New Life

David builds the new plant stand to house
broccoli started in the south windows.

Living on Hawk's Hill Farm makes me think big.  Big as in how many carrots do we eat in a year, and how much broccoli?  Driving to our new farm for a visit one month after we bought it, my husband and I discussed how many pounds of celery, potatoes, onions and peas our family ate in a year.  I tallied weekly grocery store purchases, and estimated startling totals of hundreds of pounds of potatoes and onions, and at least a hundred pounds of carrots.  I had no idea of how many bushels of tomatoes went into the spaghetti sauce we ate.  My mind boggled at trying to picture how many square feet of garden soil would be needed to grow that many pounds of food.  At the time, my vegetable garden was about 10' x 15'.  The bulk of my vegetables were supplied by a trip to the local supermarket to pick up whatever was on sale, shipped in from California or Idaho or Florida to our northwest Ohio home.  No thought required, just a whim and a MasterCard.

One of the things I love about winter on Hawk's Hill is the planning -- stomping around the garden in the snow while picturing a jungle of tomato vines, a luxuriant carpet of tender lettuce or rows of dark maroon beets, feathery carrot tops and feisty turnip greens where a white blanket now exists.  Planning what we will grow, eat and sell, how much of it, and when the seeds need to be started is the winter's work; the creation of the garden of my imagining.

The earliest crops I sow are onions, leeks, parsley, and Brassicas.  Twelve weeks before spring's average frost free date, I start broccoli and cabbage indoors under lights.  Honestly, my family has never been big cabbage eaters, but I grow the plant to fill out our market table, and because it is nourishment for the eyes and soul in winter, perfectly tender and beautiful in its miniature form with cupped, rounded leaves of dusty blue-green.

This year, I threw caution to the wind and started broccoli in front of the south windows in mid-January, 17 weeks before our average frost-free date.  The delightful side of a wild and profligate broccoli sowing is that no matter whether the plants succeed brilliantly or fail, you are gambling with mere pennies in seeds.  And the immediate payoff is in leafy greenness during a gray season.  New life flourishes indoors as the birds are singing promises, the sun is rising earlier and setting later, and we are wondering if each snowstorm will be the winter's last.  But, by mid-February, those broccoli and leek plants had reached a stage of maturity that required more light and more space than the window alone provided.

Over the last two and a half decades, David has made me a series of plant stands to hold seedlings and lights, culminating with the fourth in the series, pictured here, that he completed and painted during the recent thaw.  Big and sturdy enough to hold 16 full flats of garden plants -- that's 576 broccoli plants, an enchanted broccoli forest -- the shelves are perfectly fashioned to fit Soulstice's south windows.  I see the empty space, and imagine a crop of heirloom tomato and pepper plants rising up from their plastic pots, and rows of little herbs in 2" pots waiting for their turn on the market table.  Next January, I could raise flats of salad greens to trim for meals -- just a few feet from farm to plate.

Being made by my beloved, the plant stand is sturdy enough for 2 adults to sit on, simply constructed, using recycled parts, including a shop light from an old Toledo factory and tubes bought secondhand from a friend's long-defunct, ahem, controlled herb-growing operation.  My broccoli plants don't seem to know the provenance of their lighting, but are leaping towards the balanced bulbs with new vigor alongside celery, alliums and cabbage starts.

After a midwinter furniture reshuffle, I have a reading nook where I can watch snow fall behind a carpet of spring green.  The yin-yang contrast invigorates a soul.  It's as if I can feel the aura of growth emanating from the tender plants before me.  Bright lights in winter help both plants and people.

May you have wild success with profligate window-side plantings this year!
Betsy


A few seed-starting tips:  
*South light is the best for your plants.  
*If you can't add grow-lights, try mixing a warm fluorescent bulb with a cool one to get the maximum wavelength spectrum of light for your plants.  
*Hanging fluorescent lights on a movable chain allows you to keep the light 2" above the young plants, raising it as they grow.  The closer the lights are, the more intense the energy the plants receive.
*For a simple approach to gardening with seed starting guides and schedules, check out Mel Bartholomew's classic Square Foot Gardening.