Seeds

Generational? Or Something Else?

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I was checking one of my favorite sites (yes, it was the National Garden Bureau ([http://www.ngb.org] again, because they had articles on seed starting) when I came upon a new app there for something. And I can’t even tell you what’s it’s for because I clicked right off the the whole site so fast that I didn’t have time to look.

Clearly, I have no trouble with web sites. I have no trouble with computers. I consume all my media electronically, I am embarrassed to admit. The Spoiler reads actual newspapers and I sit in the same room with him and read the same papers on my tablet. I much prefer reading on my Kindle to reading a paper book.

But, when it comes to gardening, I do not want to use apps, phones, meters, tablets, or anything like that. I want to go outside–or during the 6 months of the year when it’s too cold for that, to actually touch my house plants and their soil–with my hands. I don’t want a moisture meter telling me when to water, some light meter giving me foot candle readings or anything of the sort. I have eyes (albeit compromised ones) and hands and gardening is my escape from all the technology that I use in the rest of my life.

A survey conducted by Axiom Marketing in November 2020 said that gardeners 56+ (their categories were 18-28, 29-39, 40-55, and 56+) do not use gardening apps. Only 8% of the 56+ category used any apps at all. I am definitely not in that 8%.

And it’s not that I don’t think that apps aren’t useful. It’s more that I want time away from technology. For a long time, I didn’t even take my phone when I went outside. I didn’t want to hear it ring (perish the thought!) and I surely didn’t want to ever check email.

And while there might be useful functions–planners, graphs, etc.–that the phone can do–I have kept a paper garden journal for literally decades. It’s no hardship to write things down at the end of the day for me. It cements them into my brain. And the physical book is useful for storing garden receipts and notes about what I might need to buy for next year too.

So am I an old gardening lady? Maybe–and that’s fine. But for me, my garden is a place to decompress and unwind. And I am keeping it that way.

Spring Garden Planning

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The Connecticut Flower and Garden Show a little over a week ago was a great reminder that thankfully, yes, spring will soon be coming to my frozen climate whether I personally believe it or not. And even though spring does come slowly to Connecticut–and sometimes not at all (something I often talk about when I show photos of my tree peonies. I can guarantee far above normal temperatures on the day that my tree peonies open so that they flame out spectacularly and only last for a single day. They are an over-rated waste of space in my garden–or perhaps it’s my climate), it is still something that has to be planned for in the garden unless you want to be like everyone else and just go rushing off, willy-nilly in the spring to buy the first thing you see at the garden centers.

While there’s something to be said for exuberance at garden centers (I know that I am all too guilty of that one!), at least do it with some sort of thought or plan in mind. What is your overall idea for the garden this year?

Will you be adding more natives?

Are you planting for pollinators?

Maybe you want to grow your own vegetables? Or add a few berry bushes? Or even start more simply with a few herbs (I was describing most of the Mediterranean herbs last weeks as “basically weeds that can grow in rocks.”) They’re not quite that easy–but almost!

Or maybe this is the year you start your own tomatoes/lettuce/peppers/fill in the blank from seed because you just can’t find what you like any other way.

Whatever it is, do go out and start shopping, by all means, but do it with some sense of what you hope to accomplish. You’ll be happier, you’ll have better results in the garden, and maybe you’ll even help some wildlife or pollinators as well. It’s all up to you–that’s what’s great about gardening.

Support Pollinator Friendly Businesses

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Readers and shoppers, this one is for you! This is free rein to go out and support those businesses that engage in pollinator friendly practices.

Now, how does one measure that? As with everything, one has to be sure that there isn’t “green-washing” going on. If a retailer is selling plants, or seeds, make sure they are appropriate for your area.

You remember I talked about knowing how to read a plant tag and knowing what was “perennial” back in March when I was discussing plant shopping. Just because a plant is labeled “perennial” at a large national retailer, it does not mean that it will necessarily be “perennial” for your area.

