Home Garden Companion

Ilona's Garden Journal




January

National Seed Swap Day on Saturday

by

Swap Seeds For A Better Garden This Year

Gardener’s have traditionally loved to trade with each other: tips ad advice, seeds and plants, even tools of the trade. It is no surprise that as the seed supplies available from seed companies have been shrinking, that grassroots gardeners have stepped up to organize seed swaps.

National Seed Swap Day

Last Saturday of January.

These are great places to go to let others have some of your abundance and to try out the seeds of someone else’s harvests.

saving seed
Gathering in late summer, saving seed

Gather and store your seeds, then participate in a local seed swap in January. Just in time to start some new plants for your coming garden season.

It is a wonderful way to obtain little known heirloom seeds from local gardener’s such as yourself, and pick up some helpful growing tips, as well.

Why Have A National Seed Swap Day?

The winning logo design by Matthew Smith of Richwood, OH. Join in to increase the available seedbank, to make new gardening friends, and participate in one of the fun aspects of growing plants.

The winning logo design by Matthew Smith of Richwood, OH. Join in to increase the available seedbank, to make new gardening friends, and participate in one of the fun aspects of growing plants.

An Old Idea Takes On New Enthusiasm

The first annual Washington Gardener Seed Exchange was held on January 26, 2006.

It was a success!

Would you like to know how to organize your own see swap? Some ideas to get you started.

Why swap your seeds?

  • Some people have more seeds than they can grow
  • Often people have a hard time finding a certain type of seed
  • Seeds might be best for local conditions, or not predictable for widespread conditions
  • Desirable seeds are heirlooms, now lost to the trade
  • It is a way to avoid GMO tampered seed

Celebrating

Celebrating the saving and sharing of seeds by home gardeners across the United States

How To Save Seeds This Year


You can probably think of a myriad ways to organize your saved seeds, but here are a few possibilities ranging from DIY to fine crafted Monticello boxes ready supplied with heirloom seeds.


Make yourself a system. Borrow an organizer from a beading enthusiast:  individual aluminum containers with translucent tops. Mark with seed names and date.

Monticello Shop

4 Easy Steps

  1. Nurture the plant into a healthy maturity
  2. Allow seeds to mature, harvest and dry pods. Remove husks.From fruits like tomatoes, allow to ferment, then wash seeds after removal from pulp. Dry on a clean surface.
  3. When thoroughly dry, save seeds inside cellophane wrappers, envelopes or jars.
  4. Always store in a cool, dry place.

Garden Basics – Preserve Your Own Seeds

Whether you are homesteading or simply wanting to save some money and make sure you have a supply of your favorite flowers and vegetables, saving your own is a good skill to have.

Seed Saving Bible

The Complete Guide to Preserving Your Own Seeds for Your Garden: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply (Back-To-Basics) (Back to Basics Growing)
The Complete Guide to Preserving Your Own Seeds for Your Garden: Everything You Need to Know Explained Simply (Back-To-Basics) (Back to Basics Growing)

No small chapter on keeping seed, this is an entire tome that covers the A to Z. I think one reason we hesitate to do something like preserving seeds for ourselves is because we don’t know enough about it.

This is a book for every garden bookshelf.

Really.

What A Seed Swap Looks Like

Remember

Seeds saved from hybrids don’t come true from seeds collected from the parent plants.

Add Seedlings For Variety And Convenience

Swap Tips

Make a list of your desired seeds in advance. It is easy to get caught up in the excitement, forgetting your original list of wanted seeds.

Write down your list to keep focused.

There is no one way to gather and keep seeds. If you wish to build your own collection of heirlooms and special varieties, a book with the various techniques and the growing directions for at least a hundred kinds of common home garden plants is a great start.

Learn How To Observe This Day

Gardeners can benefit each other and build a seed bank

Seed Preservation is Quite Easy

It is so easy to save seeds, but there are a few things to remember:

(1) One thing is to keep the seeds dry. They germinate with moisture, so it makes sense to keep seeds dry as you save and store them.

