Category: Gardening

December 1, 2022 – My Seed Saving Experiment

December 1, 2022 /

I am very disappointed. I have been anticipating saving seeds from one tomato plant that survived under the lights from my seed starting. I have been waiting for months (since March when I had this idea). I waited for the plant to fruit and mature. I resisted eating the couple ripe ones that made it so that I could do this experiment.

I left the tomato on the vine until it froze. Then I picked it and set it on the counter till I got around to it. It really didn’t look bad when I picked it, but after it sat around for a week, I figured I better get on this project before it is too late.

After reading the article in Self-Reliance Magazine, I was supposed to scoop out the seeds and place them in a vessel containing water. This container would stay in the refrigerator until the gelatinous coating around the seeds decomposed or separated. Viable seeds were supposed to sink to the bottom. All the gunk would be decanted off the top and the seeds could be dried with a paper towel. The dry seeds would be put in a cool and dry location, like in an envelope.

This technique is supposed to work with open pollenated varieties (also known as heirloom). I thought this was, but I could not find any seeds to remove. It is possible that I waited too long and the seeds were buried in the rotting flesh? I don’t know but I searched through this mess. This was the primary reason that I failed.

Back to the drawing board. My gardening success is directly proportional to how much effort I have put in. In the last couple years it has been very little to almost none. But, that is OK because my experiments are really an attempt to align how I want to garden with actual results. So, I will continue low effort type attempts in hopes that I will learn something valuable.

End Your Programming Routine: It has never been intent my to only show successes. In fact, I want to be real with what I do. Of course it wounds my pride to fail at this endeavor. I believe in my heart that I should be able to do anything that I set my mind to. That being said, I am a strong believer of failure as a teacher and the only way to learn is to fail. To be honest, I only selected this tomato because it was the one that ripened. Maybe, if I pay more attention to variety, growing and harvest, I can accomplish this experiment next year.

October 4, 2022 – Here Comes the Rain Again

October 4, 2022 /

It seems like I have settled into a bit of a format. That makes Tuesday and Wednesday kind of grab bags. It wasn’t that long ago that when someone said the phrase ‘Here Comes the Rain Again’ that people would think of this song. I knew that it was from the 1980’s but I guess I didn’t realize that it was from 1984. Wow, that seems like a long time ago now.

But, of course I don’t mean a now obscure 1980s reference. I am talking about the change of seasons. A couple of days ago we had several successive days of rainfall for the first time in months. I cant help that I enjoy it because I am a native Oregonian.

Before we lived in a home with a heat pump (aka Air Conditioning), the change of seasons meant a break from sweating for months. I know it is kind of weird, but I like the dusty smell when the furnace comes on for the first time in months. It brings back memories of time to nest up, heartier meals, etc.

There are so many reasons to appreciate rain. The first is hunting season has begun. Without some decent rainfall, timber companies keep their gates locked. I have never seen deer moving in nice weather either. Campfires have been banned all over the west for months. I am looking forward to some fall campfires in our back yard. The sprinkler can be turned off of the year.

With the positives, there are also some negatives. Rain signals the end of harvest. We are only about three weeks away from our annual first frost date. The blitz is on to get grapes, tomatoes, peppers and whatever is left off the vine. Many of these things can stand a little rain, but freezing is the end as well as fruit damage.

I took a picture of my paltry garden. I got a handful of tomatoes and a few cayenne peppers. It looks like there is a salad or two’s worth of tomatoes, three serranoes and a couple more cayennes. My primary interest is the tomato plant in the front that has three green tomatoes on it. This was my one surviving seed start that I wanted to harvest the seeds.

Let me remind you that out of a whole tray of plants, this was the one that survived. My hypothesis is that there is some hearty genetics here that I was going to see if I could propagate. I have no idea but I want to try.

The question of our long term prognosis in this house leads me to really question how much effort I want to put into really producing a proper garden. I have mentioned that we are within three years of an empty nest and this house is way too large for the two of us. I still am not really in favor of downsizing considering we have our office spaces, shop and guest house, but there are some things that I would be interesting in changing too. So, stay tuned.

End Your Programming Routine: Never stop learning and dreaming. While I have hinted at the disappointment of my yield, I can say that this year was better than last year. The fact that stuff survived and even produced at all points a lot of the fingers at me. I had hoped that watering when I watered the grass plus mulch would have been enough but I suspect my neglect was a large part of the spindliness.

May 11, 2022 – Genetics

May 11, 2022 /

If you think you are just going stash a survival seed bank and survive the apocalypse by starting a garden, I think that you another thing coming. I come at gardening from the aspect of food quality and the potential of what you can do the with the bounty. This means that I have less interest in the care and maintenance of the plants and garden itself.

