The Birth Of A New Generation

14 May, 2013 Reply
Simple and fascinating to watch. Try growing some of your own!

Simple and fascinating to watch. Try growing some of your own!

In The Beginning

It started with small white tails after just three weeks. Then it proceeded on to small green sprouts after about another week. After approximately four weeks I’m now the proud mother of about a dozen or so tiny Amaryllis seedlings.

It all began back when the Amaryllis bloomed a couple months ago. My husband has always been fascinated by them. They grow so fast and have such huge flowers. He asked if it would make seed. I told him yes, but that they were usually propagated by bublets that formed around the older bulb.

On a whim he tried pollinating one of the flowers, just to see if it would produce anything. Lo and behold it did! After the flowers faded one of the seed pods began growing and growing and growing! Just like the flowers the seed pods are definitely a larger than life experience. This one had three lobes, two of which produced seeds.

The seed are tiny and surrounded by a large wafer thin black skin, which is how they would be easily dispersed by the wind. This actually happened one day when I opened the front door on a very windy day. I had to run all over the dining room gathering up the scattered seeds.

Starting Amaryllis Seeds In Water

Sprouting them is very simple. You just float them in a dish of water until they sprout, which takes about three weeks. Lightly cover the bowl, in other words don’t seal it tightly, so that the water won’t evaporate too quickly. After three weeks the first little root tails showed up. Then a bunch more followed. After about another week, maybe a little longer the first green leaves started to form.

This weekend I’ll take them and plant them in little pots. All you do is place them in soil that comes up to the black wafer. That way the root is in the soil and the leaf is above ground.

Helpful Instructions

There’s a good video on how to do it. I just followed this gentleman’s instructions and it worked like a charm. It takes about three years from seed to first bloom. It will be fun to watch them grow and get large enough to produce their first blooms.

Not only do I have a whole bunch of seedlings, the parent bulb has produced two bulblets. One two years ago and one this past season, so I should be getting ready for several years of first blooms as the first bulblet will be three this year this year, and the other will bloom the next, then the seedlings should bloom the following year.

Share Your Amaryllis Seed Stories

Have you ever started Amaryllis from seed? If so, how did it go? Did they ever bloom for you? Did they come true to the parent’s color, or something new? Have your ever tried to create a new cultivar by crossing more than one color of Amaryllis together? I’d love to hear all about your experiences.

Head Count

5 April, 2013 Reply

Finally, the weather has broken and we had a nice sunny day, that wasn’t so windy you thought you might get blown to Oz. So, I decided to take the time to uncover all the seeds I’d put in and get a good look at who was up and who wasn’t.

Who’s Braved The Elements

The unknown pea. 100% germination!

The unknown pea. 100% germination!

I was a surprised by some of the seeds that hadn’t emerged yet. Of course, after the maddening spring we’ve had with hot weather one day, cool the next, snow and sleet on the third, with hot returning on the fourth, it’s amazing to me that any of them came up. I’m not sure I’d know if it was safe to emerge if I were a seed. Hmm, that made me laugh. I got this funny image of me as a seed sitting under the ground thinking, “Now?” “Hmm, should I sprout now?” “Maybe now?” Just me being a seed was rather hilarious. Probably not for you, because you can’t visualize me as a seed like I can.

Anyway, now I have to decide whether to reseed or wait and plant summer crops in the places where nothing came up. That’s always a tough call. The sad part is that some of the seeds I only had a few from the seed exchange, so there’ll be no opportunity to try again. I’m especially bummed by the dragon carrots that didn’t emerge.

Here are the surprises:

  • Spinach – All varieties came up in spades. Usually I have one variety that doesn’t come up at all and the others are intermittent. This year it looks like every single seed I put in sprouted.
  • Carrot – The ‘Paresienne’ variety, that I’ve planted twice before without a single sprout, is sprouting the best of any of the carrots this spring, go figure.
  • Peas – I have a pea that was a renegade in one of my seed packets. It was supposed to be a snow pea, but it grew as a sugar snap. It was only one plant in the whole packet that did this. I saved seeds from it and I have the best germination from them of any of my pea varieties.
  • Kale – My tried and true ‘Red Winter’ didn’t sprout at all, the ‘Lancinato’ is coming up in abundance, and they’re right next to each other in the garden.
  • Mustard – Not one plant up after nearly a month. I didn’t think you could ever have mustard seed that didn’t sprout!

This weekend I’ll fill in the blank spaces and hope that our spring weather settles down enough for them to sprout safely.

