Winter – Perkins Park

Just Links, Mostly: Growing from Seed

February 17, 2021For Beginners, resources, Spring Gardening, Start Here, Winter1 Comment

Basics

Fruition Seeds offers a free seed-starting E-book and seed-starting academy. Scroll down on their home page for more info.
Here’s another longer handbook from Seed Savers Exchange.
This two-page indoor seed-starting guide from Cornell Cooperative Extension covers the basics.
From our blog, here are five tips on seed-starting.
This guide from Burpee covers outdoor sowing.
How do you care for seedlings after they’ve sprouted? Here’s a guide from University of Maryland Extension.
From Iowa State University Extension, here’s a look at using organic fertilizers on seedlings.
Territorial Seeds offers Spring and Fall/Winter growing guides for all types of garden plants.

Timing

Frost date calculators from Farmer’s Almanac, Dave’s Garden, and The National Gardening Association all use different slightly different weather data and risk levels. Interesting to compare.
From our blog, a discussion that gets a bit into the weeds about odds and frost date ranges.
Margaret Roach and Johnny’s offer seed-starting calculators. Enter your frost date, and it calculates when seeds should be started indoors, transplanted, or directly sown outdoors. NOTE: Use these calculators as a rough guide. In the spring, I use two sets of frost dates: a riskier one for cold weather crops that can handle a bit of frost and a more conservative one for warm weather crops. Tomatoes, for example, not only can’t handle a frost, but they’re also generally not happy at temperatures under 60 degrees F.
Kitchen Garden Seeds offers a very handy list of seed-starting schedules.
For a simple chart that will work well in Massachusetts, see this excellent resource from URI.
From High Mowing seeds, here’s a resource showing how to get the timing right so that you can sow a succession of crops in your garden.
From our blog, starting out the growing season with cold weather crops.

Lighting

Lighting can get complicated. Here, Margaret Roach interviews Leslie Halleck, who’s written a great book on the topic (Gardening Under Lights, available on Hoopla at Thayer!).
Cornell Extension describes how to build a low-cost light frame.
My adventures with a cheap shop light fixture from Ocean State Job Lot. (It works well enough for most crops.)
Gardin in Braintree is an excellent source for lighting fixtures and assistance with indoor growing equipment.

Buying Seed

This map from SeedLinked shows locations and names of seed companies. Use it to buy regional product that generally is well-suited for growing in your region.
This resource from Cornell University is a community science database that collects info on which particular varieties of vegetables will grow well in your garden.
From Gardeners Supply, here’s a list of easy seeds for beginners.
Seed catalogs aren’t just for buying seed; they’re also great resources for learning about varieties. (New York Times article. Link to Thayer Public Library for 3-day access to NYT.)
Mail-order sources that PPCGers have used include: Johnny’s Selected Seeds, High Mowing Seeds, Fruition Seeds, Burpee, John Scheepers Kitchen Garden Seeds, Fedco, Baker Creek, Territorial Seeds, and Seed Savers Exchange.
Local off-the-rack sources include Home Depot, Lowes, Wal-Mart, Dollar Tree, Ocean State, Holly Hill Farm, Kam Man, and Good Health Natural Foods.
How long will the seed last? You don’t have to toss out all of your old, unused seed, but some varieties have a longer shelf life. Check out Margaret Roach’s guide.
URI’s free seed program has been limited by COVID-19, but it may be an option for non profit groups in future years. Wintersown.org also offers seed at under-cost rates to community organizations.

Winter Sowing & Season Extenders

Winter sowing is a method of sowing seeds outdoors when it’s still cold in containers such as milk jugs. Susan Mulvihill has a nice video on the technique and also points interested growers to wintersown.org.
You can get more grow time out of your garden by using season extenders such as hoop tunnels, frost covers, and cloches. Eliot Coleman has researched and written on this topic extensively, but for home gardeners, I found Niki Jabour’s materials more accessible. Here’s her website, a book that’s available on Hoopla and hard copy at Thayer Public Library, and her latest publication about growing under cover.
From GrowVeg, check out this simple method of using milk jugs as improvised cloches. Great idea if you have a late frost sneak up on you.

Saving Seed

From our blog, Louise writes about how and why to save seed.
Saving seed begins with planting the right seed the right way. Seed Savers Exchange explains.
Seed-saving chart from Seed Savers Exchange.

Five Indoor Seed-Starting Tips from Margaret Roach’s A Way to Garden

January 31, 2020May 11, 2020For Beginners, Spring Gardening, WinterLeave a Comment

Select Seeds Suited for Indoor Sowing and Transplanting

Many crops start well indoors–and need the extra growing time in a protected space while the weather is still too cold–but a few grow better when sown directly in the garden. There aren’t any no-break rules here. Even carrots can be transplanted, though it’s not generally recommended. Especially if you are trying a crop for the first time, read the seed packet for instructions on which method typically works best. Pay attention, too, to the days to maturity information and your crop’s cold tolerance to help decide where and when to sow.

Start with Good Materials

Many seeds are viable for more than one year, but members of the onion family are notoriously short-lived. Pictured here, I sowed the far corner with fresh onion seeds and the near corner with seeds only 1 year-old. Barely any of the old seeds germinated.