I don’t know if my poor results in seed starting this year are the results of my skill or my interest. Particularly last year, I kept telling myself that I will water tomorrow or I will plant tomorrow. The results of that were no garden at all. I do have interested in studying the variables in making the plants grow.

All that being said, I have one tomato plant that survived and one cabbage plant that has survived. Both of them happened to be on the outside of the light bank. I have a strong suspicion that had a lot to do with it. I already observed that the light was to intense before I repotted the survivors.

Whether I am right or I am wrong, I wanted to talk about the survivors for a moment. Let’s say that I needed to start tomatoes from seed (because the world has ended). If I get tomatoes and I pick the best one, in theory those seeds would have the genetics to survive in my particular conditions the next year and provide the results that I want from a fruiting standpoint. I am really considering doing an experiment next year by saving seeds from this plant. I also want to plant seeds from the original packet and check those against my new one.

I have heard that for most vigorous results, taking the seeds from plants that you grow will do better because they are adapted to your soil, climate and personal habits. The theory of survival of the fittest is in play when adapting plants that you grow. How did we get all of these varieties anyway? It was by people performing dedicated breeding.

Cabbage is a different story. You have to wait for the plant to go to seed, not just fruit. But in theory, the genetics are the same principal. Cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower are all related. First they flower and then seed pods are formed. It is difficult to let it go that long because in theory, the plant is past it’s prime. I suppose that if you harvested but let the plant grow, you might get the best of both worlds. I don’t know, I haven’t tried it.

End Your Programing Routine: I know that my theory is solid, I am not sure about my practical application. I suppose this is where the rubber meets the road and time will tell. I am not ready to give up on the garden but I don’t think it will be a majority from my own started seeds. In the interest of science, I am going to protect my one surviving tomato to see if I can save some seeds and maybe get my own customized genetics.

April 20, 2022 – Seasons back to Normal

April 20, 2022 /

My kids are playing tennis and it is a sport I really know nothing about. What I have learned is that they do not play in the rain. This year, spring has roared back to the glory of being miserable. I would venture to say that a lot of the winter was nicer than it has been since spring break a month ago.

Since One Drive shows me saved pictures every day for the years previous, I am seeing the recent years weather and I can attest that the weather is worse than when I was building in 2020. Things are not all bad, I know that some years we didn’t even hit 60 degrees until June and we have already had a day near 80. Today isn’t all about weather, what I am trying to say is that this weather seems more ‘normal’ than not to me.

These next couple of days seem to get a lot of attention on the getting gardens started. I am nearing the last annual frost date. From what I see, I am likely in the clear but it was below freezing two days ago. If I was ready to get started, then I would be looking to get starts and seeds in the ground soon. I would be remised to not mention the other two 4-20 and Earth Day.

These three dates are all very close together. My friends in college really got into 4-20. That seems to go part in parcel with the Earth Day culture. This is how I associate or keep track of the last frost date. To be completely honest, I didn’t want to simply write about weather and climate and pseudo holidays but to add some filler into the fact that I transplanted my starts in an attempt to get them stronger for when I do plant them.

As I wrote about last week, I had a lot of germination and a lot of subsequent failure. Once I spent the time to actually transplant, I got a much better look at what happened. All five of my tomatoes made it and in fact thrived. Four habanero germinated, two survived, Five jalapeno germinated three survived. Three banana peppers germinated one survived. Four cabbages germinated, three survived. There were other twos and ones, but I only transplanted the possible viables.

This is my continuation of experimentation on seed starting. I know that in years past the roots outgrew the one inch pots so I am hoping that by giving more space I might save some marginal starts. I guess we will see.

End Your Programming Routine: No garden plants do well in cool, dark places. I have seen multiple times when plants get into the ground and the weather warms up that they become vigorous. I suspect it is too cold and not enough light in the basement. I should move them outside but it is really too cold for vigorous growth yet. So, I will keep monitoring and trying little tweaks to see if I can unlock the secrets.

April 13, 2022 – Lessons Under the Light

April 13, 2022 /

Every year I learn something. Given my state of having a place to plant my starts, I am more concerned about identifying the variables then the results thereof. Today, I am going to talk about how my starts are doing.

Before that, I thought that I would mention that it is currently snowing. We are 9 days away from the average annual last frost date. Granted, it is not actually freezing, it is 34 degrees but it is worth noting for those itching to get starts into the ground. By all accounts, I think this is going to be one of those later years because we have this forecast for the foreseeable future.

