Rhythms of Nature

Barely a couple days and I’m posting again, a sure sign the growing season is getting closer.  I realised while pouring over moon planting calendars that it would fit in nicely with my last post.  Like the lessons learned from the weather about being flexible, a more personal discovery has been to follow the cycles in nature by planting with the moon.

For those who haven’t heard of it before, the core idea is pretty simple; by timing your plantings with consideration to the phase of the moon you can benefit the seedlings growth.   There are a couple different systems, the big three being: synodic, biodynamic & sidereal.  There are a lot of esoteric beliefs around moon calendars, considering the effects of other “cosmic” forces on seedlings, which I haven’t yet formed an opinion about.  So that is about as far as I’ll go in explaining them as I’m at the beginning of the learning curve and don’t want to spread half truths.  There’s more then enough inaccuracy on the net as is without me adding more to the pile…

I will speak of my personal experience with it & why I’ve decided to follow this moon calendar for my plantings this year.  I noticed last year there were highly variable germination rates between the different plantings.  Over the winter, mostly on a whim, I decided to see if there was any correlation to biodynamic planting calendars.  While not perfect there was a pattern of the best/worst plantings matching the corresponding days suggested as being beneficial or detrimental.  While I fully acknowledge there was enough other uncontrolled variables to be wary of putting too much stock in it, it’s motivated me to try following them more closely this year.  Within reason that is, the weather outside will ultimately determine when I plant, transplant & harvest.

Which brings up another point of contention I have; extremist gardening.  By that I mean people who adopt a specific gardening theory to blindly follow, whether it’s; biodynamics, bio-intensive, permaculture, etc.  At their heart they are only theories of how to garden, not doctrines to be followed blindly. I can understand why people, including myself, fall behind recognised “authorities” so readily. Gardening is complex and simplified black & white answer make it less intimidating.  What’s important is integrating what’s useful to help you relate to your plants in order to improve their life & your yields.  I pick & choose from all of them, seeing what works for my regional ecosystem and discarding what doesn’t.  It’s too easy to be enchanted by a book, speaker or philosophy about their glorious success.  Without adapting & fitting their lessons into the conditions of your local ecosystem, it’s more likely you’ll end up fighting the greatest teacher of all instead.  Mother Nature can be a harsh disciplinarian when people ignore her lessons…

Luckily for me, tomorrow is an auspicious day for planting both roots & fruits.  So I have the moons blessing to go ahead and get my leeks & long flowering tomato varieties planted.  With everything that can go wrong in a growing season, I’ll take any & all help I can get.

Winter Duldrums

We’re well into winter now and I’m sure most gardeners can relate to the urge to  see green things growing again. Instead we have to be content with dreaming of next summer while pouring through catalogues, reading their lurid descriptions enticing us with promises of bigger, tastier produce.  This time of year also brings the Guelph Organic Conference to town, with workshops covering all aspects of gardening and farming, as well as a marvelous expo.  It’s become a yearly ritual for me to chat with the seed vendors & pick up new stock for the coming year.

This year my purchases were a modest 4 packs as I still have seed left from the 100+ I picked up last year.  This isn’t the end of my purchases as I still have to grab some goodies from Hawthorn Farm seeds at the Resilience Festival in March.  Plus I’d be crazy to cut short the joy of stewing over catalogues while there’s still months of snow to go, as my favourite company I prefer to speak with them in person as I really value their advice.

That didn’t stop me from grabbing these gems from the show: some Blue Coco pole beans (aka purple podded), a pack each of Pruden’s Purple & Jaune Flamée tomatoes, as well as one of Canada Crookneck squash.  For the former three it was simply a matter of having had good results with those varieties previously & needing more stock, the latter was just too tempting to pass up.

Blue coco is incredibly productive,  while also a delicious fresh or as dried bean, plus it’s loaded with anthyocyanins for an extra little health kick if eaten right off the vine. Easy to grow as it does well in all conditions, I hope to grow enough to put away more dry beans this year.