Simply keeping seeds is often a matter of collecting and keeping your seeds dry. The reason a seed swap is so helpful is the chance to meet with other gardeners for tips and to learn from their seed saving techniques- plus the chance to come by seeds you may otherwise not collect or grow, on your own.

(2) The temperatures for storage should stay on the cool side, but most seeds are best if not frozen.

The directions for saving and storing seeds use words like “often” or “most” since the majority of seeds are gathered and behave, once stored, in the same way. But not all do. If you know what conditions your desired seeds may need, you can preserve them until they are needed without any trouble.

(3) Some seeds need special conditions. Whether they need scarification, or freezing, certain light conditions or not, there are directions to help you have success. Key to success: following the directions for the desired seed.

Look up information on the seeds you plan to save. For newbies it is probably a good idea to stay with the common, simpler types of seeds.

If you like a challenge, however, go ahead and try something that needs scarification, time in winter conditions to sprout.

Tips On Organizing Your Seeds

Seed Saving Handbook

Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners, 2nd Edition
Seed to Seed: Seed Saving and Growing Techniques for Vegetable Gardeners, 2nd Edition

In its 2nd edition because so many gardeners find the information so helpful. Vegetable gardening is becoming a more important endeavor for many gardeners including myself.

Where did all the heritage tomatoes come from? Those who understood these techniques and kept delicious, little-known varieties alive by saving their seeds.

Now the rest of us can learn how.

One of the best, most basic, books on the topic. This is the book you will reach for when starting seeds and saving your own heirlooms.


Seed Saving and Swapping Links

Ilona has gardened actively for most of her life, and been a writer and webmaster online since 1998. Homeschooled all 10 of her children.

Inspiration: getting seeds started

by

I recall some of the many types of containers I experimented with in starting seedlings. One of the first attempts(and I always seemed to have beginners luck with my gardening) was with empty egg cartons. Each little egg holder was filled with soil, the top closed to keep in moisture and then opened as the seeds emerged. Sometimes I topped the half carton with clear film like Saran Wrap. Depended on whether the seeds needed light to germinate. These worked well, but there isn’t alot of soil held within the little holders. Either you have to use it for late starters and get them planted out soon (before they are too big for their tiny pot), or transplant them to bigger pots for planting later. That is a bit of work, but many do this as a part of their regular method. Here is some professional advice. They mention peat pots.

I have tried several types of peat pots, and I don’t tend to like them, but I always think they should do well; after all, they’re peat! Perhaps because my house tends to be cold, or the fact that when I used them they were by drafty old house windows? But they stay too damp for me, and I had a hard time discerning how much to water them. Sometimes seedlings rot under those conditions. I did have that happen, and it is very disappointing. So usually I use plastic cell flats, now. But as mentioned in the pro article, peat is good for when a seedling is touchy about transplanting.

If you like to buy seeds through catalogs, I always felt the big seed houses were just fine to do business with. I usually buy mine in the stores locally, though. However, I do like Thompson and Morgan for hard to find seeds. Anymore, you just cannot find certain seeds in the local stores. At all. Period. So if you love mignonette or a special little something…get your catalogs and order them, soon.
I do have a page on some of the annuals I have grown…. it is located at my site. Sadly I do not yet have everything up to par there yet, but am working on it. The pages on annuals should look fine.

Annuals

Plant list, tiny and small choices. I’ll have to look at that, either I didn’t get to the larger size choices or lost the work on it in the move… well, should put that on my internet project work list, ahha. Along with the fact that I think I will use a subdomain name for this blog. But I have more ideas than time to do them right now. At least my internet connection has a reasonable speed. This past week was interminably slow. I can’t express how frustrating that was (I might use bad words or something!)

But hopefully this gave you some starting information on your own efforts. Seed growing does save lots of money. Especially now that the nurseries are so stingy with amounts of plants for the money. I don’t begrudge them this one bit- we all have to make a living at what we do, but if you love lots of plants and have a budget, the parameters have to start somewhere on how much can be spent on the garden.

