Gardening In LA
  • Home
  • About
  • Services
    • Garden Coaching
    • Speaking
    • Photography
    • Writing >
      • List of Articles
  • Blog
  • News
  • Monthly Tips
    • January
    • February
    • March
    • April
    • May
    • June
    • July
    • August
    • September
    • October
    • November
    • December
  • Events
    • Submit Your Garden Events
    • Botanical Gardens' and Other Organizations' Garden Events
  • Jobs
  • Web Links
  • Newsletter

More Seedy Stuff

9/26/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
The first seedlings are up!
Picture
Seeding process #1: fill cells with potting mix - I prefer Supersoil for its consistently medium-fine grain. #2: punch holes 1/2 inch deep with fingers.
Picture
#3: gently nudge a couple of seeds from packet into each hole.
Picture
#4: with the back of your hand, gently move up the row to cover seeds with the potting mix already in each cell. Stay in the row so any seeds that move will still be in their variety's row.
Picture
#5: with the front of your hand, draw down the same row to make sure all seeds are covered.
Picture
#6: place tray in water drip tray. Gently sprinkle from top up and down in each variety row so seeds don't move out of their rows. Water will run through each cell, moistening all of the potting mix, and into the tray. Keep this water in the tray to be reabsorbed from the bottom of each cell as it's needed by the soil mix.
     Yeah, well, 100 degrees isn’t fun in the garden, for people or plants. 
     Hopefully you kept track of the forecast, and watered before the temperature bolted.  The trick is to get the moisture into the soil before the heat, not during the heat, just in case any phytophthora fungal organisms exist – they’ll go crazy when in both heat and moisture, and your plants may then be goners. 
     When you water ahead of the heat, the soil moisture stays cooler in the root zones, so any existing phytophthora won't as readily affect your plants.

The first lettuce seeds germinated!
     The first of the 24 varieties of lettuce seeds that I sowed last weekend are coming up – Bibb, Kagraner Sommer, and Tom Thumb.  21 varieties to go!
     See the picture sequence at left for the seeding process, using my 30-year-old Speedling (R) trays that I purchased from Peaceful Valley Farm Supply (www.groworganic.com). The drip trays became available a couple of years ago, too.  Yes, the set is relatively expensive with shipping, but mine are still serving me well after all these years!  I use the 2" cell size.
     In the past, I’ve been careful to let only two or at most three seeds fall into each cell, so I could snip the less-vigorous ones when transplanting them.  This time, since many of my seed packets were 2 years old, I was more generous to make sure I got good germination.  The Bibb especially seems to have germinated all of the dozen-or-so seeds in each cell.  When transplanting these, I’ll either snip all but two seedlings, or separate the seedlings into separate plants. 
     The reason to snip instead of pull extras out of the cell when allowing the remaining ones to develop further is so you don’t disturb the root of the couple you want to develop, which would set back the seedling a week or two.
    
Other “Seedy” Notes
     As some herbs reseed themselves, transplant them for overwintering in the garden.  Dill, especially, seems to germinate better this way, so take advantage of it.
     Problems with seed germination may be due to old seed, soil that is too warm or has been allowed to dry out, or seeds that were sown either too deeply or not deeply enough.  
     Keep seedbeds moist and shaded from hot afternoon sun until the seedlings develop two to four true leaves. 
     When sowing cover crops for the fall and winter, consider edible ones.  Kale and rocket (roquette, arugula) are full-flavored leafy vegetables that withstand freezing.  Both germinate in cool weather and are welcome fresh greens for stir-fry and soups all winter long.  In the spring, they can be easily turned under as "green manure" when preparing the soil for the main spring and summer crops.

0 Comments

Cool-Season Sowing and Transplanting During Hot Weather

9/19/2016

2 Comments

 
PictureThese $4 trays keep seedlings corralled for easy watering and moving, including enabling reabsorption of water that initially ran through potting mix.
     Ah, September’s flip-flopping weather!  Two weeks of mildness got me into a mindset of cool weather coming.  Then, this week of heat – yesterday’s venture into town registered 103 degrees! 
     I’d just purchased a batch of tiny lettuce, spinach, chard, kale, cilantro, parsley, and artichoke seedlings from my favorite provider, San Gabriel Nursery, a couple of days ago.  But by about noon yesterday, they were all drooping, so I had to move them into afternoon shade and water them again.
     I’ve found plastic storage trays to be ideal for grouping six-packs and 4” pots, keeping them watered and easily moved in bulk between locations as needed.  They’re about $4 from Target.
     After another two weeks of acclimation to my garden and their new home, I’ll transplant them.    
     In the meantime, I’ll prepare the soil in the bed where they’ll mature.  I’ll pile on about an inch of manure, another inch of compost, some coffee grounds, and a scattering of Dr. Earth fertilizer with about even numbers of N-P-K.  Then, using a hand trowel, I’ll turn it all in with the top inch of original soil in the bed.  I don’t want to dig deeper so I don’t disturb the understory soil that’s become full of microorganisms that’ll help the new transplants connect with their established supporting networks. 
     This is done two to three weeks before I’ll sow seeds or transplant seedlings there so the heat-up of the new mix can be accomplished and cooled down back to regular temperature before adding the new plants.  If you don’t wait, chances are the new roots will be burned, and seeds sown may not germinate.
 
