A quick guide to transplanting tomato seedlings

Alright.

Yes, it's been a while. Exhaustion had its way with me, but I'm fighting back! I thought I could probably just post a bunch of videos and photos of when I transplanted my tomato seedlings.

Now, I did this about one and a half weeks ago, or on May 15. That is about two weeks later than I usually would do this- but what can I say? Life is sometimes complicated.

In a normal year, my tomato plants would actually be in the ground already. This year, I was lamenting the fact that they weren't until yesterday. You know what happened yesterday, right? Northern Utah was plastered with tons of snow. Yes, on May 24, we had snow here.

So I was glad my tomato plants were not in the ground. They should be in the ground in about another week or two. That will be fine.

Anyway, I really like to keep costs down, so here's what I do for planting pots:



Once the pots are ready, you want to get a layer of dirt in there and pack it well, mainly so that the dirt doesn't just spill out the holes you just cut. Since I tend to have a lot of seedlings, I do this as an assembly line in order to be efficient.

Here's the simple process:



Next, you want to just start planting:



When everything is transplanted and placed back on the windowsill (or shelf, depending on where you are setting these), water them well. What does 'well' mean? You can water them so water comes out the bottom.

Then don't water them for a week-- or at least as long as it takes for the dirt to look quite dry. I've said this countless times, but I am happy to say it again: This wakes up your seedlings' roots.

Okay, so here are my tomatoes, all transplanted and arranged on May 15 (about 10 days ago):

And here they are today:

Not bad, eh?

Anyway, here is probably a good place to announce a revision to this blog's approach. Instead of trying what seems to be impossible at this point: a post every day, I will post stuff here on at least Tuesday and Friday.

See you Friday! I will share with you some of the things I've put in the ground and how I have protected our planting patches from our chickens.

The power of mulch

Two things that turn some folks off of gardening are weeds and insect pests. But fear no more! There is often a very simple, natural solution to both of these problems. I'll explain how choosing and using a good mulch will both control and eliminate problems with weeds and many pests. But first, what is mulch? Mulch is organic matter that has been broken down some. You often see it spread around the base of trees. It is not big chunks of bark, but is rather cuttings of plantlife of all kinds.

WEEDS
Mulch is a wonderful, natural way of controlling weeds. When you spread it on yourgarden, it keeps the soil cool and also helps keep your plants' roots cool. It also helps maintain the soil moist. As for weeds, mulch basically doesn't allow weeds to grow. It gives them no room and no sunlight. In essence, a good mulch will choke out weeds so that you don't have to break your back pulling them.

PESTS
But how can mulch deal with the pests that plague our plots? Firstly, having mulch around the base of your plants and on open ground has been shown to confuse pests. Slugs and snails have trouble navigating through mulch, and other pests find it hard to get through the mulch and at the roots of your plants.

Furthermore, if you choose a light colored mulch, like cedar or even straw, the sunlight will reflect off of it and bugs seem to hate that. It repels them in droves.

So now it comes to testimony. I have never once used any kind of pesticide or herbicide on my flower gardens. I got lucky in that I met an organic gardener early in my own gardening career. She taught me the value of good mulch. So I have used it and have only had the occasional problem with grass encroaching (I don't have much in the way of borders around my plots.). In essence, mulch is one of a gardener's best tools.

A little bit about slugs.

Slugs were once the bane of my gardening existence. They chewed on my corn plants, left gaping wounds in my squash leaves, and decimated an entire crop of peas. After ranting and sobbing, I asked around to find out what worked to keep out slugs. Here is what I learned and what I now use. And it works.

*Don't use salt. Yes, it is fun to watch the nasty beasties shrivel up, but salt is not actually good for the soil. So don't use it.

*Beer works. Yep. It is true. Get a shallow tub and either bury it or do something else to help the slugs get into the booze and leave the tubs out for a few days. When you go to check on them, you will find that slugs can be alcoholics too, but that they have drowned more than their worries in their beer.

