the outdoor ones despite getting started a full two weeks later. What a waste of time and garden space! Why wouldn’t I just always choose to start them inside, and move them when they’re ready to thrive outside?

A couple of trays of seedlings under lights in my garage.
I have these trays on top of other things so that they are closer to the lights.  I don’t want them getting too leggy.

Well, that’s exactly what I’m going to do.

In summary, starting seeds indoors is better than starting seeds outdoors or buying starts because:

  1. You can control conditions indoors so that seeds germinate quickly and well.
  2. You can get a “jump start” on your growing season by creating optimal conditions indoors for seeds to get started.
  3. You will save money vs buying plants at the garden center.
  4. You can choose from a much greater variety of plants when buying seeds vs whatever is available at the garden center for plant starts.
  5. It’s just as easy to start more seeds than you have room to use. It takes no more work at all. So, you can share with friends and family or even sell the plants!

This year I have been eagerly waiting for the time to start seeds this year. So far I have started tomatoes, cucumbers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, basil, sweet pea, zinnias, bell peppers, lettuce and spinach. As I write this, my area is having what I hope is the last freeze of the year. When I get back I will be planting these seedlings outside.

All of my current seedlings. Ready to go outside as soon as this last freeze passes.
All of these seedlings will find a home in the ground as soon as our frost date has passed.

A Garden That Is Changing The World

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One thing I learned working at the farm is that I am glad I bought a wheelbarrow that has two wheels.  Those one wheeled ones are too hard to manage!

Dallas Texas is a city normally associated with BIG. Big buildings, big hair, big personalities, big money. Everything is bigger in Dallas.

There is, however, a small forgotten corner of Dallas southeast of downtown. It’s called “Bonton”. Associated with high crime, sickness, with only difficult access to healthy food, this neighborhood has been the very definition of hopeless. Bonton is filled people impacted by generational poverty.

Recognized as a “food desert” by the USDA, people who live there can either spend all day on public transportation only to buy as much food as they can carry, or they can can buy whatever is available at “Big Daddy’s” or one of the other three small beer markets in the neighborhood.

As a result, people experience dire health consequences. They have more than double the rate of cancer, stroke, heart disease, diabetes and child obesity. Men in Bonton live 11 years less than average men in Dallas County. All of this as a result of a lack of access to healthy food.

Through a crazy series of events that you can read about in this article, Daron Babcock decided to plant a garden and change the world. Or at least change the world for Bonton.

Bonton Farms is an urban farm. Y’all, it is my idea of heaven. I got to volunteer there last Saturday and it for sure will not be the last time. I’m already signed up to go back in February. Through Bonton Farms, local residents have access to healthy food and much more. I think these words painted on the wall say it well:

If you’re anything like me, you’re wondering how you can help support the amazing work going on there. You can certainly sign up for a “Service Saturday” and come get your hands dirty. Bonton Farms also has a program called “Friends of the Farm” where you commit to a small monthly amount with which to support them. I just signed up. (Insert obligatory comment about how many Starbucks runs equate to the amount of money in question.)

You can also support the farm by eating at the cafe or shopping in the market.  You can also visit their booth at the Dallas Farmers Market.  At the very least, go follow them on social media.  Facebook  Instagram

Why Mess With Seed Starting (and How to Get Started)

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This time of year in Texas, it’s time for cole crops. 

I bought some broccoli and califlower starts in the fall and put them in the garden. Easy peasy. A few weeks later, I was harvesting. The thing is, the difference between the cost I paid for the starts, and the cost I would pay for broccoli at the grocery store isn’t very big.

Last year at Mother Earth News Fair, I took a class from Lisa Ziegler from The Gardener’s Workshop. She teaches about soil blocking for seed starting. Last summer I tried my hand at starting some flower seeds and had success. So, I decided to start some broccoli seeds and some brussels sprouts seeds. The pack of seeds was probably $5.00 and I can end up with several dozen plants. Obviously from an economy standpoint, seed starting is a winner.

When you go buy starts, you get to choose what the local garden store has chosen to carry. When you start seeds, you can order any sort of seeds and grow whatever variety you choose. The world is basically your oyster when you start seeds.

Soil blocking couldn’t be easier. Once you spend a few dollars on the soil blockers, it is almost free. The plants do really well. Here are the ones I bought:

Here is the bigger of the two soil blockers.
Here is the smaller of the two. 
This is the one you will use mostly.

I highly suggest you try your hand at soil blocking. Come back and let me know in the comments how it goes.  Here are photos of the broccoli and brussels sprouts I have going right now: