Gardening Tip: Senecent Seedlings

With seedlings, small is good.

Mrs. Homegrown here:

Senescence is the "change of the biology in an organism as it ages after it reaches maturity" (see Wikipedia). I believe I'm experiencing it right now.

What we're here to warn you about today is buying plants which are old before their time. Seedlings which are senescent.

What are senescent seedlings? Basically, these are seedlings whose roots have met the bottom of their container.  See, plants have their own intelligence and follow their own internal clocks.

If, for instance, a little tomato seedling spends enough time in a tiny pot or shallow flat, its roots will reach the bottom of the container. When it meets this resistance, it will start to feel confined, and it will say to itself, "Well, this is it. This is all the space I'll ever get, so I better get going on the reproduction." At that point its biology will change and it will flower and start to do it's best to set fruit or seed as soon as possible. In short, it intends to reproduce before it runs out of resources.

The result of this biological shift is that this plant will never really thrive in your garden. It will stay smallish and bear just a little before closing up shop. It's not that the plant is unhealthy, it's just that it's done. You won't get much performance out of it. It's the tomato that never gets tall. It's the pepper plant that makes one single pepper.

Beware: Most nursery seedlings are senescent.


So keep these things in mind:

• When you buy seedlings, look at the bottom of the container. If roots are poking out, it's a no-go. This pertains particularly to annual vegetables. Perennials don't like being root bound either, but the outcomes are not as extreme.

• In addition to long roots, also look for tell-tale signs of maturity in a vegetable, like flowers or fruits. Tomato plants already bearing tiny tomatoes are not a good thing. Cukes that are flowering are not a good thing.

• Look for the smallest, youngest seedlings you can find. Teeny tiny is good. The more leafed out they are, the longer their roots will be.

• If you're raising plants from seeds, don't let the seedlings sit around too long. Get them into the ground when they open their first true leaves. If you can't plant for some reason, transplant them to deeper containers.

Seed Mania

Sea Buckthorn. Image by Maggi_94

I'm still hyperventilating from all the lectures and exhibitors at the National Heirloom Exposition in Sonoma that I attended last week. I resisted the urge to buy too many seeds. Well, I sort of resisted this urge. I ended up coming back with:

Early Stone Age Wheat from Bountiful Gardens, the seed company founded by John Jeavons. I've grew a few Bountiful Gardens seeds this summer with great success (particularly their summer, late to bolt lettuce). I'm looking forwards to growing the world's smallest ancient wheat field (2 square feet) this winter. Ancient wheat is known for being difficult to thresh and clean. At least I won't have much to harvest!

Perpetual Spinach Chard, also from Bountiful Gardens. From their catalog description, "Rare, fine old European strain of Swiss Chard. Smaller smooth dark-green leaves, small mid-ribs. Frost and bolt resistant, needs water in a dry spell."

Sea Buckthorn (Hippophae rhamnoides) from Bountiful Gardens. The fruit of this berry producing shrub can be found in Armenian and Russian markets here in LA. I was introduced to it by my friends at Tularosa Farms. It's difficult to germinate so that plan is to gift the seeds to the TF folks and hope that they give us seedlings (an evil plan, I admit).

I also picked up some crimson clover and globe artichoke seeds from the Bountiful Gardens folks.

Desert Chia from Native Seed Search. Yes it is that chia, of Chia Pet fame. Chia is an ancient herb used by Native Americans for medicine and food.

Chadwick's Sweet Pea from Seed Dreams out of Port Townsend, WA. I really like having some sweet peas in the garden and this variety caught my eye, for its dark purple color and the fact that it's from the late Alan Chadwick.

Let me know if you've grown any of these oddball plants and how it went.

Cheerful but Depressing Infographic

Cheerful Seeming but Oh So Depressing Infographic*

National Geographic has an article about seed saving and the importance of biodiversity in the food supply: Food Ark. I know many of our readers are seriously savvy on such subjects, so the material may be too basic for some of you. But for those of you who are new to the subject, or want to share with others, this is a good overview.

And as always, National Geographic is best at the pictures. Attached to the article are several photo galleries. These are my favorites:

Potato Porn
 
Chicken Porn 



*If you can't read the infographic labels, it is comparing the number of seed varieties found in seed catalogs in 1903 (upper register) with the current number of varieties in the National Seed Storage Laboratory in 1983 (lower register). An astonishing loss of biodiversity over an 80 year period. This is one of the ways in which the 20th century really sucked.

Why I Grow Vegetables From Seed

Chard destined for failure

On the last day of a vegetable gardening class that Kelly and I just finished teaching at the Huntington, we needed to demonstrate how to transplant seedlings. The problem was that we didn't have any seedlings at home ready to transplant, so I had to make a trip to a garden center.

That sorry errand reminded me why I grow from seed.

All of the seedlings at the nursery were uninteresting varieties and root-bound--way too big for their pots. And someone tell me what's up with the trend I've noticed recently of selling mature tomato plants in small pots? I suppose novice gardeners probably think they're getting a better value with a large plant, so the nursery has an incentive to sell root-bound stock.

In fact, every last vegetable seedling at the nursery had root systems as congested as the 405 freeway on a Friday afternoon. When roots hit the bottom of a pot you get what John Jeavons calls "premature senility," resulting in stunted growth and plants that go rapidly to seed.

On occasion I'll buy seedlings, as when I failed to get my tomato seeds to germinate last year. In that case, Craig from Winnetka Farms had some on hand. And there's a guy at one of the local farmers' markets that has decent seedlings.

But nothing matches the variety, cost savings and quality of DIY seed propagation.

Germinator Update

Last year my tomato seeds failed to germinate. Why? It was just too cold.

I vowed to build a cold frame and this winter I made good on that promise. I've upgraded the plastic sheeting on the "germinator" to rigid plastic awning material (plastic sheeting over a flat surface doesn't do well in rain . . . duh). If I were to build this thing again I'd construct a sloping top, especially if I lived somewhere with actual weather.

Before--plastic sheeting on a flat surface--a bad idea! What was I thinking?

The automatic vent lifter (available from Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply) works great, popping open the germinator to keep the seedlings from frying during the day (remember this is Southern California).

The sight of my tomato seedlings was a highlight of the week:

If I lived in a colder climate I might consider incorporating a compost bin inside my cold frame to keep seedlings warm, a heat mat, or growing indoors under lights.

Pimp My Cold Frame

While the climate here in Los Angeles is exceedingly mild--it rarely gets much below freezing--springtime can, some years, be too cold to get good germination of summer vegetables such as tomatoes and peppers. This was the case in 2010 when I was not able to get a single tomato seed to germinate until late May. To head off another seedling crisis I built a simple cold frame.

In order to prevent the cold frame from becoming a solar cooker (it can get over 80°F during the day this time of year) I pimped it out with an Univent Automatic Greenhouse Vent Opener. The Univent uses no electricity. As the temperature gets hotter a small piston thingy forces open the window you attach the Univent too. As the temperature cools in the evening, the Univent closes the window. It was easy to install, though the directions it came with seem to have been translated back and forth between several European languages before materializing into English.

The price on Amazon seems a bit steep at $50. I got mine on sale from Peaceful Valley Farm and Garden Supply, but they no longer seem to carry it back in stock here.

I'm fully aware that my cold frame, with it's plastic cover, would be way too flimsy for places with real weather. Nevertheless, I can imagine the automatic vent opener being useful in many climates.

ETA: Mrs. Homegrown here: I just wanted to add a clarifying note. This cold frame is The Germinator (tm), one of our recent garden improvements. Ordinarily it is covered with wire screen, which lets sun in but keeps critters out. Erik's plan is to swap out the plastic sheeting with the wire screen as needed.

Is Peat Moss a Sustainable Resource?

