Blog | Rose Red & Lavender

So much has been happening, I don’t know where to begin. I always promise myself that I will blog once a week. I don’t Its terrible.

Home Grown Tomatoes

We have been busy beavers over at the shop and have been making all sorts of mischief. Over the past coupla weeks we have totally transformed out outside space into a big, luscious garden. We have also planted a few thousand herbs, veggies and fruits just for you. We like to grow our own so we know its all good and organic, and we can grow all sorts of cool varieties that I never see on the market.

Teapot Vase Featured in Time Out New York

Mother’s Day is around the corner, I peeked in my back yard and saw the first roses. They always bloom around Mother’s Day. The market has been full of GEORGOUS! Peonies and I can’t get enough of them, Lilacs have also been coming around….but this year I have been mad about Hyacinths. Hyacinths have the sweetest scent and I have noticed an incredibly long vase life. We take a lot of care when processing them to make sure that they last extra long. Click here to place your order, we sell out.

Photo by Danny Kim for New York Magazine

Wedding season has begun and we are in full force production. I was excited to see that we where one of the few people selected to be in New York Magazine’s Summer 2012 issue. This beautiful headpiece is made of Wax Flower and Anenomies. I was inspired by some vintage headpieces that I had collected. These can be made and shipped overnight all over the country.

Me on Martha Stewart

Press!! In addition, we were named as one of the top 10 garden centers in New York City by Time Out New York. I was shocked and incredibly honored to be on the same list as Jamali and the Garden center at New York Botanical Garden. Even happier because we didn’t need to have a mascot or some trendy gimmick to get there, just great plants, cool gifts, and sound advice.

Martha!! I was so excited to be on the Martha Stewart Show. OK, in the audience on the Martha Stewart Show. It was a special about Etsy and the great sellers there they featured a terrarium class that I taught at Etsy Labs. My mom was excited to see me on National Television but didn’t understand why I wasn’t interviewed and on the show more, thanks Mom.

Birds and Bees

Speaking of Mascots though…I love bees and our birds. Yesterday I had the pleasure of installing not one, but two packages of Bees. These are Italian honey bees shipped up from Georgia and they are chemical free. I am proud of my organic bees. We put a hive on the roof of our studio along side our Fruit trees that we just planted. Ok. Yes I hauled a few dozen fruit trees onto a

Tara and the Bees

roof, but what the hell. A little exercise won’t kill me. I hope the bees will feel at home. I also put in an observation hive so that everyone can come and see the bees in action.

Tara, is my bee keeper partner. She grew up in Queens and has been keeping bees since she was a little girl, before it became all kinds of cool and trendy and she got me hooked on bees. Last year she got stung and discovered that she is allergic, after all, but was still a trooper and put on the white suite and ventured forward. I can’t wait for the honey and bees wax.

Moss Graffitti

Moss Graffiti. We love moss and taught a fun class on how to paint with plants.

Robb put together a nice presentation and even played MC Hammer to get people inspired to make some graffiti.

Its almost St. Patrick’s day and time to plant potatoes.

My mother always told me that you plant potatoes on st. patricks day. She said thats because the irish love to eat potatoes. She lived in zone 6 in the Appalachian Mountains and by words of wisdom, that is too early for them, but thats what they did and it seemed to work, she ate lots of potatoes growing up.

We live in zone 7 so St. Patrick’s day is just right.

I have a bag of potatoes on my counter and they all have sprouts, maybe they know something I don’t.

Potatoes, are one of my favorite things to grow.

I get small potatoes at the farmer’s market and soak them in water for a little then put them in a warm place in a paper bag to sprout.

After they sprout, I cut them into quarters or plant them whole (if they are tiny) into the place I want to grow them, about 12″ apart, 3-4 inches deep.

