Ok, you've gotten your seed catalogs. You're excited by all those gorgeous pictures but then you get down to the descriptions and you're not sure it's in your native language. Don't put the catalog down in frustration, just read the following definitions to those foreign words. You will be an expert before you know it.
Heirloom - means the plant is open-pollinated (non-hybrid) and the seed source goes back at least 50 years. These plants are very popular right now, and rightly so. Generally speaking, they are tastier, fun to collect and you can save their seed. So many of the hybrid varieties have been bred for a specific purpose, often smaller plants, durability when shipping, almost anything but flavor. The old heirloom varieties have been passed down from generation to generation because they performed well in gardens and because they had great flavor.
Open-pollinated - are varieties that grow true from seed. This means they are capable of producing seeds from this years plants, which will produce seedlings that are just like their parent plants. Hybrids are a cross between two varieties, which means if you were to save their seeds you could not be certain how those seeds would grow.
Determinate - this is a designation most often used when talking about tomato plants. It means their size is determined. They will only grow to a certain height and then they will stop growing. This is an advantage to some gardeners, especially those growing in small spaces or who container garden. They will also set most of their fruit at the same time, which will give you a large harvest all at once.
Indeterminate - these tomato plants will grow indefinitely, limited by the weather in your area. They can become very tall, although you can control this by pinching off the growing tip of your plant once it reaches the size you desire. The plant will then invest the rest of its energy bushing out and setting fruit. One of the advantages of indeterminate plants is they will continually produce blossoms, thus you can have fruit over a longer period. In general, indeterminate plants will start producing a little later than determinate plants but you will get tomatoes over more of the season.
organic - in the gardening world, organic means that no artificial chemicals have been used to produce the plant that gave the seed and that no chemicals have been used on the seed. This has become a contentious word for some. Since growing in popularity, the term has almost been co opted by the corporate world. There are many great farmers out there that grow in an organic manner and don't use chemicals but are not able to get their farm certified due to the extreme cost and red tape it takes to now a days be certified. Buy or trade seed from a source you trust. Thereby guaranteeing a seed that will germinate well and be free from pesticides and herbicides.
perennial - are plants that grow for 3 or more seasons. This will depend on your growing zone. If your winters are too cold, this plant could die over the winter and not return the next year. There are a lot more plants that are perennial in Florida than in South Dakota. I live in Kansas City, Missouri and often will find plants that are labeled perennials at my local nursery. When I look closer I realize they are only perennials up to zone 7. Since I'm a zone 5, they will not survive the winter where I live. Be careful of this term because it could be used misleadingly. There are only a few true perennials in the vegetable world, asparagus, artichoke, walking onions, and horseradish are a few. There are quite a few perennial fruits and herbs. Which brings up another thing to think about, some perennials will produce and live longer than others. Often you will hear the term short lived perennial, strawberries would qualify as a short lived perennial.
annuals- these are plants that grow from seed, set seed, spread their seed and die in the same season. Most of your vegetables fall under this category.
biennials - these are vegetables that will grow for two seasons before dying. They will produce and distribute their seeds in the second season. There a quite a few vegetables that are true biennials, although we treat them as annuals in our garden. They produce whatever it is we like to eat the first year. If you were to want to collect their seeds you would have to wait until the end of the next growing season to be able to do so. Onions, carrots, turnips and beets are biennials.
One word of caution, it is not really a definition, however, it is something to watch out for when buying seeds. If you want to get flower seeds and in the definition it says something like naturalizes easily, vigorous grower or self sows readily. Be prepared for a plant that will quickly take over your garden. This is the catalogs politically correct way of saying the plant can become weedlike. This could be a desirable trait in the right condition but it is definitely something you should be aware of.
Armed with this new knowledge, grab a highlighter and your catalog and pick some great varieties that are sure to be your new favorites.
Saturday, January 31, 2009
Vermiculture for Your Garden
You eat right? Which means you make food waste, leftovers never to be eaten and peels and such. A recent study by the Environmental Protection Agency estimated that Americans generate roughly 30 million tons of food waste each year, which is about 12 percent of the total waste stream. All but about 2 percent of that food waste ends up in landfills; by comparison, 62 percent of yard waste is composted. While that food is rotting in the landfill, it is producing methane gas, a leading contributor to global warming. "But," you say,"you can't expect me to eat my potato peels." What can I as a conscientious eater do?
Well, one of the most obvious answers is for us to buy more locally and in smaller quantities but that blog post is for another day. Another answer is to get some chickens, a great way to turn your food scraps into eggs.
Or...you could get some worms. That's right worms. These little buggers chow down on kitchen scraps. One pound of worms will eat up to 4 lbs of food a week. They are easy to take care of and produce gold for you with a little amount of care.
"Gold!" you question me. "I don't believe you." Well, in my opinion they produce a resource more valuable than gold. You can use worm castings (a pc way of saying worm poo) as a super booster for your garden. It's wonderful to apply as a fertilizing mulch around the base of your plants. It is especially good for those nutrient hungry ones, such as tomatoes. Just make sure you don't put it right up against the plant stem. It can also be used to amend your garden soil and as a fertilizer in potting mix or to fertilize your household plants. One of my favorite ways to use worm castings is as a compost tea. Compost tea is easy to make and use. Simply add 1-2" of compost t
o your water can or rain barrel. Allow compost and water to "steep" for a day, mixing occasionally. Then water plants as you normally would. The resulting "tea" helps make nutrients already in the soil available to plants. And is great as a quick pick-me-up for your plants. A word of warning though, don't use this "tea" on really hot days, it could burn plants if it gets directly on their leaves. Use it early in the morning or on overcast days.
Now that I've convinced you, let's get started. First you need to acquire some worms. The absolute best worms for vermiculture is Red Wigglers (Eisema foetida). They are perfect for our worm composters for a variety of reasons. First of all, they are incredible composters. As mentioned before, they are the workhorses of the composting world, eating up to half their body weight a day. They also are surface feeders, getting their daily meals from the surface of your bin. They reproduce at a rate that would shame rabbits. Additionally, warm and cold don't bother them as much as many other kinds of worms. That being said, do not leave your compost bin in the direct heat of summer, the worms will cook. Not good. Also, don't leave you compost bin out in the freezing weather of winter, they will also freeze. Your kitchen is a great place to keep the bin (if noone minds), it makes it a convenient place to have it to add scraps to. The basement or garage are also excellent places to keep your composter.
It's easy to take care of your worms. Just make sure you provide a temperate place for them to live, change their bedding and feed them appropriate food and you should not have any problems with your worms. Worms can be fed a wide variety of things, vegetable peels, most kitchen scraps, fruit, breads and grains, tea bags, coffee grounds and filter, egg shells and even newspaper. There are some foods you should avoid, however. Never feed your worms any meat product, anything oily or greasy, anything dairy and avoid putting slick colored newspaper in with them. Crushed eggshells are a great addition to your bin periodically. It provides grit for the worms and helps them digest their food.
You need a b
in for your worms to live in. It can be as elaborate or simple as you want. I'm going to give you plans to build a bin like have. I've been using this bin for over 5 years and it is as simple as it gets. First you need a plastic container, a lidded tub will work great. You don't want it to be too deep, remember they're surface feeders, and you don't want it to be clear, worms don't enjoy the light. You want a few very small holes in the bottom of your container for drainage, worms can become waterlogged. If you desire, you can put a piece of screening at the bottom to make sure the worms don't get out but I have never had a problem with this. Also, make sure that you have something underneath to catch this drainage. It makes great fertilizer. Now, shred up some paper - remember, nonglossy is best. You can also use cardboard, leaves, straw, dried grass or peat moss. Whatever you have on hand. Fill your container 2/3 the way up with the bedding. Every week or so, you will want to add more bedding. Your worms will actually eat it and turn it into compost also. Now, add your worms. You will also want to add a small amount of dirt and sand if you have it to get them started. Cover it with a lid, those little guys will try to escape if they are not getting enough food. All you have to do now is a little weekly maintenance and harvest your castings when you need it and you'll be a successful worm farmer.