So one way to avoid those issues is to definitely shop local. Another way is to look for plants that are locally grown. Many of the plants will have their place of origin–or a grower–listed on them. At least at some of my garden centers, some of the plants will say “Connecticut grown” right on them. Even some of the national retailers sell some of these.

But “Connecticut” (or where ever) grown does not indicate that the plants are pesticide free, of course, and if you want a pollinator garden, that’s what you should hope for. Many retailers have started phasing out the neonicotinoids, which are believed to be harmful to bees, but they still may use other pesticides.

You will see some seeds now labeled as “organic” but it’s still rare to see a plant labeled as organic, even plants that we regularly buy for our vegetable gardens. I wonder what it’s going to take to get to that?

And of course, these smaller retailers often have a selection of gardening books. So even if you don’t want to necessarily go out and garden, you can often find interesting books on their shelves. You can perhaps help support the cause in that manner by buying a book–or two. As an avid reader myself, I know that I rarely buy just one (sort of like the old Lays potato chip commercial–no one can eat just one?)

So it’s just about plant shopping time in my area. This year, when you’re out shopping, please consider those garden centers and retailers that engage in pollinator friendly practices. I am not going to tell you what they are–but if you get there and don’t see a lot of local plants, native plants, or any organic plants, then I think I might find a different place to shop!

Gardening As A Balm for The Soul

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Believe it or not, it’s not too early to be thinking about your 2017 garden. And no matter how you felt about the election we just had here in the United States, it was–and still is–a very contentious time.

So one of the things we can do to reassure ourselves that no matter what happens in the rest of the world, in our little part of the world–the one piece we have control over–all will be well–is we can begin planning our gardens.

For those of us that start seeds, perhaps one of the things we can do is to decide that this year we will try to buy seeds from companies that grow organic or sustainably harvested seeds whenever possible. One of my favorite small companies that sells such seeds is the Hudson Valley Seed Company.

Not only are their seeds almost all organically or sustainably grown, but their seed packs are literally works of art–they are, in fact called Art Paks. After I start my seeds, I save the “paks” and either put them up in my potting shed or sometimes they even make it up to my den for display. They’re gorgeous!

If you don’t know this company, you should. They sell lots of different vegetable seeds and mixes and several types of flower seeds and mixes for pollinators as well. They also ahve herb seeds.

If you are in the Northeast, it is likely that they will be at a Flower and Garden show near you so that you will see them in person–that’s how I first became acquainted with them. But I warn you–their art paks are so lovely you will have a tough time deciding which ones to buy!

Feeling Seedy?

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About a week or so ago, I started my vegetable seeds. For some reason, I always dread this job and I don’t know why. Even when I am starting seeds for me, my neighbor and the garden at work, it probably takes all of half an hour to complete the task from start to finish.

For this round of seeds, I was just starting peppers and tomatoes–the really warm weather vegetables that need a head start. Most other things I start outdoors–beans, lettuce, things like that.

I may need to do something special to seeds like morning glory if I am going to direct sow those–I noticed I had several different types in my “seed stash.” Usually with those, because they have a hard outer seed coat, I will soak them first before sowing. The other option is to file or nick them a little bit–anything to break open the seed coating.

I suppose at some point I need to figure out what I am going to do with my decorative amaranth as well. Do I start them early indoors or just direct sow them when it’s time?

And I should think about sowing my snap peas, although it has been so miserable and cold that I am not sure it’s quite time. There’s a fine line in my state between cool soil and soil so cold it rots early seeds.

If all this sounds like a lot of trouble, it’s really not–witness my statement at the beginning of this post about starting the seeds taking all of half an hour. Nurturing them along is a little more time consuming but certainly no more so than watering house plants (and we know I have an epic number of those!).

Even transitioning the seeds from indoors to outside need not be too much of a problem–again, I do it with my house plants (about 100 or so) every spring and then I transition the house plants back in again in the fall. What’s a couple of trays of seedlings?

