Since the Drink at Work offices recently relocated to a location with a large roof deck, we decided to start a garden, thus providing our employees with food to go along with their various drinks. In fact, we’re pretty sure it was our bold order of no less than 10 rootstocks from Cummins Nursery in Ithaca and about 30 different kinds of seeds from Burpee that inspired Michele Obama to break ground on the White House garden. Of course, she didn’t give us any credit, but we’re used to that…who do you think invented the fist bump?

Now, let’s be honest. If we can figure out how to garden, anyone can…even people who have flamethrowers for hands. Of course, since we’ve just started, who knows if we really will be able to garden. But we’re off to a good start, as evidenced by the PROOF OF LIFE in the photos below. We started a batch of seedlings off indoors and so far, so good.

The marigolds were the first to sprout, so we moved them to separate peat pots in the windowsill. Shortly thereafter we realized the importance of cat-proofing and promptly put whatever clear coverings we could find over them.

Almost all of the other seedlings have sprouted, the only notable holdout being the celery, which we anticipated. Our container gardening book didn’t even recommend growing celery, but we’re going for it anyway. Pretty soon we’ll be leaving the plastic lid off of our seed-starting kit altogether and waiting for all of the little plants to develop true sets of leaves. By then, it should be warm enough to move them outside.

Tomorrow will be a big day. We’re getting our shipment of rootstock tonight, as well as a few one-year-old citrus trees we ordered. We’ll be planting all of that as well as the strawberry plants and sprouting potatoes that are waiting in the crisper. But first, we’ll have to drive out to lovely Bay Ridge, Brooklyn to visit the Indoor/Outdoor Garden Center and pick up 6 bags of Fox Farm Happy Frog potting soil. That’s just how we roll.

Stay tuned for all forthcoming triumphs and tragedies.

This Week’s Potential Tragedy
Will the lettuces, greens, chives, radishes and beets that we direct sowed outside germinate, or was it too cold and wet? We’ll know in another week or so.