Harvesting your castings can happen in a couple of ways. If you are opposed to digging around in the poo and are the patient type. You can use one of two ways. The first way is to only add food to one side of the bin, in about a week most all the worms will be on that side of the bin and you can just take out the compost from the other side and add some more bedding and be done with it. Or if you are not quite that patient, you can dump your bin out on a trashbag, spread it out a little and leave a light on. In about 24 hours, most all the worms will have migrated to the bottom of the pile. Take off the top of the pile to use as compost, put the rest that has the worms in it back in the bin, add more bedding and your done. Or for the hands on type, and my favorite way, is to just dump your bin out, grab a handful of castings and look for worms. A little secret, if there is still food in there you will find huge amounts of worms around and in this food. I would often pick up an apple core and there would be a hundred worms half buried in it. There will be no way for you to get all the worms completely out no matter which way you chose. If you are adding the compost into the garden all the better, they will work hard for you there also.
A couple of things to watch out for. If your worms start to die, make sure you've been feeding them enough, make sure your bedding isn't too dry or too soggy, make sure they aren't freezing or baking or that they don't need new bedding. If your bin starts to smell, this isn't normal. Make sure you aren't giving your worms too much food, that you aren't adding meat or dairy products, and that they have enough bedding. It is normal for small nematodes to grow in your bin. They are just helping your worms compost the food scraps. Flies or fruit flies are not normal. Make sure you are putting your food under a little bedding, that the lid stays on and that you are not over feeding your worms.
If you want more information Mary Applehof's book, Worms Ate My Garbage, is very useful. You can also google vermiculture or worm bins and pull up tons of information on the web.
Once you've become a successful worm farmer, share some of your worms with friends. Fill them in on the wonder of worm poo and why your garden looks so great.
Well, one of the most obvious answers is for us to buy more locally and in smaller quantities but that blog post is for another day. Another answer is to get some chickens, a great way to turn your food scraps into eggs.
Or...you could get some worms. That's right worms. These little buggers chow down on kitchen scraps. One pound of worms will eat up to 4 lbs of food a week. They are easy to take care of and produce gold for you with a little amount of care.
"Gold!" you question me. "I don't believe you." Well, in my opinion they produce a resource more valuable than gold. You can use worm castings (a pc way of saying worm poo) as a super booster for your garden. It's wonderful to apply as a fertilizing mulch around the base of your plants. It is especially good for those nutrient hungry ones, such as tomatoes. Just make sure you don't put it right up against the plant stem. It can also be used to amend your garden soil and as a fertilizer in potting mix or to fertilize your household plants. One of my favorite ways to use worm castings is as a compost tea. Compost tea is easy to make and use. Simply add 1-2" of compost t
o your water can or rain barrel. Allow compost and water to "steep" for a day, mixing occasionally. Then water plants as you normally would. The resulting "tea" helps make nutrients already in the soil available to plants. And is great as a quick pick-me-up for your plants. A word of warning though, don't use this "tea" on really hot days, it could burn plants if it gets directly on their leaves. Use it early in the morning or on overcast days.Now that I've convinced you, let's get started. First you need to acquire some worms. The absolute best worms for vermiculture is Red Wigglers (Eisema foetida). They are perfect for our worm composters for a variety of reasons. First of all, they are incredible composters. As mentioned before, they are the workhorses of the composting world, eating up to half their body weight a day. They also are surface feeders, getting their daily meals from the surface of your bin. They reproduce at a rate that would shame rabbits. Additionally, warm and cold don't bother them as much as many other kinds of worms. That being said, do not leave your compost bin in the direct heat of summer, the worms will cook. Not good. Also, don't leave you compost bin out in the freezing weather of winter, they will also freeze. Your kitchen is a great place to keep the bin (if noone minds), it makes it a convenient place to have it to add scraps to. The basement or garage are also excellent places to keep your composter.