I’m hardening off the broccoli, cabbage, and cauliflower, and the six pansy seeds that germinated, and will plant them toward the end of next week.

How’s Your Spring Garden?

Even with the spotty germination it looks like we’re going to have a banner spring! How’s your early spring garden coming along?

Doing It Right

19 March, 2013 Reply

The past three years I thought we’d have the greenhouse up in time to start spring seeds. It hasn’t happened, yet, although I’m going to be painting some of the wood for it today.

From Spindly to Stout

Look at the difference. The broccoli seeds didn't get enough light early on. The tomatoes got it from day one.

Look at the difference. The broccoli seeds didn’t get enough light early on. The tomatoes got it from day one.

This year I decided I needed better light to start my seedlings. I asked my husband what he suggested. He offered to let me use two small shop lights he uses in his video work. So, we put together a makeshift set of shelves, again, hung the lights, and put the flats in place. My seedlings are looking fantastic this year. Deep green, stocky thick stems and growing almost straight up.

Here’s what I did different this year: 

  1. I used two regular fluorescent lights with two bulbs in each fixture. I hung them just about three inches above the seed trays. 
  2. I bought some new smaller seed trays with greenhouse covers for them. This kept the planting medium moist longer until the seeds sprouted, but meant I had to hang the light high enough to clear the covers, but just a smidge higher. 
  3. I placed the eggplant and pepper seeds on a hot pad to keep them warmer. I’ve had dismal sprouting of eggplant seeds, and read that pepper seeds like warm, too. Tomatoes, although in the same family, don’t seem to care much so they didn’t get warmth (and they didn’t care).

I had tremendous response from the eggplant seeds this year. We’ll have more eggplants than we’ve had in years. They’re looking beautiful and already have their first true leaves.

Tweaking Even More

Here’s what I’d do differently. Not much, except I don’t think I would put the pepper seeds on the warm mat. I didn’t have as good a sprouting of pepper seeds as I usually do. So next year I’ll only heat the eggplant flats. The only other thing is that, if I don’t have my greenhouse up, heaven forbid, I need to make sure the lights are in place before I start any seeds. See the difference in the sturdiness between my broccoli seedlings that had only window light when they started and the tomatoes that had the overhead lighting from day one. It’s significant.

Share Your Tricks

What tricks do you like to use to get really healthy, strong seedlings?

 

 

 

Tomatoes Are Up

1 March, 2013 Reply
How can something so big come from something so small?

How can something so big come from something so small?

I love growing plants from seed. You take this tiny little thing (usually), stick it in some dirt, give it some water, and ta-da you get a plant. To me the fact that something about the size of a grain of sand (and some seeds are even smaller) can turn out a plant that will grow to be about 2-3’ tall and provide me with food, is just amazing.

Every year I still go through this phase of wonderment about plants. It all starts when I start my seedlings for the year. As I watch them grow I become much more aware of all of nature surrounding me. How the huge tulip poplar that dominates the wooded part of our property came from a seed about the size of a pea. How does all the information for creating something so huge manage to reside in something so small? It is still a miracle to me. Not only that, the tree was struck by lightening at some point and it’s recovering amazingly well. I know I wouldn’t be in such good shape.

Then I notice the spring bulbs coming up and wonder how a crocus can stand to bloom when the soil is still frozen, and in some parts of the country covered in snow? How do they know when it’s time to start growing again? How can trees and shrubs stay outside in below freezing temperature for months on end and still sprout leaves in the spring? I can hardly stand to walk out to the mailbox some days.

It is amazing to me that sometimes a plant can start to grow, like the sedum just outside my front door, during a warm spell in the winter, but when it gets cold again it just stops growing and stays with the tips just poking out of the soil. They never seem to get frozen and they always start growing again at the proper time in spring, no worse for the long period in stasis.

Right now I’ve got collards, kale, chard, and mustard all growing in the garden. They are growing very slowly, but every week I can harvest at least a small batch of fresh greens for us to have. That something so frail looking can stand up to repeated frosts and thaws is astounding!

Most people go through life hardly looking at the natural world around them. They take the fact that the plants come back for granted. They don’t ever stop to ask how something without a brain, as we understand brains, is able to do exactly what it needs to do to survive and usually thrive. In looking around me I think that plants may be smarter than us. Our brains haven’t helped us be any healthier, and few of us are truly thriving. Not only that we’re never sure of what we’re supposed to be about. You don’t find plants having identity crises!

What do you find most amazing about nature?