*Egg shells. This is all around the best way to go. They are easy to gather and easy to use. Basically, just put your used egg shells back into the carton until the carton is empty of eggs and filled with cracked shells. Then set your carton outside for a week or so. Maybe put it in a shed or something. When the shells are dry, dump them in a trash bag and stomp them to bits. Now you basically have glass for slugs. Spread this stuff around the base of the big plants and at the edges of the beds of raised plots. Basically you are making a wall of shattered glass that will slash the slugs and snails to bits. A bit bloodthirsty? Yes. Are we willing to kill for our gardens? Absolutely.

Some other methods of slug control include using a special kind of slug-repellant soil and even hair clippings. But those are both too much work and the soil can be quite expensive. So just stick with egg shells.

When to transplant seedlings

Okay, so the time has come to discuss the transplanting of your little seedlings into larger pots. Doing this right will encourage your seedlings to grow larger and have their stems thicken. Your seedlings need this growth in order to be ready to go in the ground.

Now first, you are not too late if you haven't transplanted your little seedlings yet. You want to get them to the point of transplanting in the next week or so, however.

I just recently transplanted the pumpkin seedlings we have.

Here's what I started with:

One of those pots has 2 pumpkin seedlings and the other has three.

What are the red cups for you ask? They are my larger pots. They are just under 4 inches across and they are nice and deep. I call them perfect pots for seedlings that need to grow up and get ready to go in the ground. Here's how I prepare the cups for dirt and seedlings:

 I just used scissors to poke a couple of holes in the bottom in order to allow for drainage.

Notice also the bag of potting mix in the first picture.

It doesn't technically have potting mix in it. It has compost dirt mixed with regular soil in it. It's a handy bag.

I decided to do this inside because I could sit down and work at chest height, which makes my neck and back more happy then hunching over outside.

So with everything ready, step one was to put a little bit of dirt in the bottom of each new pot. Here:

There's not much dirt in there. Maybe an inch, with a little crater hollowed out in the middle.

Your next step is to remove the seedlings from their pots. If your seedlings have their roots tangled up, it's not a problem. Here's a video showing what you can do. Warning: this is of me so you have to be subjected to my face and voice now.




Now you want to get those seedlings planted firmly in their new pots. Here's a still image of the technique:

You hold the plant up straight in the pot with one hand and with the other hand you arrange soil around the stem. Notice how deep the plants are going in these pots. Here's a video with more detail:



So once you've got all of the dirt in there, just pack it firmly, being careful not to squeeze the seedling's stem. Then water until the water is coming out the bottom.

Then don't water for a few days. I'd say let the top couple of inches get pretty dry. This'll stimulate those roots. After that, water every few days and keep your seedlings in a nice sunny area.

Oh yeah. Be sure to have your assistant label the transplants to keep things straight.



Next time we'll transplant tomato seedlings.

Since it's Sunday

I'm going to post an article I wrote recently that provides a solid overview of organic gardening practices and principles.

Organic gardening can be broken into these areas: Soil, Plants and Nurturing.

SOIL
The basic idea of organic gardening is that chemicals that are harmful to the environment and potentially prejudicial to humans and animals are not used. So when you are preparing your soil, you basically just want to keep from using any chemical fertilizers.

Manure, that lovely waste product of equines and bovines, is the best fertilizer out there. What's more, you want to try to get manure from animals that have been fed on alfalfa, rather than on grain such as corn. This just yields better, more balanced manure.

You can get bagged steer manure from your local gardening center usually. When you've gotten some manure, the method of application is simple. Simply spread it over the top of your garden area. If you are doing container gardening, go ahead and put it on the top of the soil in the containers. You are looking for a layer of a couple inches of the manure.

With the manure spread out, you are ready to mix it in. So if your gardening area is small enough, do this by hand. Try to get about six inches down into the soil. What you do is dig down and then turn over each spadeful, breaking up the dirt clumps as you go. This will mix in the manure and loosen up the soil.

If your garden area is big, say larger than 75 square feet, you might want to use a roto-tiller. These are heavy-duty machines, but they save you time and do a good job.

Now you are ready to move to plants.

PLANTS
One of the hallmarks of organic gardening is the art and science of companion planting. This type of planting does three things: maintains soil/nutrient balance, encourages plants to support each other, and repels common garden pests.

