Small Garden News

For your organic garden

seed starting

GGIA Trade Show Notes for Organic Gardeners

by

The trade show at this year’s WinterGreen conference of the Georgia Green Industry Association (GGIA) provided a look at some new (and not so new) products and plants for organic gardeners. The event was held last week, in Duluth, GA.

Most vendors at the trade show specialized in ornamental (non-edible) plants, machinery for large operations, products for commercial nurseries, and chemical-companies, but I located some local/sustainable/organic-related vendors, to share with you.

Recycled plastic nursery pots

East Jordan Plastics, in Michigan, displayed planting trays, growing pots, and some larger containers made from recycled plastics. Many gardeners are concerned about the excessive use of plastics in gardening. It is good to know of a plant-product company that is working to cut back on plastic waste, by re-using containers and recycling other plastics to create new containers.

RootMaker pots

Image from the RootMaker catalog showing difference in root growth between sprout in regular pot versus sprout in RootMaker pot.
Image from RootMaker catalog.

RootMaker trays and pots for growing plants are the result of research in container design, with the goal of more robust root systems. The trays and containers that I examined seemed very sturdy — like they would last for years — and the informational literature was very compelling. The pots and trays have an unusual pattern of protrusions and holes inside, and those, according to the information, guide root growth into more-branched root systems.

I will be trying a RootMaker tray this year. The representative at the Trade Show did give me a couple of fabric liners, for use when growing plants in cinderblocks, so I cannot say that I am 100% unbiased. I will have to buy the tray, though.

Rice hulls for mulch

Until this trade show, I had not heard of using rice hulls as mulch in containers or as a substitute for perlite in planting mixes.

PBH brought samples of parboiled rice hulls, so people could see the actual product and understand how it can be used. The rice hulls are approved for use in organic systems. I did not bring home a little baggie of rice hulls, but I could have. There were plenty on the table. I did bring home the informational literature, to learn more.

Rice hulls pictured on the cover of an article titled "Rice Hulls 101".

PBH Nature’s Media Amendment is from Riceland Foods. This shouldn’t have been a surprise, but it was. It makes sense that the rice industry would want to find a good use for this bi-product of rice production. Looks like they were successful.

Pope’s CBD oil

This isn’t organic and it isn’t about growing, but I did learn that Tennessee grows industrial hemp. The CBD oil was displayed in what was otherwise an all-succulent-plants booth, for Pope’s Plant Farm. CBD oil seems to be a popular product these days. If anyone was looking for a local (-ish) source of CBD oil, Pope’s Plant Farm is one place to try.

Display for Pope's Plant Farm at the 2019 GGIA Wintergreen Conference.

The little succulent plants in the Pope’s booth were very cute. If I were more of an indoor gardener, I would probably grow some. My oldest son in Colorado does grow little succulent plants, so I pay more attention to them than I used to.

Bottom’s Nursery for fruit trees and other plants

Its plants are not organically grown, but after they are planted, most of the varieties at Bottoms Nursery will not need intensive programs of chemical sprays. All the varieties I saw in the catalog are relatively easy-care fruits that would do well when switched to organic management after planting, even in the South. Some are varieties that would do well in small space gardens.

Front cover of the 2019 catalog for Bottoms Nursery, which is in Concord, GA.

The fruit trees at the back of the booth are what attracted my attention. The first tagged tree I noticed was a Kieffer pear, which I know to be both hardy and a producer of good-tasting fruit.

I wasn’t the only person drawn to the booth of Bottoms Nursery. Another vendor was there, discussing trees and other plants to order, to sell in his General Supply store.

General Supply, Inc, in Blairseville, GA

General Supply is the kind of “everything” store that makes some gardeners go into raptures. This is the store mentioned above that will be selling plants from Bottoms Nursery, but it is also a source of tools, pet supplies, small farm supplies, and a million more interesting things.

Hand tools display in General Supply booth at GGIA 2019 Wintergreen Conference.

