Vegetable and Fruits

Starting Vegetables and Flowers Indoors

Growing seeds indoors isn’t hard; it’s keeping them alive that can be challenging. You can save a lot of money by growing seeds depending on how large your planting beds are, but only if they live and turn into robust plants. The main reason I start some plants is to get the varieties which you can not find elsewhere.

I have killed more seedlings than I care to admit. Armies of tiny seedlings have fallen under my care (or lack thereof). Avoiding these common mistakes will greatly increase your odds for success.

No matter what anyone tells you, chances are that you don’t have enough natural light in your house to grow robust seedlings because of the length of sunlight this time of year. Even a South facing window usually won’t do. Use artificial light. Either get some grow lights developed specifically for plants, or for a more economical solution, simply get some large fluorescent shop lights and put in one warm bulb and one cool. Hang the lights from chains so that you can raise them up as your seedlings grow. Keep the lights as close to the seedlings as possible without touching (2 to 3 inches). After your seedlings appear, you’ll want to keep the lights on for 12 to 16 hours a day. To make this easier, you can easily hook up a timer to turn your lights on and off automatically. If warm outside, I place them in a coldframe or plastic greenhouse and bring them inside when I get home if the temperature is cold.

 

Give your seedlings too much or too little water – either way, they are toast. This is perhaps the most challenging part of growing plants from seeds. Because seedlings are so delicate, there is very little room for error when it comes to watering. You want to keep your sterile, seed-starting medium damp, but not wet. I water from the bottom when the plants are tiny.

1.      Cover your container with plastic, until the seeds germinate

2.      Water from the bottom. By letting the plants soak up water through holes in their pots, there is less chance of overwatering

3.      Check your plants at least once a day

DO NOT START YOUR PLANTS TOO EARLY. Lots of plants don’t like the cold and exposing them to chilly air and soil will just stress them out and stressed out plants are more susceptible to pests and disease. Most plants are ready to go outside four to six weeks after you start the seeds. For our area the frost-free date is usually mid to end of May depending on the year.

Seeds are finicky when it comes to how deep they like to be planted. Some seeds need complete darkness to germinate and some like some light. This information is usually on the seed packet. If there isn’t any information, the rule of thumb is to plant seeds twice or three times as deep as they are wide. This can be a challenge to figure out, but if you’re not sure, err on the shallow side – don’t plant your seeds in too deep.

For seeds that need light to germinate, you’ll want to make sure that they are in contact with your seed starting medium, but not covered. To do this, first press the medium gently down to make a firm surface. Then place your seed on top of your medium and gently push down, making sure the seed is still exposed.

There is no benefit in a tough love approach to seedlings when they are young. If you try it, they just up and die or become weak and then fail to thrive. When plants are young, even the most stalwart need a huge amount of coddling and attention.

When your seedlings are ready to go outside, after all of this babying, the last thing you want to do is shove them out the door and into the harsh world without significant preparation. The process is called hardening off or, boot camp for plants.

The idea is to expose your plants to the elements gradually. Practically, this means that you put your seedlings outside for more time every day over the course of 6 to ten days, depending on your patience and the temperatures and the fragility of your seedlings. This prepares them slowly for the wind and sun. This is where a coldframe or cheap greenhouse works the best.

It certainly is easy to swoon over the gorgeous pictures and glowing descriptions found in the tons of seed catalogs that come flying through the ether and into our mailboxes every winter. This often gets me into trouble, causing me to buy many more seeds than I can start, much less nurture into adulthood. In fact, every year I bite off more than I can reasonably chew in the seed department and regret it. I am working on self-restraint in this area and suggest, particularly if you are a beginner, that starting modestly is the way to go. You can always do more direct planting in your beds when it gets warmer.

