It's the time of year again where I start planning my garden. Yep, the depths of winter is when the forthcoming year's garden actually starts. In my head, if not in actuality. My seed catalogs arrived at the end of November/beginning of December and since then I've spent a few pleasurable evenings with a mug of tea and NO children around to figure out what varieties I want to plant. This year it's both more and less than one would expect. I have a supply of seeds saved from previous years (and I don't save my seeds particularly well, so I expect there will be some that have gone off by now--I'll have to do a germination test) but I also used up a lot of my seeds in the school garden in the spring. There are also some seeds that I use all of pretty much every year, like carrots. I still haven't found the sweet spot for how much carrot seed to order.
For quite a while I've been trying to come up with the most economical AND waste-free way to start seeds. I have several trays that fit the small peat pods for seed starting, and they work all right, but they're not particularly cheap nor are they waste-free. They're also small, so I have to move the pod into something larger or move the plants out to the garden pretty quickly. That means that I have to be very organized with when I start seeds and, well, that's not my strong suit. The pods are also an external input that come in plastic bags and who knows what happens on the production end? I'll keep the trays and use the last of my pods but I would like to find a better solution.
I also looked at soil blockers, which are pretty much what they sound like--a small device to make blocks of soil. They're not particularly expensive if you're going to start a lot of seeds that way over a long period of time. But, will it really be worth it to keep a single-use item around? There are other problems beyond the price, too. From what I've read, the soil has to be pretty precise in its conditions to stay as a block rather than just falling apart. And then, still, I need something to keep the soil blocks in while the seeds are starting.
Preferably, I don't want to buy a brand new thing just for this process. The little six-pack seed starting trays are decently cheap but they last, max, only a few seasons before they break. And again, I would be buying new plastic over and over to start my seeds.
So I'm trying something new this year. Several new things, actually. I have to say that if I didn't have the greenhouse then I wouldn't have the space to experiment with this. People with garages and decent sized sheds, or those who are only starting a few seeds, might also have the space for starting their own seeds. In the past, however, my seed starting space was either in the kitchen taking up already limited counter space or a single shelf down in the basement storage room, which didn't get any natural light. Not ideal. In addition to the lack of space, I also had to think about any potential messes. Water on the floor, soil in the house. So this year with the greenhouse I can finally experiment because I have space and it doesn't really matter if the greenhouse gets dirty. (Within reason--I will sweep it out and take care of water on the floor.)
The takeout place we get Thai food from occasionally boxes the absolutely delicious foods up in plastic containers. Generally when I see things like that I start thinking about how I can re-use them. In this case, I'd seen ideas for a greenhouse within a greenhouse--containers with a clear lid can be put into a greenhouse to make a mini greenhouse within a greenhouse. Since these ones have not only a clear top but a black bottom, to help draw in light and heat, they seem pretty perfect. The greenhouse, since it's unheated, does get down to the ambient temperature at night, providing only a slight protection because the plants are out of the wind and rain. The mini greenhouses should add another layer of protection against the cold for tender, heat-loving seedlings. The containers are wide and shallow, so whatever I start in them is going to need to also have shallow roots or to be transferred quickly to a larger pot. I don't consider them ideal but I do think it's better than some other methods. The same thing can be done with the plastic containers that rotisserie chicken tends to come in, like the ones from Costco.
The second thing I'm trying can be (will be) used in conjunction with the mini greenhouses. I've been saving all of my household's toilet paper rolls to make mini seed-starting pods. Instead of having all of my seeds jumbled together getting their roots tangled up, so I have to tear some of them to plant them, I can start each seed in a tiny pot made of the thin cardboard of the toilet roll. They'll break down as the seedlings get watered and I can plant the whole thing with the seedling out in the garden. For deep rooting plants, like tomatoes, it won't matter too much if the paper constricts the roots close to the plant because they seek out deeper soil anyway. For shallower rooting plants I can cut the side of the tube before I plant the seedling, or just remove it entirely, if I don't think they'll break down sufficiently or if they seem to be constricting the roots.