It's easy to take care of your worms. Just make sure you provide a temperate place for them to live, change their bedding and feed them appropriate food and you should not have any problems with your worms. Worms can be fed a wide variety of things, vegetable peels, most kitchen scraps, fruit, breads and grains, tea bags, coffee grounds and filter, egg shells and even newspaper. There are some foods you should avoid, however. Never feed your worms any meat product, anything oily or greasy, anything dairy and avoid putting slick colored newspaper in with them. Crushed eggshells are a great addition to your bin periodically. It provides grit for the worms and helps them digest their food.
You need a b
in for your worms to live in. It can be as elaborate or simple as you want. I'm going to give you plans to build a bin like have. I've been using this bin for over 5 years and it is as simple as it gets. First you need a plastic container, a lidded tub will work great. You don't want it to be too deep, remember they're surface feeders, and you don't want it to be clear, worms don't enjoy the light. You want a few very small holes in the bottom of your container for drainage, worms can become waterlogged. If you desire, you can put a piece of screening at the bottom to make sure the worms don't get out but I have never had a problem with this. Also, make sure that you have something underneath to catch this drainage. It makes great fertilizer. Now, shred up some paper - remember, nonglossy is best. You can also use cardboard, leaves, straw, dried grass or peat moss. Whatever you have on hand. Fill your container 2/3 the way up with the bedding. Every week or so, you will want to add more bedding. Your worms will actually eat it and turn it into compost also. Now, add your worms. You will also want to add a small amount of dirt and sand if you have it to get them started. Cover it with a lid, those little guys will try to escape if they are not getting enough food. All you have to do now is a little weekly maintenance and harvest your castings when you need it and you'll be a successful worm farmer.Harvesting your castings can happen in a couple of ways. If you are opposed to digging around in the poo and are the patient type. You can use one of two ways. The first way is to only add food to one side of the bin, in about a week most all the worms will be on that side of the bin and you can just take out the compost from the other side and add some more bedding and be done with it. Or if you are not quite that patient, you can dump your bin out on a trashbag, spread it out a little and leave a light on. In about 24 hours, most all the worms will have migrated to the bottom of the pile. Take off the top of the pile to use as compost, put the rest that has the worms in it back in the bin, add more bedding and your done. Or for the hands on type, and my favorite way, is to just dump your bin out, grab a handful of castings and look for worms. A little secret, if there is still food in there you will find huge amounts of worms around and in this food. I would often pick up an apple core and there would be a hundred worms half buried in it. There will be no way for you to get all the worms completely out no matter which way you chose. If you are adding the compost into the garden all the better, they will work hard for you there also.
A couple of things to watch out for. If your worms start to die, make sure you've been feeding them enough, make sure your bedding isn't too dry or too soggy, make sure they aren't freezing or baking or that they don't need new bedding. If your bin starts to smell, this isn't normal. Make sure you aren't giving your worms too much food, that you aren't adding meat or dairy products, and that they have enough bedding. It is normal for small nematodes to grow in your bin. They are just helping your worms compost the food scraps. Flies or fruit flies are not normal. Make sure you are putting your food under a little bedding, that the lid stays on and that you are not over feeding your worms.
If you want more information Mary Applehof's book, Worms Ate My Garbage, is very useful. You can also google vermiculture or worm bins and pull up tons of information on the web.
Once you've become a successful worm farmer, share some of your worms with friends. Fill them in on the wonder of worm poo and why your garden looks so great.
Time to Order Your Seed Catalog
I know it doesn't even seem possible. Temperatures are below freezing and a lot of the country is up to their backsides in snow. However, it is time to order your seed catalog. There are a lot of things to consider when ordering your catalog because you want to get the best, most reliable seeds possible. It's easy to pick up a couple of packets of seeds at your local hardware store but it you want a great selection and reliable quality, go all out and order from a seed company. Besides, you will learn a lot about gardening and the specific plants from these catalogs.