Jaune Flamée was the darling of last year, beautiful fruit that produced well with a taste beyond words. Picked at the right time there was a sweetness to them which did vaguely remind me of apricots.  For fresh eating I can’t imagine anything better.

Pruden’s Purple is the one that got away.  It was probably 4 years ago that I first grew it and fell in love with the slightly tart, slightly sweet lovely pinkish tomatoes, juicy but perfect for slicing on sandwiches.  Since then I’ve tried 3 other versions that have all been more reddish and tart, more like a traditional Brandywine. So this year I’m trying as many versions as I can find.  If I’m lucky enough to reconnect with that pale beauty, I’ll be sure to save seeds for posterity this time.

Finally the new addition, Canada Crookneck squash.  A very old variety which was traditionally grown by the Iroquois, also referenced in Thoreau’s “A Yankee in Canada”, how could I pass up such a noble history?  OK, so maybe it had less to do with that & more this snippet that caught my eye, “When long distance shipping became the norm for many vegetables, it was found that the necks had a tendency to crack when being shipped. The squash was therefore used as a parent to develop Butternut, which remedied the shipping problem”.  After last years (highly informal & unscientific) comparison between determinate vs indeterminate tomatoes, I came to the conclusion that flavour has fallen off along the way.  The heritage cultivars consistently won taste tests, whereas the modern ones, bred for uniform harvests and good shipping qualities tended to be more bland. So I actively search for  cultivars from when food was still being grown regionally and selected for flavour not for how well it can be shipped.

I always find it interesting how or why people choose new varieties to grow. I know I have my own clear bias, specifically towards growing French, Canadian and definitely French-Canadian heritage varieties.  Partly logical as Canadian/French Canadian cultivars are well suited to our climate and a lot of French cultivars were developed for high intensity market gardening. The other part is purely emotional, I connect my passion for gardening to my Father & his Father, the French side of my family. Regardless, I’m sure I’m not the only one that feels a sense of both wonder & joy looking at a handful of seeds.

Which has inspired my crazy idea to shake the winter blue, why not start gardening now?  The original plans of starting some greens has blossomed to full scale lunacy.  Why not dig out my old hydroponic gear & try tomatoes, squash & peppers too? If I’m doing that, may as well set up a light, in which case there will be enough light/heat for some beans as well…

Stay tuned as my sanity devolves over the remaining winter months…

Rubber and Road part II

Well if you’ve managed to plough through the first part without falling asleep on the keyboard, this one will be much more manageable.  Well, more manageable at least as I’m pressed for time and can’t spend as long typing out overly verbose prose just to sound intelligent.  Not that I’d ever admit to using big words to sound smart, even if it’s true…

Water is the next level of complication to add in, tying both lighting and air together neatly and tying this post back to the first part. The more we’re aware of their interactions the more we realise how we don’t control the plants, only the environment to get the plants to meet our goals. The stronger the lighting, and more active the air flow, the more water the roots will suck up, increasing the amount of resources they have access to in order to grow more. If we have good lighting but a really high or low humidity, transpiration will be limited, which means those photons don’t get used as efficiently. Either too much water around the leaf makes it hard transpire or not enough humidity causes the leaf to dry out too quickly forcing the stomata to close for self preservation. Beyond bringing up nutrients and being a building block of photosynthesis, transpiration cools the leaf and keeps the plant from drying out. If the temp gets too high, or the humidity too low, it’ll shut down to prevent damage until the climate is closer to ideal. As you can see, we aren’t dealing with separate mechanistic aspects but an integrated series of interactions that determine growth. That being said, now lets look at water by itself. For the average person, most tap water will do fine, although it’s a good idea to look at your local source. In Guelph our water comes from a limestone aquifer, which means it has a high amount of dissolved calcium in it, so high that it can interfere with the absorption of other nutrients. In general as long as there’s 300 ppm or less of dissolved minerals in your water you’ll be fine, if it’s higher then that and you’re having problems with nutrients, that’s probably the cause. Most nutrients are more available in a slightly acidic solution, so a pH of 6.5 is a safe bet. A simple litmus paper test will give you enough info to work with, try and find one that’s specific to the 6-7 range if you can though, they’re much easier to work with. The most confusing aspect of water for a lot of people is how often to water, with how much water each time. Roots need air to breath so it’s important not to drown them, they also die if they dry out too much so it’s important to keep them wet. Which sounds contradictory but by creating a good wet-dry cycle we encourage root growth, which allows plants to absorb more nutrients as they transpire, which are processed by light into more sugar, which grows bigger, healthier plants. The ideal is to water a plant the day before it starts to wilt, practically though I water when their pots are starting to feel light. As water weighs roughly 8lbs/gallon, a wet vs dry pot feel significantly different. The best way to learn that for yourself is by keeping an pot filled with dirt nearby without anything growing in it. Keep it saturated with water, then simply hold it in one hand and your potted seedling in the other, when the seedling feels light it’s time to water. Soon enough your body will be trained and it’ll know what it needs to do. As too how much to water them, that nicely ties in the last element, soil. I love a good segway…

