Seeds | The Organic Sister

Carrots! Finally!

March 5, 2009 By TheOrganicSister 11 Comments

Justin and I were outside talking over yard plans and inspecting the sad shape of our grapevine (if you can call it that anymore). I was telling him we need to move the 2×2 SFG boxes out of the tortoise habitat and we were trying to figure out what to do with them when I decided the dang carrots that have been growing in their box for nearly a year needed to just be pulled already. Last I checked them they were about an inch across but only an inch long (NO they are not thumbelinas!) and I was tired of waiting and watering. To heck with them! So I yanked.

Sweet heavenly goodness, they’ve grown! I feel a bit like a dolt for not leaving them be now and seeing how much bigger they would have gotten – although some were ready to touch bottom soon anyway. Did you know carrots are actually biennials? Meaning they can be left in the ground and around two years they will finally go to seed. But most of us tend to yank after a few months to a year. Wonder how much bigger could they have gotten in another year?

Was it crazy of me to take them to my mom’s and grandmother’s house instead of eat them ourselves? I don’t think so. I realized something – I’m not a big carrot person. So I wasn’t exactly eager to have more than the store-bought bunch that are already going bad in my fridge. Zeb sometimes eats them. I use them in soup or stew. Sometimes I’ll grate them for salads. Apparently I need to learn to make carrot cake, because my silly butt bought a bunch more carrot seeds for this year. I think my anti-carrot epiphany came after that purchase. Plus I got multi-colored ones and that’s just fun.

Plus, it felt so good giving them away. It felt…warm and…I don’t know how to explain it. It just made me so happy to give something I’ve put so much of my time energy water into growing in my own backyard to someone I love. I can’t wait to do more of that.

Did you see the yummy soil in that box? I think I was just as excited over it as I was the splash of orange on top. So brown and crumbly – it smelled wonderful! It was mediocre store soil we got last year to fill the boxes but it’s been amended a couple times with compost and was mulched over the winter with dried leaves. There is nothing more fun than pulling back mulch and finding real SOIL underneath. More real than the state I left it in, anyway. I was so happy to get my hands dirty in it. So very happy.

P.S. Can these count for Green Week, too?

Filed Under: Organic Living Tagged With: food not lawns, locavore, Raised Beds, seeds, veggies

First Summer Seeds Started

February 24, 2009 By TheOrganicSister 12 Comments

I finally got the first of my summer seed started today! This is only Phase One of summer veggies with more to be started once these are past their germination stage – about 2-3 weeks, or mid-March with any luck. Speaking of which I could use some.

I started all of today’s seed in the newspaper pots explained in my previous post. I didn’t like having to transplant the germinated seed last time so I hope this one works out well. I did three seeds to a pot and will thin as/if needed. I was also able to write the name of the seed on the outside of the newspaper pot but I’m sure I’ll have to label them another way before the water smears the ink.

I planted:

4 Pineapple Tomato
4 Jelly Bean Tomato
8 Amish Paste Tomato
8 Brandywine Tomato
8 Mortgage Lifter Tomato
8 Roma Tomato

4 Jalapeno Pepper
4 Bell Pepper
4 Eggplant
12 Strawberry

Anyone else started strawberries from seed and been surprised at how small the seeds are? I mean, it’s not as if I’ve never seen the seeds before; I just never connected the seed on the outside of the strawberry with the seed you plant. Can we say “Der”?

Zeb helped me out today, too. He made more newspaper pots when we ran out, filled the pots with coco-peat, and placed the seeds in the holes. Through the whole project we talked about the amazing abilities of one tiny seed to create a huge plant, fruits and vegetables and more seeds to start all over again. We looked at the different sizes and shapes of the seed, talked about the qualities of each plant, tried to name all the foods we could come up with that were purple like the eggplant (didn’t get too far), and talked about plans for the different foods that will grow from these particular seeds. I explained what coco-peat was and why we are using it instead of regular peat, why we planted three seeds to a pot, why we starting only these seeds and when we’ll start more. He also did his fair share of multiplication (figuring out how many seeds were needed in each pot times the number of pots) and generally acted like the goofball he is.

Now I’m going to get off my butt and make dinner so that I can be on-time to a Photoshop class I’m taking. Hope ya’ll had a Happy Tuesday!

Filed Under: Organic Learning, Organic Living Tagged With: examples of unschooling, food not lawns, locavore, seeds

Newspaper Pot Maker

February 24, 2009 By TheOrganicSister 6 Comments

I’ve had several people ask me about my newspaper pot maker thingy. So here is what it is and how it works.

I ordered mine from Bountiful Gardens when I ordered my seeds. Check with your seed company to see if they also sell them or check online. (Peddler’s Wagon sells them!) Alternatively, you can also make one yourself out of a used can, jar or drinking glass.

Start off with the pot maker and a strip of newspaper (Recommended 3 inch by 10 inch newspaper strip but I’m never that precise. I just take one half sheet of newspaper and tear it into thirds.) Ideally you’re newspaper should be free from any color ink but I’m not sure that’s possible to find anymore (at least not in my newspaper it seems), so I usually ignore that.