Of course, hand-tools are pretty appealing for gardeners working in small space gardens. We don’t need a large assortment of full-sized equipment for our little plots, but good tools make the work easier.

I was especially interested in the Truper brand tools (long-reach 15″ length, ash wood handles, sturdy forged “business ends”), but a full line of Corona tools — which are long-lasting and easy to use — was also on display.

The guy at the booth (so sorry that I did not record his name!) and I discussed the ergonomic benefit of tools that have the “business end” at a right-angle to the handle, when he showed me another tool designed for easier use.

Two Corona brand pruners, showing a difference in angle of the cutting edges.

The pruner on the right, in the nearby image of two Corona-brand pruners, has a different angle for the cutting edges. Do you see the difference? According to the guy in the booth, the angled pruner on the right would be easier to use on some branches, because it allows your arm and wrist to stay aligned, rather than to bend.

I haven’t tried it, so I don’t whether that really works, but I would be interested to try. When late-winter pruning time comes around (soon!), it would be good to avoid aggravating old injuries.

Gardeners heading toward the Blairesville area might want to put this store on their list of places-to-visit.

What else happens at the GGIA WinterGreen conference?

In addition to the trade show, the event provides continuing education opportunities for commercial lawn and garden folks. I did attend a workshop about Beneficial Insects, but that story is for another post.

Tomatoes for the South

by

Choosing which tomato varieties to grow is one of my favorite parts of the summer garden most years. When I first started gardening, I grew all my own tomato plants from seeds, indoors, because garden centers offered such a limited selection. Now, though, many more varieties, including some well-known heirlooms, are available. “Starting your own” is no longer essential for gardeners who would like to branch out a little in their tomato patch.

Anyone in the South who is new to gardening and planning to buy just a few plants to get started should look for varieties that are disease resistant. Those will have the letters “VFN” and possibly more letters and numbers somewhere on the plant label.

Costoluto genovese plants that were started from seeds indoors are nearly large enough to be planted in the garden.
Costoluto genovese plants that were started from seeds indoors, nearly large enough to be planted in the garden. PHOTO/Amy Whitney

The presence of the letters VFN is important because the problems the letters stand for — Verticillium Wilt, Fusarium Wilt, and Root Knot Nematode — are commonly present in soils across the whole region. The letter-code shows that the plants can survive and produce food even if those diseases are present in the garden.

Organic gardens have few spray-type options for disease control. Growing some of the disease-resistant varieties means that your garden can be productive even in a “bad” disease year.

If you add in one or two plants that has an unknown record of disease resistance (like many heirlooms), growing the disease resistant plants alongside can improve your chances of getting actual tomatoes.  

For me, some of the tried-and-true tomato varieties are ‘Rutgers‘, ‘Park’s Whopper‘, and ‘Better Boy‘. Further South, ‘Homestead‘ is a reliable standard for other gardeners. Newer varieties that I have not yet tried, but that are shown to do well (and be delicious!) in the South are in the Mountain series — ‘Mountain Merit‘, ‘Mountain Pride’, and ‘Mountain Spring’ are in the group.

I am a normal sort of gardener, one who is pretty easily seduced by seed-catalog descriptions of plants, so I have grown many different tomato varieties mixed in with the tried-and-true, disease-resistant varieties. For most of them, I have kept actual written records. An abbreviated list of tomato varieties I’ve grown is below, to give you an idea of how the experimenting has gone in my yard.