 

OK, It’s Seed Starting Time

22 February, 2013 Reply
There's nothing tastier than homegrown and dried paprika pepper.

There’s nothing tastier than homegrown and dried paprika pepper.

I started my early spring crops almost two weeks ago. They’re up and growing now. Today I need to concentrate on summer crops that need to be started indoors. In most areas of the US that means all your tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, and the like. If I have time I’ll start some of the annuals, as well, otherwise they’ll have to wait for the next moon cycle.

Above Ground Summer Crops

Today is the last waxing day of the moon. Now I’m not a big-time moon gardener, but I decided, just yesterday, to try planting my indoor seeds according to the calendar and lo and behold, today is the last day for above ground crops for two weeks! Luckily my seeds came in yesterday, so I have a whole contingency of what I want to get in the ground this year.

I’m kinda excited to try some of the seeds I got at the seed exchange. It wasn’t really much of a seed exchange, but luckily Seeds of Change had send some free packets for people to get a few seeds from, otherwise there would have only been about 20 different seeds to choose from and most of them were beans of some sort!

Peppers Galore!

My most favorite new variety to try is Sheep-nosed Pimento pepper. It just sounds cool. I’ll let you know if it really looks like a sheep’s nose.

I got a new variety of paprika pepper to try, also. We love homegrown and dried ground paprika on our homemade crackers. Homegrown paprika peppers taste entirely different from the bland stuff offered by most stores. It has a wonderful red pepper flavor, that is different from bells and chilies. It is somewhere in-between, with a distinct tang. Just writing about it makes my mouth water.

If you’ve never grown paprika peppers, and you have room in your garden, grow a couple plants this year. Dry them at a temperature below 115˚F (I do mine at 95˚F) until they are nice and dry. Then throw them in a blender (I use my Magic Bullet, because it has a blade for dry things) and pulverize it into ground paprika. You’ll discover a flavor you may never have had before. This year I’m going to grow more paprika peppers than bells, as we always seem to run out of the ground paprika before the next batch of peppers are ready.

Tomatoes & Eggplants, Oh My!

I also have several new tomato and eggplant varieties to try. Of course being from North Carolina I just had to try the ‘Hillbilly Potato Leaf’ tomato. I also picked up a tiny yellow tomato and two of the ‘black’ tomatoes. I really loved the black tomatoes a friend of mine grew one year, so am trying a few of my own this year.

The eggplants aren’t all that exciting in variety. I’m just hoping I can get the buggers to come up this year. I have a devil of a time getting eggplant seeds to sprout. If they do sprout then they seem to just sit there as a sprout and take forever to put on their first true leaves. I’m going to do a little reading today, before I plant them, to see if someone has any secrets to get them to germinate.

Plant Today If You Can

Anyway, hopefully you’re reading this early enough in the day that you, too, can get your seeds started before the moon starts waning.

More Seed Concerns

8 February, 2013 Reply

OK, I thought I was safe from supporting Monsanto if I bought heirloom varieties of seeds. Come to find out Monsanto now owns some of those varieties. This means that they are not GMO seeds, but they are owned and more than likely produced by one of Monsanto’s subsidiaries. Scarily Monsanto now owns 40% of the home gardener seeds!

Sadly some of our most popular vegetable varieties are now owned by Monsanto.

Sadly some of our most popular vegetable varieties are now owned by Monsanto.

Some of these are big names in the industry, too. Especially some of the tomato varieties like ‘Early Girl,’ ‘Celebrity,’ and ‘Better Boy.’ These varieties are owned by Seminis, and Monsanto bought Seminis back in 2005, so they are in now owned by Monsanto.

One thing I found out is that companies that have signed the safe seed pledge can sell these varieties, because they are not GMO, so just buying from a company that specialized in heirloom seeds, and/or signed the safe seed pledge will not necessarily keep you safe from support Monsanto indirectly.

The best thing you can do is to check your choices against the list that Seminis has on their web site. If it shows that it is a variety owned by Seminis, choose something else. I will be letting the companies I do business with know that I would appreciate it if they would stop dealing with Seminis, even for heirloom varieties, as that is still supporting Monsanto. As time goes on I’ll start buying less and less from companies that continue to carry Seminis owned seeds, and eventually move exclusively to buying from companies that don’t deal with Seminis at all.