What did I do differently this year? Well, I changed from fluorescent to LED grow lights was the biggest thing. I don’t know if it was coincidence or not but I did have a pretty high germination rate. This year I also rotated the tray every couple of days. I was trying to get more equal light and heat distribution.

My observation is that different plats are growing at different rates. this makes it difficult to have the optimum conditions for all the items in the trays. For instance, initially, I had five of six habanero seeds germinate. Whereas last year, I think that I only had one pepper germinate. These were new seeds, so maybe it was a vitality problem but I don’t think so. Four of six jalapenos germinated and three of six bell peppers germinated and those were the same seeds from last year. So, something of those variables I changed last year worked.

Getting to my point now, even though the peppers germinated, I don think any of them are going to make it. It seems like the grow lights are too intense and are burning the dicots (the two initial leaves that come up with the start). Every day, I am watching them slowly wither from the intensity of the light.

The tomatoes on the other hand are doing better than I have ever seen. They are the reason I had to take the humidity dome of as they were touching the top within two weeks. They are clearly adapted and thriving in the environment. Ideally, with each of these plants I would have the capability to cover and move the light higher or lower to get the best results.

I have thought about the idea that maybe I should upsize the pots that they are in. This is the six week mark for the seedlings and they are probably going to stay potted for the foreseeable future. I feel like six inch is probably the optimum size, so maybe I will try to get this done this weekend. The last couple of years that I have been dragging my feet getting stuff potted, the roots were highly constrained in these little starter cells.

End Your Programming Routine: I am pretty sure that I can get the tomatoes to survive. The rest of them, I will cross my fingers. But, like I said in the beginning I had a pretty poor germination rate over the last couple of years so as much as I want to have a yield, I am focusing on getting stuff started first.

January 19, 2022 – Time to Start Gardening?

January 19, 2022 /

It absolutely is time to start planning. If you know your last average frost date, then that is your target day to aim for getting plants in the ground. Aside from that, this is pruning time. Grape vines, fruit trees, rose bushes need to be started before the budding begins.

If you don’t know your last frost date, start here. Once you know that date, you can plan germination dates for seed starts by back calculating when you want to get plants in the ground. Don’t be a robot, watch the weather around that date so that you don’t put plants in the ground only to freeze.

If you remember last year, I needed to build new beds. That is still the case for me and I am running out of time to get that started. Another reason to start planning now is that this is the downtime. Once the grass starts growing, then you’ve got mowing and weeding to add to the list of yardwork (if you do that kind of thing). That means your free time is significantly reduced.

Recently, I bought some LED grow bulbs. The main reason was that I raided that fixture for light bulbs throughout the summer and fall and now I needed new bulbs anyway. However, I do want to try and grow some greens hydroponically this year so I thought that this upgrade was worth the extra money (to try). They are not cheap, so at $20 per bulb, that is the three times what a T8 daylight bulb costs. I will report on the how they did later in the spring.

It is a good time to make sure tools are in order. Do that oil change on the lawnmower, sharpen blades, replace broken tools before the rush happens. Bare root trees are best planted in the winter. Even if you do not want to work outside this time of year, having a plan to execute when the weather gets nicer is very helpful.

Speaking of seasonality, in this era of shortages, it would be best to get the items like seeds, hose mending, irrigation and other supplies while they are available. I have a feeling that once they are gone, they are gone for the season. That is quite normal actually, I can tell, there have been a number of times that I was looking to mend a hose in August only to find that everything has been sold out.

End Your Programming Routine: In our house, we keep talking about the shortage of everything and the adulteration of the food supply with increased industrialization and additives. We keep saying that this is the year that we will do more, more gardening, maybe some chickens as well. I can’t say 100% for sure that we are going to turn the corner this year, but we will miss the boat on this years harvest if we don’t start soon.

August 18, 2021 – The Struggle is Over, a Root Cause Analysis

August 18, 2021 /

When I stubbed out (titled) this post August 6, I had no way of knowing that I was days away from spending a lot of time talking about life changing events. In fact, I was having a hard time coming up with topics that I wanted to discuss at all that week. Today I thought a little about trying to wind the two stories together and make some cute correlation to my failed garden attempt and life’s struggles. In the end, I decided to keep to the subject matter of my failings rather than go higher level.

Dosen’t everyone want to present their best face on the internet and not talk about their failures? Even I resist the urge to bring it up sometimes but I think it is also real. We all have things that we knew that we could do better even when you were in the midst of failing. To be one hundred percent transparent, not everything failed just the majority of things.