First off, you can do as the American Indians did and plant corn, squash and beans together. Beans provide nitrogen and potassium to the soil, which corn needs since it is basically a grass. The tall, strong corn stalks provide poles for the beans to climb. The squash fills in spaces and shades the ground.

Another companion set is the tomato/pepper, onion and marigold set. If you plant your tomatoes and peppers with onions in amongst them and a border of marigolds, most common garden pests will keep away. Spiders will still show up, but these lovelies are wonderful because they eat bugs too!

The only other organic issue regarding your plants and their arrangement is the choice between organic seeds and non-organic. The truth is that organic is in the nurturing, not the seeds. So you can get any kind of plant you want and still raise an organic garden.

This is not to say that some organic seed and plant choices aren't worth it. If you can get heirloom seeds, your plants will actually provide seeds for each year's garden. This will not happen if you get regular old hybrid seeds and plants.

NURTURING
Your goal is to avoid all toxic pesticides and fertilizers. We say toxic because you can actually get mycelium (mushroom)-based pesticides that are in no way harmful to soil and animal (and human!) life.

As for fertilizer during the growing season, don't use Miracle-gro. Get another bag of manure or make a compost pile. Then, when the season is in full swing, spread the compost mulch or the manure around the base of your plants. Then just water as usual. The nutrients from these organic fertilizers will get the job done.

And that's pretty much it for this session of Organic Gardening. One final note about organic gardening is that it pays to be creative. Try new arrangements and experiment with lightweight row cloth to keep wicked pests away from your plants. For example, lightweight, water and sun permeable row cloth will keep quail from your lettuce and peas. So build a little framework and put some row cloth down. This is better than getting some nasty chemical that wards off quail.

No chickens today.

But I have a good reason: I was busy all day with work, helping someone move, and then an anniversary date. Yes, that's right, today is our 12th anniversary. Okay, by today, I mean April 30th. Because May 1st is not our anniversary-- that's my birthday.

So because I was busy all day, I still haven't taken the pictures I feel like I should use for my piece on the chickens. Thus, I will instead share some thoughts on basic organic weed control. This will apply to weed control in the garden

Weeds, contrary to many novice gardeners' belief, are not the bane of organic gardeners' existence. In truth, it's the bugs that really cause problems. But just as in the case with garden pests, there are some nice organic solutions to the weed problem which can help your garden flourish. These solutions can be broken down into two categories: prevention and elimination.

PREVENTION

The old adage of "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure" applies to weeds particularly well. Here are some of the more choice organic approaches to preventing weeds from growing in your beloved garden patch.

*Black plastic weed-blocker. This material is easy to come by at most nurseries and home improvement outlets. It is very simple. When you have your garden patch ready, with all of the manure or other organic materials tilled in and the soil well prepared, cover the patch completely with the black plastic weed-blocker. That's right, cover the whole patch.

When you're ready to put your seeds or seedlings into the ground, you can simply cut holes into the weed-blocker cloth for your plants to grow through. What's nice is that most of this cloth is porous enough to allow water to get through and keep the plants you want to grow fed. However, this writer has found that laying out soaker hose and then covering the patch with the cloth works best.

*Mulching. This approach is simple, but is not quite as reliable as the weed-blocker cloth. The intent is the same: to not allow the weeds to grow. However, arranging mulch around your plants and seeded areas simply doesn't work as well to block weeds. This is because the weed seeds that come from the trees or plants nearby can still work their way through the piles of mulch and establish themselves.

The benefit of using mulch, on the other hand, is that mulch is a nice organic material that fertilizes even while it is blocking weeds from growing.

*Soil cultivation. As you work the soil of your garden plot, you will naturally be helping it become healthier. You will also be eliminating any old established roots of weeds and grass that were already there. I know a woman who has been nurturing her garden plot for over twenty years. She has no problems whatsoever with weeds.

ELIMINATION

*Organic herbicides. There are several effective organic herbicides on the market today. These include AllDown, Xpress and Matran 2. These have been shown to be more effective on emerging weeds than on established weeds, but they can still help with established weeds.

But that's not all! Some organic gardeners have found that vinegar can be an effective herbicide as well. To try this out, use a sponge to apply your household vinegar onto the leaves of the weeds you want to kill. You can also try this with soap, but most soaps will not kill weeds.