[Originally posted 1/10/07]

My Ohio Winter

by

It has been a snowy and cold winter, the present season broke records for cold temperatures. I like the picturesque snow covered landscape and several mornings I awakened to hoar frosts that transformed the garden into white traceries of laced branches and stems against the sequined, white velvet snow.

The Cinderella winter season has given way to the morning after of mid-January’s thawing, now. The Snowflake Ball is over, and only scattered pumpkin patch masses of drifted, dirty snow remain. A throwcover of fog hides the sad remnants on many evenings and mornings.

Am I sad to see the frigid temperatures and the diamond studded frostings go? In my hermit lifestyle of winter I am little inconvenienced by the surrounding fortress of the cold and ice, and can enjoy the view, while sparing the trouble. Each season has its beauty and I march along with the parade. So, no, I am neither sad nor happy to see the next sequel in the seasonal series of weather conditions. I did take some pictures.


The snow started early and stayed long this year. That was unusual. I hope it was enough to protect my newer plantings. This week, as temperatures warm to the season’s normal, I will need to make the rounds and press in any heaved plants with my heel. In the coldest days of this month my hands quickly were frozen while taking some photos, to the point where they were a bit painful to rewarm. I was surprised at the bitterness of the cold- without strong winds to remind me. Many days were white and still. Only the beauty of the hoarfrosts enticed me outdoors into the garden.

I wrote an article on how the bareness of winter and minimalism of a snowy landscape outlines the bones of the garden. Winter Outlines Garden Bones

Here are some additional photos of this winter.

Above, left, if you look closely, is the discarded Christmas tree. it was too cold to do anything but toss it off the porch. Viburnum ‘Dawn’ in the foreground.

Below is the evidence of animal tracks on their various important winter journeys. Casting its shadow is the flowering quince, ‘Texas Scarlet’.

Picture on the right is the photogenic Willow. She sparkled, dripping in frosted diamonds of hoarfrost.

January- The Month of Two Faces

by

holden January painting

January, being named for the Roman god Janus, is something of a two way street in time. The name Janus means “archway” and he was a god of gates, doors, doorways, beginnings and endings [Janus. I sit and think of this pagan mythology early on Sunday morning.

I, too, look backward and forwards at the same time while ensconced in the icy white shrouds of winter frost, cold snow strewn winds, and pallid blue skies. I am the Snow Queen this month, enjoying the cover of snow- because if one must endure the cold, at least make it tolerable with snow. Of course I say that now, with the frigid temperatures preserving the pristine white of the fluffy mounds of whipped cream drifts; in the grayed and soiled snows of January melts I’m not so enamored of the treasures of the snow.

If my tiller were in good working order, which it is not, I would make use of the singular time that appears in most of my winters: a dry earth of heaved soil which when covered in snow yields the “poor man’s fertilizer”. As I learned, the snow will still give nitrogen to the ground, whether I can take advantage of the thawed, yet not soaked, earthen openings of my vegetable garden space, or not.

Snow and Nitrogen:
There is something else that happens when it snows: nitrogen is deposited by the snow and absorbed either into the soil food web residing and active at low temperatures or by plants as a result of nitrogen fixation, a microbial activity which, astonishingly enough, can take place even at low temperatures. Even when the soil is frozen, its eventual thaw can result in the absorption of nitrogen.

Well, it turns out not only snow, but rain as well, contains nitrogen compounds that were suspended in air as they formed.
It is estimated that 2 to 12 pounds of nitrogen are deposited per acre as a result of snow and rain. Most of this nitrogen comes from emissions as a result of burning fossil fuels and industrial manufacturing. The rest comes from lightning fixing atmospheric nitrogen, which makes up 70 percent of air, as I recall.
snow “the poor farmer’s fertilizer.” – Full Story
==========

Snow
Ruth Kirk, the author of “Snow”: “Snow not only insulates against low minimum temperatures but also against fluctuations.
A bare soil surface may be heated by direct sunshine, then cooled in seconds as clouds pass overhead, and its temperatures often surge drastically from day to night. Snow moderates these swings and that can be a crucial advantage.”

