This photo shows something that is like that…only for growing transplants.

Baby plants need warmth, moisture and light. I have an unheated greenhouse which could provide a heck of a lot of light but sadly..no warmth. So, I transplanted the seedlings into 4 and 6-packs and put the whole deal into a big clear plastic bag, which I closed up with a rubberband. Before I did that, however, I made sure the grow mix was moist and I filled the bag with my breath.

No, this is not some sort of New Wave, Earth Mom, ‘fill them with the breath of life’ thingy.

It’s CO2. In fancy growing operations, they actually have CO2 generators to help the plants get a jump. Aunt Toby has a ferocious set of lungs and a plastic bag.

Actually, the DH last year got clear plastic domes that sat on top of the packs. And they sort of worked, but the seedlings kept drying out, so they were stressed and just did not do very well. And we kept asking ourselves, “How come this technology does not work for us? We never used to have this problem.”

The DH and I used to grow seedlings in plastic milk jugs cut in half length-wise inside a plastic grocery bag with a rubber band at the end. And when they got big enough, we’d transplant them into something bigger and put the plastic grocery bag on top. And after that they were big enough and it was warm enough to put them out in the greenhouse.

The problem with those plastic domes is that they did not snap onto the packs, so the seal was not very good – all the moisture was evaporating. I started seeds this time with that container with the snap-on lid from the grocery store that had salad mix in it.

Worked like the proverbial charm.

So, after I transplanted everything, I put the whole shebang into a big plastic bag, filled it with personal CO2 and sealed it up. Then I started more seeds in the salad mix box. And I put both things back on top of the grid on top of the heating pad.

Oh, and what did I start this time?

Aunt Toby is searching for the Holy Grail of tomatoes. After what happened last summer with Late Blight, I’m almost not caring about taste or texture, just plants that will not give up the ghost if we have a cool, wet summer. So, searching the literature, I planted:
Heiloom Striped German – from Johnny’s Selected Seeds Johnny’s Selected Seeds
Legend – from Tomato Growers Supply Tomato Growers Supply

Additionally, I’m trying to beat the whole business, since this is Late Blight, by growing Early Wonder — 55 days. I figure if I can get them out in the garden early under plastic, then if Late Blight hits in August, it won’t make any difference – I’ll have gotten my tomatoes by then. Source: Tomato Growers Supply

And, in a complete leap of international gardening detente, I got Stupice – 52 days!!! This is from Czechoslovakia and the supplier claims this is an extremely early cold-tolerant tomato. One of the really interesting developments over the past 10 years or so is the availability of tomatoes from such countries as Russia. ’s cold in Russia and they have what could coyly be referred to as ‘a short growing season’. This is another ‘get it in, get it growing, get it out’ experiment just in case we get another Late Blight thing. Source: Tomato Growers Supply

Now, none of these could possibly be referred to as a paste tomato. Ok, I admit it. I have not been able to find either a really short season paste tomato or a paste tomato that is Late Blight resistant. What I plan to do is start some and put them into grow mix in five gallon buckets on my deck. Blight is in the soil – sometimes you’ve just got to put the plants someplace where they won’t catch the infection.

Another seed I planted (and which I usually don’t bother with, frankly) are peppers. Tomato Growers Supply had some sweet peppers from Romania called Roumanian Rainbow which are 60 days. That’s really short. I usually have poor luck germinating and growing pepper plants, but I figured I would give it a shot and then do the same thing I did last year – grow them in grow mix and compost in plastic milk jugs. Literally the only peppers we got last year were from the ones we treated that way. if I’d put them on the black asphalt driveway, we’d have done even better, I think.

OK – Aunt Toby is already hearing the mumbling from people out there saying, “you’re starting these too early..” Yep. According to the books, I’m starting these much too early. Could not be truer. But one of the tricks we learned a long time ago with tomatoes (and no one can argue me out of doing it) is that we keep transplanting the seedlings into deeper and deeper containers, always right up to the bottom leaves. They grow this big thick underground stem with lots of roots. And when we plant them, we dig a big hole, fill it with compost and water and plant it right up to the bottom leaves. The plants don’t seem to go through so much shock that way and they just take right off, grow fast and we get tomatoes earlier. That’s why I’m starting them now.