*Manual destruction. In the desert, some folks use a portable propane torch to burn weeds out of their garden areas. This is effective and is also a permanent solution. If done carefully, this approach will do no damage to the garden plants you are nurturing.

Another manual approach to weeds is to simply pull them. In order to increase your ability to pull weeds easily and completely, water well the day before you are going to weed. This will soften the ground, making it easier to pull weeds. You can also use a hoe to cut down weeds en masse, although this will leave the roots in most cases. But as a quick fix to large amounts of young weeds, the hoe can't be beaten.

Ultimately, using organic approaches to killing weeds is a choice that each gardener has to make individually. What it comes down to is whether you are willing to do a little extra work to keep the soil of your garden properly balanced.

I know I said I'd discuss chickens

but I think it would be a better thing to talk about compost today. I will try to get to chickens tomorrow. I also hope to have a guest blogger in the next couple of days. Exciting!


So on to composting.


Garbage dumps smell. So do landfills. This is probably the case because these places are full of the rotting waste and detritus of thousands of people. If you’re looking for motivation to compost, you might try taking a walk around one of these blights on the landscape. Then it might also help to know that when most families start composting, the volume of garbage that they produce is reduced by about 30%.

So if you’re just hoping to reduce your impact on the environment, composting is a great way to go. But if you’re also looking for a cost-effective, relatively easy, and ultimately educational way to get great fertilizer and dirt, composting tops the list of things you can do.

Whether you live in a condo with no yard, a townhome with less than 100 square feet of lawn space, a house with a nice-sized back yard, or anything in between, you can compost. In other words, no matter what your living situation, you can compost. To learn about composting, you could Google ‘compost’ and quickly become overwhelmed by the myriad resources available. In doing this, you could also learn about thermophilic microorganisms, and mycorrhizae. But why would you complicate things when composting is actually an incredibly simple process?

See, the thing is that when plants grow, they take in carbon dioxide from the air and nutrients and water from the earth. Then when they die, they naturally decompose and return those elements and materials back to the earth. So the truth is that when we compost, we are simply taking part in a natural process that has been going on for millions of years. Thus, in order for us to be able to compost and take advantage of the multitudinous benefits of doing so, we just need to imitate nature.

There are plenty of methods and approaches to composting, but they can basically be summed up into two categories: closed container and piles.

Closed Container

Modern closed containers look essentially like barrels propped on their sides on a stand. These barrels have an opening through which organic materials, such as vegetable and garden leavings, are placed into the container. With that opening sealed closed, the barrel is rotated on its axis, combining old materials with the newer materials. These containers also have air vents.

Closed containers work well because they obey the three principles of good composting: stirring, air and shade. When you rotate the barrel, you stir the materials, thus eliminating noxious fumes that might build up under layers of inert plant material. Air is necessary because it helps the plant material break down. Shade keeps things from drying out, which is necessary because moisture also enables the process of decomposition.

Barrel composters come in a variety of sizes. The urban composter who specializes in indoor or container gardening can actually get a composter that they can put on their kitchen counter. Usually coming in an attractive shade of green, these small composters, if used correctly, will keep even the most sensitive of noses happy.

You can also find container composters that vary in size from four feet to six feet tall. Some of these composters are designed to create a wonderful organic tea that is full of nutrients. This type of composter works in much the same way as other container composters, but they have a way for the fluids that are produced through the process of decomposition to seep out and get caught in a tray. Some of these composters can hold up to four gallons of nutrient-filled liquid.

Make a pile

If you’ve got some space in your yard, making a compost pile can be the easiest and most straightforward way to get your compost going. To make a compost pile, you need to find a relatively shady area in your yard. If you can find a shady spot that also gets hit by your regular lawn watering, you will be in business.

With your compost spot chosen, all you need to do now is collect your grass and leaves, as well as your organic kitchen waste and then deposit all of this on your spot. You can even add egg shells and bread leavings to this pile. Then keep it moist. Wait two weeks before doing anything, making sure you are consistent with adding organic materials to the pile.