Not all soil is equal in Brooklyn and I did read in a NYT article that potatoes grown in soil that may have lead are ok to eat as long as you wash them. That being said though, it is much, much easier to plant potatoes in a container and just empty the contents of the container at the end of the growing season (after the plants turn yellow) and pick out your potatoes. I almost always miss and damage some when I dig them out.

Sometimes, I get antsy and shove my hand under the plant and steal a few during the growing season. The plants don’t seem to mind and I get really tasty new potatoes that are amazing.

Once in awhile I have had problems with Potato Bugs, I have found that planting potatoes with marigolds has kept them away.

Five gallon buckets make great containers for potatoes as do trash cans or a large bag of soil, just cut some slits in the bag and plant your potaoes, isn’t that easy?

Another method is to plant your potatoes in a tire and as the plant grows, keep stacking tires on top of the plants and add more soil, compost, old leaves, hay, shredded newspaper, well you get the idea. At the end of the season, take away the tires and pick out your potatoes.

Potatoes like either a high or low PH soil. Low PH will make a more waxy texture potato and High PH will make a more dry-textured potato. Think pine needles, citrus rinds, eggshells and sulfur, for low ph, think vegetable fats (avocado peels) and lime (the powdered type) for a high ph.

They really are super easy and taste oh so much better than the ones you get at C-Town. I saw a few volunteer plants growing out of my compost bin last year, I can’t wait to see what grew when I turn the compost this week.

Thats, my 2 cents, try them, they are fun to grow.

Kimberly Sevilla

Rose Red & Lavender
Flowers Plants, and Beautiful Things

653 Metropolitan Avenue
Brooklyn, NY 11211

www.roseredandlavender.com

Tire Planter Potatoes

Seeds, seeds, seeds.

I love seeds. I really do. I like looking at the catalogs, reading all the descriptions, trying all the varieties, saving seeds, collecting seeds, trading seeds. I love talking to seed growers and getting all nerdy about all the different cultivators and reminiscing. When we say Brandywine, or Moon and Stars, Even Freckles and Deer Tounge, we smile, because we know what that means an we all have our favorites.

If you haven’t tried it, using seeds to start your garden can be very rewarding. There are so many varieties that just wouldn’t be available to you if you didn’t grow them yourself, even things that (gasp) would not be available at the Farmer’s market. I know, I know, they seem to have everything but there are some bizarro things out there, Purple, Conical Cauliflower?. Lettuce, radishes, and beans and sunflowers are very easy and if you are timid, I suggest you start with those.

We teach a few classes on how to start seeds. I am always proud when my students come back and show me pictures of what they grew. One of my very first students moved on to create his own Roof Top Seed company, I am so proud.

I personally have tried almost every method of seed starting and there are two that I will swear by, ok, three that I swear by. These are; winter sowing, jiffy pellets, and baby beds.

Seeds are a miracle and once water is added, the whole process of life begins. Have you watched your garden in the spring, and notice how bare the earth is, and suddenly, after a warm day, life pops up out of nowhere? Weeds, weeds, weeds and lots of them. No one mollycoddles these plants, no one sets up growlights or painstakingly cares for them and yet they grow. Whaddup with that? Sometimes you will notice that the seedlings look a little familiar and many times, healthier, but smaller versions of ones you started in your home weeks before. Those volunteer tomato plants, sunflowers, and herbs just pop up, all on their own. Get Out! These seeds rest in the ground all winter and when the time is right, for them, POP! I have noticed that the volunteer plants almost always catch up to the ones I started, and even out grow them, not fair.

There is a method called Winter Sowing. Basically, you take your seed starting kit, take out container, milk jug or what have you and you plant your seeds, water them, and place the whole thing outside, in the middle of winter, in the snow. When the time is right for those seeds to grow, they will, with no help from you, and they will thrive and be healthy. Just be sure to water them when the weather warms up. The cold kills any of the damp-off fungi, and also helps striate hard seed coats. This is the only way that I have been able to successfully grow Lupins and Columbine (both native plants) from seed. Funny enough, tomatoes, and peppers also do very well using this method. It may not be as much fun as starting them inside, but you will get good results.When the seedlings are large enough, you just move them to where you would like them to be in the garden.Yes, it is that easy. You don’t need to worry about planting charts, frost dates, grow lights….ect. They will grow when they are ready to, it almost takes all the fun out of it.