So, until the next time…

No matter where you live, the economy stinks.
No matter where you live, the winter veggies you get are grown in California, Arizona, South Texas and Florida. And those areas have gotten hit very hard and have suffered huge losses this year. Prices have already gone up because availability has gone way down.

So, no matter where you live, you have probably already started to think seriously about a garden this year. And if you are like most of us, you have already put it in the pot on the back of the stove that’s in your head. You think you have time. That pile of seed catalogs is still next to the bed or the couch in the family room. You might even have your list clipped to the cover.

One small reminder:
Last year, by March, seed sellers were already reporting a) they were way behind on filling orders and b) they were running out of seed because the economy had started to make people feel they needed to have a garden to grow their own.

That was last year and we didn’t even have the winter crop destruction. Despite what the pundits have told us, the economy has NOT gotten any better (my measure of an improved economy is when I see the job listings in my local paper go up above the current one page on a Sunday). People are going to feel even more that they need to grow their own, grow more of their own, can and freeze, and get some sort of control over at least one part of their food supply. People have already started to order their seeds. I want you to imagine thousands upon thousands of seed orders winging their way over the phone, internet, and mail to seed purveyors across the country.

And your catalogs are still next to the bed.

We’re almost through January. Most of the seed producers and sellers are on the internet and accept all forms of payment other than elephant tusks. Pull out that seed list, do whatever comparison shopping you need to do between your two or three fav vendors. Go to the site or sites, pull out the plastic or whatever and order the seeds NOW.

OK, so you are not that far ahead. You are still in the “I think we should grow veggies (or more veggies) this year. If you’ve done this before, you know what to order:
1. What does your family like?
2. What will your family eat?
3. Order those things. It does not pay to order a whole bunch of things that your kids will turn their noses up at – if they will eat cherry tomatoes and you want to go wild, order a seed mix of cherries – that will give them what they like and will eat, but in a different set of colors. Easy extension. Move on from there.

If you have never, ever done this before and have a yard, then your hardest job is keeping your eyes in your head. You use the same items as above, but in a different format:
1. What does your family like that is easy to grow? Easy to grow things are: lettuce, radishes, cucumbers, squash, snap beans. These are seeds that you can literally dump into the ground and as long as you get some sun and water, they will grow and give you stuff to eat. Less easy things but still doable are: spinach, chard, anything from the cabbage family (cabbage of any sort, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, collards, etc.). These will sprout in cool ground but need thinning to about 8” to a foot apart (the seed package will tell you), but you have to give them some protection from the little white moths (use row covers, old sheer curtains, etc.). You can order seeds from one of the vendors on the internet or wait and buy from a seed rack at your local home/garden store, grocery etc. Most of the rack seeds are from growers such as Burpee etc. Ordering from them now will just get you your seeds now – you will be buying the same seeds off the rack when the distributers get them. The one thing is that people watch those racks like hawks – so ordering your own now might be a better idea in terms of making sure you get the seeds you want.
2. Tomatoes and Peppers. For first timers, or folks who live in cool season areas, my advice is to – go to your local nursery (not your local ‘extremely large home/lumber/has a garden area’ big box store. Your local grower is going to grow the sorts of tomatoes and peppers which will work in your area. If you have never grown anything but a houseplant in a pot before, then just spend the money and get a good solid potted cherry tomato and a couple of potted pepper plants. You will want to transplant these into something like a big 5 gallon plastic bucket each with some holes in the bottom. Use a commercial growing mix half and half with soil from your garden. That will give the pots weight and they won’t blow over. Put them into a sunny spot and make sure they get water on a regular basis. When the tomatoes turn their correct color (it might be red, pink, yellow, orange..the stake in the pot will tell you); you can pick peppers at the green stage or when they reach their final luscious color (they have more vitamin C then, actually; so it’s worth the wait).