Here’s the list:

Brandywine—The tomato that so many people love, dies in my yard.
Mr. Stripey—Dies in my yard.
Glacier—Dies in my yard.
Dad’s Sunset—Dies in my yard.
Riesentraube—Survived in my yard the one year I grew it, but the tomatoes tasted like sugar water (I won’t grow it again). It probably tastes better when grown in different soil, because one of my friends thinks it is a great little tomato.
Radiator Charlie’s Mortgage Lifter “VFN”—Does well in the drought years, but keels over, from one of the soil-borne wilt diseases, in very wet years. When it lives long enough to produce tomatoes, they are large and delicious. Indeterminate type.
Heatwave—I planted this one year as part of the later batch that goes in where and when the onions and garlic come out. The Rutgers that I planted at the same time were more productive and tasted a LOT better (I won’t grow it again). There is a newer ‘Heatwave II’ that may be tastier, but I find that I am reluctant to try it.
Rutgers—Determinate, meaty canning tomato that I plant most years; it is productive and tasty, but most of the tomatoes come at once, so it needs to be accompanied by a longer-producing indeterminate type to make sure tomatoes keep coming in all season.
Roma—Widely available paste-type tomato that does well in my yard; I’ve grown it in many different years.
Wuhib—Paste variety with good flavor that produces well even in crazy rainy years. More productive than Roma.
Cherokee Purple—This produces well even in years with crazy rains, and it is incredibly flavorful.  Indeterminate type.
Amish—Not productive, but it survives in my yard; the fruits are large and attractive (yellow with pink swirls), and the flavor is incredible. Indeterminate type.
Gardener’s Delight—A cherry type. This plant remained healthy and productive throughout the whole summer in my yard, but the tomatoes all cracked before they were fully ripe (I won’t grow it again).
Sweet 100 and its even more productive relatives—Cherry type that has done well in my yard in many different years. Productive and tasty.
Better Boy—Widely available indeterminate big tomato that has done well in my yard in many different years. I usually just buy one or two of these at a store instead of growing my own from seed.
Costoluto Genovese—The first few years I grew these, they were from one seed packet from a source that went out of business before I could order more, but I had loved these tomatoes. A few years later, I ordered some from another source, but they were not the same; the fruits were less flattened, less lobed and less tasty.  Indeterminate.
Park’s Whopper (Park)–Large, tasty slicer that produces well over the whole summer. Some of the local “old guy” gardeners, the ones who have been gardening for 40-50 years, grow this variety exclusively. Recommended.
ArkansasTraveler—Pink tomato that does well in my yard. Indeterminate.
Winter Red Hybrid (Burpee)—A long-keeper type that I usually plant in late June. Does exactly what it’s supposed to do and performs well in my yard.
Matt’s Wild Cherry—Cherry type that produces a whole lot of very small red tomatoes on a very indeterminate plant; the branches reach beyond ten feet by the end of the summer, so it isn’t the ideal plant for a small space, but the flavor of the little fruits is excellent.
Yellow Marble—Cherry type. The one year I grew this the plant was in a container, which could have affected the flavor, which was very tart; its true flavor and viability in an in-ground Southern garden are still untested.

The written records have provided some entertainment over the years, as I compare my own notes to  descriptions in seed catalogs. Hopefully, though, these notes will be helpful for other Southern gardeners!

That Seed Starting Time of Year

by

Seed Starting Zine contains basic information about how to start seeds indoors to grow transplants for your garden
Zine on Seed Starting for Spring is the right size to bundle with a seed packet as a garden gift. PHOTO/Amygwh

I love the whole seed-starting process. When seed-starting time rolls around each year, regardless of how big or small my garden is going to be in that year, I start some plants indoors from seeds. New gardeners may not be aware that seed-starting is something they can do, too.

You don’t need a greenhouse, but you do need one or two fluorescent lights for your plants, some seeds (of course), seed-starting “soil” or peat-pellets, some kind of container, and the ability to pay a little bit of attention to the wet/dry condition of the seedling starter soil.

Seed Starting Zine open to show pages of the booklet.
Seed Starting Zine open to show pages of the booklet. A Zine made this way from a single sheet of paper has six pages inside. PHOTO/Amygwh

I had been looking into low-cost print options for written information, and my children (ages 26 and 31), who are much cooler than I am, told me that I was talking about creating a Zine.