Jiffy pellets, I love, love, love them. Before I had a garden in the city, I had one in the country in upstate New York and I would grow my seedlings at home; first in a walkup in Alphabet City, and then in a real grown up’s apartment in Park Slope, even in the hatchback of my Saab, which was a terrific greenhouse, as well as a fun car.

Starting seeds can be messy and the fine seed starting mix can go everywhere. Filling the trays is a hassle and it always makes a mess. One year I discovered Jiffy 7′s and I was hooked. Jiffy’s are little disks of peat-moss that are flat, but when you add water, they pop up into little pots that are surrounded by netting. Storage is easy and they last forever.

Mini Greenhouse

Put three seeds in a little pot, cover with a clear lid and wait for your seeds to sprout. Take off the lid and watch your plants grow. When you transplant, move the pot into the soil, its that easy. Sometimes I rip off the little net, sometimes not. These pellets come in little mini greenhouses with 6, 12, 20 or 72 pellets. 72 will fit into a full tray, and they work great in combination with the plastic 6 packs that come with the 72 cell greenhouses. 72 plants! once you get started, you will want more, and more and more….

Other methods, peat pots, newspaper cups, the paper towel, ect…. never worked out that great for me and I always had watering issues, mold (especially with the newspaper cups) and general poor performance.

The last method that I like is similar to the winter gardening method but uses a cold frame instead of individual containers. You basically set up a small raised bed, about 2′ x 4′ and fill it with a light mixture of vermiculite and peat or coir with some sand. 3 parts peat or coir to one part sand and one part vermiculite. A 15g smartpot would also do well.

Smart Pot

Plant your seeds, well spaced, in little rows, don’t forget to label them. When the plants are big enough, use a transplant trowel (skinny and thin) and move them to where you want them. If you like you can cover the box with plastic hoops or with an old window or piece of glass, creating a cold frame. Don’t forget to prop it open on sunny days or you will have an oven.

The backs of seed packets have lots of great information. Ignore most of the planting instructions, except for if it tells you to direct sow, some seedlings don’t like to be moved around much. Remember to always space your seeds, each seed has the potential of becoming a little plant. A pack of lettuce seed can have up to 400 seeds, so avoid at all costs, making a little furrow and sprinkling all the seeds in that furrow. Thinning is a waste of time, and a waste of seed, and it is damages the plants. Its always best to put 3 seeds in a spot, every few inches. One out of three is bound to grow.

I take soil seriously, and get downright obsessive about it. As a research assistant for the USDA, I spent four years mixing soil blends and know it really, really makes a difference. I smell soil, feel it, and sometimes taste it (yuck, I know). I wouldn’t grow a plant in anything that I wouldn’t be willing to taste. Having a degree in Chemistry gives me the inside scoop as to what is happening chemical wise, and sometimes its not nice.

Think about it, soil is the foundation of growing a plant. Plants need sun, water and nutrients, and those nutrients are in the soil. Those nutrients aren’t limited to just the big three, Potassium, Nitrogen and Phosphorus either. Those nutrients include iron, magnesium, calcium, zinc, you know, all the stuff we take in the vitamin pills to supplement our bodies with the stuff that is not fruit and vegetables anymore. Yes it’s true, we have less vitamins and minerals in our food than our grandparents did because of big factory farms and chemical fertilizers.

Occasionally someone will come and ask me if I have Miracle Grow products, I really don’t want to get all record store attitude with people but no, I don’t and there are many reasons why. In short, Miracle Grow is like wonder bread, yes it’s cheap, it fills you up but at the end of the day its not good for you, or the planet. I wouldn’t use it for house plants, or for the food I eat. Yes its cheap, but sometimes cheap is expensive, and here’s why.

