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
Category: FOOD & DRINK, Living