This may not be the answer to spreading the good news about seed-starting to a lot of new gardeners, but creating a Zine about Seed Starting for Spring was fun, and the folded Zine is just the right size to bundle with a seed packet as a little gift for new gardeners.

The Zine pattern I chose uses a single sheet of paper, folded in a way that creates a six-page booklet. The pages are tiny, so the information is bare-bones, but there is enough to get started with.

Zine made from a single-sheet of paper is unfolded to show the fold-lines and place to cut with scissors.
The fold-and-cut pattern is easy to see on this unfolded Zine.  PHOTO/Amygwh

However, I haven’t figured out how to turn it into a downloadable pdf without my computer/printer adding extra margins around the text. I will figure it out, eventually, but for now, I am adding a different option for my readers to download.

The two-sided document (as a pdf) contains more information than the Zine, but it isn’t nearly as cute. The document is “Seed Starting for the Spring Vegetable Garden”.

You can download the file by “clicking on” the linked title below:

Seed Starting Guide from SmallGardenNews

I hope you find that it is helpful!

Planning a Small Fall Garden

by

One of the great features of cool season vegetables, the ones that survive the frosts and freezes of fall and early winter here in the Southeastern US, is that they are not space-hogs.

Red Russian kale might get to be pretty big (two to three feet across and high), but it isn’t going to sprawl across ten feet of garden the way a tomato plant can, and it won’t tower so high — like corn or okra — that it casts shade on the whole rest of the garden.

Even better, a lot of the cool season crops are in the “cut-and-come-again” group of leafy greens. You can harvest some leaves, and the plants will keep producing. The plants might stop for a while during cold weather, but in the warm stretches between, they will continue to grow.

Here in my zone 7b garden, I have already started a few seeds for my fall garden. The first little batch of seeds includes some kale, collards, beets, winter radishes, and some green bunching onions. In a couple of weeks, I will start a little more of all of those, plus some lettuces.

What’s going into your fall garden?

When Can I Start Seeds for My Spring Garden?

by

The answer to “when can I start seeds for my spring garden” depends a lot on how much of a gambler you are. If you have seeds, seed-starting materials, and space with lighting galore, then anytime is probably a good time.

If, like me, you have limited space, lighting, and materials, following a more conservative schedule may be a better choice.

For spring veggies and early flowers, my first planting usually begins in mid-to late February. That is when I plant seeds for English peas (and sugar-snaps), spinach, dill, and early flowers like larkspur outdoors in the garden. That is also usually when I set some seed potatoes in a single layer in a lighted space  indoors (sunny window can work) so they begin to sprout for mid-March planting.

The problem with planting earlier is that some seeds, peas especially, will rot in the ground if they are too cold and damp for too long. When they do come up, though, they can survive some very cold weather. So can little spinach seedlings. The dill and larkspur won’t come up until later, but they do better when planted early outdoors. That is just their way.

Seeds for other spring crops may come up in a stretch of warmish weather if planted outside very early, but if we get a return to actual winter, with temperatures dropping below 20 degrees F for more than a couple of hours, the little seedlings are not likely to survive. Spinach seedlings can take the cold, and it is possible that kale and collards can, too, but lettuces are less happy with such very cold nights, and new carrot seedlings might not make it, either.

Since the weather can still turn very cold in February, I keep an eye on the forecasts before planting even the most cold-hardy of veggies outside.

For most of my spring veggies, I wait until the first of March to start seeds indoors. That list usually includes lettuces, parsley, and beets. When these little plants are big enough, I move them outside for a few hours each day to help them adjust to life out-of-doors before transplanting them into the garden. By the end of March, they should be ready for that move.

Seeds for peppers often are slow to come up, and I tend to start some peppers, for summer, in the first or second week of March, too. Carrots can be planted outside at around the same time.

Tomatoes are a lot speedier to develop than peppers, so I tend to wait an extra week or two before starting any of those.

(Photo at top is of basil seedlings, started as seeds at the end of March, 2016, for sharing in May with other gardeners. Photo by Amygwh.)