Gear Up! (What You Need to Grow From Seed)

Growing plants from seed is rewarding, fun and not nearly as tough as you think!

Are you ready for an adventure in food production?  Growing your own food at home is awesome - it's healthy, it's fun (mostly) and best of all, it's so rewarding!  With a bit of effort and some basic skill and patience, this can be the summer that you bite into your very own homegrown tomato... and trust me when I tell you that there is nothing else quite so delicious!

So - where to begin?  First off, if you're not down with the whole 'growing from seed' thing, that's ok. You can still play along this season, you just have to sit out the first couple of rounds!  I love growing my plants from seed for a few reasons.  Mostly, it's because something happens to me around seed sales, swaps and catalogue listings... I lose control of myself and end up impulsively collecting varieties for the sheer thrill of it.  That said, growing from seed gives me the satisfaction of having been in control of the growing process from the very beginning, which to me, adds extra pride and bragging rights!  But it also allows me to grow a wider range of varieties, many of which are rare, obscure or hard to find.  If you choose to buy your plants as babies (or 'starts') you can still enjoy all of the rush and joy of growing food at home, without the extra steps of seeding and coddling the little ones.

For those with a bit more cavalier spirit, this week I'll walk you through the steps that you need to take to grow plants successfully from seed.  We'll sow and grow together, and if you're in my climate zone, you can just monkey-see-monkey-do your way through this thing.  Good deal!  

If you're been into any sort of garden center lately, you'll have found that there is no shortage of equipment, accessories and supplies that can help to make seed-starting easier.  With such a wide range of options available, it's easy to find a system that will work for your space and your budget... but it's also easy to get carried away.  There are a few really basic things that you will need to grow from seed, and everything else is optional.  Here's what I use at home:

Trays, Pots or Containers

Naturally, you're going to need something to physically grow your plants in.  I prefer a biodegradable tray system (similar to the one pictured left) that consists of a plastic undertray, clear plastic dome lid and coir cells that can be filled with whatever growing medium I choose.  This is a personal preference, and one that I've found works well for me.  You can use a traditional cell-pack tray, small pots, toilet rolls, yogurt containers.... really anything will do as long as it's not too deep and will hold soil, but allow water to drain freely.  The item shown, which has 72 cells, runs for about $9-10 retail, and you can find other sizes and styles from $4 and up.

Growing Medium

You don't grow plants in dirt!  I start my seeds in a 'propagation' mix that's ready-to-use right out of the bag.  It's light and airy, and is specifically mixed to provide the right amount of water retention and aeration that will allow seeds to thrive.  Some people choose to make their own mix out of peat, coir, sand... there are lots of options.  I recommend starting simple with a mix that is made for growing seeds or cuttings for the best results.  Once you gain confidence and experience, you can start customizing your system to work best for you!  (Please note - While I've chosen an image from Miracle Gro and that is what I bought this season, I'm not endorsing any specific brand here... just providing what I feel is a good visual example.) 

Light
Getting enough light is easily the biggest challenge to a home seed-starter.  While a bright, south-facing window CAN do the trick, I've never had abundant success at growing healthy plants without a bit of supplemental light.  If you're growing a few pots or a single tray, consider a small fluorescent strip light, counter light or lamp.  They're usually easy to find in box stores and are quite inexpensive, and will save the hassle and worry of dealing with leggy, stretched-out plants!  Last year, I built a little 'grow op' in my kitchen that consisted of a metal shelf unit, 2 4' ballasts and 4 T-12 bulbs - this setup cost a total of about $80 (ouch!) but I expect that it will serve me well for several years.  To me, this was a worthwhile investment.  Here's a glimpse of the Mo Farm grow op for this season...

I'll provide instructions for creating your own grow op in a future post... stay tuned if this is of interest to you!

Seeds
Naturally, the last essential ingredients are the seeds themselves.  If you're looking for free tomatoes, I'm your source!  If you'd like me to send you some, please just e-mail your address and a small description of your growing area (garden, pots, balcony, etc) to my at mofarmniagara@gmail.com.    

These are the basic, nitty-gritty must-haves.  There are a few accessories that can help to make growing easier, and I'll detail them when we start the growing process.  In my next post, I'll detail the ins and outs of sowing and growing your seeds as I start my tomatoes.  Are you still hesitant?  C'mon... what are you waiting for?  Let's grow together this season!  I'll coach you every step of the way!

'Round the Bend

It's March, and frankly, not a moment too soon.  I've got a serious case of the winter blahs, and the shot of sunshine and hope that I received today is barely taking the edge off.  With a lingering chest cold and the exhaustion of tackling an ever-present to-do list that comes with a new house, I'm fighting the urge to crawl into bed and stay there until May.

