It hasn’t rained for a couple of weeks. It looks like rain, it feels like rain, it even smells like rain all day today. I’m almost entirely out of water, I had a little more than twenty gallons stored a few weeks ago, but I’ve been using about one or two gallons a day for watering. And even more as seeds keep sprouting. I was hoping for some rain this weekend, doesn’t look like I’m going to get it.

All dry.

I spent all afternoon carrying bags of soil up to the roof, and drilling drainage holes in my planters.  (Drilling a ton of holes)  It was really exhausting, but I finally feel ready to get everything planted.  My roof is starting to look more like a garden now.  Rather than being covered with empty joint-compound buckets and trash, it’s covered with all the dirt I spilled, and trash.

Wow holy shit, Gigantic!  Looks like Jurassic Park!

So, I’ve been collecting more and more seeds (although some of these are zoe’s).  I don’t know where I’m going to plant them all.  From the top left Pole Beans, Peas, Hollyhock, Plum tomatoes (all Zoe’s), Dill, Squash, Cherry  tomatoes (indeterminate), Purple Cherokee tomatoes(also, indeterminate), Butterball lettuce, Roma tomatoes, Goldy Honey Bear Sunflower,  Giant Gold  Sunflower, Eskimo Marigold,  Mimosa (Zoe), and Radishes.

My moss, which has been fine since I transplanted it in October, has now begun to turn brown, not a good sign. Actually, I’m pretty impressed that it has lasted so long. I’ve tried the buttermilk-and-blender method of growing moss with zero success. Transplanting worked so much better, but it might be getting too hot on my patio for the moss to survive.

More sprouts today! This time inside. These are actually my black eyed susans, but when I was planting them, basil seeds got stuck to everything. So as you can see, even though there isn’t any sign of the black eyed susans, the basil seems to be having a great time. I’m really excited about the purple basil, it was depicted on the seed envelope, but some how I just didn’t believe it would really be purple. Although mixing seeds was just a mistake, I should start looking for a book about what plants do well together. I don’t have as many planters as I need on the roof, so some plants are just going to need to share with others.

My Mother-of-Millions, which has remained dormant all winter, just started to produce babies, a lot of them. It’s potted in a really tiny pot, so I either need to start potting the babies, or giving them away.

It was so crappy out today, but I took the chance to set up a couple of buckets to collect water. These gutters coming off the stairs to the roof turned out to be perfect.

Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been able to fill a couple of containers with water, but it won’t last once there are actually plants to water everyday. By collecting the run off, I’m hoping to make it pretty far into summer without wasting water from the tap, but we’ll see how much water I need once seeds are in the ground.

Sprouts! The first sprouts came up today. I can’t remember what they are, either broccoli-rabe or kale.

The Italian Market in Philadelphia is one of the oldest open air markets in the country. It’s also filthy. It’s also really beautiful in the mornings, and dirt cheap. I spent a long time wandering around in the market this weekend trying to get some more ideas for vegetables to grow. There was a ton of great food out this week.

It can be difficult to do a lot of shopping in the Italian Market in the winter, and not just because of the cold, the produce just isn’t as good. There aren’t as many greens to buy during January and February, and all of the tomatoes are just too beaten up or mealy looking to buy. But, as the weather warms up, the vendors beef up their selection, and the quality of the veggies gets better and better.

There were a ton of herbs out on saturday, all getting a little wet in the rain, and I even found a vendor selling all kinds of potted herbs. They didn’t look good enough to buy (or even take a picture of really), but I want to go back in a week or to and see if the selection looks any healthier.

All of those little potato faces are going visit me in a nightmare.

Home Depot had about 50 different kinds of potting, garden, and top soil to choose from.  Most of the bags were anywhere between 3 and seven dollars.  I wasn’t about to pay that, especially for the amount of dirt I needed.  So I chose the cheapest dirt there, 79 cents a bag, or at least the label claimed.  Once I had dragged 11 bags to the register, they told me that the bags were in fact 3 dollars a bag.  Thats 33 dollars, for dirt.  I could buy all the vegetables I ever wanted for 33 dollars.  But the Home Depot is great, I barely had to argue with them before they sold me the bags for less than 79c each.

We have a good amount of seeds collecting over the sink.  I’ve been trying to keep them organized chronologically in the order that I plan to plant them.  Starting at the top left (last planted) they are: wheatgrass, hollyhock, nasturtium, squash, yellow beans, pole beans, garden beans, dill, sunflowers, tomatoes, roma tomatoes, black eyed susans, chamomile, basil, swiss chard, kale, and broccoli rabe.  The leafy greens can be planted outside whenever (I don’t think it will get below freezing again here).

I have spent months dragging old planters and buckets or strange containers in off the street.  I just discovered those five gallon joint compound buckets that are in pretty much every dumpster ever.  I have about ten of them, I would have more, but a lot of times, workers will leave a couple inches of concrete or paint in the bottom of them before throwing them out.  Also, you want to be careful because I know that workers will sometimes poop in those buckets when a job site does not yet have working plumbing.

The first plants outside. Kale, B-rabe, and Swiss Chard. I don’t really know if it’s a great idea to start putting unsprouted seeds outside. There are a lot of squirrels in this neighborhood, but I don’t know if they’re actually smart enough to dig through a bin of dirt looking for seeds.

Paying your own water bill sucks. Agreeing to that was a big mistake. But it’s been raining a lot, and I’ve started to hoard buckets of water. I was also thinking about throwing together some sort of runoff collection system, but it might be more trouble than it’s worth

Royce!