Miracle-Gro and Hyponex are produced by the Scotts Company, a billion dollar chemical company that also produces fertilizer, bagged soil, pesticides, and hoses. Miracle-Gro Fertilizer is a chemical based, INorganic fertilizer, Miracle Grow soils contain peat and inorganic fertilizers (those yummy grow crystals). Scotts also makes Hyponex, the worst soil on earth, its made of construction waste and crap, its so bad that the Colorado State University released a warning, http://www.coopext.colostate.edu/4dmg/Plants/pottmix.htm and was a topic of a lengthy discussion on a popular gardening site (http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/contain/msg0520500510183.html) Who wants that?

These are soils that are sold at your local hardware stores and orange big box stores that call themselves “garden centers”.

It makes me sad to see this crap being used to grow food that our kids are eating and it makes me angry to see it being sold in local stores. They don’t care about you, your plants or the planet, they just want a cheap product that will make a buck.

Here is whats wrong with inorganic fertilizers.

SALTS

Using inorganic fertilizers over a long period of time will decrease the available nutrients in the soil, depleting it of the building blocks that plants need to make VITAMINES.

PESTICIDES

In 2008, the EPA ordered the Scotts company to recall two Miracle-Grow products because they contained trifuralin, a herbicide. This ingredient was not listed on the label. Herbicides are a commonly known carcinogen. Who knows what else is not listed, I don’t, its a trade secret.

ENVIRONMENT

Many of the ingredients in inorganic fertilizers do not come from sustainable resources. Coal and Gas are used to produce the nitrogen used in Miracle Grow. The excess salts that are not absorbed by the plants are washed into local water sources. These are the nutrients that responsible for excessive algae growth which create “dead zones” in our rivers, lakes and oceans (yes oceans).

Miracle Grow Soil is a peat based soil, peat is a non-renewable resource. Hyponex Soil is made from construction waste and sewage debris, not something I would taste.

OTHER INGREDIENTS

Miracle Grow potting soil contains OTHER INGREDIENTS, these include plastics, wetting agents and peat, a non sustainable resource. These ingredients have not been tested or proven to be safe for use with FOOD!!!!!> Most wetting agents are detergents and many are known carcinogens.

Miracle Grow does have an “organic” line of products, these also have wetting agents, peat, and who knows what else. In my opinion, who would want to support a billion dollar chemical company that is single handily responsible for polluting our environment and depleting the food we eat of nutrients, I don’t.

Anyhow, no, we don’t sell Miracle-Gro and we never will.

We do sell soil that is made with organic ingredients, worm droppings, leaves, compost, bird poop, all the stuff that makes for a list of THOUSANDS of available nutrients. All the stuff that makes plants grow better and food to taste better and all from renewable resources. All the soil we sell and use is made within 100 miles of our shop. We carry a few brands but Organic Mechanics is one of my favorites. I have met the dude who makes it, his name is Mark, and he is decent person, a person with a soul and a conscience. http://www.organicmechanicsoil.com/. That is a great foundation for healthy living.

Anyhow, enough with record store attitude, I have some growing to do.

We are tired of winter, I am tired of winter, I feel sometimes like I will never be warm again. I see the signs around me, the branches on the willow trees are turning green, the sun is out a little bit longer every day and I am getting a huge burst of energy.
After winter comes spring, right?

From now until spring, we will be having our countdown to spring. Last weekend, Lydia wheeled her carriage through the streets of Williamsburg handing out packets of seeds and herb plants. We will continue our endeavors until the start of spring. I hope we bring a little bit of sunshine into you lives.

It is almost Thanksgiving and this time of year I start thinking about spring.

We have been fortunate not to have any frost yet, some of us may even have fresh basil to put on the table this year, amazing.

Fall is the perfect time to plant spring crops like arugula, garlic, leeks and potatoes. It is also an excellent time to plant spring bulbs. What a good way to take advantage of a warm, sunny afternoon.