Which brings us to what our budding little buddies need to keep their feet happy.  Ok, so roots as feet are a poor analogy but how else am I suppose to get a cartoon reference in?  I digress, the essential aspects of good soil are it’s ability to retain water, air and nutrients.  As I mentioned, roots need air as well as water and can drown if over saturated.  Which is why it’s important that the soil holds not only water but also maintains it structure so they can breath.  Ideally when we water there should be 25% of it’s volume run off from the pot to avoid excess build up of minerals in the pot.  A good soil structure will allow this without leading to compaction, which deprives roots of air.  You can test for good structure as it’ll hold it’s form when wetted and squeezed in your hand, but also break into chunks easily if poked.  I’m not just saying that as an aficionado of poking all things, big and small.  Peat or coco choir are good in that manner, although both are devoid of any significant amount of nutrients which mean they either need to be amended or supplemented with some form of fertilizer.  Which is the other essential aspect of soil to consider, both how many nutrients it contains and how easily it both gives them up as well as retains them.  The technical term is cation exchange capacity, which is just a fancy way of saying that the soil will hold lots of nutrients but will easily release them as needed.  Most commercial soil mixes are more then adequate for starting seeds, partly as seedlings don’t require much fertilization for the 2-4 weeks on average they spend indoors.  For longer growing seedlings like tomatoes, you may need either a more complete soil mix or you’ll have to add nutrients part way through.  I’m a big fan or worm castings, partly for the convenience of turning household waste into a valuable soil amendment, partly because they’re a very balanced and highly available nutrient source that’s hard to over apply.  That’s not to say they can’t be, too much of anything is never good.

That concludes the essentials of giving your seedlings a good start on their short lives, which is something to keep in mind, from start to finish most veges only have 100 days give or take.  With such a short span to birth, mature, flower and produce “fruit” it’s important we keep them healthy and happy as much as possible so that they’re energy isn’t wasted dealing with stress.   With that in mind I’ll end with a couple simple tips to help them along even more.  I’m not a big believer in buying “additives” as it’s an aggressively marketed area but there’s a couple that are worth their weight in gold.

-Kelp; is a wonderful additive for young seedlings as a root drench (i.e. added to the water before watering them) as well as a spray as they grow.  It contains a lot of micro nutrients as well as hormones like cytokinin’s and auxins to keep them growing strong in the early days.

-Neem Oil; a cold pressed neem oil is rich in azadrachtin which is a powerful insecticide that’s harmless to humans, the oil also contains anti-fungal properties.  The neem plant has bee used as toothpaste for a long time and is one of the few pesticides I commonly recommend.  Especially if you keep other house plants, it’s important any lingering micro beasties don’t get established on your young and delicious seedlings.

