"That Don't Impress Me Much"

I love cilantro. I think it is tied with basil as my all time favorite herb. I often use it to spice up my Mexican dishes so I was thrilled to pick up a few plants to have growing right outside my window for whenever I had a fancy for some cilantro. Well. Turns out once you cut your cilantro, the plant is totally finished. It won't grow back vivaciously and voraciously like basil and mint. For this one instance only, it seems like it is better to buy the herb than to grow it yourself.

Goodbye cilantro plants. May you RIP in guacamole heaven.

Compost Tea

During one of my Brooklyn Botanic Garden classes I learned how to brew compost tea. My teacher, Jenny Blackwell, is the project manager for the NYC Compost Project in Brooklyn and is obsessed with composting. She was raving about how much better it is to brew compost tea for your plants then to just topdress them with compost. It is great for container gardening because it adds biology to your containers without adding extra weight and makes a small amount of compost go farther by diluting it.

Also, I can't believe I haven't mentioned my vermicompost on this blog before! My friend Crystal is mortified that I have a small composting bin in my closet ("But what about your clothes!?!"). It doesn't smell and it's not that gross. I swear. I built it myself in a class at 3rd Ward and started it about a year and a half ago. I throw any left over food scraps into my bin (egg shells, left over veggie scraps, old flowers, coffee/tea grounds, etc.), add some torn up The New York Times, and tons of red wiggler worms eat it, digest it, and poop it out. It's the worm's poop that your plants want. Especially tomato plants because they love Nitrogen. Hope you aren't eating lunch while reading this post. :)

So, the materials you will need are: a 5-gallon bucket, 1-1/2 to 1-3/4 cup of fresh vermicompost or worm castings, a fine mesh cloth (I used cheese cloth), 1 tablespoon of unsulphured molasses (you can get this at the grocery store near the maple syrup), an aquarium pump with at least 40 gallon capacity (pet stores have them), tubing to attach to the aquarium pump (also at the pet store), and something heavy to keep your mesh bag of compost submerged in the water (I used a mug).

First, I made a little mesh pouch for my compost by spreading out the cheese cloth and securing it with some string.

Then I set up the air pump and tubing, while also filling the 5-gallon bucket with warm water, 60-85 degrees. Rain water is best, but New York City tap water will do.

 

Plug the aquarium pump in and start to aerate the water before your put the compost in. It is VERY important to keep the water aerated. As soon as the aeration stops you run the risk of having your compost tea turn from aerobic to anaerobic and you may be adding bad bacteria to your plants instead.

Hang the bag of compost on the side of the bucket and begin to steep it as you would with a normal tea bag. Next, add 1 tablespoon of unsulphured molasses. The aeration is keeping the beneficial bacteria alive and the molasses is feeding them.

Secure the lid on your bucket and leave it for 24 to 36 hours. If it starts to smell, add more molasses. After a day and a half mine looked like this:

I think that it could have been a tad bit darker, maybe if I left it for another 12 hours it would have been, but I was anxious to get it on my plants. The past few days have been scorching hot and they are really starting to look sad despite my best efforts to water them constantly. So, taking the brewed compost tea, I dumped it into a watering can and then proceeded to water the whole plant: the leaves, stems, soil, flowers, the whole thing. Another benefit of compost tea is that the good bacteria will stick to the plant's leaf surface and keep any menacing bugs and bacteria away. I ended up using all 5 gallons just dousing the plants with the murky brown water.

Hopefully the compost tea shower will make this 100-plus degree day a little bit more enjoyable for my emerging tomatoes. If you try this at home make sure that you use your freshly brewed tea within the first 5 hours to make sure that all of your beneficial bacteria and nutrients are still alive. I will definitely be trying this again next month. Happy composting!

Keeping Your Plants Alive While You're Away

It's hot! New York is sweltering right now and, while I like the browning of my skin, I'm not so happy about the browning of my tomato plant's leaves. I've been feeling guilty recently for leaving my plants to bake while I escape the city heat for the weekend. Last week though, I came across some great tips on Apartment Therapy for what to do when you leave your plants behind.