Next, wrap the newspaper around your pot maker, leaving about an inch or so hanging off the bottom. Don’t wrap too tight or you’ll destroy the newspaper when taking it off the press thingy.

Like my Grandma says “squarsh” the newspaper down around the bottom (or fold if you’re not from Michigan and can’t “squarsh” with the best of ‘em). Place the pot maker onto its base and press down, twisting a few times for good measure.

Carefully pull the newly made pot off and Presto-chango! you have a pot. Fill it with your soil-less seed mix, plant a seed or three, germinate, etc etc. If you place the pot in a tray you can water the delicate seedlings from the bottom (the newspaper will soak up the water) – just be careful picking them up; they may fall apart. When the plant is ready for the great outdoors you can tear the bottom off the pot easily and plant the entire thing in the ground.

Cool huh?

Filed Under: Organic Living Tagged With: food not lawns, locavore, recycling, seeds

More Seeds for 2009

February 20, 2009 By TheOrganicSister 1 Comment

Oops. It seems I left some seeds off my seed list! How could I?? Well, some were backordered and others were just plain forgotten. I also forgot to mention my cool soil sieve and newspaper pot making thingy. That’s what happens when you experiment too much in high school…er, I mean forget your Gingko.

So, flog me.

Here’s the remainder of my ever-daunting seed collection:

Backordered seed just received:

Bush Bean: Tendergreen Bean
Cabbage: Red Drumhead
Pumpkin: Howden
Tomato: Pineapple (sounded too curious not to try)

Tasty Tea Collection:

Peppermint
Spearmint (also to be used for our homemade toothpaste recipe)
Anise Hyssop
Cinnamon Basil
Lemon Balm
German Chamomile
White Clover: Dutch

I’m currently working out my planting schedule – what needs to be started indoors and when, when to direct sow outdoors, when to transplant, etc. It’s very overwhelming. Why didn’t anyone warn me of the excessive seed catalog dangers?

Filed Under: Organic Living Tagged With: food not lawns, locavore, seeds

Indoor Seed Starting

January 31, 2009 By TheOrganicSister 17 Comments

It was high time I learned how to start seeds indoors. This is really the first year I’m growing from seed. Last year it was mostly starters. I had tried some seeds but nothing came of anything except for my spinach (and very little came from that). This year, with 1800 sq ft to fill and 60+ different seed varieties to fill it with, I’m determined to figure it out.

The first thing I did was to consult our local gardening Yahoo group. There are many enthusiasts and Master Gardeners on that list and I’m so thankful they are so willing to share what works for them. However, with this info they gave me, they either have more patience or I did something wrong. Here’s what I did:

I was told we won’t get enough sunlight to germinate outdoors right now. So, indoors it was. The idea still bothers me – so much stuff to buy, so much electricity to use. So, first we bought a giant 5 shelf unit from the hardware store. Then, I was told to buy soilless seedling mix – peat moss and perlite to be exact. Well, peat moss is not sustainable so I shelled out more for coco peat.

Then I needed grow lights. Do you know how many raised eyebrows a girl with dreadlocks receives when walking through the store with a shopping cart full of grow lights? A lot. It was nearly as bad as the guy at the hydroponics place where I bought the coco peat…”So, you’re growing, eh?” wink wink

So I sprinkled my broccoli and spinach seeds in a tray, wet them, covered them with a clear dome lid, put a heating pad under them for extra warmth and put them 2 inches from the lights for 16 hours a day.

Once they popped up and were too tall for the lid, it was removed. I had one blueish colored bulb and one white bulb over the seedlings. I rotated the tray daily and watered with a misting spray bottle. Every morning the lights came on as soon as I woke up, and every night they were turned off before bed.

When they started to develop their second set of true leaves, it was time to transplant them into larger, individual pots. I scooped them out of their trays with a fork and put them in old butter tubs with holes drilled into the bottoms and some small pots I picked up at a thrift store both filled with more coco peat. There were so many seedlings that I ran out of both types of pots and finally got a chance to use my newspaper pot maker thingy
.

Then they were put onto trays and placed back under the lights. I also watered them with sea kelp extract. And now I’m waiting to see how they handle the transplant.

Overall, I’m thinking this method is not for me. Sprinkling seeds in the trays meant some of them were growing really close together. The broccoli has a “sticky” quality to its leaves so some of it had grown entangled with others and were difficult to uproot without breakage. The roots were difficult to untangle also and I’m sure I caused damage there as well. The whole process just sucked. I’m also not sure about this “soilless” thing and how they will manage without nutrients other the sea kelp I can water with (not to mention affording new mix every year).

The newspaper pots seemed easier to handle, took up less room than the bigger pots and can be planted directly into the garden. I think I’m going to start my next batch of seeds directly in the newspaper pots and see how that goes.

Overall, it’s been a learning experience, even if it’s yet another one I don’t wish to repeat. I’m hoping that starting my summer vegetables in newspaper pots will ease the process some. And I’m also hoping I can figure out if the soilless seedling mix is something I can do without before next year. And as always, I’m totally interested in what others do for their seedlings.