The toilet paper tubes can be cut in half for smaller plants or left long for those that need a longer root. They could also be moved from a mini greenhouse to a larger pot still in the greenhouse, which is likely what I'll do with my tomatoes before I move them outside sometime in May. Or even June, if it's a cold spring.
All of these options are free, or at least didn't cost any extra for me. Even if I didn't buy any of these items, like if I was vegan, I would ask friends or my Buy Nothing group for them. Even better, all of these options also take something out of the waste stream. They are, at worst, downcycling, which is slightly better than recycling and worlds better than throwing them in the trash. The mini greenhouses are sturdy enough to get many years' use out of them, and the cardboard might add some slight fertility or water retention enhancement to the garden. Yay!
One note: Though I grow a large garden and I grow almost all of it from seed, I don't actually start much of it in pots. Seedlings don't like to be moved around much and some of them are quite picky about it. Squashes, in particular, hate to be moved or have their roots disturbed. Starting them indoors might give you a few extra weeks but those weeks can be lost to transplant shock. I did a side-by-side comparison after moving into this house and starting squash in the garden led to by far more robust and healthier plants. I also lost quite a few of my squash seedlings that year because the roots were disturbed too much transplanting them. That's always a shame, both for the plant and the hard work the gardener has put into it. So I tend to only start indoors the things that really, truly need a longer season than they will get naturally in Seattle. Tomatoes, peppers, things of that nature. The onions, which won't germinate outdoors until much later in the season, also need the head start despite the fact that they're more cold-tolerant than almost all of my other indoor started seeds.
How is the greenhouse working out?
Obviously it's too soon to tell this will change things in the long term, but I've been observing things closely. The temperature during the day is generally 10-20 degrees higher than the ambient outdoor temperature, even on cloudy days. On the darkest days, the cloudy days we had around the solstice, we technically got daylight for 8 hours but it's more like "daylight". Frugal energy saving maven that I am, even I had a few lights on all day to fight the feeling of all-day twilight. Alaska might have had less total daylight than we do here, but the days were never quite as dark as they are here. Most winter days in Fairbanks are sunny, and at night the moon and starlight bounces off the snow to make it seem surprisingly bright. Here...here the days are just grim in the winter. I know I'm going to need to start most of my seedlings under light if they're going to grow properly. It will also keep them a bit warmer, so it will provide two benefits in one. Because while the daytime temps are higher, as I said earlier the nighttime temperatures are not any warmer.
If you're going to start seeds under light, be sure to check on what the seeds actually need. I won't do any artificial lights for my onion seedlings because too much light can trigger them to set their bulbs, leading to super tiny onions. They need to get as robust as possible before the long days of summer (10-12 hours of daylight for short-day onions and 14 hours for long-day onions) triggers them to start bulbing. I assume it's a similar mechanism for garlic, which I started in the garden back in September.
The plants in the greenhouse are protected from the wind and rain, which does give them a boost but it won't be a seed starting catch-all, even with lights. Some plants need warmth to start. Peppers, for instance, have an optimal soil temperature of 80-85 degrees. They'll start down around 70 degrees but not really much lower than that, and the germination rate won't be as good. They need the heat all through their growing process, so the mini greenhouses within a greenhouse and the seed starting lights are going to be my best allies if I want to grow my own peppers from seed. And I really do, both for the variety I can get and the cost savings I can accrue. I can open them up during sunny days to catch all the warmth and light that they can, then close them up to keep the tiny seedlings warm at night.
The seeds that I started at the beginning of November are doing well, but they're still quite tiny. I think it's mostly due to the lack of light as opposed to the lack of warmth, since they're all varieties that will grow in the winter here even without a greenhouse. They were just started when we were heading into the darkest part of the year. They'll grow a bit faster from here on out as the days start to get longer and brighter. I didn't feel the need to set out the grow lights yet because, well, they'll become food soon enough. In the meantime I'm focusing on the foods we've purchased, what's still in the garden (lots of tiny carrots, small cabbages), and what we preserved from the summer.
