LET THE GARDENING BEGIN
Spring into early season planting
Mike was walking by my garden the other day as I was standing outside daydreaming about spring.
“I’ve started my tomatoes,” said the daytime dentist and weekend gardener. “I saved the seed myself by wiping it on a paper towel last fall. Every seed I planted came up.”
Mike continued and shared a patient’s story of saving tomato seed.
As he was speaking, I was thinking about how dentists always ask questions when patients are in the chair — mouth stretched wide, rubber gutters catching drool.
Apparently, Mike’s patient’s tomato seeds were soaked and fermented and strained and drained but “his seeds didn’t sprout as well as mine saved in a paper towel.”
With spring just a few days old, it is time for everyone to start getting hands dirty in the garden.
With the cost of food index rising and the layoff levels in Calgary reaching new highs this is the year to really jump in: plant your own food and flowers this spring.
If you wait until the May 23 weekend to get started in the garden in Calgary, you will miss a good part of the growing season and have to pay the higher garden centre prices.
You will also find it tricky to grow spinach, dill and cilantro if you plant in May. So seed spinach and early herbs outdoors as soon as you find a workable soil patch where it is dry enough to rake the seed directly into outside soil.
Usually this is an area against a building where the heat has dried out the ground.
Once planted, spinach will sprout when it is ready and will thrive even if we get heavy snow between now and late May.
If planted later, spinach and cilantro randomly burst into flower in late June, ending the harvest for the year, so don’t delay, seed today.
Like Mike, I save tomato seeds on paper towels, but a little late-night Internet shopping meant I accidentally-on-purpose ordered extra seeds online. My favourite, Juliet, has a really high lycopene level and a miniature Roma-style fruit so I ordered more of that.
I am trying Barry’s Crazy Cherries with large clusters of yellow cherry-sized fruit and Black Beauty, advertised as the darkest tomato available, for the first time. And somehow I totally forgot I ordered Hamlet hybrid organic tomato seeds for $12.95. Call it temporary insanity but I paid more than a dollar a seed for these red cluster tomatoes.
Tomatoes can’t be planted outdoors yet but they can be started inside under lights in Calgary from mid- to late-March as soon as your growing supplies are organized.
For best results, use Pro-Mix BX soil for seeding indoors because it is easy and light and fast draining so the plants don’t get waterlogged.
I used to set seeded trays on my heated basement floor because seeds don’t need light until they germinate. They only need water and heat. But I don’t have that heated-floor anymore so now I use a heating mat under a plastic tray, to keep soil and seeds cosy.
With heat, seeds start germinating within 48 hours.
If you don’t have a greenhouse or you don’t want to heat your greenhouse yet, buy energy efficient T5 fluorescent bulbs for growing indoors. I have the old school fluorescent lights and they work too, but apparently won’t last as long.
Cover each plastic tray of seeds with a rigid plastic lid to keep the humidity inside and place lights 15 centimetres above the seedlings as soon as they sprout.
I tend toward forgetfulness so I set a timer to flawlessly provide 12 hours of light a day.
Indoors, it is officially too late to seed really long season plants like lobelia, begonias, geraniums, pansies and artichokes so they are better bought later from a garden centre. But there is still time to start vegetables like tomato, pepper, celery, onion and leek now.
Flowers like snapdragon, aster, cosmos, marigold, sweet peas and calendula are also started indoors until mid-April and then broccoli, cauliflower, collards, kale and kohlrabi are started after mid-April for outdoor planting by mid-May.
The last vegetables started indoors are zucchini, butternut squash, pumpkin and watermelon from late April to mid-May. In Cal- gary, they are moved outdoors by early to mid-June in your warmest south-facing spot.
Meanwhile, start scouting the organic grocery stores for garlic cloves bursting through their papery sheaths with green sprouts.
Simply break the sprouted heads apart into cloves and plant those in pots or put them directly into the ground by mid-April for harvest by July.
Why not save money, get your hands dirty and get a little exercise while you are at it? Even if you didn’t save your seeds like Mike, or go crazy on the Internet like me, you can pick up seeds locally and start your garden seeds, indoors and out, early this spring in Calgary.