Two very different views on the ethics of using peat moss: one from garden writer Jeff Ball via Garden Rant,

Here are the simple facts. Canada has over 270 million acres of peat bogs which produce peat moss. Each year the peat moss industry harvests only 40,000 acres of peat moss mostly for horticultural use. If you do the math that comes to one of every 6,000 acres of peat moss is harvested each year. And here is the cherry on top. Peat bogs are living entities. The peat bogs grow 70% more peat moss each year than is harvested. With that data I consider peat definitely a renewable resource.

But Ball's single source for these facts seems to be the Canadian Spaghnum Peat Moss Association. Linda Chalker-Scott, Ph.D., Extension Urban Horticulturist and Associate Professor at Washington State University in an article, "The Myth of Permanent Peatlands" (pdf), writes,

Peatlands degraded by mining activity do not revert to their former functionality; changes in hydrology and physical structure are hostile to Sphagnum re-establishment. Recently, degraded peatlands have been restored through the blockage of drainage ditches, seeding with Sphagnum, and application of a mulch layer to reduce water loss. When degraded peatlands are restored, the ability to hold water is improved but CO2 continues to be released by high levels of bacterial respiration, which represents the decomposition of mulch and other organic matter. It takes a number of years for the photosynthetic rate of new peatland plants to outpace the respiratory rate: until this happens, even restored peatlands represent a net loss of carbon to the atmosphere and thus contribute to greenhouse gas production.

Chalker-Scott goes on to list a number of peat moss alternatives including composted bark, coconut coir and paper sludge to name just a few. I use peat moss as part of a homemade seed starting mix. Reading Chalker-Scott's article has convinced me that this is not an ethical choice.

The peat moss alternative I hear most often suggested is coconut coir. But I've heard an equally contradictory argument on the ethics of coir. And this study shows poor results for coir as a peat moss alternative in a seed starting mix. I tried my own comparison last summer and came up with the same results as that study. Oh, how this all gets so complicated!

So, I'm going to throw this open to you, our dear readers. I'm interested in hearing your opinions on peat moss. I'm also interested in hearing if any of you know a good peat-less, homemade seed propagation medium recipe, preferably from a reliable source. Leave some comments!

Advances in Gardening: Introducing the Germinator™

I've built a kind of seedling Guantanamo which I've dubbed the "Germinator™." Why? Two reasons:

1. Damn squirrels and chickens. Both have gotten into my seedling flats in the past and wreaked havoc. This is why the Germinator™, for most of the year, has a wire mesh top. That wire mesh also takes down the harsh Southern California sun a notch so the flats don't dry out.

2. During the cooler spring season, I can trade out the wire mesh for a translucent plastic top and I'll have a cold frame. Last year my tomato seeds failed to germinate due to cold weather. I've vowed not to let that happen next year.

I'm going to trick out the hinged top of the Germinator™ during the cool months with a Univent Greenhouse Automatic Vent Opener, a gadget that promises to automatically open and close the top. The Univent requires no batteries or power and aims to maintain a temperature range between 62-73 F. We'll review the Univent when we try it next year.

So far the Germinator™ has worked well, providing a safe haven for our winter seedlings: artichoke, spigarello broccoli, nettles, sweet peas, white sage, Italian dandelion, chard and more. We could sow directly in the ground but, due to construction of our new garden infrastructure, starting seedlings in flats allowed me to get going ahead of time.

Acanthoscelides obtectus- A seed saver's lament

Homegrown Neighbor here:

Well, I had a rude awakening when I tried to plant my beans a few weeks ago. I have been growing several different types of pole beans for three or four years and saving seeds from them at the end of every summer. I usually grow purple, yellow and green varieties of pole beans for beautiful summer soups, salads and other dishes.

Not this year. When I opened the packet of bean seeds that I had saved last fall, I found all of these little holes in my beans. Turns out the culprit is the bean weevil, Acanthoscelides obtectus.

Their larvae make swiss cheese out of dried beans.

