Starting Tomato Seeds

Tomatoes may be my favorite vegetable (or fruit) to grow. I started tomato seeds in February this year. I've started tomato seeds in February for the past two years as well. Some have told me that it's too early, but so far it has worked just fine. I don't start all of them at once. I start about 7 seeds every two weeks until I have all I can handle for transplanting and the space under the lights is taken up.

I start the seeds in peat pellets. Once they have grown their second set of leaves, I transplant them into yogurt cups using seed starting mix with a little bone meal added in. I plant the seedlings up to the shoulders of the first leaves if there is room and then pinch off the first leaves. The stems of tomato plants will send out roots when covered with dirt, so plant tingmupmto the shoulds of the leaves helps them to develop a nice big root ball. My seedlings used to have a tinge of purple on the underside of the leaves shortly after they grew in, even when I gave them some plant food. After I started adding the bone meal on a tip from my friend Tara Stainton, the leaves of my plants were lush and green right through planting. Now I mix about 1 tbsp bone meal with the seed starting mix in a bowl with water at each transplanting. The bone meal supplies phosphorus in the largest quantity and a few other minerals in smaller quantity.

Once they have grown to what I deem a suitable height I transplant them up to their shoulders again into oatmeal containers that I cut to an appropriate size. Once transplanted, I pinch off the lowest leaves again to allow the plant to send some energy back to root development. I discovered oatmeal containers last year. I had just purchased some biodegradable pots that just didn't seem big enough and the store didn't have anything bigger. On the same day I was transplanting, we ran out of oatmeal and I was carrying the container to the recycling bin. It occurred to me that it would work much better than the smaller containers I had just brought home. They are also essentially free, which is even better!

By the time the plants are hardened off and ready for the garden, the containers are most often a little soft from watering. When I place the tomato plant in the hole I can usually peel back part or all of the container so that the roots can be immediately free to spread. I left the containers completely in place on a few of the plants last year and it did seem to stunt their growth for a period of time, compared to the ones where I partially or completely removed the containers.

Tonight I will be dreaming about tomato and mustard tarts with gruyere, fresh salsa, salads, tomato and cheese sandwiches and all of the tomato sauce and tomato soup for freezing and canning. Maybe this is why tomatoes are one of my favorites to grow - their versatility and as a result of their easy preservation, their ability to provide some summer flavors during the cold winter that necessarily closes out our gardening season.

This Old House

I think that my new series of oil pastels wouldn't have come to fruition if my husband, Eric, and I hadn't purchased a 2 1/2 acre parcel of land two years ago. It is nestled at the end of a long lane on the edge of town. There is a small house, built in 1900, on the front of the property. A family of four lived in it and owned the property for 100 years. It never had running water. At some point in the last two decades it was abandoned with all of its contents and left to the forces of nature. I realize that to many people it looks like a trash heap, but to me, it's a treasure trove.

The house is unsafe to enter, but you can see many of the

contents through the windows and holes in the walls. It is clear that the floor has completely collapsed. It looks like it is full of interesting things . . . And a lot of garbage as well. I can admit that. Last spring I recovered a plastic airplane mobile from the interior of the house. I enjoyed cleaning the decade worth of dust off of the surface and consequently restoring some of it's original splendor.

A year ago, I was lamenting the fact that being on a tight budget made it difficult to buy canvases to paint on. I remembered a moment from one of my high school art classes in which my teacher, the great Mr. Willig, was talking about how some artists used to paint on any surface they could find. The desire to paint overwhelmed the need for conventional materials.

My mind immediately went to the old, dilapidated house and I remembered the rear wall was built with green steel siding, a decent surface for painting. I also thought the flaking paint on the wood siding could easily be consolidated with a little fish glue and would make a nice frame for a painting or two.

Two Sweet Peas by Kimberly Machovec-Smith

This is among the first oil pastels I made using only materials from this house. I actually use the reverse side of the siding for my pastel drawing. It is silver in color and it has less texture than the outer surface. This image is two sprouted sweet peas. I gave it to my friend and her new husband for a wedding present last spring. I loved the way the root of the rear pea embraces the body of the one in front of it, intertwining and growing together. I loved the theme of awakening and ofcourse fertility, the begining of a new generation and growth all wrapped into a wedding present.

Artist Statement

For my maiden blog post I thought I would start with a painting and my Artist Statement. The painting is a sprouted sweet corn seed in oil pastel on gessoed recycled steel siding and mounted on wood recovered from pallets. This piece is 20 x 10 1/2".

Artist Statement

Almost everything we eat begins as a seed. As a gardener, when I place a seed in the ground, I am filled with hope for a plentiful harvest. My intention is to illustrate the moment of renewal, when the dormant seed initiates it’s journey toward reproduction. The tender and translucent root breaks forth from the seed coat and begins it’s search for nutrients. When I harvest the food that I have nurtured all season long, I experience a sense of peace.

My motive is to encourage the viewer to consider the seed and it’s role in our lives. Originally food was grown to nourish the body, to provide it with vitamins and minerals, protein and fiber. Processing food for convenience has drastically altered the nutritional value of whole food and negatively affected the health of human and animal life. Once the creation of Mother Nature, now a product of scientists. Seeds can be genetically modified to survive applications of poison or to become sterile after harvest. Seeds and food grown from seeds are processed into nearly unrecognizable products.

To achieve my goal I use oil pastels for the image and recycled materials for the support and the mount. The image is drawn on slabs of steel siding recovered from a condemned house on a forgotten acreage. Just like a farmer prepares the soil for the seed, I cut the siding to size and clean and prime the surface to receive the image. When the image is complete, I manufacture the mount using wood from dismantled pallets that are typically used to transport boxes of processed food.