You won’t find a lot of experienced gardeners—at least those who are honest with themselves—talking about “rules” in gardening. That’s because, strictly speaking, there are very few of them. There are certainly guidelines, which are created through a combination of experimentation, synthesis of results, lots of mistakes and corrections, and effective communication of principles. There’s also a lot of bad advice out there, which you can weed out in simple ways (try using “Extension” as part of your web searches) or by disregarding those helpful nuggets that use only anecdote or tradition as rationales. (“This happened to me once, so it must always be true!” “My grandmother always said…”) Personally, I think you can also ignore pundits who declare rules without exceptions. There are always exceptions.
Or maybe I’m saying that because I just broke a rule. It’s May, so time for hardening off seedlings. The guideline for hardening off is to introduce your young plants to the outdoors gradually. Carry your tray full of pots outside and put them in a sheltered spot (out of the wind and sun). Give them a few hours of outdoor conditions and then bring them inside again. Next day, lengthen the time outdoors. Over a week, expose the plants to more sun and some light breezes. Leave them outside overnight on the last few nights before you plant them in the garden. This way, they don’t get shocked by a sudden change in exposure, and they will settle into their new life more readily. Failure to make this gradual transition could result in a serious growth setback, or even in death. (Of the plant. You’ll be fine, I hope.)
Peas growing at the Derwood Demo Garden in 2015 in a very appropriate container! (We must have cut out the bottom, since you need a soil depth of more like 8-10 inches to grow peas.)
Spring is the time to plant peas! We are nearing the end of our pea-planting window, so if you want to grow them this year, get them in the ground soon. Sowing peas is very weather- and temperature-dependent. There’s a tradition of planting them on St. Patrick’s Day, which is not a bad guide, but obviously if there’s snow on the ground that day, or it’s pouring rain or freezing cold, you might want to hold off. Peas are very hardy, and since we’ve had a recent trend of warm late winters (followed by chilly springs), planting them as early as February might actually work, but be ready to throw a protective row cover over the plants when there’s a freeze. But early April is not too late, since it’s often on the cool side well into May. If the weather gets too warm, peas will not bear well, and the vines will dry up.
Soil temperature is also important. Peas can germinate at as low as 40°F, but warmer temperatures (up to 75°F) will aid germination. If the soil is both cold and muddy, pea seeds will likely rot before germinating. Peas grow easily in containers and raised beds, and using these will provide more drainage.
You can also pre-germinate pea seed (see instruction on the HGIC “Growing Peas” page). This pretty much guarantees that pea seeds will at least start growing, and once they get going they’ll likely mature. If you don’t have time for pre-germination, just soaking the seeds for a few hours in a container of water immediately before planting will help them get a good start.
Pea seeds soaking in water prior to planting
Pay attention to the “days to maturity” listed on the seed packet. You can find varieties of peas that mature in as little as 30 days, or as long as 80 days, but most of them will be in the 50-70 day range. Giving them a good head start with the techniques above will help you harvest a crop in time. Shelling peas, snap peas and snow peas can all be grown easily here in Maryland. Pick your favorite! You can also find types that emphasize the growth of tendrils, used most frequently in Asian cooking.
Peas should be planted thickly, 1 to 3 inches apart. The growing plants will tangle together and can support each other, but they’re helped out by using a trellis or fence to climb on. You can also create a trellis out of sticks—just take some small fallen branches and shove them into the ground, overlapping to make a rough structure. Be creative! Place your trellis when you plant your peas, not after they have sprouted, to prevent damage to roots. Read the variety description to find out how long the vines will grow; there are dwarf varieties that top out at less than two feet or long vines that can reach six feet.
Some notes on nomenclature:
The edible peas you grow in your garden are Pisum sativum. They are often called “sweet peas” because they are sweeter than field peas (see below).
“Sweet peas” are also a flowering vining plant you may grow as an ornamental, Lathyrus odoratus. Don’t confuse the two when you’re buying seeds! Sweet pea is a lovely plant but not edible, and the seeds may be toxic.
“Field pea” can refer to Lathyrus hirsutus, also known as Austrian winter pea, which you can buy as cover crop seed. Also not recommended as an edible crop.
“Field pea” can also refer to the plant known as cowpea, Southern pea, or black-eyed pea (though only some varieties are white with black spots). The scientific name for these is Vigna unguiculata subspecies unguiculata. (Subspecies sesquipedalis is known as yardlong bean or asparagus bean.) Cowpeas are grown more like beans than peas, in summer weather, and they are a great edible crop as well as a forage crop or cover crop.
