End of January

I really hate the month of January, it lasts too long and many of my tax and insurance bill come due this month. The end is at last in sight. A quick check of the calendar reveals that this is a leap year, so they will sneak an extra day of February in on us. Oh well, 29 days is better than 31.

The marigold seeds I started on the boiler on January 25 were up on January 28 so I took them off the boiler, uncovered the pot, and put them under a shop lite to keep growing. I will try to take a picture of them when they are ready to transplant into six-packs if I can figure out how to get it into this blog. One of the things I find is absolutely essential in this business is record keeping. I use little 3X5 notebooks, and start a new one every year. When I start seeds, I make a note of variety, date started, date germinated, and in the case of flowers, plant height when they mature. This record will be continued when I transplant, because when you start several varieties of plants it is easy to lose track. I will mark each six pack with a marker I make out of tongue depressors. A whole box of them is pretty cheap, and I cut them in two to keep them short. I mark the variety or batch number on the stake to keep track. The rest of the details are in my little notebook to be referenced as necessary. When I moved the little plants under the light, I gave them a little shot of a dilute sulfur-water mixture to prevent "damping off", a fungus type disease which makes small plants develop weakened stems and break off. As with all fungi-type diseases, prevention is the only treatment - if you wait until you see it happening it is too late, it can't be treated.

I am getting ready to order some new gladiolas to start this year. After shopping thru several seed catalogs, the best deal seems to be from Farmer Seed and Nursery (Farmerseed.com) - 40 corms for $2.99. My old glads were getting infested with thrips, a tiny bug which seems to live over on the corms I dig up, and start again when I plant them in the Spring. They can be controlled with sevin, but vigilance is the answer.

Seed Starting Experiment

I have been trying for quite a long time to get my flowers (mostly Marigolds) to be either blooming or well-budded when it is time to put them in my wife's flower beds. I have usually missed by at least a month, and have to wait for very small plants to grow up and blossom. This year I am trying something new. I started some Marigolds on my boiler on January 25th, and will start another batch on Feb 25 (or thereabouts), and March 25th for the final batch. In checking my records from last year, I find that I started these seeds all on April 19th - too late I think. Anyway, I will also start my tomatoes, peppers, and cole crops earlier this year - maybe around the Middle of March. I will let you know how my experiment works out.

On seed starting - here's how I have done it successfully for just about forever. I take a 3 inch plastic pot, and fill it to about 1/2 inch of the top with seed starting mix (available at any garden store, Wal-Mart, etc). I get it good and wet by adding water until it is soaked. (Its a good idea to have a flat pan under your pot). Then I sprinkle a whole packet of seeds on top and cover them with about a 1/4 inch of the mix. The pot (In a pan), goes on my hot water boiler, and I cover the seed pot with saran wrap or something like that to keep the moisture in. If you don't have a boiler, any warm spot will do, just slower. A word of caution, don't put a whole packet of seeds like broccoli or cauliflower in the pot, unless you plan on setting out about 200 plants. About 30 or 40 seeds is usually plenty. The little plants come up in about 3 days for me, and have to be moved under grow lights. In my case, the grow light is a shop lite, which I suspend about 3-4 inches above the pot (and off the boiler). The next step in the process is the first transplanting, which I will cover in a later posting. This gardening stuff is not very complicated, I don't understand why is continues to fascinate me after all these years. I guess it is because you can learn many new things as you go along (along with lots of new plant varieties). I couldn't possibly afford all the plants I want if I didn't start my own seeds.

Seeds, Trees, and Poison

I remember my first gardening job (at age 7 or 8), courtesy of my father. Both he and Mom were firm believers in the adage that “an idle child will become an evil child” and although some of us probably turned out evil, it sure wasn’t due to being idle. Anyway, my job was picking potato bugs into a can with an inch or so of kerosene in the bottom. These bugs were the survivors of an application of Arsenic of Lead (if I recall right), a white powder which I now realize contained two of the most toxic chemicals known to man. Can you imagine what would happen if you gave a child a container of this stuff in this day and age and told him or her to sprinkle it on the potato plants? Your garden would be full of suits, health officials, and possibly the National Guard protecting your health and hoping to incarcerate whoever gave you the job. In any event, I haven’t died yet so I was either lucky or the wind was blowing the right way. I have solved the potato bug problem by simply not growing potatoes any more.

My seed order is about ready to go, and I have really got to get it sent out. What is slowing me down is my reluctance to pull out the old credit card and pay the bill. I know I can only resist for a short while longer, but will hold off as long as possible. Later on, I will have to buy some Gladiolas and Dahlias because I simply got sick of the ones I had and want to get some new colors. I will probably buy them locally (Agway or Wal-Mart). They are usually as cheap that way, and no shipping costs. I am also going to plant a couple of dwarf apple trees this spring as soon as the weather breaks and I will get them from a local nursery. I would never buy a fruit tree from some non-local grower simply because you cannot believe the hardiness rating listed on the big-box displays. They will say the tree is guaranteed for a year – but it takes a year for you to know the tree has died, so much for the guarantee.