-Heating Mat: although not essential they drastically speed up germination and keeping the root zone a couple degrees warmer will increase root growth in early plants.  Just be careful the soil doesn’t get too hot as cooking the roots is much worse then a slightly slower growth rate.

Good luck and keep it green, at least until all the snows gone and you can let mother nature take over the mothering of natural things…

Rubber Meets the Road

 

What a highly stimulating, incredibly educational week focused on developing greater local resilience as we transition to a future filled with uncertainty. Covering such broad topics as creating integrated communities, inner transitions to be more effective at effecting outer changes, the relationship between seeds, people and a changing climate as well as many more I couldn’t make it to. It’s taken most of the week to sort through all the people I met and connected with; whether it was around common values or goals, past experiences or future plans, something that became clear was how little most people understand the needs of seedlings being grown indoors. Following this years theme of collaboration as well as bringing my focus back to more practical material needs, instead of the ephemeral inner space I’ve shifted to, this post will be focused on how to grow healthy, resilient seedlings…

With the odd subliminal reference to our need to transition our lives and communities, not that I’d try and be subversive or anything. Just remember, keep calm and garden on, nothing to see here…

So we’ll start in a more expansive, conceptual space and move towards specifics. Which is my general philosophy of gardening, start from the macro and work to the micro. The first and most important concept I want to get across is your role as a gardener in caring those wee seedlings you’ll be babying for the next month or two. A lot of people get tripped up by thinking of plants as mechanistic objects instead of unique living beings like ourselves. Often customers would ask when I managed the hydro shop “what product will fix X problem”, like a car, addressing the symptom without understanding the root cause. That rarely works as you end up chasing problems, instead of addressing the plants needs. If we shift our focus from mechanic to trainer, someone who’s creating the right space for the plant to do what we need, our little wards respond instead of comply. Put in another way, as a little hellion back in school, the more my teachers took an authoritarian stand, the more I rebelled out of principle. Those who took a more sagely, less direct approach by creating the space for me to realise my own ignorance tended to teach me more. I’ve had a long tradition of being my worst enemy, proof positive I’m not nearly as smart as my tendency for big words makes me appear…

Back to the point though, before I stray too far off topic, looking at the most important aspects of the climate we create for our plants-to-be we can break them down to four broad sections; light, air, water and earth. I purposefully use those terms to rely on the primal association with the elements, after all we’re trying to replicate the world around us as much as possible, only creating the ideal instead of what actually happening around us. For instance as I write this, there’s cold rain and possible flurries expected over the next couple days, which wouldn’t make happy seedlings. You do want happy seedlings right?

We’ll start with lighting, not because it’s the first one I put down but because in the interconnected web we’re weaving, lighting is one of the biggest factors that’ll shape all the rest. Those little photons bombarding the leaves is their fuel, their food and something that’s very misunderstood. First off, it’s not the heat generated by the light that determines how useful it is like most seem to think. With lighting our two biggest concerns are the intensity and spectrum. We need enough light in the right wave length to feed out plants and power everything else. Which is why shelves in front of a south facing window will usually work just as well as fluorescent lights, since the sun is much brighter and complete then any light bulb we’ve made to date. If we combine the two, supplementing natural light to extend the photoperiod (i.e. day length for normal, non plant-geeks) we get even better results. A couple key points to think of when considering your lighting include; getting them as close as possible and avoid marketing at all costs. Light intensity diminishes exponentially fast with indoor lights, called the inverse rule, it states that the square of the distance determines the drop in power. So at 2ft light has ¼ the power, at 3ft only 1/9^th is reaching the plants. Which is why we keep our lights as close as possible without the heat generated by the bulb being an issue. For fluorescents that’s usually an inch or two, usually they won’t burn a leaf until it’s been touching the bulb for a bit but it’s always good to give them room to grow. That’s also why we want to keep our plants short, so that the top and bottom are getting equal light, otherwise the lower growth will stretch more trying to meet it’s needs and spend energy growing stem instead of bigger roots. The second key point, avoiding marketing, is my subtle way to get a jab in against one of my many pet peeves (which I’ve already ranted about previously and will again in the future, but not this time). Specifically I’m referring to the “plant and aquarium” tubes often sold alongside normal fluorescent tubes. The difference being a heavy phosphor coating on them to improve their spectrum, which sounds great, until you look at their intensity which is anywhere from a third to half as much because of that spiffy coating. All for an added cost and the feel good delusion that you’re treating your plants right. If we combine cool and warm bulbs we can get a similar spectrum with all those extra photons bouncing around, saving some money at the same time. So always look at both the intensity of a light as well as it’s spectrum before investing in your lights. With all that being said, fluorescents aren’t a great light source as they’re pretty weak overall, unfortunately not many people can justify more expensive H.I.D. or L.E.D. set ups so I won’t waste your time talking about them, as always though feel free to ask if you have any questions as I love an excuse to ramble on.