In my career at least I am big on lesson’s learned and root cause analysis. If we study our issues we can then implement changes to at least try and prevent the failures from occurring in the first place. How do you actually do that? I will try to outline the rough procedure below.

What Happened? I started seeds in late February with the intent of getting them in the ground in late April / early May. I had plans to build garden beds in the front yard since I tore them up in the back yard last year. I didn’t end up planting the seedlings in the ground until early July.

Why? My career options changed and with it so did my personal priorities. I needed a conditioned space to work as I was freezing all day long. So I stopped focusing on plants and focused on building my office with my free time.

Why? Lacking any sort of plan, I assessed what spaces I had and determined that I could plant in the flower beds in early May. As I was working the bed, I contracted Covid. Not that I couldn’t physically continue but I took it easier for two weeks and lost momentum. In that same time frame, I had a discussion with my wife about what I was doing and she didn’t agree with how I was proceeding.

Why? She wanted me to build raised beds in the flower beds which I didn’t have the materials to do so nor did I want to spend the time away from my office project. Because there was some doubt as to whether we would need to move, we were hesitant to make some unconventional changes to the yard as well.

Root Cause: I didn’t have a plan in place to plant my seedlings in an appropriate time frame. I planted them too late and they didn’t survive.

Corrective Action: To avoid this in the future, I need to have a project plan on where the milestones are clearly defined. Where are the beds going to be? When do they need to be completed in time to plant? How will the beds be constructed?

End Your Programming Routine: I knew that the chances were low that this would be successful. Given that I had already put energy into starting seeds and keeping them alive, I thought that it was at least worth testing their chances. It wasn’t as if I was ignoring them in the ground, I kept it wet and checked on them daily. The sun was just too intense and the plants were not able to withstand the heat all day.

July 12, 2021 – The Struggle is Real

July 12, 2021 /

This is a phrase that I have heard. I thought maybe it was a movie quote until I looked it up. It seems like there is a song with the title but the origin is unknown (at least from the site that I looked at ).

So what is the struggle anyway? In this case the struggle is reaching your full potential when constrained by your environment or conditions beyond your control. Take a look at this sunflower.

This should be eight feet tall with a stalk around two to three inches thick. In this case, this full sized sunflower is giving what it has got in a 1 inch cube.

These plants should have been in the ground during the first of May. I started working the ground a bit on the week that I contracted Covid. Things got busy and I was keeping the plants on life support under the lights. My wife and I were having some challenges agreeing on exactly how to proceed so nothing got done.

Last year, I moved the starts from the lights to the greenhouse in May and June and got them in the ground around mid-june. They did not yield much because they just didn’t have time to grow. I suspect that this year may be a zero yield as this is really late. But, hey we will see.

Since I completely tore up my garden beds last year, I decided that I wanted to plant in the front of the house. It is south facing, irrigated and we only use it one day of the year. My ultimate plan was to tear up the grass but that was before Amazon and then full time employment and office building and a super busy summer.

This year is just a get-in where you fit-in approach. This bed is full of bulbs Most of which I dont want anyway. It did have a huge butterfly bush that I think I finally killed. It was always touching the house so wrong plant, wrong place. I think it might be a good place for some rose bushes. Or, we have talked about that location as a future bay window.

All of that is kind of secondary to the other projects that I need to get started on now. I need to use what time I have to accomplish things that are best done in the summer time and that is not beds that won’t be used until next year at this point.

End Your Programming Routine: The only thing in life that you cannot buy is time. I am already at the point where I don’t have enough time to do all the things that I would like to do. Even the period that I was not working, I did not have the time to do everything that I wanted to do. I definitely spent more time doing things that I wanted to do, there were very few days that were wasted. The garden will go back on the list and reprioritized to it’s appropriate place.

June 16, 2021 – Greenhouse Experiment: Finally, Something Interesting

June 16, 2021 /

My greenhouse experiment is still ongoing. I have learned enough that there are definitely some changes that I want to implement. I will give a little rundown of what I have done over the years.

I remodeled my garden shed in 2017 mostly because it was rotting. The entire south side siding, framing and floor was in bad shape. I also wanted to move the door from the south side to the west side to take better advantage of the layout and make the most use of the space. Instead of replacing the siding. I wanted to change it to glass and make a greenhouse out of it. I compromised with my wife and instead of just replacing the bad framing, I bumped it out two feet as well (I cant find the pictures I took of that process now.)

In 2019, I built a potting bench and I have plans to build a growing shelf but haven’t got there yet. My first experiment was a lemon tree that I bought. It did live through the winter, but barely. By the time that I took it out last year the thing was on hospice care. I got probably 5 lemons off the tree but it clearly wasn’t happy.