I did plant two other things in the greenhouse, however. The first is a cold hardy plant that doesn't need any light for a while: potatoes. I started a few potatoes in grow bags because, well, why not? Being self-sufficient in potatoes this year was a surprise and revelation. It turns out that when we have hundreds of pounds of potatoes to eat, we eat lots of potatoes. I could echo a hobbit, talking about all the ways we've eaten potatoes. And it's been delicious, every bite of it. Baked fries has even become a midnight snack of choice for the midnight snackers in my house. (The trick is to boil the potatoes before coating them in oil and baking. Trust me. It takes a while but is so worth it.) So I'd like to keep this going and this is both a free and easy way to start some spring potatoes. I'll likely be harvesting them about the time we run out of last summer's, and before next summer's are anywhere close to ready. I didn't plant many, just four, but even if I only get four meals out of them then that's still four meals where I didn't have to pay for some of my food.
I could plant potatoes in the garden but they'd be more likely to rot this early due to the heavy rains, and if they didn't then they wouldn't get much of a start because of the cold. The greenhouse takes away those two problems. (Areas that are colder but have less rain, you can plant the potatoes in the fall and they'll just be mostly dormant in their soil bed until the soil warms up enough in spring, when they'll get the earliest possible start. Planting them under black ground cloth under a tarp to keep the soil warmer would likely give them a very good head start in the spring. As soon as it starts warming/lightening up pull back the tarp so the black cloth has a chance to capture the sun and heat up the soil. Then switch to a row cover when the plants pop up.)
 |
| Terrible picture, I know. I'm sorry. |
The second thing that I started is a new one for me: a sweet potato. These do not grow anything at all like regular potatoes, because botanically the only thing they have in common is that they're both tubers. Sweet potatoes originated in Central America and are a warmth-loving crop. They need a very long season to grow, far longer than summers in Seattle. But it's perfectly possible to grow them around here, and even in areas farther north. You just need to know how to get them started, because tossing a sweet potato in the ground like a seed potato will NOT grow sweet potatoes. You need to start slips. The most common way of doing this is to stick toothpicks in an organic sweet potato (because non-organic ones can have sprays to suppress growth of slips) and stick half of it in a glass of water. The method that many people say is much better, however, is to start them in moist soil. So that's what I'm doing. I have one of the Costco rotisserie chicken containers so that's what I currently have a sweet potato in, half buried and very moist. (I tried one of the smaller containers first but the potato was bumping right up against the top, so the slips would have nowhere to grow.) We'll see if this works or if I just wasted a yummy sweet potato. If it does work, however, one sweet potato can provide the slips, or starts, for many plants. Each one will need to be removed and then rooted in water before being planted. They're a vine, so if you want to grow them you should keep that in mind for your spacing, but they have many companion plants. My plan is to grow them in bags with a mini variety of popcorn (also a new one for me this year). The bags can be started in the greenhouse to give the sweet potatoes the longest possible season. Then I'll move them to the front yard, where they will get the most sun while staying out of the way. Apparently fussing too much with sweet potatoes will stunt the harvest. My kind of crop.
Seeds!
I don't know about you, but I'm excited for seed starting season. I've been poring over my seed catalogues, dreaming about what I want to plant. I've got a rough outline on my computer of how I want the garden planted this year, keeping in mind crop rotation so that no area of the garden is stripped of nutrients and no pests or diseases from last season have a second shot at their preferred target. Combine that with different light needs, different light in areas of my garden, and differing plants heights, it's a decent amount of work. But I'd so much rather be doing this work than not.
I put in my seed order early, just after Christmas, to ensure I get all the ones I most want. Even then many varieties were sold out already. It's best to put in seed orders earlier than you think you need to, otherwise you risk things being sold out. In some cases this doesn't matter but many plants have varieties that are better for northern or southern growers, long and short seasons. I would hate to miss out on all the short season corn varieties and be left with only ones that are good for longer seasons. I would likely have to skip out on growing corn entirely, which wouldn't be the biggest loss but would be frustrating. So get your seed orders together by, at the latest, mid-January and then get those seeds.
Happy garden dreaming. Happy seed starting.
