Tag: gardening

That Time Of Year Again

seed catalogs

With March beginning near the end of this week, has come the time when I begin deciding what to plant. Seed catalogs usually begin arriving around Thanksgiving but continue on through the winter. It’s fun to look at them but I really can’t get into the mood for planting until the days have grown noticeably longer and the weather begins to warm.

This past winter has been light on snow and mild (relatively speaking) in temperature. Decades ago it was routine to see below zero Fahrenheit temperatures often days at a time. Cold snaps of this sort could be counted on to show up at least twice, if not more, at some point during the winter, usually in January or February.

Thermometer showing below zero Fahrenheit

Not this winter. While it came close to zero degrees Fahrenheit several times, the sub-zero temperatures have been strangely absent. For northern New Hampshire this is beyond unusual. Officially we’re at Zone 4b on the USDA hardiness zone map as it currently exists. But unless we get some seriously frigid temperatures over the next two or three weeks, this winter’s temperatures have suddenly bumped my area up to a zone 6. This may just be an unusual winter but it makes it hard to plan when to plant and what conditions I am likely to expect. That’s always hard anyways but these wild oscillations really play havoc with any gardening plans.

Still, I’ll go with the old standbys which I like, such as potatoes, peas and carrots. Those tend to be pretty reliable. I’ve bought Swiss Chard seeds, something I’ve always had difficulty growing, but hope springs eternal. Light snow this winter may very well mean a dry summer, so the drip hose will be coming out, especially if I plant potatoes and carrots as well as wax beans, another favorite.

I also bought a seed packet of Pinwheel Marigolds this past week and got a good laugh when I read the back of the packet.

seed packet with typo

If they grow the way it says, I will have to call my brother over with his chainsaw to cut a few blossoms for me. Not sure what I’ll do for the vase.

Have a happy Saint Patrick’s Day and a productive March.

Saint Patrick's Day cat

Gardening in 2022

The raised beds are planted and have started growing. I still have a few more rows of waxed beans to put in but otherwise everything is in. Now all that remains is keeping the local wildlife from chowing down on what’s coming up. Lately I’ve spotted a red fox on occasion short-cutting it across my lawn. With any luck he’ll keep the population of garden chompers such as woodchucks, squirrels etc down to a minimum.

Along with the tried and true peas, lettuce, carrots and potatoes, I’ve put in a row of beets and swiss chard and will watch what they do. Last year I tried some onions but apparently have no talent for growing them as they stayed the same size through the whole summer, never growing an inch. I’ve put a bush cucumber in a pot and covered it with mesh wiring to ward off hungry critters.

For flowers, I’ve planted the usual petunias and pansies. I also bought a packet of an old-fashioned climbing petunia seeds as well as some black velvet nasturtiums which I’ve sprinkled around in various corners.

Black Velvet Nasturtiums

climbing petunias

Weeding is always a trick as some weeds such as goutweed, bermuda grass and zagreb coreopsis (this last one is my fault, it looked so pretty at the greenhouse but now it’s trying to eat my flower garden alive!) send out runners and propagate like crazy. If I can, I try to dig up the whole plant but if it’s mixed in with other plants I do want, then I trim back the greenery rather than risk disturbing the roots of the good plants. I allow most of the clippings to fall back into place and dump any roots I pull up underneath the pine trees.

Bumblebees which have been very scarce for at least the past five years have suddenly re-surged. I’ve been seeing the plump queens all over the place this past spring far more than I’ve encountered in quite a while, so I’m guessing last year’s nestings must have been very successful. Being sensitive to insect stings I find myself dodging a lot but it is nice to see these important pollinators returning.

As always, I keep my fingers crossed when gardening, hoping for a good year.

Memorial day parage
Memorial Day 2022

Starting Seeds

Nearing the end of April, crocuses and daffodils are popping up and forsythia bushes are in full bloom. You’d never know it was spring with the two inches of snow I woke up to this morning.

two inches of snow on tree stump

Thankfully it melted away by midday. This is the time of year when I pull out the old packages of seeds I bought last year (and before) to see if they will still sprout. Since I have small raised beds rather than large fields, it’s inevitable that I will have seed packets with a generous amount of seeds still left in them.

seed catalogs

So how long do seeds remain viable? It varies, of course, depending on the species and how the seeds are stored over the winter. A cool dry place is often recommended. Most seed companies will have dates printed on the packages and on rare occasions how long the seeds will remain viable. Otherwise, it might be a good idea to write the date of purchase on the package.

When it comes to annual flowers, they are generally good from one to three years. Perennials, slightly longer, at two to four years. There’s plenty of info on the Net about vegetable seeds:

Bush & pole beans – 2 years

Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower (along with most brassicas) – 3 to 5 five years

Carrots – 3 years

Sweet corn – 1 year

Cucumbers – 3 years

Leeks, onions – 2 to 3 years

Lettuce – 3 years

Melons – 3 years

Oriental greens – 3 years

Parsley – 2 years

Parsnips – 1 year

Peas – 2 years

Peppers – two years

Radishes – 4 years

Spinach – 1 season

Squashes – 3 to 4 years

Swiss Chard and beets – 2 years

Tomatoes – 3 years

Turnips – 4 years

These are averages and you will likely find some of your favorite seeds either don’t last as long or else far exceed the average given above.

This leads one to wonder what the oldest seed ever sprouted was. So far, it’s been a 2000 year old date palm seed found in the Middle East. Older plant material has been recovered and viable plants grown but not from their seeds, rather from genetic material recovered from inside the seeds, preserved in the permafrost in Siberia for around 31,000 years. Pretty impressive!

With the list above I know when it’s best to toss the old seed and buy new ones. Saving seed from the plants you grow is tricky. This is because many seeds offered in catalogs are F1 hybrids or first generation hybrid. This is nothing new. Farmers and plant breeders have been hybridizing flowers and vegetables long before genetic engineering came about. Crossing two different breeds of the same plant (such as tomatoes) will produce a new plant with characteristics which are combinations of the parent plants and often are more vigorous. The down side of course is that they do not breed true and seeds collected from the hybrid will revert back to one of the grandparent plants which may not have the traits you’re looking for in your favorite veggie. If you want plants which breed true, you need to purchase seed listed as ‘open pollinated’ in seed catalogs.

If you’re only interesting in growing tasty food or attractive flowers, it doesn’t really matter whether you grow F1 hybrids or open pollinated varieties. But if you’re into seed saving then you’re going to have to go with the open pollinated. As concerns about food security grow, there has been an increase in interest on how to save seed, ensuring unique varieties are preserved for future generations of growers.

Whichever choice you make, have fun growing your own fresh flowers and vegetables. Once it’s done snowing of course.

Monarch Butterfly on goldenrod