The biggest worry I have is that one of my “critters”–and it’s usually the chipmunks–will decide to wreak havoc among the seedlings and I will lose half of my hard work. But in that case, there are always garden center transplants.

Still, seed starting allows me to choose what I want to grow–not what someone else has decided that I should grow.  And it lets me garden in the cold dreary days when I think the sun and warmth will never return (since, as I am fond of saying, we get 2 seasons in my state, winter and July!)

While it may be a bit late to start seeds indoors where you are, it’s almost never too late to plant something in the garden. Why not give it a try this year?

More About Seeds

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On Wednesday I talked about some seeds I had received from my sister that she hadn’t planted. Some clever readers might have noticed the date on the back of those seeds–2013.

There’s nothing wrong with “older” seeds. Many will germinate far past their packaging date. Careful gardeners will do a germination test, taking several seeds, laying them on a wet paper towel and seeing what percentage germinates to see how thickly to sow the seeds (in other words, if only 50% of the seeds germinate in the test, sow twice as many as needed).

I’m not quite so “careful”–or perhaps it’s always that I have planted by the Native American saying anyway: if I have it correct, the saying goes, “One for the rook, one for the crow, one to die and one to grow.” So I always plant more than I need according to that saying, although in my yard, it’s more like, “one for the squirrel, one for the chipmunk–” you get the idea.

The above packets, from Renee’s Garden, also arrived on Saturday with my sister’s seeds. I ordered these, although Renee’s Garden is always very generous to garden writers in providing sample test packets for the garden. Since my garden yields have been so sporadic over the past few summers, I didn’t want to ask the company to subsidize my anymore since I couldn’t in good conscience promise to rave about how wonderful they were if rabbits, deer or crop failure  kept claiming them as they had in the past. But whatever I have gotten from Renee’s Garden has always been wonderful and I love to patronize them.

The ornamental amaranth is going to be one of my “experiments.” I promised to try some new things this year and so this will be one of them. It’s just for fun–it will not attract pollinators (well, its colors may, but it won’t feed them). So in that sense, it violates almost all my “rules” of gardening: it’s not native and it’s not beneficial and you can’t eat it. But heck, it’s pretty and it’s annual so why the heck not, just for one year?

What about you? What are your seed starting plans?

 

Wordless Wednesday

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Over the weekend I received these seeds from my sister.She had been given them by friends but had never planted them. She said every time she thought about planting them, she realized that she would be out of town when they bloomed.

I told her that that’s what gardening is all about: being out of town when something blooms! For years I had that trouble until I decided to make my garden a later season garden. And of course, I don’t even bother with things like amaryllis until this time of year. Takes a lot of stress out of gardening.

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This was on the back of the packages. I wonder if “esq.” is a designation for “company?” I seem to recall that from my days of traveling in England. Otherwise, this guy is working way below his pay grade!

Are You Feeling Seedy?

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It’s that time of year when even non-gardeners can’t help but notice seed packets everywhere.  They’re in the grocery store.  They’re in chain pharmacies.  Of course all the big box stores–Target,  Walmart, Home Depot and Lowes–have them. And any garden centers that are open would have them (and lucky you if you live in a climate where garden centers are open year round ).

Despite the fact that the seeds are in the stores, in my part of the country,  it won’t be time to start seeds for a minimum of two or three months.

But if I want the best selection of seeds,  now is definitely the time to shop. And it’s easy to get carried away,  particularly because those little packets are so attractive and the prices are so reasonable.

So no matter how you are shopping –in person at a store,  or in the many, many wonderful catalogs –try to have a plan.  I know I always find myself with dozens of tomato packets in my hand –more than I could grow in 10 years, and certainly more than I could eat and give away.

But keeping in mind my “gardening resolutions ” I do want to try some new things this year too. They may not be vegetables,  because I don’t have a lot of sun in which to grow those. But we’ll see.