For seeds to germinate, most must be kept warm 65 to 75°F. A favorite place to do this is on top of the refrigerator. There are special “seedling mats” that you can buy to put under your seeds. You can also use a small heater put on a timer placed next to your seedlings. You will only need to worry about this until the seeds sprout. After that most can tolerate fluctuating temperatures (within reason). Also, and whatever type of light you use, natural or artificial should produce enough heat to keep them happy. I use the back bedroom as my plant room for the growing lights and the temperature stays on the cool side.

Every year I am determined to do clear, organized labeling of my seeds, but I often find things growing and don’t quite remember what they are or when exactly I planted them. I have had labels get lost or moved or they have become illegible from being watered. Here’s my advice. Get popsicle sticks and write the name of the seeds and the day you planted them in permanent ink. Stick it into the soil next to the seeds you’ve planted or label by row. 

When it comes to plant labeling, Sharpies are your friends. Also taking photos with your phone always is a good idea for keeping track of everything.

Starting seeds can be a real pain. It takes dedication, attention and time. That said you can’t beat eating a tomato that you have nurtured from day one. I would say that the biggest mistake in starting seeds would be to give up, even if you’ve made a few, or even a few hundred seed starting mistakes.

Home Selling, Real Estate (Residential)

Items You Should Never Leave Out During a Home Showing

1. Your personal documents

Let’s start with the obvious, mostly because it needs repeating. Something that lists your full name and a bunch of numbers (e.g., your Social Security card, checkbook, or credit cards) is an identity thief’s dream haul.

Put them in another location like an office desk or a little safe.  Another place would be in an attic or basement because most people do not look into these areas much.  A wannabe criminal would never think of looking under your cat’s litter box, for instance. Gross.

2. Mail addressed in your name

What’s so wrong about leaving out your Dish or Verizon bill, still in a sealed envelope unless you want people googling your name and knowing all about you.

3. Space heaters, fans, and more

Some items that you use in your daily life might unwittingly give prospective buyers the wrong idea. (“Wrong” as in “You don’t want to live here.”)

Before your showing, hide the following things: a space heater (the house is too cold!); multiple fans (the house is too hot!); the baseball bat next to your bed (the neighborhood is sketchy!); and even those tiny foam earplugs next to your bed, which might suggest that your home is too loud at night. The same goes for an eye mask or books with telling titles such as “How to Survive Noisy Neighbors You Hate.”

4. An empty ashtray on your patio table

Cigarettes, even if not smoked inside, are a huge turnoff. The mere presence of even one ashtray (even an aesthetically pleasing one) on your backyard patio could send your deal up in smoke.

5. Your pet snake, noisy dog, or moody cat

Some people aren’t big on pets, so you might want to put them in an area where they are no running the house.  And don’t stop there. You should also pick up your pet’s dishes and toys.

6. Your ‘Make America Great’ or ‘I’m With Her’ sign

Even if it’s not proudly taped to your fridge, perhaps it’s halfway buried under other papers on your office desk and you have yet to file it away, it doesn’t matter. Buyers will zero in on political endorsements.

A simple campaign sign, no matter which side you are on, can turn off half your potential buyers. Keep your home neutral, and make it welcoming to individuals of every political persuasion to maximize your chances of a quick sale.

Funny Garden Moments

Do What I Say, Not What I Do

It is winter, so I’m constantly reminded of good garden practices that I fail to follow through on. Maybe a public confession here, of what I know I should be doing. “What I should have done” is my garden motto.

I love my garden enough to spend almost all my free time looking for new blooms, or watching leaves unfold, smelling the flowers or just dreaming of what to plant next. The one thing I don’t do much of in the garden is WORK. Some of the basic good practices that should be second nature to me are the first things I ignore. Confession is said to be good for the soul. People ask me so many questions but do not pay attention to what I do.  Or maybe I am like everyone else!

