Spring Garden Startup
Contributed by Jolene Ottosen for the Chaparral Green Thumbs
There is a good chance that if you looked outside your window right now, you would see snow. It isn’t the time to think about your garden, or is it? What are you going to grow this year? Are you sowing seeds, or buying seedlings to transplant? If you are sowing seeds, a few should be started this month and many others should be started in early April. If that is your plan, do you have your seeds yet? If you are planning to use older seeds, have you checked their viability?
There are a few ways to check seed viability. One suggestion is to put a few seeds in a cup of water and check them after 15 minutes. According to this method, if they are still floating after 15 minutes in the water, they are no good. If the seeds sink, they should grow. I question the reliability of this method and feel like germinating a few seeds is a better predictor of viability.
To germinate seeds, you will need seeds (some like to use ten of each variety as it is easy to calculate percentages), paper towel, water, sealable bags, and a felt marker to write the seed names on the bag. First, dampen the paper towel. It doesn’t need to drip, but should be fairly wet. Next, lay the seeds on the paper towel. Depending on the size of the towel, either fold it over the seeds or lay another piece on top to cover the seeds. Fold or roll up the wet paper towel and seeds and place it inside the labeled plastic bag and seal it.
Left in a warm spot, most seeds will germinate in 2 to 14 days, although you may need to dampen the towels depending on how long the process takes. Leave the seeds to germinate for a few days and then check to see your yield. If a few seeds have sprouted, it is probably time to get new ones. If most of the seeds have, then they should do well once planted. If only half of the seeds sprout, you could decide to use them, but just sow them more heavily than the packet suggests. While not all seeds need to be started inside, it is something to start thinking about now so you can plan ahead, and not be scrambling as I always seem to do!
If you are really ambitious and have the time, you could also consider creating a cold frame to start some seeds outside this month. In the past, I have had great success with a hoop house over my 4’ x 10’ community garden plot made of pvc hose bent over rebar stakes that were pounded into the ground and covered with heavy plastic, materials that did not cost a lot, and could be reused over the years. I would often construct my hoop house in late March and let the ground warm for about a week before planting. The choice to wait until late March had more to do with spring break than anything else, so it could probably be started earlier.
After planting, I found that two five-gallon buckets once or twice a week kept the hoop house nice and moist and able to forgive my occasional neglect if I forgot about it for a little while. For very little effort beyond the initial setup, which didn’t really take long, I was rewarded with an amazing head start to my garden. As the weather warmed, I started opening the plastic during the day, then eventually removed it. The only issue I found was that my carrots were ready to harvest before the nights started to cool, so they weren’t very sweet. Initially I was a bit disappointed in this, but I found that after being stored in the fridge for a few days, the flavour improved, so it all worked out. If I had more time, I would definitely do this again.
So, as you can see, in spite of the snow, it is definitely time to start thinking about your garden!
If you are interested in more information about the community garden, email us at [email protected].