After two weeks, use a pitchfork to turn the pile over. Your objective here is two-fold: get air into the pile and move the top layers to the middle of the pile. You should, after these first two weeks, have some nicely decomposing organic material that is black and moist-looking. If you have kept your compost pile wet, you should also see quite a few healthy worms in your pile as you turn it over. Worms are your friends; they help break down the organic material into delicious dirt for your garden.

Your compost pile doesn’t need to cover much ground, and this can be helped if you put a containing frame around it. This can be done using 1”x6” boards as retaining walls. Of course, if you really want to make a fancy compost, and you have plenty of space, you can use the increasingly popular three-tiered system. 

Here's a helpful image: 

This system utilizes three different sections, numbered 1, 2 and 3. Number 1 is the farthest to the right, where you place your fresh organic waste. If you keep it all wet, in two to three weeks you can turn the material in number 1 over into number 2. Then a few weeks later you can move the fully decomposed material into number 3 by sifting it through a wire mesh. The compost waits in number 3 for you to put it to use. 

Notice in the first picture that there is a shelf-looking thing across the top of #3, but in the next image it is across #2. It is hinged. When you sift material through it into #3, big chunks are often left behind. Simply swing the mesh shelf over to #2 to dump the chunks back. 

You might be intrigued by the three-tiered system, and this is fine. But all you really need to remember if you want to start composting is that anyone can do it. Whether you use a low-cost container composter in your home, a large barrel in your backyard or a compost pile, you will be able to reap the myriad benefits of making your own compost.

Progress report on the lawn

Okay. Part of having a provident garden is being aware of the earth, soil, elements and everything else that might be a part of the ecosystem we are working in. This planet is providing us with the food and other necessities that we have and it is sheer selfish ignorance to not think to the future as we work today.

This is about stewardship, not global warming, so back off Mr. Gore.

I mention this because you might be tempted to call a lawn care company to come in and kill all of the weeds in your garden. Or you might be tempted to get a few packages of chemicals with which to kill weeds and fertilize your lawn.

I believe that we are better stewards when we use the principles of nature to make our lawns look lovely. A lovely lawn is also healthy for us-- it produces loads of oxygen. In fact, a lawn that is 50 feet by 50 feet produces enough oxygen for a family of four. Grass is a very efficient producer of oxygen due to the fact that a plant produces oxygen based on how much of the plant is green. So for a tree, it is the green leaves that do the delicious deed while the trunk does not. For grass, it is the entire blade that makes oxygen.

All of this while reducing carbon dioxide and other bad gases.

I'm not saying grass is better than a tree or two, but healthy, thick, lush grass is very good for your family--better than patchy, struggling grass. And adding chemicals to make a lawn healthier is essentially an oxymoron-- add toxic stuff to reduce toxic stuff.

Meh.

So all this is said to encourage organic and chemical-free lawn care as you make your yard yummy.

Behold:

and behold again:

If you compare this to two weeks previous, before I de-thatched, mowed, reseeded and watered regularly:

...you can see that there is some improvement. Yes, the light is different, but the grass is already a little thicker and has a more vibrant color.

Look at the detail. Here is the before detail shot:

and here is the one from two weeks later:

See how the brown patches are disappearing and how the grass is thickening?

No chemicals.

Remember that I first raked this-- which was plenty of work, don't get me wrong.

But remember that I had this assistant:

... so it was made better by how charming little Mr. B. can be.

After raking, I mowed to pick up more debris and get the soil more ready. Then I reseeded with straight seed-- no additives. Since then, I have kept the soil moist by watering a little in the morning and a little in the evening. We also had some rain-which helped.

I won't mow for at least one more week. That will give the seed time to sprout and establish itself better.

I feel great when I see my improving lawn. I feel a deep sense of satisfaction that I have wrought this lovely work of art in partnership with nature-- not opposing it with chemicals and the like. I feel more connected to the earth and the world around me when I water my lawn, standing in the presence of the Wasatch Mountains.

I even get to say hi to the multitude of joggers that pass by while I'm out front.

Provo is replete with joggers. One morning, during my ride to work- which is about a 2 mile, fifteen minute bike ride up a lame hill- I counted over twenty joggers.

Tomorrow, we will talk sustenance. Real sustenance from this land. Specifically: chickens and fruit trees.

Remember to share with your friends, family and enemies!