Biggest thing is I don’t add enough organic matter to the soil

I couldn’t believe the growth boost I saw after adding the first few buckets of compost to the garden or flowerbed. I could see and feel the difference in soil texture in that bed months later. Unless you garden in a former peat bog, your plants would practically kill for more organic matter in the soil. Building the soil’s organic content is an ongoing process, as organic matter also breaks down throughout the growing season. You can buy peat moss, find an OLD manure pile, or make compost. Any added organic content benefits almost any soil by improving the fertility, pH, water holding and drainage characteristics.

I ignore problems

What degree of laziness keeps me from taking quick action when I see sick plants? Ignoring them only has two possible outcomes. Either insects or disease persist, and spread, in my garden, or I advertise my ineptness as a gardener. To a real pro, every yellow leaf is a neon sign blinking “Neglected!” I guess I want to think that a shriveled stem on a potted plant will “heal” like a minor scratch on my arm, and turn green again, but it just doesn’t work that way.

Yellowed leaves, distorted stems or entire ailing specimens are a sign that something has gone wrong. The sad news is that damaged plant parts never get better looking even if that problem is corrected. The good news is that once you ease their suffering, most plants have an amazing ability to regenerate all the parts of a healthy complete plant. Removing a sick plant in the flowerbed or garden should really be done.  It is hard yanking out that shriveling cucumber plant or the wilting tomato plant. Prompt correction of problems lessens the plant’s suffering and hastens its recovery.

I don’t harvest all my ripe produce

How many pounds of summer squash is laid off to the side from my garden just because I wasn’t ready to eat it? In the disorganized meanderings that are my daily normal state, I’d go to the garden for one reason, notice a few ripe berries or perfect lettuce leaves, and leave them to pick later, only to forget them later. It just seems downright wrong to waste good homegrown produce.

A May to September rule might be “Don’t go out to the vegetable garden without a small knife and a colander.” Five spinach leaves? That’s enough to stuff an extra healthy sandwich. A dozen zucchini ? Leave them on all the neighbor’s doorsteps that night. (Only one perfect asparagus spear? Eat it right in the garden and don’t tell anybody.) You are more likely to use garden gatherings when they are in the kitchen before mealtime, rather than down and dirty in the veggie patch.

I forget fertilizer

I bet my plants are hungrier than I imagine and starving them is going to lead to poor growth. I need to educate myself about the needs of plants, and what is available in my garden. Then I need to plan a menu and go grocery shopping for my plants.

Early last spring I yanked a weedling that I too late recognized as a Cleome seedling. Oh, the humanity, err, botany! I forgot I had planted the seed because that Cleome had been sown a year earlier. And I wasted a precious plot of flowerbed and suffered many fruitless searches last year for those Spider flower seedlings, all because I didn’t know what the Cleome needed to sprout.

Those gorgeous specimens at the nursery or in the catalog are at their peak, but what will they look like at other times of the year, and under the conditions they’ll find in your garden? Making educated plant selections can prevent disappointment and save money. Unusual perennials may thrill experienced gardeners, yet sorely disappoint the novice with innocent misconceptions of short blooming season. With modern merchandising, a literal world of plant choices need to be carefully weeded through to find the ones that really meet our expectations.

I don’t prune properly

Persistent trial, and my fair share of error, has given me many chances to see the results of my pruning and learn what works. As I said earlier, most plants have an amazing ability to grow new parts when given half a chance. Still I hesitate to prune. I felt faint when I read instructions to reduce my new apple’s canopy by almost half!

Pruning questions plague many gardeners. Don’t let fear of hurting the plant keep you from pruning when it’s needed. Good pruning can prevent injury or disease. Good pruning does not damage a plant, any more than a haircut damages you. Proper pruning is just a management technique that allows us to grow a wider variety of specimens, or that modifies a plants natural growth to achieve results more pleasing to the gardener or farmer. Deadheading flowers is though and time consuming.

Can I remember 7 rules?

Read about new plants

Build the soil

Prune when needed

Treat problems before they become problems

Feed the hungry

Harvest (maybe learn to process) when ready

Do my best