Over the last two months we’ve been moving in to our new house and getting all the emergency repairs done, like a new roof and plumbing in the laundry room. A few weeks ago we had a load bearing wall removed in the kitchen to make room for a more open floor plan in the major living areas of the home. But what does that have to do with a garden podcast? I mention all this to explain why the podcast has been on hold for the last two months.
Almost two months ago I took an evening and tried to make my seed orders online. I say try, because I really should have been placing my order back in January or February at the latest. Well…50% of the seeds I wanted were no longer in stock. I had to do some quick research on what was available and if I wanted it. I had intended to make the majority of my orders through Seeds of Change, but they must have gotten slammed this year as they were practically out of everything. I switched about half of my order over to Park Seeds with a few minor changes in varieties. It was a good thing I did. A week or two went by and Seeds of Change had not shipped my order. When I inquired about the delay they said they had new seed packing equipment they were having trouble with and it would be a few more days. By the time Seeds of Change was ready to ship, my Park Seeds had arrived. That’s not a bad thing really….I was able to have two seed planting sessions instead of one giant one.
In the last month I have been able to take a crack at starting all the seeds, or at least the ones that can be started indoors. Lucky for me, the winter has been colder and longer than expected so I’m not too far behind the start of growing season.
Early on I decided that this year I was going to do the bare minimum to get plants into the garden. I just don’t have the time and resources to do the grand plan and be meticulous in my seed starting. This isn’t a bad idea actually, as it will allow me to learn from my own experience as to what works and doesn’t work for me. For example…folks tell you that you need to soak seeds before you try and germinate them. I simply didn’t have the time..so I just put them in the seed trays. You know those seed packets that have the exacting details about seed depth? I totally ignored them. This has cost me with some 0% germination rates on a few of the seeds. But what’s the learning process if I get 100% germination right? At least that’s what I’m telling myself.
I came home from work one night and announced to the family that tonight was the night to plant seeds. You can see some pictures up on the website at mychicagogarden.com. If you don’t have young children at home you can’t imagine the chaos in the garage that night. Dirt was flying and seeds were getting shoved into the dirt a good 2 inches. I also think one pot had 15 seeds in it but they were so small I wasn’t about to go trying to pick them out.
I had to temper my scientific bent and remember that this was a learning experience for my children. If I loose 50% of the seeds it is still a cheap learning experience. I can always plant more seeds.
I have to say that the seedlings are doing pretty good for our first time. The two things I did splurge on were heat mats and some grow lights. I took the basic idea for the grow lights from Eric over at www.gardenfork.tv, a video podcast I highly recommend. You can find a link to their video series on the MyChicagoGarden website. My wife and I find it very entertaining. You basically take a couple $15 shop lights from a big box store, slap them together with some handyman tools and chain and you have yourself some grow lights. The lights, combined with the heat mats, had some of the seeds sprouting in under 24 hours. I honestly couldn’t believe it. The germination rate has been pretty bad in some instances, probably due to the haphazard planting depths, but the ones that did sprout are doing wonderful. Well at least I think they are doing wonderful. It’s my first time. There are some pictures up on the website to look at.
I took another run at seed planting two or three weeks back while the kids where in bed to see if I could improve the germination rate. I need more than one bean plant in the garden! There were plenty of seeds left over so that wasn’t an issue. Unfortunately I didn’t do much better on the germination rate. I’m hoping I can attribute that to going on vacation for a week during the initial germination and when I got back the tray was way too hot and humid. I think many of the seeds simply disintegrated. I had asked my sister in law to look after them, and she did. I just wasn’t expecting them to be so hot and humid. My bad.
Early on in the online shopping I decided to buy some plastic seed trays, however I had been looking at this nifty tool for making seed starting pots out of paper. I wasn’t sure how well it was going to work but I decided to try one of them. It looks like a wooden doweling with a shaped coffee coaster. If you don’t know what I mean they basically look like somebody cut off one end of a wooden rolling pin. You cut a strip of newspaper, or packing paper in my case, and scrunch it around the end of the wood. You then press it in a little form that comes with it and presto…no kidding…you have a paper pot. You can see some of them in the pictures online. They have held up really well and they were way easier to use than the plastic 6 packs when I transfered the first seedlings into the garden. Obviously not as sturdy as the plastic, but it really only took a couple minutes to punch out 15 or 20. I’ve decided to switch to the paper version permanently. The plastic 6 packs will be going up on freecycle as soon as I can find the time.
