I have some shocking news: I am not perfect. I’m seriously chagrined to admit that, although I’ve been nurturing my tiny seedlings since January and have dived into the minutiae of seed-warming mats, the best seed-starting mediums, light timing, and seed varieties, I have made a serious and sophomoric error: Until last week, I did not give these poor little guys even a single drop of plant food.

In the past, I used Miracle Grow seed-starting medium, and that comes with built-in plant-food. Recently, though, I’ve become uncomfortable with this product, especially with starting plants that will eventually become food. So this year, I switched to sterile seed-starting medium, but that means my plants have essentially been starving for the past three plus months.

I had noticed in the past few weeks that the tomatoes were looking a bit purplish. I wondered about whether my lights were not full-spectrum enough to be the sole source of light for the plants. Then I wondered if I was shocking them with water that was too cold. When it came time to give a Zapotec seedling to a fellow heirloom tomato junkie, it finally dawned on me (as I drove to deliver the poor little seedling) that these plants needed food.

That night, with no garden centers open for business, I rustled up some Bonsai food and fed the poor little plants. They are already perking up, and now I have a seaweed/fish emulsion cocktail to feed the seedlings going forward. Looks like they’ll need a little feeding every week and a half or so to keep the “purple” ting to the leaves (phosphorous deficiency), or a yellow cast to the leaves coupled with green veining, and/or slow growth (nitrogen deficiency).

…As I strolled through the Farmer’s Market this morning and watched people in a near-frenzy of tender plant buying, I was reminded of why I chose the title that I did for my most recent gardening article, which appeared in the Rocky Mountain News on April 17: Beware of frost till mid-May. Even I, who religiously plant my tomatoes and peppers in Wall-o-Waters each spring, am only planning to get them out today and plant in them next week. Sure, I’ve done it earlier in past years but something about our recent freak snowstorms after 80 degree days has made me cautious.

Sure, get out and enjoy the warm weather. Even plant some lettuces and some hardy perennials. But keep the tomatoes, petunias, marigolds, and other tender plants indoors where belong for at least another week or so. I know it’s hard to wait (trust me!), but it’s better than the heartbreak of replanting after the next freak storm. Oh yes, there will be at least one more, and it may, as it has in other years, bring not just snow, but hail, freezing rain, or damaging winds….Beware the Ides of May (at least, that’s what they should have said, had they known about May in Colorado).

I had the pleasure of manning the Master Gardener booth at the Lyons Earth Day celebration this weekend and wanted to share a few pointers on sustainable gardening from my handout.

What is Sustainable?

Like zero-emissions, “green,” and zero-footprint, this is yet another term that, while an excellent goal, is not truly attainable on a large scale in Western society. Sustainable means living (and gardening) in a way that does not use more resources than are available per capita. Sure, we may have enough water, oil, and land now, but if we keep consuming at the rate we are at present, our children will not.

So sustainability takes into account environmental impact, as well as social and economic equity (it is not sustainable, for example, to rely on cheap labor coming up from Mexico to keep food prices down!). Water-wise irrigation, natural soil amendments, well-chosen plant varieties, Integrative Pest Management, and reducing inputs (chemical fertilizers, pesticides, trucked-in soil amendments, water, energy), are all a part of sustainable gardening.

Find Local Resources

The best people to talk to about sustainable gardening are other people who are gardening in your particular climate. What is sustainable here in Colorado may not be in Florida, Canada, or England, and the reverse is certainly true! We are truly blessed to live in a place where the environment is a part of the public dialog, but even if you’re in a place where that’s not the case, you can still find information from the local Sierra Club chapter, Cooperative Extension, or garden center to help you on your way.

I’d like to give a special shout-out to some of the folks who also had booths or information at our Earth Day Celebration. You all truly inspired me to do more!

• Urban Oasis Design - This family-run landscaping business does more than add beauty to your landscape. They really think about issues around water-wise gardening, sustainable landscape, and sustainable maintenance. If you need some help transferring a giant blue grass lawn to something a bit more manageable, give David & Lina a call (and tell them I sent you!).
• Boulder County Going Local - These folks might appreciate a little linky love to make up for the emails I keep peppering them with about getting the blogosphere more involved in the local food movement. This organization is a treasure-trove for people who want to grow local, buy local, and eat local!
• Green Heart Institute - After a delightful conversation about the challenges of choosing a greener car, I was able to discuss energy audits and improving home energy efficiency with the people from this organization that can help you live greener! Think about getting that energy audit and supporting this fantastic grass-roots organization.
• Will Shafroth - OK, I know it’s early to jump into the election fray, especially at the Congressional level (Colorado’s primary for this race isn’t even until August, so people are still getting signatures to get on the ballot), but I met a truly remarkable man who is running to fill Mark Udall’s seat in the House of Representatives: Will Shafroth. This is a man who has dedicated his life to conservation, a normal guy from Boulder with two kids and a dream of making the world a cleaner, greener place for his children. He has an uphill battle against some pretty well established career politicians, but I think he can do it!