While they can be a pest in the garden apparently they usually are a problem in stored beans. And it turns out they love our mild California winters which allow them to reproduce year round. I also looked them up on the handy dandy University of California Integrated Pest Management site. Turns out not having dried beans around is the best way to control them. I probably am storing too many seeds in my garage. This fall I'm going to use glass jars instead of paper envelopes and see if that keeps some of the critters out.

Seedling Disaster!

"No one talks of failure as anything but shameful; this is wrongheaded and foolish . . . Mistakes are synonymous with learning. Failing is unavoidable. Making is a process, not an end. It is true that deep experience helps avoid problems, but mainly it gives you mental tools with which to solve inevitable problems when they come up."

-Tom Jennings, as quoted in Mark Frauenfelder's excellent new book, Made by Hand: Searching for Meaning in a Throwaway World 

Oh, but those mistakes sure can be frustrating especially when they happen in the garden!  I've had nothing but bad luck germinating seeds this spring for our summer garden and, as a result, our vegetable beds are as bare as the Serengeti. What happened? Here's a list of possibilities:

• watering too much
• watering too little
• damping off 
• unseasonably cold weather (we germinate outside here)
• the occasional hot day on top of cold evenings
• the mindset of the gardener: being in a hurried, stressed mood as we finished our next book

Nature being a complex system, you can often get stacking problems that make figuring out what went wrong difficult. I'm leaning towards the cold weather as I've noticed some of the seeds I planted starting to come up as it has warmed up. Lesson: you've gotta watch the weather reports even in a mild climate such as ours or invest in heating mats or a cold frame. 

Despite my pledge to grow vegetables only from seeds, panic over a summer without homegrown tomatoes prompted me to call Garden Edibles owner Craig Ruggless to see if he had any seedlings. Thankfully he had some heirloom tomato seedlings that he gave to me in return for helping him try to capture a swarm of bees that had shown up in his olive tree (unsuccessfully, it turned out--more on that misadventure in another post). At least I'm not alone. My friends in Chicago, the Green Roof Growers, had their own tomato seedling apocalypse.

I once saw Julia Child on Martha Stewart's show demonstrating how to make an elaborate dessert called a Croqembouche, a pyramidal tower of cream filled pastry balls. Stewart and Child built separate Croqembouche towers. At the end of the demo Stewart's was perfect and Child's was, well, a big mess. Yet Julia soldiered on, laughing at her mistakes. My pledge with the garden is to try to do the same and have fewer of my notorious garden meltdowns when the inevitable crisis happens. So what if it ain't perfect around here? Now Mrs. Homegrown and Homegrown neighbor should make note of that pledge . . .

Readers, please feel free to share some recent disasters.

Great Seeds Grow Great Gardens

Homegrown Neighbor here:

I have a very exciting announcement to make. As you may recall, I volunteer at a school garden at North Hollywood High. Well, it is more than a garden. There is an orchard, a flower and herb garden, a pig and a goat. We are almost done with our chicken coop and hope to get some hens in there in the new year.

I have been trying to think of ways to raise money to support our school garden project. So we have partnered with one of my favorite seed companies, Botanical Interests, to fundraise for the school garden. If you click on the url above, or on the image in the sidebar and purchase seeds, a portion of the proceeds will go to support the garden project.

Botanical Interests is a family owned company. Their seeds are untreated and non-GMO. I have grown a lot of vegetables from their seed and I have always had great germination rates and healthy plants. They have a great selection of vegetables, herbs and flowers to choose from. My very favorite plant from their collection is the Italian Nero Kale. I eat huge, heaping kale salads from my garden on a regular basis. I didn't used to like kale, now I love it.

And of course seeds make great gifts. Seed packets make great stocking stuffers, or cute adornments on packages. Botanical Interests also offers great collections of seeds such as a children's garden collection and an heirloom tomato seed collection. What a perfect gift for any gardener or nature lover. So please, click through our website, tell your friends and buy some seeds!

Francine, our mascot pot-bellied pig, thanks you.

We sometimes make mistakes . . .

