Seeds

We're back! The 2010 growing season is on it's way. What's been on your mind? Late winter and early spring are busy times for garden planning, and that's exactly what we've been doing. We've been getting our seed catalogs, ordering and inventorying seeds, mapping our gardens and getting ready for a great year. We'll be frequently posting narratives and tips on what we're up to throughout the year. We hope our blog will help guide you through a successful growing season.
We've been feverishly looking through dozens of seed and plant catalogs for the past month looking for all those gems, deals and hard finds. It is both the most exciting and the most painstaking process one can go through in the late winter. Our imaginations have been running wild with all the possibilities, until we are brought back down to earth and have to make those hard decisions on what must be ordered.



Above are some of the catalogs that we've been fingering through. Here is a rundown on some of my favorites.
Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds: Loaded with the most beautiful pictures, this catalog is for the gardener looking for those rare, hard to find varieties of a lost time. Great prices and the best variety of seeds offered.
High Mowing Organic Seeds: 100% certified organic seeds for the home and market grower. Great selection of the latest varieties, great growing information, excellent seed quality and competitive prices.
Johnny's Selected Seeds: The classic "go to seed company" of many organic growers around the country. Johnny's offers seeds of great quality of the latest varieties, organic seeds, tools and equipment and top tier plant breeding.
Turtletree: An excellent biodynamic seed catalog. Offers 100% certified biodynamic seeds of top quality. A little pricey, but those seeds sure do have good energy!
Oikos Tree Crops: This nursery is hands down my favorite. The catelog is beautiful and informative, the prices are great and the nursery is located outside Kalamazoo, MI. The catalog is geared towards forest gardening, offering diverse trees, tubers, shrubs, flowers, and groundcovers with a native and edible focus.

When looking through the catalogs, it is helpful to start a spreadsheet by hand or on the computer to organize the seed information. You can compare seed counts, prices, sizes, etc. We organize our spreadsheets by: Crop, Variety, Species, Genus, Family, Packet Size, Seed Count, Price, Days to Maturity, Source and Product Number. All of these are not necessary, but learning the Latin names of all those vegetables and plants will be convenient when planning for crop rotations, interplanting and bio-intensive growing. Use the seed company's information to calculate how much seed to order. A scaled garden map is useful when doing your calculations.

The other day, it felt like Christmas. We ordered quite a bit of our seeds for the season, and the mailman dropped off a box of goodies. The Johnny's box is seen above. Order your seeds fast! Seed companies always seem to have the best seeds on back order or sold out now a days.

Also, take inventory of all of your seeds. This includes seeds from last year, saved seeds, and traded seeds. Some of my saved seeds are above. Seed saving is one of the most important practices of sustainable agriculture, and I'm learning that it's also an art. Flower seeds are the easiest seeds to save, and I have quite a bit of tomato and bean seed. Next year, no more plastic bags! Those nasty, convenient little things.

December Sheet Mulching

Winter is coming and freezing temperatures are creeping in. I decided to try and finish my sheet mulching around my trees and shrubs (almost done). Sheet mulching is a no-dig garden method that builds soil quickly in layers. Some gardeners may know it as "lasagna gardening". Instead of piling organic matter into piles for composting, the organic matter is laid out into to the garden beds to compost in place. My finished sheet mulched beds took about 6 months to break down fully, becoming a beautifully rich loam. Freshly sheet mulched beds, if done well, can be home to very productive plants. Tomatoes and cucurbits sure do love it.
Here is a step-by-step process for quick sheet mulching. The process is forgiving, so if everything is not perfect, don't worry.
Step 1
Moisten and loosen soil in the future garden beds. I use a digging fork and loosen as deep as possible. Many soils are compacted, and could use the extra help before the worms come in to devour the mulch. This is a bare root beach plum (Prunus maritima) I planted in October. Tree roots typically spread 1 1/2 times the crown diameter or more, so on this future 6 foot tree I will sheet mulch to at least the diameter of the mature crown.

Step 2
Spread soil amendments on the sod around the future garden beds. Knowing your soil is very important in this step, so contact your local garden store or garden association to get a soil test if you haven't already gotten one.
Step 3
Place sheets of cardboard or several layers of newspaper on top of the sod, and moisten it. This layer will act as a light barrier to smother out grass and weeds. Eventually the sod will rot and become humus, feeding the plants. This is a 1 year old gooseberry (Ribes uva-crispa) cutting I planted in October.

Step 4
Add organic matter, about 6-12 inches, and spread evenly. I like to spread down some composted manure first, and then bulk organic matter. Fall is a great time to acquire organic matter, and my strategy is to mow the grass and fallen leaves together to make a finer textured C/N mix. The ideal C:N ratio is around 25:1. Spoiled hay is also a great bulk organic matter source.

Step 5
Top the pile off with evenly spread finished compost or topsoil, about 1-2 inches and add mulch. Remember to always mulch, so cover the pile with leaves, straw, woodchips, etc.

Fall is a great time to sheet mulch and mulch in general. Trees' and other woody plants' roots are very active in the fall when the plants go dormant. Mulching before winter allows the roots more time to grow and build up reserves for the long winter. This is especially important in newly planted plants whose roots are not yet well established. Winter soil erosion is also common, so mulching will ensure that all your hard work stays in place.