What gets us through these months of freezing temperatures and bleak, gray landscape?  Well, for me, it's the promise of better days full of warm sun, sweet blooms buzzing with the sound of bees and the smell of wet soil and grass.  The dreams of a fresh start and the hope of summer keep me going when I can barely remember what a watermelon tastes like.  Last night, I began to work on this dream of a new season... I started my seeds.  Eggplants, hot peppers, broccoli, brussels sprouts, onions and leeks are officially in my future.

The future of Mo Farm will begin to take shape in the next several weeks as I survey my lot and plan my beds.  More seeds will be sown, the last straggling seed orders will be placed.  I'll find asparagus crowns (I hope) and seed potatoes to plant.  I'll draw and scribble in my notebook.

Spring, my friends, will come.  And I can hardly wait. 

Niagara's Seedy Saturday in Photos

Just in case you couldn't make it out, here's a look at what was happening at Ball's Falls last Saturday !

The seed exchange table flowed full all day and attracted much attention.

The Lettuce, Turnip and Wine group helped to keep things running smoothly.

Tiffany from Eating Niagara tells people about her 'Garden of Eating' fruit tree program.

Seeds aplenty at The Cottage Gardener display.

More than just seeds for sale!

Informative speakers packed the house.

Passionate vendors like Mary shared advice and made suggestions to many.

Simply spectacular soup and stew was served by local foodies, peapod cuisine.

Attendees learned about MYKE, a beneficial mycorrhyzae.

Seedy legends Urban Harvest brought the goods!

Naturally, Linda at Tree & Twig  offered a fantastic array of open-pollinated seeds.

You can read Linda's blog post about the event from her perspective, and I encourage you to visit some of the links listed above.  The vendors and contributors to Niagara's Seedy Saturday were truly exceptional, and I already look forward to a bigger and better event in 2012.  Hope you'll be there too! 

What Did You Get?

Choosing varieties is the hardest part at the Tree & Twig Heirlooms display.

In my view, Seedy Saturday was a tremendous success.  The exchange tables flowed full of seeds throughout the day, the vendors were kept hopping with seed sales and requests for recommendations and advice, the speakers were engaging and informative... good times were had by all.

Did you attend a Seedy Saturday event?  Did you score some Mo Farm seeds?  Leave a comment and share your thoughts!  What did you get and what are you most looking forward to in the 2011 gardening season?

Many more photos to follow shortly!

Time to Get SEEDY!

My seeds getting packaged and labeled for the Seedy Saturday exchange table.

That's right - it's the moment I've been anticipating since I picked my last tomato in October... Seedy Saturday is tomorrow!  For me, the growing season begins this weekend as hundreds of folks will gather at Ball's Falls in Vineland to exchange and buy open-pollinated seeds.  Last year, I attended 'Seedy Saturday on a Sunday' in Toronto, and I walked away with a ridiculous amount of seeds, but also with loads of great information and a hefty helping of growing inspiration.  While the draw of the event is the seeds themselves, there are far greater benefits to being a part of the crowd.   

LT&W members pack seeds for the exchange.

If you've never been to a Seedy Saturday event, make this the year that you give it a try!  Events are held all over the country, led by passionate individuals whose hard work and drive make it all possible.  Here, the driving force is Linda Crago of Tree & Twig Heirloom Vegetable Farm in Wellandport.  Linda has worked tirelessly to organize and promote the event, and she'll be there along with the 'Lettuce Turnip & Wine' garden club members helping to run the show.  I recently joined this little group, and I'm excited to help with the event and to invite others to join us this season... but more on that later.

Back to the seeds!  So, what the hell is a Seedy Saturday, and why is it important?  Well, the fact is that many, many, many of the fruit and vegetable varieties that used to exist and thrive have disappeared.  As the modern food machine churns forward and more and more people rely solely on grocery stores for sustenance, the types of produce grown are whittled down to a mere fraction of what used to be available.  Back when folks used to grow their own food, concerns of shipping ease and shelf life didn't factor into the decision-making process for selecting what to grow.  Crops were chosen for their hardiness, adaptation to native conditions and of course, their flavour.  As fewer people grew food and more food needed to be shipped across distances to reach the masses, the standards shifted... varieties are selected for uniformity and for their ability to withstand days and weeks on trucks, leading to the elimination and even extinction of thousands of old varieties.  Many are already lost forever.  Seedy Saturday is essentially the antidote for this.  

Heirloom and open-pollinated varieties of seed are sold and more importantly, exchanged among people who value keeping the delicious, nutritious and unique varieties alive.  An 'open-pollinated' plant is one that will reproduce freely with seeds that will replicate the parent plant.  This means that when you plant an Heirloom or open-pollinated variety, you can save the seeds that it produces and plant them again and again, or as suggested by events like Seedy Saturday, share them.