And of course, I’ve plugged them before and I will plug them again: Colorado State’s Cooperative Extension information is truly amazing.

What else can I do?

The Earth Day committee specifically asked for someone with knowledge of xeriscaping, sustainable landscaping, and composting. This gives you a pretty good idea of some things to consider to make your garden a little more green

I’ve already blogged with a good step-by-step on composting–the fine art of turning food scraps and yard waste into soil–so please take a look. And there is some more technical information available in Fact Sheets 7.212 and 7.007 on the Cooperative Extension web site.

And Xeriscaping is something hugely popular here in Colorado, where the term originated. This is a proven technique for making your yard more water & maintenance efficient using the following seven principles:

1. Planning & Design
2. Soil Improvements (see composting above!)
3. Efficient Irrigation
4. Zoning of Plants
5. Mulches
6. Turf Alternatives
7. Appropriate Maintenance

Denver Water’s page on Xeriscaping is an excellent resource if you’d like to learn more. Also check back here for my adventures in starting seeds of quite a few native (and therefore, by nature, drought tolerant) plants.

Happy Earth Day. Now quit surfing the web and get outside!

I recently gave a talk at my local API chapter’s monthly meeting about adapting your hobbies for children. The main examples from my talk were all about gardening since that’s my number one hobby (obsession!), so I decided I ought to turn this into a post.

Both of my children started gardening in utero. I know that sounds crazy, but I seriously encouraged the progression of labor from periodic contractions to hard labor by going out to pick asparagus (i.e. lots of squatting!) about 14 hours before Lily was born. And I renovated our entire back yard during my first two trimesters of pregnancy with Gabriel. I remember planting the last shrub about a nanosecond before I was too big to wield a shovel, thank you very much!

Anyhow, Gabriel was at least big enough at 8 months to sit in the grass and watch me work or sit in the sling for a closer view by the time gardening season rolled around and the following year, he was big enough to drop onion starts and pea seeds into holes I’d made and to help me water a bit. This season, Lily joins our growing gardening crew at the energetic, if slightly destructive, age of 23 months.

So how do you garden with children? The first maxim I mentioned in my talk was scaling back your expectations. The kids are going to trample your flowers occasionally, are going to over or underwater, and are notorious for pulling out row markers or, as I learned the hard way, digging up your onions without your knowledge, leaving them to sprout in wild patterns instead of neat rows!

Let children participate in less complicated tasks so they’re more likely to leave you alone to complete the more complicated ones and either fence off delicate areas (like the rose garden or a place where you have delicate seedlings starting) to avoid disasters. Keep in mind that children do not know the different between weeds and seedlings, so if you have them help you weed (or even if they see you weeding), they may be inclined to copy you with disastrous results.

Repeat the activities that you do want your child to be involved in often so that the child knows what to expect & can master the task. This works especially well with tasks like watering where even a three year old can figure out how to water each and every plant and how to water gently so as not to blast new growth.

And finally, come up with something the child can do in parallel if you need less “help”! My children love spreading mulch, so I have them work with their little shovels and wheelbarrows while I do things like weeding and pruning that they can’t help me with. The whole point of including your child in your gardening hobby it to connect with them and to have fun–if it’s not fun, make a change!

What to plant?

I’ve already mentioned peas and onions, but there are other very easy garden vegetables that will delight your children. Herbs are great because the children can smell them and because they won’t hurt the child if he or she takes a nibble. Vegetables like pumpkins, zucchini, or watermelon are nice because they sprout quickly and grow nice big vegetables that, unlike a tomato or a pepper, cannot easily get damaged by tiny hands.

Before starting a garden project with your children, please do review CSU’s list of toxic plants. Some very common flowers are highly toxic: http://www.ext.colostate.edu/Pubs/Garden/07237.html  This is not an all-inclusive list, so please do contact Poison Control if you have a specific question.