She also corroborates the old saw that snow is the poor farmer’s fertilizer. Ms. Kirk found evidence that snow, drawing on ions from the upper atmosphere, adds nitrates as well as some sulfates, calcium and potassium to the soil. –NYT Story

January is slow to warm in terms of outdoor work, and so it is perfect for forward looking plans and backward looking calculations. Regrets are best put to bed by facing them and creating new pictures of future efforts.

Questions I ask myself now:

  • What is reasonable to expect from my resources in the coming year? Do I have energy/money/time for the efforts I imagine?
  • How should I re-prioritize to accomplish what I would like? What life balance must be taken into account? Do I weight my desires too lightly, or too highly? 
  • Is my plan healthgiving and fruitful? Or time consuming and depleting? How can I adjust it to be more positive?
  • Am I prepared to make my dreams come true?

These questions must come first, before drawing the plans, or ordering from catalogues. The garden is such a transitory thing, it is the perfect lesson lab for life. How often has it shown me my folly of believing I held control? Or the illusion of “sheer willpower”? Burns had his wee mousie, I have memories of last year’s tomatoes.

In the Deep Freeze

by

Deep freeze

While we are in the deep freezer here in Ohio, I have been setting up (ever so slowly) my new computer. I find myself planning my garden season in the year to come, and am hopeful that my husbands newly mentioned interest comes to fruition. He seems most interested in the vegetable garden, which is the part that has languished most in my gardens. We will have to try and till up the old one that has grassed over the past couple years, buy more soaker hose to lay in, and start somewhat smaller (my previous vegetable garden was the size of a small yard). Just tomatoes and peppers, with a beginning of lettuce and chard, mostly, is what I think is manageable until my husband gets his gardening legs… 😉

I finally took the step of ordering some garden catalogues. Should have done that in December, but was just too busy with all that was going on. But thanks to online requests, it was a painless and quick procedure, so I am hopeful that the catalogues will be on their way here this week. I need them. My daydream gardens can use the shot of inspiration that those rosy pictures always give me.

The Rosemary plant in a protected spot had made it through until now… I have my fingers crossed that it makes it through this frigid cold spell we are now having. It is actually normal weather for Ohio to have at least one blast of arctic air, but not usually at this time. The norms as I remember are early January freeze followed by the January thaw which is usually from this time through the end of the month. This type of cold in bare ground conditions is what has been the death sentence for many of my borderline zone plantings. It is what caused me to only grow zone 4 roses out in the open spaces of the garden.

My favorite hardy roses are the Rugosas. They just seem to handle most anything that nature throws at them. I love Blanc Double de Coubert. Here is the skinny on that variety:

Name: Blanc Double de Coubert
Synonym: Muslin Rose, The Muslin Rose, R. rugosa ‘Blanc Double de Coubert’
Class: Hybrid Rugosa Rose
Hybridizer/Date: Cochet-Cochet, France 1892
Parentage: R. rugosa x Sombreuil
Fragrance: Strong
ARS Color: White
Awards: Royal Horticultural Society Award Of Garden Merit 1993
24 petals

I mean to take some cuttings of the Blanc Double de Coubert rose this year and try to have more plants. I haven’t had much success when I attempted before, but perhaps this year will be different. I have been told how easy it is, I remember my mother had phenomenal success using the “Mason jar” method, which is what I will try this year. wish me good luck and success 🙂
Technorati Tags: ,

Gardening in January

by

We’ve had some beautiful weather here, although it is now turning cold. I enjoyed the sunshine while it lasted! Normally January is full steam blogging, but I will be setting up a new computer system and that means blogging will be slow until that is over.

Reminders for this month:
Late January is a good time to get out there and prune, if the weather permits. Check out my article on pruning.
Get ready for seed starting, but don’t jump the gun.

Technorati Tags: ,