So the moral of this is, as usual in gardening: know what you’re buying, and pay attention to scientific names. Also, if you want pretty flowers, Pisum sativum is not bad.
Flower colors vary, but purple is especially nice!
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
2024 is Grow It Eat It’s Year of Heirloom Tomatoes! We’re going to have lots of resources available soon to help you celebrate these delicious and historic vegetables (botanically fruits), and we hope you’ll participate by planting a few in your garden. I thought, as an enthusiastic heirloom tomato gardener myself, I’d take a moment to make some introductions.
First of all, what is an heirloom tomato? Well, I think we know what a tomato is; what puts it in the same category as Grandma’s topaz necklace or Grandpa’s grandfather clock? They’re all handed down through the generations. “Heirloom” doesn’t have any single definition when it comes to vegetables. It can mean that the origin of a particular variety goes back more than 100 years, or 75 years, or that it was first grown before a certain date. Many people use World War II as a marker, because the growth of hybrid crops boomed in the subsequent decades, and a lot of older varieties disappeared from seed catalogs. Varieties grown in a particular community or culture, or through several generations in a particular family, are also considered heirlooms. Family names are often part of a variety name, which makes you feel like a cousin when you grow them!
It’s February, so really time to think about starting plants from seed, if not necessarily time to actually start them. (If you are itching to get going, I wrote a post a while back about which seeds to sow in February. Hint: not tomatoes.) Let’s continue with the guide, which I hope you’re finding a practical help to this complicated subject. (Parts One and Two also available.)
Choosing Seeds
If you have not already impulsively ordered a bunch of seeds without concern for whether they’re the easiest ones to grow (in which case you are a person after my own heart), now is a good time to go shopping. In most cases these days that means shopping online. You can certainly buy seeds at garden centers and even supermarkets, though they may not be on display this early, but you get a much better selection by visiting the full catalog of a seed company website.
I’ve written a post about choosing a seed catalog to order from, so won’t repeat that information here. If you are confused by the jargon used in seed catalogs, Jon Traunfeld explains it in this post.
But which plants are best for novice seed-starters to grow from seed? First of all, you shouldn’t always let ease dictate what you choose to grow. If you like a vegetable (or a flower) and want to grow it, you may be willing to take on the challenges involved. Some seeds are more cooperative than others, however. Of the many veggies that are best started indoors, here are a few I recommend for beginners:
Let’s talk more about seed-starting! Last month I posted about how to get your house ready for a seed-starting project: picking a space to use, deciding where to hang your lights, and choosing the lights. I also wrote a bit about what containers to use, but in this post I’ll give you more detail, and also talk about what “soil” (actually soilless mix or growing medium) to use.
Seedlings growing in recycled plastic egg cartons
Containers
There are basically two parts to a seed-starting apparatus: the tray, and the pot or cell. Here’s some information about each.
Trays
The purpose of a tray is to contain or capture water. You need a tray unless you want a big mess. It should not have holes in it.
Trays can be any size larger than a pot. Standard industry size is 10”x20”. You can also use takeout containers (or any food-grade plastic), old baking pans, or anything else that suits your needs.
Most trays are plastic (aside from the baking pans). Standard trays full of pots sometimes crack when lugged around and left outside, so consider doubling them up or buying the heavy-duty ones.
Pots
The purpose of a pot is to contain the medium in which a plant grows. Pots are separate entities, and cells are connected pots. You can buy cell sets that fit standard trays. You can also save the cells and pots that you bought plants in. Yogurt cups and the like are great to recycle into pots, or you can use plastic drinking cups. Plastic egg cartons can substitute for the smallest size of cell set.
Pots must have drainage. If water can’t drain out of a pot, plant roots can rot. Commercial pots will have holes already; if you use recycled items, punch holes with a nail or a knife or whatever you have (the shape doesn’t matter, but make several).
If you don’t want to buy plastic, you can spend more and get pots or cell sets made of silicone or ceramic. These should last many, many years and be easy to clean.
Any pot of the above types needs to be cleaned before each use. A 10% bleach solution is effective at killing pathogens that may lurk in bits of leftover soil. You can instead use dish soap if you’re pretty sure the pots haven’t been exposed to plant diseases.
The other type of pot/cell set on the market is the plantable kind. These are made of compressed peat, coir, or processed manure (they don’t smell!). They are filled with growing medium just like a plastic pot, but the whole thing can be put in the ground when the plant is ready.
Make very sure to keep plantable pots moist at all times, starting by soaking them before using and continuing until planting time. Remove any dry rims and some of the bottom before planting. Dryness can prevent proper plant growth.
Plantable pellets (made of peat or coir) expand when moistened and have a hole to put a seed into. They can also be planted whole, or transplanted into a bigger pot.
