The Gahden 2024

In the past I have regaled you (at least in my own mind) with tales of marauding rodents eating a path through my container garden and handpicking pesky fornicating beetles off my tomatillo plants. Such is the life of the urban gardener. This year the gahdening shenanigans started right out of the seedling gate in March.

Let me just say this about the internet. Why is it such a stupid head? I had been happily starting seeds in potting soil, reusing plastic trays from the previous year. For years. With no issues. But while I was perusing the gardening internet, multiple places extolled the virtues of coco coir as a seed planting medium. I am not an early adopter of pretty much anything, which mostly suits me, but sometimes I worry that I will turn into one of those crabby, stubborn old people who never want to change or try anything new. I’m cool with being crabby, which is kind of fun, but I don’t want to get into endless arguments with the kid when I insist my toaster oven from 1995 is fine and he tries to “help” me by buying a new bluetooth toaster oven that makes me breakfast, reminds me to take my pills, and tracks when I’m low on bagels and orders them from the store.

Coco coir skewered me right in the cross section of my resistance to try new things and the promise of better seedlings.

Spoiler alert: The kid better get prepared for housewares arguments.

In March I planted 8 jilo in the coco coir, and they usally sprout in 11-13 days. Day 13 I was concerned, day 23 I was bereft, and then day 30 I was pissed. I had bupkis, nada, stoogits. Now to be fair, I had a new heat pump installed and noticed the air was much drier in the house. I had to water my house plants 2 times a week instead of 1. I hung in there a little longer, spraying more water to compensate for the heat pump. Still bupkis. I was pretty certain I could point fingers at the coco coir because I had 2 kinds of seeds, ones I had saved from last year, and ones I had bought, just in case my seed saving game needed work. What were the chances that both sets of seeds weren’t going to sprout?

After 6 weeks of misting the mocking, dubiously seedling-free coco coir, I planted 12 more seeds in potting soil, same ratio: half saved, half bought. I was distracted by getting a new job and preparing for a trip to Holland, so I did not have the same emotional rollercoaster when it took 23 days for just 2 sprouts to appear. My only consolation was that the seeds that did sprout were those I saved from last year. At least the internet seed saving instructions were helpful. All my other herbs and squash sprouted in the potting soil per usual.

If you are a gardener counting these weeks, you know I was running out of time if I wanted to eat jilo before September. But in for a penny, in for pound, and in mid-May I planted 9 more of my saved seeds. After 11 days, just 2 more sprouted. And slowly over the next several weeks, a few more pale seedlings emerged, one at a time, like teens waking up the morning after a kegger, blinking and bleary-eyed.

Horticulturally speaking, what the actual hell?

But in the end, perhaps the universe knew best. I usually have 8 or 9 jilo plants, but this year in the middle of my springtime running around, I learned that my new neighbor in the building wanted to garden, so I ended up giving him half the space for his plants. That left me space for 3 pots for jilo, which after 3 seeding attempts is about all I managed to get.

Coco coir may not have been the whole problem, but it certainly didn’t help, and now it can kiss my ass, along with any other internet gardening videos that promise 6 ways to grow BIGGER cucumbers, the absolute BEST growing medium, the 10 things you’re doing WRONG in your garden. Double stupid doody head.

In the meantime, I am rooting for my little jilo, and hoping frost comes a little later this year.