Don’t know where to find seeds on the Internet? Well, you can always type ‘vegetable seeds’ into a search engine and see the zillions of offerings. Or, you can go to this site and use their section on seeds: Dave’s Garden Marketplace

I started these seeds last week. They were on top of a heating mat with a grid on top of a piece of plywood under a fluorescent fixture in my basement. But in years past, the DH and I have successfully started seeds on top of the following:
The top of a gas stove – the pilots were on all the time and kept the top warm
A screen with a trouble light underneath it pointing up
A screen with a chick warming light underneath it pointing up.

The point is that many seeds – most actually – need some form of bottom heat, as well as moisture and some sort of covering that will hold the warmth and the moisture in.

Until the next time…oh yeah..order the seeds, ok? And when they arrive – if you are not going to plant them right away, take a ziplock™ bag, put the seeds in them, and put the whole thing into your fridge – not in the back where they can freeze, ok? The crisper works fine.

On Friday, March 20, it was, as you see above, 43.4 degrees. That’s with several 50-60 degree days behind us, but very chilly freezing nights. It is now way above freezing. And there is an onion shoot in the photo, too. Time to get out the seeds, right?

Mmmmmm, no. There ARE some seeds that you could put into the ground now and if you protected them a little bit, they’d come up, but as you see from the chart below, it would take them a very, very long time to do that. Even something like Beets or Lettuces, which are very hardy and would germinate at 41 degrees, would take 42 days and 49 days respectively to germinate.

Seedlings and Soil Temps

Percentage of Normal Vegetable Seedlings
Produced at Different Temperatures* **
Numbers in ( ) are the days to seedling emergence. Number in red = optimal daytime soil temperature for maximum production in the shortest time.

On the other hand – the fact that they would germinate is a great indicator that if you had little beet plants or little lettuce plants already germinated, you could get them into the ground and if you protected the bed with heavy duty row cover (like Remay ™ or clear plastic), as long as you got some sun, they’d jump right up there. Even if you got some very cold nights or even some snow, they’d be protected and would grow.

But perhaps you want to grow something like tomatoes or peppers. Check out the chart above: you will need the soil temperatures to be in the high 50s to get really good germination. So, even if you have tomato or pepper plants, you would not want to put them out until the soil temperatures are a lot higher.

You, however, are one of those folks who wants to get the jump on your neighbors – or perhaps you live in the Intermountain West or northern Maine or Upper Michigan or the Adirondacks – you have a very short window to get your tomato plants into the ground, growing as fast as they can, setting blossoms as fast as they can so that you can have something other than green tomatoes by August.

You need to get that soil as warm as you can, as quickly as you can.

This is where black plastic comes in. It’s not too soon, even in my part of the world in Upstate New York, to get black plastic onto the beds. Certainly, it will take a while to get the soil up to the high 50s to put tomatoes and peppers in, but check the chart again (actually, go to the link – the chart is much prettier there – print this out and put it into a plastic sleeve or tape it to the fridge door or something; I found this chart and think it is a really useful thing to have). If I put black plastic out right now, today, with little plants already started for all those veggies that give good germination under the 41 degree column, I could plant those through the plastic, protect them with clean plastic or heavy duty row cover and get a jump on the season. With my handy-dandy meat-thermometer-that-I-changed-to-a-soil-thermometer, as the weather gets warmer and we get more sun, I can check the soil temps — and put the next column’s veggies in and so on.

At the other end of the season, starting in August, you can use the same technique – take off the black plastic and help the soil start to cool down, so that you can start putting in your lettuce, cabbages, etc. for the fall. They like cooler ‘feet’ (look how they respond at the higher end of the temperature scale – the hotter the soil is, the poorer they will do) and will appreciate the cooler soil and will germinate better for you (if you direct seed) and grow better if you put plants in.