I am sure that you have noticed that your tomatoes are not really doing much. Don’t worry. Nows the time to rip them out of the ground, cut them up, and put them in the compost pile. Its also a good time to take the annual flowering plants and old chrysanthemums out of the containers that they are in.

Dump the old potting soil from the containers into your compost pile and clean out the pots with a stiff pot brush and a mild soap like Dr.Bronners, rinse well. Garden trug tubs really come in handy for this. (Yes we sell these at the shop) When you refill the pots, use a high-quality soil blend. You can make your own by using 1/3 peat moss, 1/3 compost, 1/3 course vermiculite and a handful of sand; or buy a pre-mixed organic potting soil, don’t use garden soil, its way too heavy and your bulbs will rot. Mix in with some bone meal and a couple of handfuls of compost. If you want to be thrifty, take your old potting soil, remove any plant material and mix it with 1/4 compost, and 1/4 peatmoss, this will help to refresh it.

Pot Brush

Tub Trugs

You can put a lot of bulbs in a container, the rule of thumb is to plant them 3x deeper than the height. The easiest way is to put the soil in first, put in your largest bulbs, add some soil, and put the smaller bulbs in at the right height. Make sure that you put some broken pieces of pottery in the bottom of your container for drainage. Use a selection that will flower at different times so you have an abundance of spring flowers.

Bulb spacing and Depth, see how yummy they look?

A note about bulbs. Not all bulbs are the same and it is worth it to buy a good quality bulb from a reputable location. Carefully examine each one and if you notice mold or that they are wrinkled, toss them, don’t plant them. A good rule of thumb is to only plant a bulb that looks yummy enough to eat. Often box stores will get bulbs in way too early and they get hot and develop mold. The ginormous bag of bulbs may not be such a bargain when you see that most are unusable.

I like to tuck some pansies in on top of the bulbs because they will last well past the last frost date. This year there was a shortage of pansies so they are a little hard to find.

Pansies and wild hyacinth

Something else that is fun to do is to sprinkle some mescaline seed or mustard seed on top and cover it with a layer of compost. I always forget about it and then suddenly, I have tasty leaves to nibble on while I am admiring my flowers.

You can use a variety of containers and found items to plant bulbs, just make sure that they are big enough to insulate the bulb with enough soil to keep them from freezing, a few inches should be fine. You can also try covering your containers with some hay or a tarp when it is super cold outside and remove them in March.

Wooden Box with Hula girl and muscari

Chafing Dish with Wind Flowers

There are many, many things that you can plant now and will be ready in the spring for harvest, its actually much, much easier to plant in the fall because once you pull out the old plants like tomatoes and peppers, all you need to do is rake the soil, add a layer of compost and mix in. Place your seed (not sprinkle), in depressions made with your thumb and put 1-2 seeds in each space (ignore most of the directions on the packet). Spacing should be about half as wide as a mature plant. Then and sprinkle (ok now you can sprinkle) some compost on top of the seed. You may think, holy cow, I have a lot of seed left, save it in a zip lock baggy in a cool place, trade it with your friends, or plant it somewhere else. Mark where you planted your seeds carefully, you will forget what and where you planted everything. It also helps to plant in neat rows or patterns, so that you don’t have to combat overcrowding and thinning your plants and you can easily tell what is a weed vs a seed.

You can also tuck in some early spring bulbs like crocus underneath your seed so you have something pretty to look at while you are waiting for your lettuce and the flowers also serve as a marker telling you where your other seeds are planted.