How big a pot to choose? It depends on how many times you want to “up-pot” or transplant into a larger container. If you start with small cells, the seedlings will have to be moved into larger pots, maybe more than once, but you are saving space, soil, and water in the early stages. (Just be sure you have room under lights for your expanded plant kingdom!) Planting directly into larger pots means you won’t have to up-pot, but you may waste time, space and materials if seeds don’t germinate, and it’s harder to keep the soil watered.
Plastic cell tray (black), silicone cell set (orange), peat pots (small), pots made of cow manure (large), compressed coir pot (single)
Growing Medium
It’s recommended to start seeds in a soilless mix consisting mostly of peat or some other organic material. There are lots of choices available on the market, and if you’re ambitious, you can mix your own. Read HGIC’s page on the topic and check out Jon Traunfeld’s post on peat-free mixes.
For smaller seeds, you want to find a finer-cut mix (lightweight and fluffy, not heavy like sand); larger seeds can tolerate a mix with larger particles. The name on the package may not mean much: “seed-starting mixes” can be quite rough in texture, and “potting mixes” vary a lot too. Look at the ingredients and try to avoid anything with “forest products,” which seems to mean little bits of wood.
Seeds themselves contain nutrients to get a baby plant started, so germination and early growth don’t require fertilizer in the growing medium. If you’re going to be growing the plant in that medium for more than a week or so, though, the mix should have fertilizer or compost in it. Alternatively, you can add fertilizer when you water. Or you can add your own compost to your growing mix, as long as it’s finished and screened, but don’t use garden soil, which may contain pathogens or weed seeds.
Next month I’ll take you through choosing what seeds to start, how to get them to germinate, and how to care for your young seedlings.
In the meanwhile, here are some more items you might consider acquiring into addition to the seeds themselves:
A seedling heat mat, especially if you are planning to start seeds for summer vegetables and flowers. Seeds need warmth to germinate, and sometimes a bit of extra heat helps.
A sprayer (for getting the soil surface wet without washing tiny seeds away) and a watering can with a narrow spout.
Clear plastic domes that fit over your trays. These help keep moisture in when seeds are germinating and plants getting started. You can buy them or improvise them out of recycled plastic clamshells (like for salad mixes).
Labels!!!
I’ll tell you more about all these helpful items next month.
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
Do you want to learn how to start your own seeds for garden transplants? Did you just look at the title of this post and say, wait, it’s December, why would I be thinking about this now? If your answers are ‘yes,’ then read on.
Pepper and tomato seedlings growing under LED lights, in plastic pots set respectively in a heavy-duty seed tray and an old baking pan
You begin to think about seed-starting in December rather than in March because it’s always better to hit the ground running. This is especially true if you’re new to the process. If you wait until it’s seed-starting time to start gathering your equipment and figuring out how to make it all work—and you’re also trying to prep a garden for growing—you are going to be stressed out. Spend a little time this month considering your upcoming needs (maybe even put a few items on a gift list?) and then you’ll have plenty of time to get organized.
We have a great guide to seed-starting on the HGIC website. But no guide can cover everything, and I generally find they don’t start with the absolute basics. The first question to ask isn’t “What kind of lights should I use?” or “What seeds should I start and when?” The first question is “How do I make this work in my own home?”
Location, Location, Location
Where should you set up your lights, and how much space do you need? I bet if you asked a bunch of gardeners (and their patient spouses) where seed-starting belongs, about 90% of them would say “the basement.” But of course some of us don’t have basements, and some basements are cold and damp, or are full of stuff, or are just not a place we like going. If you have a pleasant finished basement, with heating, that is not constantly occupied by teens playing video games, it may be the ideal space. But don’t begin with that assumption.
Here are some needs of a seed-starting spot to consider:
Comfortable temperature. Whatever level of heat you prefer to live in is probably fine for young plants, but you really don’t want to force them to grow in the cold. There are ways to warm them up, but why not give them what they need to begin with? Chilly basements are for storing root vegetables and wine, not for persuading tomatoes to germinate.
Access to electrical outlets. Gotta plug in those lights. Make sure you’re not going to trip a circuit breaker. Or trip over too many extension cords.
Access to water. It’s good to have a sink nearby so you don’t have to carry water too far. Also handy for washing pots and seed flats.
In sight, in mind. The more often you look at your plants, the more likely you are to catch small problems before they become large ones. Don’t hide them away in the most inaccessible corner.