I think of a couple of things when I'm thinking about what kinds of seeds I'll want, which is how i decide where i want to get catalogs from. The first is what kinds of vegetables do me and my family eat. There is no reason to buy eggplant seed if you've never even eaten one - unless you feel adventurous this season. I always try a couple of different vegetables every year. So, make a list. What kinds of vegetables do you love? What kinds of vegetables just taste so much better straight from the garden than from the back of an 18-wheeler that's just driven across the country (or now-a-days even further.) This category will probably include most all veggies, but there are some we know for sure. There is nothing like fresh lettuce (and nothing easier to grow) and nothing like eating tomatoes straight off of the vine.
So, now you should have one list, what kinds of vegetables and herbs you would like to grow. Next, consider what is important to you. For me I really enjoy growing heirloom varieties of vegetables. I love that they have a history, I love that they are usually more tasty (because they haven't been bred to ripen quicker, or last on that truck ride across the country), and i like that they are not genetically modified. So, I look for seed companies that carry a large selection of heirloom seeds. It is also important to me to try to get organic seed as often as possible. I order a lot of seed from seed savers and their members - sometimes it is seed they have collected from their backyard. I know chemicals have not been used on the seeds even though they are not certified organic. So, if i can i buy organic seeds if not, buy from a company (or better yet a person) that you are familiar with and know their growing practices. There are a lot of regulations and organizations that have been formed to have a tight hold on the organic certification process. This can make it very cost prohibitive for the small producer. (If you are using your seeds to make sprouts, please, buy certified organic!)
Now, that you have an idea of what kinds of seeds you'd like. We need to find some companies that carry seeds that meet those qualifications. You can google seed catalogs or you can choose from some of my favorites. I'll give you the low down on some great seed companies and their catalogs. There are a couple of companies that don't print paper catalogs and you'll have to order from them online. I'll give you a link to each of these companies and let you know how to get their catalogs.
My ne
w favorite catalog this year is from Baker Heirloom Seeds. This is a gorgeous catalog. They have gone all out this year. Baker is a great place to order seeds from. They carry an incredibly large selection of heirloom seeds. They carry vegetables, herbs and flowers, many are rare and you won't find them anywhere else. You can request a catalog from their website.My second favorite place to order seeds from is Seed Savers Exchange. They also carry
an enormous selection of heirloom seeds. As a matter of fact, they have made it their mission to try to save as many varieties as possible. A great organization, a great catalog. The catalog gives you a lot of information about each variety. They also have a lot of rare varieties, which i love to try. You never know when you'll have a new favorite. You can request a catalog from their website.Next, I get lots of seeds from Bountiful Gardens. This is an off shoot of John Jeavons and Ecological Action (of the grow biointensive movement.) I love John Jeavon's books, they are incredibly useful if you are trying to grow enough food to live on in a small area with no inputs that come off of your "farm." The seeds he offers are perfect for this type of growing. One thing this catalog offers that I absolutely love is variety packs. You can get one packet of carrot seeds that will contain 10 or 20 different varieties of open pollinated seeds. This is a great option for those with limited space and limited budgets that still want a variety of seeds. I highly recommend getting a Bountiful Gardens catalog.
A great place that does not have a print catalog but specializes in tomato seeds is Tomato Fest, my mother in law gave me a gift certificate to there last year. I ordered a lot of seed from them and will again this year. Great variety, great seed. check them out.
A couple of other good places to get catalogs are
Seeds of Change - they have a good selection of seed and gardening supplies. all of their seed is certified organic.
Johnny's Selected Seeds - they are starting to have more organic seeds. Carry mostly your standard varieties.
Territorial Seed Company - also has a large selection, some of which are open pollinated, some are organic.
Get those seed catalogs order, in one of the next couple of posts, we'll talk about what to look for when picking out seeds
Monday, January 26, 2009
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