Why Sow Seeds and Transplant Seedlings Now?
     Seeds sown now for winter and spring blooms and crops – especially edible peas and flowering sweet peas – and transplanting perennials like artichokes, asparagus, rhubarb, strawberries, and California natives – will encourage strong root and foliar development that will survive most frosts, thrive, and bear food and flowers sooner.  Especially during our continuing drought, best establishment practices will assure long productive plant life!
     Sow or transplant two or three times the amount you would in spring, as these overwintering crops will grow very slowly.  For salad greens like lettuce and spinach and bok choy, you’ll harvest only a couple of leaves a week from each plant, so you’ll need many more plants to result in frequent salads.
     Thanksgiving is my area’s average first frost date, although it’s been several years since my garden has had any frost at all. 
     Plants that have developed deep root systems and mature leaves are more tolerant to the cold.  When these plants are three or four inches in size before the first hard frost, they're mature enough to be harvested throughout the fall, winter, and early spring. 
     These will bolt at the first real warmth of early spring, though, so they can't be counted on to provide a crop after that.   But, by then, you'll have made the first spring plantings, so the gap between harvests won't be too long.
     When sowing cover crops for the fall and winter, consider edible ones.  Kale and rocket (roquette, arugula) are full-flavored leafy vegetables that withstand freezing.  Both germinate in cool weather and are welcome fresh greens for stir-fry and soups all winter long.  In the spring, they can be easily turned under as "green manure" when preparing the soil for the main spring and summer crops.

2 Comments

Organizing Seed Packets

9/13/2016

0 Comments

 
Picture
     I do love starting seeds.  The process promises such a bounty of edible veggies and beautiful blooms that’ll last for months and months, especially as cool weather lengthens the harvest.  It really is an investment in the future, from short-term to long-term. 
     Short-term lettuce and radishes come up in less than a week, and we’re eating them a month later.  However, the many lettuce varieties will produce all through winter and spring into early summer; some even resist bolting beyond that in my hot-summer Pasadena garden. 
     Long-term broccoli keeps sending up bitesize shoots through June and sometimes longer; and cabbage and cauliflower take several months to form their heads, but what a great amount of food!
     One of the great delights of growing our own veggies and bloomies is the reinforcement we get from checking the prices at the groceries and florists – and feeling so virtuous that we’re eating much greater quantities of healthy produce and enjoying our beautifully blooming gardens at considerably less cost than if we had to purchase them commercially. 
     But this really holds only for the specific items that are easily grown and produce a lot in our individual gardens.  For example, years ago, I grew corn and melons and annual flowers, but the amount of space and length of time it took to get a couple of incompletely-set cobs and unsweet fruit and 3-week bloom just wasn’t worth it.  Now, I’d also add the cost of water to keep those plants producing! 
     While growing them did provide the experience of knowing what was required, since then, I much rather grow just about any other summer crops because I get so much more food and flower value. And I prefer growing cool-season vegetables because they produce for so many months longer – and don’t take the amount of water needed during hot weather!
 
How I organize my seed packets

  1. When I’ll sow them:  Cool Season (fall through spring), and Warm Season (late spring and early summer)
  2. By type:  beans, lettuce, tomatoes, etc.
  3. By variation:  bush beans or pole beans; edible-pod peas or non-edible-pod peas, etc.
  4. Alphabetical by variety:  beets = Baby Ball, Cylindra, Detroit Dark Red, Early Wonder, Ruby Queen, Sangria, etc.
  5. By age of seed:  Older packets first -- I’ll sow these more thickly to make up for less probable germination. When I purchase newer seed, I’ll toss the packet that’s more than two years old.
 