Enough space. I advise beginning seed-starters to start small, but of course you’re not going to take that advice. (I mean, I didn’t.) Read the sections about lights and furniture below while you’re considering, and try not to plan for more plants than you can fit in your garden. But do remember that plants seeded into small cells may need to be transplanted into larger pots before going into the ground. Better to grab all the space you can for this project even if you don’t think you’ll use it all. You will never have enough, mwhahaha.
Protection from small friends. Make sure your seedlings aren’t going to be uprooted by curious toddlers, or chewed on by pets (you should see the elaborate fence I use to keep my cat from eating my pepper plants), or chewed on by animals that are not pets.
Protection from annoyed spouses or others who share your home. The lights will be on for at least 16 hours a day. This may or may not coincide with everyone’s sleep schedule.
There. Whatever room you are now picturing, that is the room you are going to use. Think outside the basement. You can make it work.
Plants Are Furniture
Seed-starting trays do not float in mid-air, so you’ll need something to support them. In the basement, this might be an ugly utility shelf; in the living room, you’ll want something a little more attractive. There are about a million ways to set up your growing space, and if you want to spend money, there are plenty of companies ready to sell you an entire growing system. But you can assemble the components yourself for much less. I recommend a wire shelving unit in a color that works with your décor. Or maybe you already have shelves or counters that will be perfect. Just remember three things:
You need to be able to hang (or otherwise install) lights above the plants, and they need to hang from somewhere (this is why wire shelves are great).
The distance between a light and the top of a plant should be approximately two inches. Plants will start tiny and may reach a foot tall before you scurry in a panic to find another place to put them until it’s warm enough to plant them outside. This means that either the lights need to be adjustable or the plants need to be raised up by sitting on something when they’re small. It also means the shelves need to be an appropriate distance apart (but not necessarily all the same distance; remember you can shift trays around depending on stage of growth).
Everything must be waterproof. I probably should have put this into the location section, but I didn’t want to scare you. You can put down very tasteful plastic sheeting.
Get the best lights you can afford. If you decide to give up seed-starting later on (but give it at least two years!), you can always sell them. I have switched to T5s for half of my seed-starting arrangements, and they make a huge difference in size and growth rate of seedlings.
LEDs are another possibility that is growing in popularity and availability. You don’t need the fancy blue and red ones for starting seedlings (those are for growing pot plants that need to flower); you can get white LED shoplights, which are slim and nice-looking and will do fine in the living room. They are pretty bright, so add “where they won’t shine in my eyes” to the location criteria. This is the best explanation I could find of why and how to choose LEDs.
One of the reasons I bought my LED shoplights is that they are three feet long and thus fit my three-foot wire shelving unit. Trying to make four-foot lights fit a three-foot shelf is a geometric challenge. Same with two-foot lights, which I also acquired some of along the way.
Buy a timer (the kind you use with lamps to fool burglars into thinking you’re not on vacation) and figure out how it works before you need it. Sixteen hours a day is minimum for healthy seedlings.
Other items for your list: a power strip, and hooks and chains to hang the lights as needed.
If you want even more detailed information about growing under lights, this podcast episode is useful.
Wire shelving unit with hanging lights. This was in the geometric challenge days, fitting four-foot and two-foot lights into a three-foot shelf.
Buy More Takeout
You will need to start your plants in something. More on that in a later post, but for now you might want to be saving your plastic takeout containers (rectangular is more efficient than round), yogurt pots, and salad clamshells. Or you can browse some good garden supply catalogs and websites to see what’s available. It may be possible to get away from plastic altogether (I’m trying) but not in a cheap or practical way yet, so focus on reuse and/or durability. Hint: if you feel you might be committed to this hobby, and you want standard-size seed-starting trays (usually 10”x20”), find the heavy-duty plastic ones that will last decades with care, rather than the cheap kind that crack after a couple of years of use. I asked for the former as a Christmas gift a few years ago (much better than perfume!). But I also know exactly how many pots of all the different volumes fit into a black rectangle that once held moo shu pork. Mini-trays like that also arrange themselves more flexibly under lights than large trays.
Seedling pots nestled into plastic takeout containers and styrofoam mushroom containers
Let’s pick this discussion up in January! Meanwhile, start browsing those seed catalogs.
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
With the first frost of autumn hitting many areas of Maryland, this is a good time to think about cleaning up your vegetable garden, if you haven’t already done so! Below are some hints to getting this job done efficiently and well, and some distinctions between the vegetable garden and the rest of your yard to keep in mind.
First, maybe you still have seasonally-appropriate plants growing – in which case, congratulations! Whether they are cover crops or cool-season vegetables, keep them watered as needed and remove weeds. We’re past the point where you have to worry about most insect pests, so the lightweight summer row covers can come off the brassicas, but you may want to replace them with heavier row covers to keep the plants a bit warmer and protect them from wind. You’ll have less frost damage that way, and can keep your veggies alive longer into the winter.