Some time ago we printed the wrong email address for Franchi seed distributor Craig Ruggless. His correct email address is: franchiseeds@sbcglobal.net. Send him a note and he'll send you a catalog. Check out Craig's blog here or drop by his booth at the Sierra Madre farmer's market on Wednesdays.

We've been using Franchi seeds for years and have been consistently impressed with the results.

Spreadin' Seed

The past week was spent feverishly spreading genetic material around. No, we weren't backstage with Metallica. We're talking plants. Here's a few ways we've been spinning the genetic biodiversity wheel in the past week:

Seed Swaps
Yesterday was International Seed Swap Day of Action, sponsored by Food not Lawns. We celebrated the day in Altadena with a bunch of local gardening enthusiasts and countless boxes of seeds. We got seeds for Armenian cucumbers, red ruffled pimento peppers, feverfew, echinacea and zucchini among others. In return we gave away okra, cosmos, and mystery seeds from my mom's Greek neighbor. A seed swap makes a great excuse for a party and a great time was had by all.

The Neighbors
My mom's elderly neighbor, who spends each summer in his native Greece, loves to garden and grows, among many other things, at least four different kinds of arugula, which he calls, "the Greek Viagra". He gave us seeds for two different arugulas, some basil from the northern mountains of Greece and countless other untranslatable plants, and packed them up for us in blue medicine bottles. We've grown his vegetables before and, while we can't vouch for the aphrodisiac qualities and don't stoop to Viagra jokes, they taste really great.

Seed Savers Exchange
Seed Savers Exchange is a non-profit member supported organization that maintains a seed bank of over 25,000 varieties of vegetables. You can order seeds from them at www.seedsavers.org.

Catalogs
We've been obsessed with the Italian seed company Franchi for almost ten years now. Meeting the west coast distributor Craig Ruggless at the seed swap and seeing his display racks of seeds was the horticultural geek equivalent of bumping into a rock star. Craig's got a blog here and, in addition to distributing seeds at local nurseries, he can be found at the Sierra Madre farmer's market on Wednesdays. Craig also has a mail order operation--send an email to him at franchiseeds@sbcglobal.net and he'll send you a catalog.

Lastly, if you aren't already, consider collecting as many seeds as possible from your garden to save and share. Here's some seed saving directions for common vegetables.

Seaching for Seeds

Old school seed searching: order assembler standing next to racks containing packages at the W. Atlee Burpee Company, 1943

It's never too early to start planning that garden. And towards that goal, Mother Earth News has created a nice custom Google search engine that scours over 600 seed suppliers. It's the perfect way to find those obscure plants and varieties not at the local nursery. The search engine even includes our favorite seed company, Seeds from Italy. You can test out this new tool here on the Mother Earth website, or on the right toolbar of Homegrown Evolution.

Now it's time to go plant some oca!

A Seed Pokin' Thingy

Planting seeds seems like a simple task, and yet when you're faced with hundreds of tiny seeds and dozens of pots it can take a surprising amount of time. Thankfully there's an elegant and simple tool that can make life easier during planting season.

To make this handy tool all you need to do is take a sick (something smaller than a chopstick is ideal) and stick it into a wine cork. You use the cork end to gently tamp down the soil and the stick end to make small indentations in which to pitch your seeds.

Homegrown Evolution learned about this tip thanks to a seed propagation class we took at Urban Harvest, a non-profit located in Houston, Texas dedicated to, "Working with gardens and orchards to build healthy communities." A special thanks to instructor Jean Fefer, an organic gardening expert and a Harris County Master Gardener and Plant Propagation Specialist. We heartily recommend Urban Harvest's programs and classes to anyone interested in learning how to grow your own food.

Newspaper Seed Starting Pots

We started our summer herb and vegetable seeds yesterday using the method in this video. It's labor intensive but it beats having to buy pots. Happy planting . . .

UPDATE: We had some problems with these and have shifted back to old plastic pots for starting seeds. Read more here.