When I go out of town I construct a little biosphere on my living room floor, near window for indirect sunlight. First I put a shower curtain folded in half on the floor (from the 99 cent store). Then I put my watered potted plants on the shower curtain along with several large mixing bowls full of water. At the corners I put my plant stands (empty - just serving as structural support). Then I drape a clear shower curtain (again 99 cent store) over the whole thing, tucking the ends under the plant stands but leaving some untucked "vents." This works well for a week away. I have also used it for a two-week trip but the plants were droopy though still alive when I got home - they perked up in a day. Just don't set it up in a really sunny spot or they could fry. - Szig

Corral all your plants in your bathtub & fill the tub with an inch of water. Especially if they're in clay pots, they'll suck up the water while you're gone. -Abby

My mom always puts her finicky plants in a seal-able clear plastic bag after a good watering, and leaves them out of bright direct sunlight. They will usually be good as new when she gets back from 2 weeks away. - Zemquat

But the BEST method, of course, is to leave a bottle of wine out on the counter next to written watering directions and have a friend stop by while you are away. - Maxwell

I haven't tried any of these tricks yet, but I have some upcoming August weekends when I'll be soaking away in the ocean and I won't feel so guilty leaving my plants behind. My future biosphere will keep both my plants happy and my cat occupied while she tries to figure out a way to get in and eat the happy plants.

Apartment Therapy: Coming Home To Happy Pets & Plants

Tomato Siblings

As you may know I started my tomatoes from seed this year and ended up with 21 baby tomato plants, way more than my small Brooklyn fire escape could handle. So, I gave most of them away to co-workers and friends who have been sending me pictures of their plant's progress. It's pretty amazing that two plants from the same batch of seeds can look so different from one another! It really shows how adaptable plants are to their growing conditions. Here are some of my tomato plant's siblings.

First up, Adam in Crown Heights, Brooklyn:

Chiara in Williamsburg:

Colin's plant somewhere in the tri-state area:

Tiffany's on the Upper West Side:

Reilly's in Park Slope:

And Liz's GIANT in Long Island City (she's 5'9"):

Overall everyone's tomato plants seem to be happy and growing. Now all we need are some tomatoes...

Basil Blooms

My basil has started blooming...

 

It might seem counter-intuitive, but if your basil starts to bloom you want to pluck off the flower to encourage the plant to get bushy instead of leggy.

I think some more pesto is in my future...

Andromeda Botanic Gardens

There was a botanic garden up the road from our guest house in Bethsheba, Barbados and I HAD to check it out. There were some amazing tropical plants and the whole garden was so jam packed I felt like I was on the set of Lost or Jurassic Park! Below are a few of my favorites.

Barbados means, "Bearded Ones"  or "los Barbados," as aptly named by the Portuguese for the abundant Bearded Fig Trees native to the island. Its massive aerial roots, I guess, look like beards?

 

If any tree should have "bearded" in the name it's this next tree. The "Old Man Palm" is covered in thick, wool-like fibers that resemble human hair. The braids are courtesy of the garden's visitors.

 

There were amazing orchids growing out of coconut husks. 

 

And a ton of critters! Caterpillars, lizards and toads. Oh my!

We ate this a lot during the trip, Breadfruit. It's like a potato, starchy, and used the same way in say fries, soups, scalloped, baked or in the local "cou-cou" dish. It grows everywhere on the island.

 

Lastly, the grand daddy tree of them all, was the Talipot Palm. It's the largest fan palm in the world and only bears fruit once in its life, usually between the ages of 25-50 years old. It also bears the largest inflorescence, or flowers, in the plant kingdom! (In the picture the flowers are the huge white, fuzzy-looking palms). After one year of blooming and seeding this massive palm dies and we were lucky enough to see it in bloom!!  Checked it off the bucket list :)

Overall, it was an amazing trip and I highly recommend Barbados. We booked on Jet Blue and stayed at a beautiful and cheap guesthouse, Sea-U. Go. Everyone go to Barbados. If these pictures haven't made you want to go, the locals told us Rihanna will be there on September 5th.

Back in the New York Groove

To quote Lil' Kim, "I’ve been gone for a minute now I’m back at the jump off." I'm back! Barbados was absolutely amazing. Followed by my boyfriend's birthday and 4th of July, I've been super busy since the end of June. With all my running around though, my tomato crop has suffered. I'm disappointed that I neglected my new tomato, but now I can show you what NOT to do. Glass half full.

Once your tomatoes are starting to ripen it is very important to consistently water them. Plant cells have a very large empty space in them called a vacuole, which is used to store water. When filled with water, these full vacuoles provide structure for the plant. When your plant is droopy and shriveled from lack of watering, it's because the cell's vacuoles are devoid of water and, therefore, devoid of structural support. Makes sense right? If you inconsistently water a tomato plant the cells within the ripening fruit tend to expand and contract, causing cracks in what would be the delicious, fleshy, red fruit. This is what happened to my poor tomato:

If you can not consistently water your tomatoes during the summer, you can pick the greenish/reddish fruit before it is completely ripe and put it in a sunny window or a brown paper bag. This will ripen it without the danger of under/over watering and cracking. I have a new little guy popping out and promise to take better care of it!