Author Archive: Zocalo Staff

Notes From A Plant Freak

Know When To Give Up
It may seem like a strange suggestion for New Year’s, but many of the problems we encounter in gardening comes from our inability to accept defeat. Gardening should not be like war. Your garden should not be devoid of pests. A balance of good guys and bad guys is necessary. If you are meeting the needs of your plants, you won’t have too many pest infestations, since they tend to overtake plants that are previously compromised. Occasionally, aphids will take over a lettuce plant and a tomato hornworm may devour a young tomato. Accept it. You don’t need to come out with the heavy artillery, or even the organic insecticidal soaps. Look rather into whether the plant has enough water, sun, and if you are planting it in the proper season. Sometimes there is nothing wrong and there just happens to be a spike in a particular insect’s population. Accept it and move on. The biggest problems we have in agriculture come from trying to force the unnatural (like acres and acres of the same plant growing all in one spot). As a result we end up resorting to more and more extreme methods of cultivation. Many pesticides and synthetic fertilizers originated from the same companies that once made chemical weapons and bombs.  After World War II, these companies found a new industry for their products: agriculture. Let your garden be a refuge for clean, natural food to grow. Employ beneficial insects and maybe even use some organic pest controls occasionally. But first ask yourself, is that one or two lettuce plants worth all that effort?

The best way to avoid pest infestations is by not fighting them. When you spray even the gentlest of pesticides, you are killing good guys as well, throwing your garden off balance. The best way to keep your plants happy is making sure you have enough organic material in the ground, a good layer of mulch at the base of the plant, and sufficient sunlight (most garden plants, especially in the cool season, do best in full sun all day long). Keep your plants moist, evenly, but don’t over water. The first mistake people make when learning to garden is over watering. The second is usually over watering which tend to push nutrients out of the soil. Plants favor deep watering and less often, rather than frequent, shallow watering. Mulching also helps with keeping the moisture in the ground so watering can be less frequent.

Add more biology to the soil, not less. Think about adding some beneficial critters. Arbico is a Tucson-based company that sells beneficial organisms for your garden. Try beneficial nematodes, lacewings, or praying mantis. Check out their website at www.Arbico-Organics.com and if you have questions, call them up. They can be very helpful.

Seasonal Guidelines
Many people start projects around the New Year. For the garden, it is the middle of the cool season. Whether you already have a garden going or are just starting, you can still be planting, growing and harvesting those winter vegetables that many people get going in the fall: the various greens, root vegetables, cilantro, parsley, dill, peas, or the underappreciated herb, chervil, which is  often used in French cuisine. As the cool season continues, select varieties that need shorter times to grow and that are heat tolerant. The heat will be here before we know it.

Speaking of the warm season, January is the month to start planting out pots of tomatoes, peppers, eggplant, inside or in a cold-frame. These will be put in the garden in 6-8 weeks (with continued cold protection). This is especially beneficial for getting a head start on the warm season, and playing with some of the varieties that take a little longer to mature. You can also direct-seed some of these warm season plants if you make a plan for protecting them from frosty nights. They will grow slower. Also try growing potatoes. Plant them now. Small potatoes are planted whole, while larger ones are cut into 2 inch sections. Plant with “eyes” face up.

Jared R. McKinley maintains a gardening and homesteading blog called Arid Land Homesteaders League at AridLandHomestead.com

Notes From A Plant Freak

Gardening is a Seedy Business

A most perplexing trend seen in nurseries during the fall are vegetables in starter pots (like 4-inch pots and 6-packs). A cynical laugh was derived from this author recently when he spotted sweet peas being sold in 6-packs at a quality local nursery.  Planting peas this way is almost futile. Let’s lend a hint to our newbie gardeners: many vegetables transplant poorly and are best planted from seed. You might be intimidated by seeds but with a few pointers that intimidation can be converted into a learning experience that can change your gardening success rate.

Many annual vegetable crops grow very fast. Their taproots want room. The goal of an annual plant, or a plant that typically lives out only for one season, is to get established in time to grow and reproduce as successfully as possible, given the available resources and time. Starter pots give hardly any room for such quick development. All too often those plants have sat too long in those pots, not just lacking room, but being overheated and going through extremes of dryness and wetness. Annual plants especially hate this. It’s a wonder anyone ever has success this way.

If you have prepared your garden bed properly and are committed to seeing out the needs of your crop, starting from seed directly in the garden is the best way to ensure a good start for your vegetable crop.  There are exceptions to this rule. Tomatoes and peppers, for example, if obtained by a reputable nursery that keeps its stock in the proper sunlight, watered and not hanging around too long to get root bound will do fine. Perennial crops like oregano, mint, artichokes and such usually transplant well, but beware of the quality you choose. Root-bound plants decrease your likelihood of a positive growing experience.

There is another compelling reason to plant from seed: variety. If you choose a crop from the garden center, you are stuck with whatever varieties they thought would sell well, sometimes being inappropriate for our climate like the well-known Beefsteak tomato which has limited success in Tucson. Often one finds only the tried and true varieties are available.  This is ok if you are content to grow the same thing everyone else is growing. You have the largest selection at your disposal choosing varieties from seed catalogs. especially with the Internet making the stock of all these companies available to you whenever you fancy purchasing some seed. But you do take on the responsibility of doing your homework. Pay attention to how long it takes a crop to mature. Often descriptions will also let you know what a crop likes. With some crops this can be experimental and if you aren’t sure what you are doing, you do take a chance in selecting the wrong crop. Look at the experiments as an adventure and know this is actually more rare of an occurrence than it sounds. Most vegetable crops do well if you pay attention to season length and plant properly.

Variety is also greater with most perennial crops, or more permanent or longer-living plants, when growing from seed. Artichoke varieties in the nursery, for example, are almost always limited to the Green Globe variety. Not because this is the only variety or the best for Tucson gardening. But nurseries are businesses and sometimes they have to make fiscal decisions that limit diversity. There is only so much room and why take chances on a variety people aren’t familiar with.

By no means do you stop browsing the nursery. Depriving yourself of the wonderful experience of perusing the aisles of a good nursery would be a horrible suggestion. Just keep in mind that if you open yourself up to starting things from seed, your options open up, and your success with particular crops will improve.

Seed packets almost always have all the information you need but be wary of seasonal planting suggestions as our mild winter and arid land climate often require different timing considerations. However, seed depth and spacing are almost always available and best followed. Also, almost all seed companies list how long it takes from germination for a crop to develop which is very important data in planning

This author has a lot of favorite seed sources.  Here are a few: our own Native Seeds / SEARCH (NativeSeeds.org) is best for dry land crops, developed in this area. They have all that is local and heirloom. Additionally, use Territorial Seed Company (TerritorialSeed.com) for basic crops, Kitizawa Seed Company (KitazawaSeed.com) for Asian crops, Seeds From Italy (GrowItalian.com) for Italian heirlooms and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds (RareSeeds.com) for fun and amazing heirlooms from around the world.

Jared R. McKinley maintains a gardening and homesteading blog called Arid Land Homesteaders League at AridLandHomestead.com