How I prepare the packets and labels

  1. I cut off the top 1/8” of the packet, making sure all of the information remains readable.
  2. I write the year of production at the top right corner (really, I do this as soon as I purchase the packet).
  3. I write on both sides of my wooden 6” labels:  one side for type, like “edible-pod pea”, and the other side for variety and other info, like “Super Sugar, 6’ tall” (the height will let me know whether to install a trellis).
    

0 Comments

Moving On To The Fall Garden

9/5/2016

2 Comments

 
Picture
Nothing's wrong with these end-of-the-season tomatoes - they're just pooped, so older leaves are dying back. However, a batch of tomatoes have set and will ripen, but the flavor won't be as good as during super-hot summer weather.
Picture
Jujube - "Chinese Dates" are crunchy and sweet when picked now.
Picture
If harvested later, jujubes look and taste more like dates.
Picture
Baby bok choy seedlings planted close enough together to shade soil and deter weeds.
Picture
Vibrant colors of chard make for beautiful raw salads and keep their colors when cooked.
Picture
Lots of lettuces are available in seed packets.
     Dare I admit that my enthusiasm for my nightly plateful of tomatoes is diminishing?   Saying that feels like heresy for a gardener.  But, I can’t say that I’m regretting that my wonderfully productive plants bearing their bounty since June are mostly pooping out (maybe a dozen more green ones yet to ripen, and the Sungold keeps pumping).  My tastebuds still thrill at the first couple of mouthfuls, but then I recognize that the acidity is more pronounced than the balance for which I chose those varieties – Celebrity, Green Zebra, Stupice – and for the always magnificently flavored and productive Sungold. 
     I grew other varieties this year, but wasn’t particularly impressed with either their growth or flavor – although Tangerine was plentiful enough to always add brilliant orange chunks to my plateful of red ones. But the flavor was mild and undistinctive; good for color but that was it.
     Nice to have the additional tasteful harvests of figs and beans and squash and peppers, which are my always-have-to-grows.  And, I harvested 6 jujubes – “Chinese Dates” – which I loved when we lived in Davis.  Crunchy and very sweet like an apple now when still mottled green and brown.  If I’d left them to mature more, they’d shrivel and turn completely brown and taste even richer, looking and tasting like dates. 
     I feel so virtuous about my harvests when I see the prices at grocery stores or even farmers’ markets, recognizing how much more of all these vegetables and fruits I eat because the plants keep producing – that I certainly wouldn’t if I had to purchase them!

 Recommendations for every garden
     My recommendations to new gardeners is three-fold:  1) Try at least once to grow everything you’re curious about, just for the experience, but 2) In general, grow what your family will eat, and 3) Grow what will produce a lot of food for a long time in the space and under the conditions that you have. 
     For example, 1) Grow corn once just out of curiosity, but its long season to maturity and need for a lot of space preclude the value of the one or two ears of corn you’ll get, 2) Grow something new each season in the hopes that your family will enjoy adding its nutrition and novelty to its list of regular ingredients, but don’t keep growing it if they don’t like it, and 3) Grow indeterminate tomatoes because they’ll keep producing until frost, but don’t struggle to keep them alive through the winter since they’ll taste no better than store-bought and are therefore a waste of garden space and effort; instead, grow what thrives during the chill! 
 
Moving on to the Fall garden  
     September is transition time.  We never know what the upcoming two months’ weather will be, so we take advantage of preparing for both more summer and the shift to cooler weather.  That way, whatever comes, something will be successfully growing in our gardens. 
     In case the weather stays hot, I plant any summer crops that I can conceivably get a crop in about 60 days.
     For the most part, I count on getting an early start with both seeding and transplanting cool-season crops.  I purchase from my favorite nurseries whatever seedlings I can find of baby bok choy, broccoli, broccoli raab, cabbage, cauliflower, chard, cilantro, kale, leeks, lettuce, parsley, and spinach.  The point is to get growing as much as possible as soon as possible, so you can start eating them as soon as possible.
     At the same time, I also sow seeds of all of these, since they’re available in so many more varieties than commercially as seedlings. I also sow seeds of beets and carrots and kohlrabi directly where they’ll mature because they need to immediately put down their tap roots so they’ll develop straight and long deeply into the soil. 
     Sweet peas are also best sown directly where they’ll grow.  I put them on the far side of my edible peas’ cage, which is on the downside of a hill and therefore not very accessible.  Even if both types set pods at the same time, the poisonous sweet pea pods are fuzzy so easily discernible from the edible pods that are smooth.
2 Comments

    Archives

    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015

    Categories

    All

    RSS Feed

© 2015 Yvonne Savio. All Rights Reserved.                                                                                                                                                         Web Design by StudioMAH.