Let’s Hear It For The Hybrids–Seeds That Is

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I’ve spent a lot of time talking about seeds starting but not a lot of time talking about types of seeds. And this post isn’t really going to be much about that. If you want to know the differences there are a lot of places to go.  Baker Creek has a decent discussion on their web site, Margaret Roach talks a good bit about it on her blog.

As a general rule, I usually only grow heirloom vegetables myself (again, if you want more of an explanation, I talked about that awhile back here).

But sometimes, there are legitimate reasons to grow hybrid vegetables (or flowers or other things, but this post will be about vegetables because that’s primarily what I grow from seed now) from seed.

As always, it’s all about choice.  Seeds give you that choice. And hybrid seeds offer you choices that heirlooms can’t.

For one thing–and this is extremely important–they can build in protection against disease.  Now for the most part when we’re talking hybrids, what are we talking about? We are not talking about the “parade of horribles” or “frankenfish” or any of the sorts of things you read in the media about genetic manipulation.

What we are talking about on a commercial-scale is what’s been going on in nature–and in backyards–for centuries.  One plant cross-pollinates with another plant and–whammo–you have a hybrid of the two.  If you have a human intervening somehow, you have hybridization.  It’s just that simple.

Now obviously there are a lot of reasons not to grow hybrids. If you like to save your own seeds, you don’t want to grow hybrid plants because the next year’s crop won’t come “true” from seed.

But there are some great reasons to grow hybrids as well, disease resistance being the primary one.  Cool new varieties are the other. I grew the ‘Indigo’ tomato (the one that turns purple when ripe) a few years back.  Its color meant is had more anthocyanins, supposedly a healthy thing for you.  I don’t know about that–I just know it didn’t make it into my “tastes good enough to grow a second year” rotation.

This year the cool new variety is ‘Kalettes,’ available from Johnny’s Select Seeds. It’s a cross between brussel sprouts and kale.  It looks like a cool new crop and I’m sure it would be very tasty. I just know whenever I crow cole crops I have such an aphid problem it’s not worth it. So no ‘Kalettes’ for me!   If anyone tries it, let me know.

So just because something is a hybrid, don’t automatically discount it. It doesn’t mean it’s part of that huge GMO problem.  It just means that folks, working under controlled conditions, did some breeding work. And whatever they created may or may not be better for your garden.  You’ll have to try it to know for sure.

 

Success With Seed Sprouting!

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So after all the gloom and doom of the prior several posts, you’ve finally managed to say to yourself, “Well, the heck with it all. Seeds are only $2 a package. How hard can this be if every kid in school comes home with a plant in a cup? I’m going to do it!”

And truth be told, it’s not all that hard.  I’ve just given you all the things to think about so that you know how to do things properly.

So now that you know how to read a package to see whether your seeds need light to germinate, you know that you’re going to try not to over-water them, or you’ll water from the bottom if possible to try to avoid damping off, and you’ll check your last frost date so that you know when you should start the seeds, you’re ready to go!

There’s one final thing to remember after your seeds come up and you’re looking at them.  This is something that happens to me every year.  It’s sort of a “gardener’s envy” kind of thing.

I have my seeds, and no matter how well they’ve done, or how tall they are or how beautiful they look to me, it’s unavoidable that at some point before I put them in the garden or pot where they’ll eventually wind up, I start going out to garden centers.

And of course, what do I see there, but commercially grown seedlings and transplants for sale.  Compared to my plants, these huge, robust plants are like the Arnold Schwartzenegger of the plant world: they’re on steroids!

And so I go home and look at my tender seedlings and think, “Ugh. These are pitiful. They’re like dental floss with leaves.”

Except they’re not pitiful at all. They’re the product of my hard work and careful selection and no commercial or chemical fungicides, fertilizers or growth hormones.  I always need to keep that in mind.  After all, isn’t that why I’m starting my own seeds to begin with?