In our relatively plush society, this idea may seem like a fluffy novelty.  I disagree.  I truly believe that we will witness a collapse of our food system within my lifetime.  Before you start to think me a nut, just bear with me for a moment...  our current system is unsustainable in that it relies almost completely on oil to ship food all over the world.  With resources dwindling and more frequent upsets in the price and availability of foreign oil, it's only a matter of time before the whole thing falls apart.  It's already evident, as food prices around the world begin to skyrocket in response to rising oil prices and natural disasters.  Hey, I'm not trying to fear-monger or preach, but rather explain part of what motivates me to continually attempt to become more self-sufficient.

Whether you're as hung up on growing food as I am, or you're simply interested in the fantastic feeling of pulling fresh, homegrown goods from your own backyard, Seedy Saturday is the perfect way to start your growing season.  Seed vendors, guest speakers and an inspirational buzz will surely get your green thumb itching!  I spent much of last week packaging 117 envelopes of seed that I'll contribute to the exchange table, and I hope to pick up my seed stock for this growing season there as well. I also painstakingly labeled each envelope with the MO FARM blog address, in the hopes that those who pick up the seeds will stop by to say hello and share some of their growing experiences this season.  Seeds are for sharing, and I hope to meet many new faces at the event.  So...will you be there?

All packed up and ready to share!

Keepsakes

The time for delicious, crisp, spicy radishes passed quickly this season due to some unseasonably warm weather in May.  My very first harvest of these crunchy wonders is shown in the header photo for my blog, and the pride I felt is clearly apparent.  So, when it became obvious that the plants that hadn't started to swell below the surface were going to miss their biological deadline, I decided to leave them in place so that they could flower and go to seed.  Above is 'Cherry Belle' and below is 'Purple Plum', which surprised me with it's ornamental qualities!  

The ability to save seeds from your plants is one of the most wonderful reasons to grow heirloom varieties!  Hybrid vegetables have their place, and I'm sure I'll eventually grow some, but because they're created by cross-pollination and selective breeding, their seeds never produce a duplicate of the parent plants, usually resulting in less-than-spectacular flavour.  Heirlooms, on the other hand, are plants that are 'open-pollinated' and have been passed for generations through families and friends across time and distance.  Many of them have amazing stories of their origins, while others are ancient and shrouded in mystery.  


I chose to grow heirloom varieties exclusively this season, and I sourced my seed from some very cool companies that are run by some very cool people!  You can check them out to learn more about heirlooms here:
Urban Harvest
The Cottage Gardener
Aimers Organics
Cubits
Baker Creek Heirlooms 

I'll be saving seeds from my radishes, arugula, and likely the peas and beans this season - which means more to share next spring, and naturally, more room in my seed budget for NEW varieties in 2011! 
 

The 2010 Crop at a Glance

I can't believe it's June. What the heck happened?

Things have been busy, to say the least, and I thought I'd share a glimpse of the crop to date. I painstakingly selected varieties and started sowing this season's crop from seed indoors in March, after weeks of obsessive seed collecting. I really couldn't help myself! I took a trip to Toronto for Seedy Saturday (on a Sunday) and came back with enough seeds to grow food for the entire city, if space permitted. Here's a look at how it went down...

On March 21 I planted these to grow indoors:
Eggplants - Rosa Bianca & Little Fingers
Hot Peppers - Orange Thai, Early Jalapeno, and a cook's mix
Sweet Peppers - Little Bells
Tomatoes - Yellow Pear, Rutgers, Green Zebra, Black Plum, Box Car Willie, Black Krim, Fox Cherry, Tigerella

On April 12 I started direct-sowing in outdoor containers:
Radishes - Purple Plum, Cherry Belle
Lettuce - Heirloom Leaf Mix, cook's blend
Arugula
Evergreen Bunching Onions
Chives
Pansies

While I was outside anyway, I decided to start the back bed too:
Peas - Mammoth Melting Sugar, Thomas Laxton
Beets - Golden Detroit, Chioggia
Lettuce - Buttercrunch, Black-Seeded Simpson
Carrots - Rainbow Mix, Red Atomic
Onion - Mini Purplette
Swiss Chard - Five Colour Silverbeet

As May crept up, miraculously, things started growing. For real! So while the little ones outside started showing signs of life, the indoor plants were thriving and it was time to sow some more!

On May 1 new additions joined the indoor grow-op:
Beans - Dragon Tongue, Littlefields' Special Dry, Lazy Housewife
New Zealand Spinach
Costata Romanesca Zucchini
Cucumbers - Pickling, Muncher, Straight Eight
Watermelon - Malali, Cream of Saskatchewan

On May 14, I ate my first salad of homegrown greens, relishing the sweet, fresh crunch of soft leaves that were still breathing just moments before I put them in my mouth.

On May 16, the first tomatoes, eggplants and peppers were planted into pots on the back deck, nestled between seeds of cilantro, dill, and basil.

Then, finally, on May 23, the entire garden was planted. Thankfully, my partner in crime was easy to convince to lend some assistance...



As the season progresses, I'll share some stories surrounding my plant choices, and I can't wait to tell you how they grow, flower, and TASTE!
Mmmmm - sweet summer!