So now that the pots are made, I had to put something in them to hold the seeds. Once again I decided I didn’t have the time to make the "perfect" mix nor did I want to buy the pre-made kind. What fun is that? So again, I went to a big box store and purchased some horticultural vermiculite in a small bag, some milled sphagnum peet moss, and two different kinds of compost. You can see my kids mixing a bucket and a box full on the website. It has worked perfectly fine as a growing medium. Since it’s basically the same mixture as what will be in the outside garden, there isn’t any need for any special mixtures for the starter garden and the outside garden. Makes life that much easier.
A few weekends back I built the raised garden utilizing the square foot garden method using roughly $200 in material. You can see those pictures in the gallery as well.
While out looking around the house for random garden stuff one day, I made a surprising find in the back of the shed. A pile of storm windows where stacked over in a corner. There are literally 15 or 20 similarly sized glass window panes. At least I think they are glass. I’m thinking they would make a good DIY greenhouse or some really nice cold frames. I’m looking forward to playing with them much later in the season.
Well that’s far more than what you probably ever wanted to know, but at least the podcast has started up again. I hope you have started your seeds by now. Here in the Chicago area our average last frost date has come on gone so it should be safe to plant outside. I sort of jumped the gun and a few of my seedlings are not doing so well in the garden. They are showing signs of stress as I didn’t take the time to harden them off and they had to deal with some near freezing night temperatures. I hope they survive.
I mentioned in the blog area of the MyChicagoGarden website that my wife would be joining for some of the podcasts. After listening to the last 10 episodes she has decided that there needs to be a dose of reality. You don’t see the chaos, excitement or frustration when I’m working in the garden. She wanted at least 20 seconds to put some of my stories into perspective. So on that note…we are starting a new section of the podcast called the twenty second realist…also known as my wife.
My husband makes his planting adventure with our girls sound like a purely enjoyable experience, and I’m not saying it wasn’t…well maybe not purely. He was definitely doing the gritted teeth thing and giving me the "get these girls out of here" look. However, just as he said, I do think that he eventually came to realize that in this instance it wasn’t about the result, it was about the experience. Just remember that if you choose to involve your children in your gardening, and you should, you have to have patience and be flexible. Kids are naturally curious and excited about new things, and they don’t necessarily wait well for instructions. The best thing to do is plan and prepare ahead for each gardening activity. Have age appropriate jobs for each child to do. If you’re young children want to help you plant, give them their own six pack and some extra seeds that you don’t need and let them go to town. Don’t worry about depth of planting or spacing…when kids are young it’s all about getting them to love the gardening experience. If you’re planting directly into the garden, consider giving them their own garden plot in which to dig and plant. If they dig up all the seeds they just planted, don’t get angry…use it as a teachable moment…you can’t dig where you just planted. I’m not saying that they shouldn’t have any guidance…just remember kids learn just as well from what didn’t happen as they will from what did. Besides, you have a perfectly planted garden where they can learn what happens when they do things right…right?
That’s it for the twenty second realist (which to be realistic probably wasn’t really twenty seconds). I’m Melissa Allison reminding you that behind every dreamer is a realist.
At the end of the podcast is a sample of a new CD I heard from a friend of ours back in college. The band is known as simply ‘Clay’ on iTunes in the Alternative section or you can visit their website at www.thebandclay.com. Their title song from their latest CD is "Anywhere but here"…and it reminds me of when I’m thinking of being in my garden during a tough day at work.
That’s all for this edition of my Chicago Garden. my Chicago Garden is a production of AllisonHouse LLC, copyright 2007 and comes to you from home in Wheaton, Illinois. A western suburb of Chicago. Intro music provided by the PodShow Podsafe Music Network. Check it out at music.podshow.com. I’m Tyler Allison and I hope you have a little bit of nature in YOUR own backyard. Thanks for listening.