There were two things that I learned from that. The first was that I don’t think it got all of the proper nutrients that it was suppose to have. But, the second an more important thing was that I don’t think that I watered the plant enough over the winter. When the sun comes out in the winter time, the temperature inside the greenhouse will get over 80 degrees. I think I only watered it two or three times over the course of the season. My bad.

Last year, when I tore out my garden beds (remember that I was supposed to move them to the front yard?). I saved a nice bell pepper plant that only gave me one pepper over the season. That was largely because I was in full remodel mode and didn’t give any of the plants the attention that they needed. They got in the ground very late, got overrun with weeds and didn’t get frequent watering. They were lucky that they didn’t get trampled with all of the activity.

Since Bell peppers can last for years if they don’t freeze, I thought that I would save it for this year. I learned from my lemon experiment and took some care of it. I watched the sun and opened the door when it was warm so it wouldn’t cook. I watered it at least once a week and sometimes once a day depending on how warm it was. I noticed that it was blooming a couple of weeks ago and now there are three small peppers coming on.

Despite the fact that I remodeled in 2017, there is some maintenance that needs to happen. I have had a tarp on the roof since last fall. I need to re-roof as the flashing ripped of in a strong wind and pulled up a bunch of shingles with it. A couple of the poly-carbonate roof panels are also broken (I don’t know how that happened).

As to the upgrades, I want to install a thermal fan that comes on so that I don’t have to open the door when the sun comes out. I also want to add a 400W solar setup so that I can have some lights, charge some tools and light electrical work. I added a gutter so that I could build a rain barrel, I would like to get that installed as well so that watering is more convenient.. I have also debated trying to build some thermal mass but so far getting too cold does not seem to be a problem.

End Your Programming Routine: Knowledge of food production is something that takes time. Your setup, habits and experience all play a role in how successful you will be with the process. Gardening is something that I have an interest in but it almost never is my first priority. If I am going to continue to delve into it, I need to make changes that make my life easier and more likely that I am going to succeed with it.

May 4, 2021- Libraries as a Resource

May 4, 2021 /

I grew up in and around the library. My earliest memory was the ‘Bookmobile’ arriving in the neighborhood and going inside the and seeing all of the books. It looked something like this.

Later we moved into the country and away from the typical services of the day like cable TV. But free entertainment was always in order so weekly, we would go to the library to check out books and participate in the periodic reading programs. Our closest library was integrated into the middle school and so I could check out books while at school. I would say that I probably averaged a book a week for years.

As I got more busy in life, reading changed a little for me. I don’t spend hours on the weekend reading. I switched my tactics from checking out books to buying books so that I wasn’t constrained by a due date and the urgency to finish. In the last five years of so, the library has crept back in to my life.

My kids were taking karate for a few years and the library was right across the street. I would go in and kill an hour by scanning through the periodicals of interest. After they lost interest in karate, I started sneaking in to get free seeds and I found the annual reading challenge. I started reading for pleasure again.

I suppose the question is why the Library? First of all, Benjamin Franklin established one of the first libraries in this country. Of course, I want to be like him. But more seriously, there are a couple of benefits that I will mention that I use.

  1. We are already paying for it with our taxes, be it county or city or region.
  2. It is eco friendly. I try to ask myself ‘Will I ever use this again once I read it’? The answer is almost always no. I also try to buy used whenever possible as well because the last person probably only read it once as well.
  3. I like to scan through magazines that if I bought, I would feel more obligated to read. At the library, I have no commitment.
  4. On magazines, there are a lot of titles that I enjoy, but it doesn’t make sense to have 20 subscriptions.
  5. They have movies and music on disk. Titles that are ten years old are in the sweet spot of hard to find streaming.
  6. I can get a whole garden’s worth of seeds (free). I can also get seeds when they are gone from the stores. Starting my fall garden, I can get things that I didnt plan for in the spring.
  7. Friends of the Library sell used books for a dollar. I have picked up cookbooks that I am interested in, like Rick Bayless for cheap.
  8. They have great summer programs for kids, especially the real young ones like 2-4 year range.
  9. If you are willing to wait, the internetwork of libraries have a lot more titles available then what is in the local libraries and will ship to your local library for pickup.
  10. Internet access, printing and copying are available.

I think I could come up with at least five more, but I will leave it at that. I suppose the best reason to do it is that I enjoy it and that is the best reason of them all.

Change Your Programming Routine: In a world with so many choices of entertainment and knowledge, the Library may seem passé. Sometimes you can get to the information faster than waiting for shipping or more in depth than an internet article. Don’t overlook the library as a resource.