Mar 24, 2024 9 min read

March #2: It's free real estate!

Hooray, three times over! It's March, and finally, I can focus on my garden activities without freezing off.

March is usually a quiet and somewhat boring month, primarily focused on cleaning and preparing for the season. However, this year, the weather gods have been generous, providing us with a taste of global warming. Although I appreciate the shift from February's weather to what feels like April, it's also a bit alarming. The elevated temperatures have caused fruit trees to flower early, with the first flower buds appearing as soon as March 4th. Since then, we've experienced several sub-zero temperatures, and I've been praying for my apple and cherry trees to survive.

Last year, I experimented with growing tomatillos (physalis). I had never grown them before, and according to the internet and a friend, they're essentially a weird tomato. As the season progressed, I could indeed confirm it was just a weird tomato. Even though they require less care than tomatoes and produce a ton of fruit, the taste never really grew on me. So, this year, I've decided to experiment with growing potatoes. I know it sounds boring, but I've never grown them before. The potential yield sounds interesting, and I've always wanted to grow something that would last after the harvest.

Considering my lack of experience with potatoes, I've decided to choose a very early variety. This way, I should see results quickly, and if I make any mistakes, I'll have plenty of time to try again in the middle of the season.

Just in time for this, my favorite gardening e-shop stocked up on some nice and cheap grow bags!

For just 79,- CZK, that's less than 5 EUR!

Over the past three seasons, I've grown quite fond of these pots and have replaced all my old plastic ones. These bags are very easy to store since you can fold them, and they provide excellent aeration for roots. Thanks to their air permeability, roots don't grow alongside the inner wall but branch out in the core, which improves water and nutrient intake. And they look nice. I use them for soil-grown tomatoes and also hydroponic ones, filled with a mix of coco and perlite. The fabric helps with wicking. However, the one weakness of these pots is THE permeability, which, while increasing water intake for plants, leads to faster drying. It's nothing dramatic, just something to keep in mind when planning your irrigation setup. Speaking of irrigation, I plan to have a separate post about my irrigation plans for this year; otherwise, this update would be really long.

Staying outside for a bit longer, I've decided to increase my plant real estate by adding two raised beds. I had some space left in an old flower bed that I no longer use for flowers. After all, what's the point of a plant if you can't eat it... or smoke it? I was casually browsing the internet when I stumbled upon some nice DIY raised beds made from corrugated sheet metal at a very good price. I immediately showed my discovery to my friend and basically forced him to buy a few, as he was planning a garden as well. Once I was satisfied with the quality, I bought two small ones. It's a shame I didn't discover these two years ago when I was building them from wood. The price is quite comparable, especially if I include the staining and work required to build them. At least it's honest work.

And to finish my outdoor update, the boar situation seems to be resolved. The repellent works wonders, and while I can still observe some activity in other areas, mine remains untouched. The initial horrible stench has worn off a bit but is still quite noticeable up close. I plan to refill the repellents in a week or two, something I hadn't fully thought through because I don't want to touch the sponges. Perhaps a syringe will work. You can now download the 3D model for the box on my Printables profile; check the menu above for the link.

Now, moving indoors, I have to brag about my peppers. Seriously, I have never had such happy and healthy peppers at this time of year. They show no signs of pests, water, or heat stress, and I've finally mastered the lighting for them. In the past, my peppers and tomatoes were always a bit leggy because I neglected the importance of a balanced heat and light environment. But looking at them now, I can safely say, "I managed!"—at least for the peppers.

I have some freshly sown tomatoes, so let's see if I'll manage them as well. Last year, I kind of messed up; I left my tomatoes inside for too long because the season was really cold until May, and I was scared of late frost. This year, I have a plan! I will raise them to some extent at home and then I’ll move them inside my cottage, where temperatures don't rise as high as in my apartment. Doing this for a week or two should stunt their growth a little bit, so when I finally move them outside, they won't be thin and overgrown.

I can almost hear someone saying, "You could easily wait one or two weeks with the sowing to prevent this." True, I could, but I didn't, so it is what it is.

Let's take a look at the tomatoes for this year:

Red Robin: A great dwarf tomato, usually grown on balconies and in tiny spaces. Last year, I was shocked by how well they did in the greenhouse. Their overall small footprint makes them great for growing in large quantities there. They produced a ton of great and juicy fruit, and the small height of this determinate tomato doesn't turn the greenhouse into a jungle. They are also very resistant to rot and fungus infections. I found myself culling really healthy plants at the end of the last season.

Sunviva: A new variety for me, actually my mother's request as she wants something other than a red tomato. This variety comes from Germany and should hopefully handle the weather in this part of Europe with ease. It's expected to produce bunches of orange-ish or yellow-ish tomatoes.

Primabella: Another new variety, a typical red cherry tomato with some added resistance to blight and potato rot.

Early field Stupicke: A traditional variety I've grown several times before with varied results. It's an old Czechoslovakian variety and one of the most common varieties you can buy here as F1 hybrid seeds. From my experience, it's one of the fastest-producing tomatoes I've ever seen, usually the first to bear fruit by the first half of July. However, it's also the first to die from rot and fungus. The main danger is that it can spread these diseases around, so it's crucial to watch and exterminate them as soon as possible. No mercy; it's better to lose one plant quickly than ten plants slowly. And you can always plant something else in the container, as there's still plenty of time in the season.

Hawaiian Currant: I haven’t sown this one yet because I decided on it quite late, and perhaps a bit impulsively when I was drunk. In my new raised beds, I plan to grow pumpkins and melons, and my thought was that I have plenty of space there for something else. I remembered one of my stays in Tenerife, where these wild tomatoes grow everywhere, even considered a weed in banana plantations. People usually don’t harvest these tomatoes—I don’t know why; they're quite tasty. I've trespassed multiple times just to save them from rotting.

Micro-Tom: The tiniest tomato I've ever seen. I haven't sown this yet as well because I do not grow these in my garden but rather at home in my windowsill greenhouse. I usually plant these a bit later because they start ripening when I am on my annual leave and I am not home. This tomato is so tiny I was able to fit four of them into a 35x35 cm grow box I built last year, a post about this experiment is coming. Huge yield-to-footprint ratio!

For some time, I've been toying with the idea of turning an old bedroom in my tiny shed into a cozy summer office space. Recently, the company moved our office to the deep city center of Prague, and I couldn't be more unhappy about it. The new place is in a nice new office building, but it poses two major issues: the commute is terrible, and the space is so small that not even half of the company can fit in one day. This is manageable now, but the company will require two mandatory on-site days, and those days are going to be something. These reasons made me think about how to make my home office somewhat non-stereotypical, as I do not want to be home-officing every day from the same place. I learned during the pandemic that my work output varies a lot if I work from home every day. Also, I have this nice picture in my head where I sit in my shed during a hot summer day, working from a tiny couch, drinking subpar coffee from my gaming Nespresso machine, and snacking on berries.

And with this idea, I conclude today’s post because I can almost smell the summer air, and I don’t want to spoil it for myself.