What sort of black plastic do you need? Well, in a pinch, probably a black garbage bag would do the trick, but that plastic is not made to handle the sun and it would fall apart pretty quickly. You’ll want to go to your hardware store or home center and get a roll of heavy duty black plastic. Unroll a single thickness over the bed, anchor it down with soil, rocks, old pipe or whatever you’ve got. If you have cool weather crops, you can start planting them if the temperature is right; if you have to wait for a bit, then keep checking the soil temperatures every couple of days to see how it is doing.

Actually, look at the picture above: I took that yesterday, Christmas Eve day in my garden here in Upstate New York. Those are brussels sprouts, frozen but still cookable and edible. On Dec. 24th!! So, if you get started with more garden stuff this week, you can, even in the coldest places (well, maybe not Alaska…) have something out in your garden that you can harvest a year from now and use to feed your family (ahem..disclaimer: you will have something out in your garden that you can harvest…except if the bunnies and deer get to it. RIP: the kale that was also standing in the snow last week, sniff).

For those who missed, here is a hint – you can still do this because fresh compost does not freeze. As a matter of fact, if you go visit your landfill/composting facility, you may find that the big black mountain standing there is sending off a plume of steam. Composting creates a whole lot of heat. So, if you want to do the deed NOW (and loosen up that waistband from the holiday cookies!!! You will get a two-fer out of it!!), follow the instructions in our last episode. You may have to break through the outer frozen crust to the warm compost underneath – think of it as a giant vat of crème brulee, ok? Tomorrow’s Garden:Today! Part 1

For everyone else, who were good little Munchkins and now can look out, smugly, at the side yard with the mounded rows of compost on top of cardboard, the rest of the lesson is for YOU, mes petites choux (which is French for “little cabbages,” which, by the way, is not a bad thing to grow).

Today’s lesson revolves around the issue of: What should you do now? It’s December. It’s cold. It’s thoroughly uninspiring out there. You’ve never done this before. What can you do now to move the process forward? Well, it means that you need to make some decisions about (cue the scary music) What You Are Going To Grow.

Check list for deciding:

1) What does your family like to eat in terms of veggies?
2) What other veggies are in the same family that they haven’t tried yet but that you’d like to try out.
3) Is this garden strictly for fresh eating or do you want to do some freezing, drying or canning too? Or is it strictly for stocking up?
4) Where do you live?

So, in terms of the check list and using the Chez Siberia family as the example:
1) Broccoli
2) Cabbage, brussels sprouts, kohlrabi and kale
3) Both – we blanch and freeze broccoli, leave the brussels sprouts and the kale out in the garden and the kohlrabi keeps in the bin in the fridge.
4) Ah – this is important. Read this if nothing else. The USDA produces a Climate Zone Map which, in a general sort of way, tells you what zone you are in depending on where you live.

USDA Zone Map

It tells you basically how many frost-free growing days you have. If I look at that map, it tells me that I’ve got a couple of weeks in May and all the way into October to grow – wow – that’s 136 days. That’s amazing.

Except…it’s not true. We can have funky weather even into June and we have had killer frosts as early as Sept. 17th. So, I usually knock one zone off it and figure that I’ve got 3 weeks in June for sure, July, August, and through the end of September (and I cross my fingers behind my back and am always prepared with some plastic or The Big Blue Tarp if the weather folks predict frost).

This number of days is a very important tool for you because no matter what you like, there are types of plants and seeds that take so long from planting the seed to producing mature, ripened fruit or tubers under the ground or whatever, that you won’t get anything if you just put out seed and wait. So you need to cheat.

Cheating in the garden means that for certain plants, you jump start them in the garden by either buying plants at your local greenhouse or you get seeds and start them under lights, on a warm window sill or go whole hog and get a warming pad, lights, etc. and produce all your own plants.