Here is a list of things to plant now from seed:

Lettuce
Arugula
Carrots
Beets
Parsnips (MUST BE PLANTED NOW)
Mustard
Lettuce
Broccoli
Spinach
Leaf Lettuce
Chives (from seed)
Onions (from seed)

Vegetables like onions, garlic, and leeks take a little longer. I like to plant them with roses and other perennials. They help to deter aphids and the foliage looks pretty around the garden. You can also plant them in between your lettuce and carrot rows or even create a checkerboard pattern. Remember that lettuce when growing takes up an area the size of your fists put together and onions, garlic, shallots, and leeks take up an area the size of your fist or smaller. You can really get creative with planting and make a lot of interesting patterns and combinations.

Checkerboard Lettuce

Garlic especially tastes better when planted in the fall. These you can plant the same as bulbs, 3x deep with bone meal and compost added to the soil. Make sure that your soil has been loosened and is light and fluffy so that you have good drainage. Leaf mold (partially composted leaves) is a great thing to add to the bed you are planting in and is particularly abundant this time of year, isn’t mother nature grand?

You can buy “seed” on line, or pickup some organic garlic at the farmers market, break apart the cloves and plant them about a hand’s width apart. Onions can be planted from “sets” which are little bulbs or seed and leeks should be planted from seed. You can also experiment with shallots or elephant garlic from the supermarket. I have picked up some that have started to sprout or taken old ones out of my kitchen that have started to sprout and have had pretty good results planting them. Try to stick with organic bulbs as they probably wouldn’t have been treated with anything that would retard growth.

Good luck planting!

There was an interesting article in the New York Times today about the tomato blight. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/08/09/opinion/09barber.html?em

This just highlights another reason to stay local. The tomatoes carrying the blight were raised en-masse on huge giant seedling farms in the south and shipped all over the North East to big box stores like Wallmart, Lowes and Home Depot.

Our tomato plants didn’t travel quite as far. Some were raised, from seed, right here at the shop and others made the trek all the way from, gasp, Long Island. Enrique, Lavender and I went out to select them personally and we met the grower, a nice lady who also grows herbs we sell. We had some tomato talk, my favorite, and took our plants back to Brooklyn.

Its nice to know that your tomato plants come from good homes. We don’t spray or use harsh chemicals and we usually stick to heirloom varieties, just because they taste better, its the right thing to do. Every little seed is treated with loving care. Because we are small we can take the risk that a tray of Mortgage Lifter, or Banana Legs might not sell. Big Box stores don’t have that luxury, they stick with a couple of varieties that they can sell to the masses and most of the time sell hybrids so you can’t save the seeds and grow your own.

I am a firm believer in biodiversity and try to keep as many heirlooms around as I can and I have a collection of interesting seeds that I have gathered from markets all over the world (chinese soup melon anyone?). Having a lot of different kinds of plants protects us from things like the tomato blight because there is always a chance that one of the varieties will be resistant to the disease. For example, European grapes cannot survive on the East Coast, why, because we have a fungus in our soil that will kill them, but, american grapes (like concord and Muscat) make terrible wine but do just fine here and are immune to the fungus, so we graft european grapes onto american rootstock and grow our own wine grapes and make wine that doesn’t taste like rotten jelly.

This fall we are going to have a harvest festival with a seed swap, so save your seeds and start taking pictures of your garden or fire escape or where ever you grow your stuff.

So far, we saw one case of blight which I initially thought was TMV, (another tomato disease), and the plant was destroyed. It was brought into us from outside when someone wanted to know what is wrong with their plant. Thus far I have seen no other signs from ours at the shop or ones we took home. My neighbor grows tomatoes from seed as well (Italian Genoa to be exact) so there was no danger of it coming from his. Of course we will have 30th generation Williamsburg Genoa this spring (he has been growing plants for that long with seeds he bought from Italy)

If anyone has seen anything, blight wise, I am curious to know. Take some pictures and send them to us. If you do, rip up your plants, don’t compost them and plant some pumpkins where the tomatoes used to be, they will grow just fine and avoid planting tomatoes, potatoes, eggplants or peppers there for a few years.

Ahhh, tomatoes, tomatoes, tomatoes, seeds, seeds, seeds.

Ok, do I sound like a plant nerd or what?