Clean your seed-starting containers with a 1:9 bleach:water solution or soapy water.
Use a sterile grow medium formulated for seed-starting.
For best results, use fresh seeds. (See this link to a chart on seed viability and a great discussion on the difference between viability and vigor. More info here.)

Water Wisely

Keep your planting medium evenly moist until your seeds sprout, then let it dry out slightly between watering. In no instance should it be soggy or bone dry. Be gentle if you water on top and use a mister or similar method. Bottom watering avoids the problem of dislodging seeds and young transplants and helps prevent diseases.

Get the Light Right

This one is Margaret Roach’s most emphasized tip. Seedlings will need supplemental lighting–more than they’ll likely get on your windowsill–or they’ll grow tall and spindly.

For Perkins Park Gardeners: What to do if you don’t have a fancy grow light set up and still want to sow your own seeds for transplanting?

- Try inexpensive shop lights. I’ve had reasonable success growing seedlings with a couple of shop lights purchased for around $15 at Ocean State.
- Squeeze one or two cell packs on your windowsill and supplement with a simple clamp light fixture (bulb separate). Set them outside on warm-enough days, taking care to harden them off (see next tip) along the way.
  Lettuce seedlings grown on a windowsill get a little long and floppy, but do all right if you don’t have to hold them long indoors.
  
  But seedlings quickly dry out and outgrow their small egg carton confines.
  
  Here’s another windowsill setup, fashioned out of a recycled cell pack and a milk carton, that gives seedling roots more room to grow.

Take Time to Transplant with Care

Harden off plants before you transplant them to their final space in the garden. They’ll need to gradually acclimate to outdoor conditions, especially to the sun. Start with no more than 1 hour outside in direct sun on the first day (not midday) and gradually increase the time of outdoor exposure over the course of about a week. You’ll know you’ve overdone it if you see bleached or brown and crispy patches on your plants’ leaves. Alternatively, some people like to choose overcast days, leaving them outside during daytime hours for a few days.

Once you’ve gotten your plants hardened off, make sure you’re not rushing to get your plant in the garden too early, before you are reasonably clear of of unsuitable weather.

For more seed-starting tips (and more):

A Way to Garden by Margaret Roach (2019).

For a wide range of seed-starting information, see Margaret Roach’s website.

Spring In the Wings

February 22, 2019WinterLeave a Comment

Overall, this winter hasn’t been a bad one here on the South Shore–right?–but it seems to be going out with hooks.

So I’ve put together a list of a few garden-related doings to get us to the end. After all, opening day at PPCG is only a little more than a month away, and then we’ll be within easy reach of peas.

Boston’s Community Garden Scene

Next week on Wednesday, February 27, the Trustees, which owns and operates the largest chunk of community gardens in Boston, is showcasing a documentary film about Boston’s community gardens at More Than Words bookstore. Pre-registration recommended. Reduced rates for members.

Gardening Aside

By the way, More Than Words is one of my favorite indoor spaces, a used bookstore run as a nonprofit, so if you’re just looking for a nice place to get out of the cold, go check it out. I don’t know their schedule this year, but in the past they’ve held big sales on/around March 17. (And while I’m on the topic of used bookstores, have you been to the Montague Bookmill in western Massachusetts? It’s a great road trip destination with a few good hiking spots nearby.)

Countertop of Greens

Grow a crop of microgreens before you need your sunny/lamp-lit spaces for seedlings. Here’s my favorite how-to video. Or sign up for Holly Hill Farm’s workshop on growing microgreens on March 9 from 1 – 3. Or buy a bunch of greens and shoots at their weekly farm stand. See their website for details; locations vary.

Season Extender

Do you have a little yard space? Holly Hill Farm is also hosting a workshop on building cold frames on March 9 in the morning. Email cprentice@hollyhillfarm.verizon.net for details and to register.

A Day of Gardening How To

The 44th annual Gardeners’ Gathering is being hosted by The Trustees at Northeastern University on March 23. Free and open to everyone!

For Your Sweet Tooth, the New England Way

Brookwood Farm is holding its annual Maple Sugar Days Festival on March 23 & 24, from 10 – 4.

A Different Boston Gardening Scene

This year’s Boston Flower and Garden show runs from March 13 – 17.

Local Stars

Ugh, have you seen that report on declining insect populations worldwide? Planting native species can help attract and sustain beneficial insects. Author Russ Cohen presents Nibbling on Natives in Your Back Yard and Beyond. Free and open to everyone at Hingham Public Library on April 7 from 2 – 4.

Library Harvest

Have you used Hoopla, a free source of electronic media that’s available at our public library? Hoopla currently has a surprising number of gardening books, such as Countertop Gardens, Indoor Kitchen Gardening, High Yield Vegetable Gardening, and Thrifty Gardening. Or how about Dogscaping, How Carrots Won the Trojan War, or A Woman’s Guide to Cannabis?

Braintree’s Hidden Garden Source

Go check out all of the living things growing indoors under lights at Gardin, which outgrew its location at New England Wildlife Center and moved to its current warehouse space at 137 Bay State Drive, near the Braintree high school. This place makes you want to turn your whole house into a terrarium. They have a huge array of indoor and outdoor growing supplies, some of which are hard to find elsewhere in our area, plus friendly, informed service. Matt helped me pick out a grow light for starting some microgreens and herbs on my countertop.