Now we need to be honest with ourselves (because at Aunt Toby’s, we are all about the self-reflection and honesty). I can tell you because I’ve been gardening for…well, we won’t go into that, but it’s a whole mess of years, trust me. I can tell you that raising your own plants for the garden is like getting a new puppy in the house – you’ve got to keep track of where they are all the time, clean up after them, train those babies and make sure all their needs are covered. If you do not, they will die, or they will be leggy (which is almost as bad) or some other issue. So, if you want, this first year, just throw in the towel right now and be prepared to go to a greenhouse and get the plants. Find a co-worker or friend who gardens and ask them, “Which is the best local greenhouse for garden veggie plants?” Not the cheapest place. Not the closest place. Not the place that has huge numbers of flats sitting out in the sun on hot asphalt (I’m talking to you guys, Big Box Stores), but the place that plants them at the right time, takes care of them, has knowledgeable people there that you can ask questions of, etc.

When you grow your own, the sky is the limit – you can grow those French tomatoes and Peruvian potatoes and all that. But even with a good local greenhouse, they are going to make some pretty strict decisions about what they are going to carry and sell. They will have a) plants that a lot of people ask for both by type (like tomato) and name (Big Boy, Early Girl, etc.), and b) plants that will have a high level of success in your area. So, starting with those your first year is a great way to start. Do that for 2-3 years and you will get a feel for how things work in your garden and you can start talking to other gardeners in your area as to what THEY grow, what works for them, etc.

On the other hand, if you want to know how to choose seeds, here are a couple of examples of tomatoes to give you an idea of how to make the choice:
Czech Bush……….70 days from transplant
Gold Medal………..90 days from transplant

“From transplant” means that you start the seed, grow it up into a little plant that is about 6” tall, all leafed out and stick it in the ground. 70 or 90 days from that moment is when you can first expect to get ripe tomatoes out of it. And you need the ground to be nice and warm also.

So, that means that if you plant it mid-way through May, the earliest you will be able to get tomatoes to eat is probably going to be the end of July – and that is if everything is perfect – so it will more likely be into August for Czech Bush and into September for Gold Medal. If you live in a place like southern PA, MD, VA etc., Gold Medal would work for you – north of those areas, I’d go with Czech Bush because you want to make sure you actually GET tomatoes.

There are other plants that a) don’t take a long time to go from seed to harvest and b) don’t require really warm soil – lettuces and some things from the cabbage family come to mind. There are others that you will still want to grow from seed because they don’t transplant well, but they still want “warm feet” – things like beans, squash, cucumbers, and corn. So, you can plan to plant your lettuce seeds, esp. if you plan to cover the bed with some sort of row cover or plastic or whatever, weeks before you can put in the beans, etc. and those tomato plants.

And finally, HOW do you find seeds? Well, you can go to your local garden center, but they usually don’t put their fresh (that is, the 2009 season) seed out until it’s close to gardening time for your area. And if you want to try your hand at starting tomatoes, peppers, eggplants, etc., you are going to need those seed long before that, so you need to go to the internet. Search on terms like: garden seeds, vegetable seeds for colder areas, vegetable seeds for contests (that is, if you want to try to grow the biggest pumpkin or whatever). There are regional seed companies all over the US and into Canada and you can find pretty much whatever you want. You can find seed houses that do nothing but tomatoes and peppers; short season seed houses; seed houses that concentrate on French veggies or Italian or Mexican or Asian. You can always search on “xxx seed” where “xxx” is the veggie of your choice. If nothing else, you can sign up to get “the gardener’s wish book” – seed catalogs. There is nothing like sitting there with the wind and the snow howling outside, looking at luscious photographs of vegetables and flowers. Gets millions of people through the winter, those things do.

So, your assignment is:
1) If you have not done the compost and cardboard bit, follow the instructions in the posting I linked to above and go for it.
2) If you are ready to think about seeds, go to the internet, search for some seed houses that will have what you are looking for in terms of veggies and have them send you their catalogs.
3) Go to the link for the Frost-free map and find out how long your growing season is, so that when those catalogs come in, you can start to plan.
4) Rummage around and find a couple of pieces of ¼” grid graph paper so that you’ll be ready for the next assignment, which will be “how to plan out your garden.”

(originally published at Oxdown Gazette)