Summer vegetables, however, are toast. In some recent years we haven’t had frost until later in November, and I’ve seen lots of gardeners keep tomatoes and peppers growing up to Thanksgiving. My attitude is, why bother? You may still get some produce, but the quality and flavor will not be great, and then you’ll have to do cleanup when it’s really cold. Just pull the plug. Of course I have a small garden, and if I want to plant any fall veggies, the summer ones must vacate as soon as they start to go downhill. Your mileage may vary. But it doesn’t seem worthwhile to keep a sorry plant alive for just a couple of cherry tomatoes or a wizened paprika.
So, the first step is getting old plant material out. But wait, you say – didn’t I hear that we should leave plants in the ground until spring for overwintering insects? Sure, but not in the vegetable garden. Here are two good reasons why. First, when you leave perennial plants standing in your landscape so insects can find shelter inside their stems, you commit to waiting until the weather warms in late spring to remove the dead material. That’s going to be too late for vegetable planting in many cases, especially if you rotate crops and are planning to put a spring crop where your summer veggies grew this year. There’s a big difference between a landscape of perennial flowers and an ever-changing garden of annual vegetables.
Secondly, many vegetable plants are great disease hosts. Think about it – if tomatoes and squash didn’t produce delicious food, we’d probably banish them because of how awful they end up looking and how many fungi, bacteria and viruses they spread. The longer that diseased plant material stays in the soil, the more parts drop off and bury themselves, and in some cases that disease lives on until the next year, ready to infect a new host. Ideally you should remove sick plants, or at least the affected parts, as soon as they show disease. This is really hard to do in the middle of the growing and harvesting season, but if you haven’t caught up, at least do it now.
In general, diseased plant material shouldn’t go into home compost. Some fungal diseases will be killed by thorough hot composting, so if you’re rigorous you can take the chance, or else put it on the curb and let your municipal composting do the job. Consult our vegetable diseases pages for information about each type of infection – in some cases, you should just put the plant material in the trash. If you don’t know what infected your plant, it may be best to throw it out. If the plants have been healthy, you can shred and compost them, but remember to not add mature seeds to your compost. We’ve all had pumpkin vines and tomato plants emerge from our pile, and while it’s fun to have volunteers, remember that they may be cross-pollinated and unpredictable in what they’ll produce. Also, don’t add weeds that have gone to seed, or ones that have big roots.
Rake up the surface of your beds; get all that plant debris out. Then, the final step to putting the garden to sleep is covering the soil. If you haven’t planted cover crops, use some kind of organic material to keep the soil from erosion and sprouting weeds. You’ll be surprised how many weeds will cover those beds by spring! Many “winter weeds” have thousands of seeds to spread after they go to flower, so while the bees may appreciate the early snack they provide, you will not. Covering soil also helps to protect the beneficial microorganisms and other critters that inhabit it.
Fall is a great time to add compost to your garden beds, and if the compost is really finished its breaking-down process, it can be used by itself as a mulch. However, it’s probably better to protect it and limit its potential as a weed bed by covering it with other organic materials. Leaves, shredded or un-, are a great option, if you have them around. It’s less important to shred leaves for vegetable garden mulch than for perennial beds; it doesn’t matter that whole leaves mat down and stop young plants from getting through, because you’re going to remove them before planting anyway. Sometimes whole leaves blow away, though, so it’s your choice. Straw is another great option, either from a bale (make sure it’s straw and not hay, to limit the number of grass seeds that will sprout), or in a product often known as “sticky straw” which stays in place better (the “tack” will go away in time and the straw will decay nicely). Don’t make the mistake I did and buy the straw rolls that are held together with netting! Those are meant as a temporary cover for new grass seed. I guess I’ll pull mine up in the spring and maybe I can use the netting to keep the rabbits out of my lettuce bed.
You can also cover beds with a few layers of newspaper and then put leaves or straw on top, if you’re particularly worried about weeds popping up. Whatever lightweight organic material you have will be great, or you can also use black plastic or a roll of weed barrier as a temporary cover if you have nothing else. Plastic keeps the rain away from your soil, however, and it wants the moisture. And when the mosquitoes emerge again, they will breed in the puddles where the plastic isn’t flat.
Finally, fall is a good time to repair fences and fix or add other permanent garden structures. Do it now and you won’t have to do a rush job in the spring.
Then have a nice cup of tea or cocoa and put your feet up!
By Erica Smith, Montgomery County Master Gardener. Read more posts by Erica.
