Garden Wisdom Blog — category: Seed Talk

Harvesting seeds from your garden for planting in the future is a great idea for all kinds of reasons. Most obviously, it’s an economical way to keep your garden going from year to year without having to constantly purchase new seeds. Seed saving allows you to share (and trade!) with your friends and neighbours, and it keeps the gene pool of food plants alive and healthy. The actual process is not difficult, although there’s a little more to it than can be fully explored in this article. A number of excellent books on the subject exist, as noted below. While...

Why limit your garden’s production to just the summer? There are still lots of seeds to start in July, particularly in regions with mild winters. Many of these varieties can be enjoyed as mature plants for fall and winter harvests, but lots of them can be eaten as immature baby vegetables while they are tender and sweet. Arugula (harvest mid-August to late September) Beans, Bush & Pole (harvest September) Beets (harvest late September to December) Broccoli (start indoors, transplant in August for fall harvest) Sprouting Broccoli (start indoors, tranpslant in August for winter & spring harvests) Brussels Sprouts (direct sow...

Now we’re just three weeks away from the longest day of the year (summer solstice on June 21st), so the soil is warm enough to plant squash and bean seeds. Even in colder climates where the nights are still frosty, the growing season is just around the corner. Maybe you have already planted carrots and lettuce, and your spring planted vegetable garden is already producing. Remember that planting more seeds now will produce a vastly extended harvest period. Planting more flower seeds now will extend your garden’s bloom time, and improve pollination of late crops like squash and pumpkins. And...

Gardening instructions can be full of peculiar phrases from British gardening traditions. “Potting on,” “pricking out,” and “hardening off” are all things we do with seedlings to help them prepare for eventual transplanting out into the garden. Hardening off seedlings is probably the most important concept that new gardeners can grasp to improve successful transplants. It is the process of gradually introducing seedlings started indoors to the much harsher conditions of the garden outside. As bright as any indoor grow lights might be, none compare to direct sunlight. Plants that have not been introduced gently to direct sunshine may show...

As far as the calendar is concerned, spring is half over, despite the sense for many of us in 2017 that is yet to begin! There are still dozens of seeds to start in May. It can still be cold at night, so some seeds will continue to benefit from starting indoors in a warm room. Most seeds will germinate faster and more evenly if heated from below with a heating mat. Other seeds actually prefer cool soil for germination, and they can be direct sown in May here on the coast. Start these seeds indoors in May: Asparagus (start...