Next we move onto considering the air quality and dispel one of the biggest myths about growing plants indoors. That being that it’ll lead to mould and water damage, which is a possibility but not if you want happy seedlings. If you’ve read this far, you must want happy seedlings or have a masochistic tendency to read esoteric long winded blogs I suppose. Looking at air we’re worried about how hot, dry/wet and rich it is. First to state the obvious, plants don’t have lungs and can’t move, which means the air has to move around them, unlike us who move the air around ourselves. Without a fan disturbing the air, a leaf will use all the CO2 around it within a couple minutes in good conditions. Which starts to tie back to lighting (I did mention we’re weaving a web here right?) as that’ll determine how active the photosynthesis is, setting the rate that CO2 will be used to make sugar. There are ways to supplement CO2 but good air flow and proper ventilation also reduce bacterial and fungal pressure, so start there and leave the complex options for when your obsession blossoms into a full blown addiction. A simple oscillating fan (oscillating so the leaves don’t get wind burned) not only effectively keeps the air fresh, it also strengthens the stem as they wiggle and jiggle, causing the cells to toughen up just like working out our muscles. Puny humans can use their brains to survive, puny plants tend to be overtaken by weeds unfortunately. Otherwise I’d be all over nerdy gardens filled with plants in big square glasses and sporting the newest pocket protectors. The air also determines the temperature and humidity around our seedlings, both of which are effected by the light source. Luckily fluorescents tend to be pretty cool, so as long as the rooms comfortable they should be happy. Remember that humidity is a relative measure of how much water the air will hold at a given temperature, lower the temp and the humidity rises. We start growing indoors because the outdoors isn’t warm enough, for long enough, to get some crops to ripen. So it’s not that the temperature isn’t important, just that it’s not directly related to lighting indoors. Outdoors where the light and heat source are the same, that brilliant light bulb burning above us affectionately called the sun, it’s a different story. Indoors it’s better to control them separately which is why we’ve invented spiffy ways of cooling bulbs like air cooled hoods. We don’t need to worry about that though, with fluoro’s (that’s right, I’ve already gotten tired of typing out the whole word and have finally reverted to interweb speak) as long as the air is around 25°C and between 50-60% humidity, you’ll have an active metabolism. Which is also why we don’t have to worry about mould or fungus as in that range it won’t actively grow. A simple min-max hygro/thermometer is worth it’s weight in gold as it’ll let you know how much drift you’re getting over a 24 hour period. The more stable the climate, the happier the plants. Which is another helpful little tip for growing stronger plants indoors, the temperature differential between the day and night effects how much a plant stretches. As we want to have dense, compact plants keep them as close to even will keep the plants from stretching too much.

Which is where we’ll end it for today, there’s a lot to chew on there and I’m sure everyone has more important things to do then spending hours reading this post.  I’ll finish with part II this weekend, covering; water, earth and getting down to some of the micro aspects of keeping plants alive and happy, so they in turn can keep you alive and healthy by providing lots of good food.  Thanks for sticking it through and don’t hesitate to ask any questions if I haven’t been clear in my explanation or if you’d like more info on any particular aspect.