Additional Resources

How to Amuse Toddlers - http://www.instructables.com/id/How-to-Amuse-Toddlers/
Craft & Activity Library - http://www.creativekidsathome.com/activities.shtml
Cooking with Kids - http://www.cookingwithkids.com/
Gardening with Children - http://coopext.colostate.edu/4dmg/Children/children.htm
Gardening with Young Children - http://www.gardening-with-kids.com/gardening-with-kids-beginner.html

Two weeks ago, I posted about starting asparagus from seed. The few resources I found on the matter varied significantly on germination time, so I promised to post here when I knew some more from first-hand experience. I have to say, even with my careful variety selection, seed-warming mat, and meticulous watering (no way were my asparagus seeds going to fall victim to my habit of selecting plants for drought tolerance!), I was totally shocked pleasantly surprised when I walked downstairs to water on Wednesday, a mere 10 days after planting the seed, and found 11 asparagus seedlings.

Although it is early to calculate germination rate (I’m only about halfway into some estimates of germination time, but I had 13% germination at 10 days and now, at 15 days, I’m at 28.5%), I’m feeling very positive about the process. I have to say that I had two trays, one of which had some faster-germinating seed in it, so I had to remove the humidity lid, and that did negatively impact germination. So heat & humidity seem to be the keys here.

For those of you who might scoff at my germination rates, keep in mind that, in addition to oodles of vegetables, I’m starting tons of native plants for my landscape, some of which, like Lewisia (bitterroot), have a germination rate that would be lucky to approach sales tax (4% on the Lewisia meant I got one seedling out of a packet of spendy seeds from Denver Botanic Gardens and I only approached 12.5% on the desert four o’clock). So it’s all relative. I won’t deny that, compared to zucchini, growing asparagus from seed is a fiddly affair. But it is fun if you’re a garden geek like me!

In other news, the stone was delivered for my raised vegetable beds this morning and, if the weather holds, they’ll be finished this week. That means that the plants I have stuffed into every corner of my seed-starting rack (the tender ones) and covering a good portion of my patio (the hardier ones–peas, leeks, sweet peas, lettuces, asparagus crowns, strawberries, a chunk of rhubarb I brought over from our old house, and the rest of the fruit trees that need to be planted where the two–noticably-smaller–piles of mulch are sitting) may actually get out of their pots and into the ground this weekend. It’s official–my fingernails won’t be clean again until October

Elements in Time has posted her own personal experience with her kitty getting poisoned by pesticides and I think you should read it. She follows up her story with a lot of good resources, as well as all the reasons we shouldn’t use pesticides in the yard. I echo everything she says and can vouch for the fact that you can indeed have a healthy, beautiful and productive garden without using a single poison to maintain it.

Every January I am faced not only with some of the coldest temperatures of the Colorado winter, but with reconciling the insane bounty depicted in the influx of gardening catalogs with the bleak brown garden outside. This year is especially tough because I didn’t get to garden all last season due to a mid-summer move.

Thanks to my wonderful husband, however, I am happily gardening indoors this January. He built me a 4-shelf plant rack, the design of which he adapted from Hammer Zone. Using a few shop lights, a power strip, and a timer we used to use to turn the Christmas tree lights on and off, we now have a rack big enough to grow 16 flats of plants indoors. The shop lights are on chains so that I can raise and lower them as the plants grow and I have the lights set to run 16 hours a day.

Within a week, I had spinach, various lettuces, and kale sprouted and within two weeks the basil, chives, tomatoes, cilantro, parsley, watercress, and sorrel had sprouted too. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not going to try to grow tomatoes all the way to harvest indoors (OK, I may try, but I doubt I’ll succeed unless I upgrade my setup a bit), but by starting a few of the earlier varieties now (I started a 4-pack of Romas & a 4-pack of Yellow Pears) and planting them out early in my beloved Wall-o-Waters, I hope to have a particularly early tomato harvest.

I’m guessing we’ll be eating baby greens before St. Patrick’s Day, which is when my outdoor gardening season usually kicks off with a massive planting of peas and spinach. The most expensive part of this setup was the shop lights & bulbs–the wood was literally $40, the potting soil is about $5 a bag, all those seeds were about $20, and I had seed-starting flats on hand.

One thing I’m going to do differently with the next batch of seeds that I start is I’m going to try to replace the usual bleach wash-down the Cooperative Extension recommends to combat damping-off with a hydrogen peroxide rinse. I had forgotten how bad bleach smells since I rarely use it anymore and I couldn’t get the smell off my hands (or my garage floor where the wash-down took place) for what seemed like days! Has anyone out there tried this?