The absolute best thing all of us can do, is start learning how to effectively grow, collect, and preserve the varieties that we most love. Not only will that help to preserve them from being contaminated, but the seeds will adapt to your region more and more over time and you’ll find you get a better and better yield of higher quality produce as the years go by. Plants and seeds are amazing things. They want to survive, so they will, over time, adapt to the conditions they are growing in, so their species can survive.

I haven’t ordered my seed yet this year, as a matter of fact I’m planning on doing it this weekend. Rest assured that my list will be checked against the Seminis list before I buy one single packet. The power we have is in our pocketbook. If every home grower immediately stopped buying any seed produced by Seminis they’d go out of business (at least at the home growers level). Sure we might lose some wonderful seeds, but we might just save the planet from complete plant destruction in the process.

Time To Start Seeds

29 January, 2013 Reply
Watching seeds sprout is awe-some!

Watching seeds sprout is awe-some!

Wow, I can hardly believe that I need to start seeds inside this weekend. It always catches me off guard, and this year is especially bad, as the shelves that I usually use to hold the seed trays are being used in the kitchen, because I haven’t finished repairs to the cupboard that got damaged last fall! Yikes!

Time To Starts Seeds In Milder Climates

If you live in the mid-Atlantic states or south you need to get your early spring crops started asap. That’s all the cole crops: broccoli, cabbage, cauliflower; plus head lettuce, onions, and celery. If I want any snapdragons or pansies early this spring I need to start them soon, also.

I’m really not very well prepared this year. I don’t even have an inventory of what I need. I always have enough packs, as I reuse them, but I need to check and make sure I have seed starting soil, find my grow lights, figure out how I’m going to put all these seeds in the windows and still keep my houseplants happy (or if I need to buy more lights and just grow them with lights this year). Lucky for me this first round of seeds will only be one or two flats worth of plants. At the beginning of March is when I start the rest of the summer seeds that need a head start: tomatoes, eggplants, peppers, and most of the other annual flowers.

What You’ll Need

If you start some of your own seeds, or want to try your hand at it this year. Now is the time to get all your gear ready. You’ll need seed starting trays; something to grow the seeds in; containers for the seeds; good lighting; and a way to water them without drowning them.

I use flats that don’t have any holes in them to do the indoor starts, that way I don’t have to worry about water damage. I have a plethora of four and six packs, so I just reuse them every year until I run out. However, there are many ways to start seeds. There are special self-watering flats, you can roll newspaper to make containers, use the soil block makers, etc. For me, since I do have so many four packs it is simplest to just use them. If you’re just starting out or don’t have a back stock you might want to consider making our own as it is more sustainable than plastic.

Over the past several years I’ve just used coir (made from coconut) to start my seeds. I’m not sure it has enough nutrition in it, though. I’m thinking I might buy one bag of seed starting soil this year, as it will have the right balance of nutrients. I will still use mostly coir, as it has great properties that keep my little ones from damping off, so don’t want to mess with it too much.

For lighting I’ve been using a couple grow lights and sunlight, but this year I may not be able to put the seed trays in the windows like I usually do. That will mean purchasing a couple more lights, probably just fluorescents to give the seedlings the amount of light they need to grow well. This is probably the most important part of seed starting, so don’t skimp here, unless you want weak, spindly, starts.

Seed Starting Is Fun And Awesome

If you’ve never started any seeds before, give it a try. It is so magical watching tiny little seeds go into the soil and giving you big plants that will feed you and your family. It is truly a miracle!

My First Seed Swap

22 January, 2013 Reply

 

Anticipation

At a seed swap you can get new varieties to try.

At a seed swap you can get new varieties to try.

This weekend I attended my first seed swap. We ended up leaving late and I was sure that by the time I got there nothing would be left. However, I was wrong. There were seeds galore.

When we arrived, on a bitterly cold morning, we were greeted by people with information tables outside the building. Needless to say we weren’t very interested in looking at them. However, I immediately got one of the things I was out of, chard seeds. Already laden with two small envelopes of goodies I entered the building.

It seemed so appropriate to have the gathering in the Brother’s building in Old Salem. The brothers had tended gardens there when Old Salem was first built and their garden is still maintained today as a historical site.

The Hunt

The building was packed and getting to any of the tables was nearly impossible. I had seeds to share, but no one seemed to know what I should do with them, so I started out just carrying them with me. After some time I realized that there were master gardeners behind every table and I managed to find out from one of them what to do.