In one of my moments of brilliance a few years ago, I bought two “Mongolian Apricot” trees which were guaranteed to survive in the North Pole and anywhere south of there. The trees flourished, and after a couple of years, produced blossoms – in April! Naturally I never got an apricot. Both trees are out on my wood pile drying out for firewood.

More about seeds

Continuing the saga of seed ordering, I now have my list just about completed. One of the advantages of ordering your own seeds is that you can get the varieties you want, and are not left at the mercy of store racks and the varieties they stock. For example, I have found over the years that “Cal Wonder” peppers are a usual store favorite, I suspect because the seeds are plentiful and cheap. I have not had good luck with those peppers, and I order, start and plant a variety named “New Ace” which seem to do better in our climate. You are also unlikely to find “Big Beef” tomatoes in either seed or plant form at a store. This is my favorite main season tomato so I have to order seeds. I usually start a few cherry tomatoes and set out a couple of plants in my raised beds. These are for snacking during the summer. Most of my seeds will come from FEDCO, but they have discontinued stocking Big Beef, so I have had to order them from another catalog. I used “R. H. Shumway’s” catalog both because they are cheaper, but also charge less for shipping and handling. I also got my cucumbers (Marketmore 76) from Shumway. They do not have an on-line ordering service, although you can order by fax. Since I don’t have a fax, I will have to do it the old fashioned way. Shumway has a web site if you are interested www.rhshumway.com. In a later posting, I will get into seed starting, although it seems a little premature while there is still snow on the ground.

Seed Catalogs & Stuff

I have to thank North Country Now’s website for listing this blog. Frankly, I have no clue how this Blog business works, so I am slogging thru a day at a time. I did not know what the rules were about blog content, so I read a couple of others, and find that basically, there are no rules – duh.

Back to seed catalogs. My favorite seed catalog is Fedco, PO Box 520, Waterville, ME 04903-0520. Their Web Site is “www.fedcoseeds.com.” They have the most reasonable prices I have seen, and quite a variety. Of course you can’t get everything you want, but I have 11 other catalogs to fill in the blanks. I like seed companies from areas which have weather similar to ours. I find that the catalogs from southern states, while nice enough, are a little optimistic – weather wise. I received a note from Wiseacre who asked “How old are your seed packets?” I presume the real question is, how long do seeds last? The seed catalogs usually say that seeds last 3 years if kept dry and cool. I have kept a few using prescription bottles or baby food jars. When I do this, I toss in a few grains of rice to absorb any moisture lurking around. To be honest, I rarely throw away any old seed packets, and just as rarely use them unless they are stuff I regularly grow. If you are wondering if any seeds you have on hand are still viable, simply start a few like you do your regular seeds and see if they sprout. Some sources say to put a few in a moist paper towel, but I have never tried this. In a later posting, I will cover seed starting.

National Seed Catalog Day

I have long advocated that a National Holiday be declared when the new seed catalogs come out. I have received 12 so far this year; all of them jam packed with seed, plant, supply, fertilizer, and equipment offers. What is a little stunning is the price of seeds! The days of the 10 cent seed packet are certainly behind us – waaaay behind us. I use seed catalogs to price compare seeds, and would give you a piece of advice about how to do this, whether you want it or not. When you compare prices, it is necessary to make sure you have the same exact seed name – you can’t compare apples and oranges, heh, heh. It is as important to search until you find out what the size of the packets is. Some companies will offer “Sampler” packets, which is usually the size of the smallest packets sold everywhere. What you have to do is figure out the seed count of the packet so you can get a good comparison. For example, Marketmore 76 is a common slicing cucumber. Vermont Seed Company offers 30 seeds for $1.55, FEDCO offers 65 seeds for $0.90, and Shumway is $1.65 for 50 seeds. This may sound like small potatoes, but if you have a large seed order, it will add up very rapidly. A packet (30 seeds) of “Big Beef” tomato from Burpee costs $3.50. The identical packet (30) from Totally Tomatoes is $2.10. More about seed catalogs later – I don’t want everyone asleep.

Mother Nature's Revenge

It is now the 2d of January. When I got up it was 6 degrees. Since then it has done its best to get to zero, and is now at 2 degrees. I thought it was supposed to go up. I plowed yesterday, and will have to again today, old Mother dumped another 6-8 inches of snow last night. I am getting a little sick of plowing/shoveling. If you equate plowing with gardening, I have a feeling this doesn't count. When I finally get our front deck cleared off, I will rake the snow off the roof and do it again. At least the sun is shining, but is sure isn't warming anything up yet. It sounds like it will warm up this weekend, but that seems to be a long way away from this point. Will get back to this later after I finish my chores.