Once my seeds were installed on the proper tables I started looking around. It was amazing to see the variety of seeds that were available. All the usual vegetables were well represented, as Seed Savers Exchange had sent packets of many different seeds to be shared. However, there were some interesting and unique items as well. For instance we got sorghum seeds. That’s something I never would have bought, but getting a few seeds and trying them out will be fun. I even got some that are for broom sorghum. So maybe I’ll be able to make a handcrafted broom as a decoration or something.

The Score

I got several new varieties of paprika peppers, something I love to grow, as homemade paprika taste nothing like the stuff you get in the stores. It has a rich flavor and certainly wouldn’t be used only to sprinkle over the top of your mashed potatoes. As a matter of fact it makes an unbelievable topping to homemade crackers.

I came home with pepper, tomato, eggplant, melons, watermelons, lettuce, chard, collard, winter squash, carrot, corn (non-gmo), cockscomb, amaranth, and cornflowers. I picked up some brussel sprout seeds especially for my husband, because I dislike them and probably would never buy seeds, but since they were free we’ll try a few.

If you get the chance to go to a seed swap, it’s well worth your time.

Keeping Up With “Frankenseeds”

29 March, 2012 Reply

On several occasions I’ve talked about GMO or GE crops. Monsanto and Seminis are the two main companies developing these seeds. While developing their “frankenseeds” they’re also keeping their foot in the legitimate seed door.  I recently found a listing of many of the varieties that Monsanto and Seminis sell.

What does this mean for the home grower or the conscientious gardener? Anyone who’s concerned about the effects of Monsanto’s work can vote with their pocketbook, by staying away from seeds that are offered by either Monsanto or Seminis.

Pure seeds are food for the world.

Safe seeds will ensure the planets food supply.

The best way to do this is to check and make sure the companies that you deal with have signed the safe seed pledge. The numbers are growing, as seed companies realize the severity of what GMO seeds could mean to their business. There are lists online, but I’ve not found anything current, so the best thing to do is look at their web site or print catalog and see if they say they’ve signed. If you don’t find it, write to them and ask, letting them know that you won’t buy any seed from them until you know they are not supporting any GMO seeds or seed companies that work in that field.

Last year one company I purchase from regularly had not signed the pledge. They said they had some customer favorites that they weren’t willing to give up. Well, I guess many people must have voted with their money, because by fall they had signed the pledge!

So, take a look at the list. You may be growing some without even knowing it, because companies buy the seeds in bulk and put them in their own packages. If one of your favorites is their, maybe it’s time to find a new favorite and help protect our biodiversity.

Glorious Oriental Seeds

27 March, 2012 Reply

One thing that the US has is a poverty of varieties of vegetables. When you enter a supermarket you find just one kind of broccoli, one variety of carrot, one maybe two varieties of cucumber (eating and a pickling). What most Americans don’t know is that there are literally dozens, if not hundreds, of varieties of almost every vegetable on the planet.

I recently found a great site for buying typical oriental vegetable seeds. Unfortunately I found the site after I had ordered all my seeds for this year, but I wanted to share this resource with you, so that you can try some of the unusual varieties available from China, Japan, and Korea.

Unusual Varieties

The seeds of one of my favorite cucumbers are available from this site, Korean Cucumber. I was disappointed to see that it is a hybrid, but may just decide to buy a packet with the understanding that I’ll not be able to save seeds that will grow true to the parent.

Red Veined Chinese Spinach

Red-veined edible amaranth. Also, called Chinese Spinach.

There are other varieties I really want to try. I saw the red veined edible amaranth at a farmer’s market in Kent, WA when I was visiting my sister. It looked amazing, however, when I went back to buy it, they had sold out! It was only about 15 minutes between the time I saw it and when I went back to get it…drat.

I wrote about my new “love” affair with yard long beans in a previous post. But the winged beans look interesting and I’ve heard good reviews about hyacinth beans. They have four different varieties of the hyacinth bean to choose from.

I may try their burdock seeds. Have grown it before. Not that interesting of a vegetable, but it’s supposed to be extremely nutritious. They have a frilled-leaf Chinese Cabbage that looks interesting, but need to find out what TW stands for.

Then they have numerous varieties of many of the well known greens, including: Pei Tsai, Pak Choy, Choy Sum, Napa Cabbage.

Pleasant Surprise

They even have the exact tia to (shiso) that I found at the local market. That’s a must on next year’s list.

So, even though the seed buying time is over you can still get a head start on next years list, especially if you’re interested in growing some unusual oriental varieties.

Share Your Links

If you have a favorite seed company, especially if they carry unusual varieties, please share it in the comment box below. I’m always looking for something new to try, and I’m sure many of the readers are, too.

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