Category: Seeds

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The big freeze: an outdoor stratification event?

Supposed to be really cold (with highs not above freezing) later this week, so I figured I should get my lately acquired native and wildflower seeds in the ground. These included desert globemallow, blue flax, Liatris mucronata, and mystery Aster sp. (the latter two from Mom, thanks Mom!!). The first three I also put some seeds in the fridge for manual stratification and the first two I saved a bit to try planting in the fall if the spring planting doesn’t take.

I also had a few indoor seedings to catch up on. Judy kindly sent me some Chimayo chile pepper seeds, my Jimmy Nardello peppers never sprouted, my ground cherries only had two sprouts, and the poor Tommy Toe tomatoes died of cat and damping off.

Seeds before I put their 1/4″ dirt on them.
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Spring planting! It’s going to freeze next week!

Paula and I were going to plant things tomorrow, but it’s looking quite chilly. It’s just gorgeous out right now. So we spent a half an hour or so and got two kinds of onions (yellow granex and white granex) from sets in the beds, two kinds of potatoes in containers (experimenting with burlap sacks, potting soil bag, and cardboard boxes to make hilling them easier to get more potatoes), and seeds of French breakfast radish, green wave mustard, and Oregon sugar pod II pea. The peas we already have a few little vines of but I figured another round wouldn’t hurt to replace some since they blanch and freeze well if we get a lot.

White granex onions with some moss curled parsley from last year.
Yellow granex bulb onions with some cabbage and chard from last year.
Paula had the excellent idea to show the Yukon gold potato (burlap sacks/top) and Kennebec white potato (box and plastic bag) with their planters. We’re having a big freeze forecast for next week, so I only used half of the seed potatoes in case these die. (Also, I ran out of containers for now.) I am putting potatoes in containers to make them easier to hill dirt around, and also because crop rotation when all you plant is Solanaceae is very challenging.
Briar says it was good sleepy sunshine to supervise in. She was pleased.
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Learning about the best parsnip planting times – February week 1

Last time on parsnip news you can use: “My parsnips (“Harris model”) said on the package I could do either spring or fall planting. While researching whether this was true for Oklahoma, I came across a useful post on an Oklahoma gardening forum (expand the featured answer by “macmex” who is located north and east of us, in Talehquah in northeastern Oklahoma) It sounds like you CAN plant them in fall, but as a biennial, they may flower (“bolt”) in the spring before the roots are big enough to be useful. So, we’ll see what happens with my fall-planted ones, but I have just put out a row of them today and I will put out another row each week until the third week of February and see what happens to those.”

Parsnip seeds before burying. I put a lot because they go bad quickly and thus I might have low germination from these 2019 seeds.
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Plant window ventilation

No more cases of damping off since Wes has added the fan for me. Many plants were ready for watering! So I think the fan is helping dry things out.

The plant window has some permanent residents like various succulents and a venus flytrap, but is mostly full of young plants right now.
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Airflow to prevent damping off?

Wes rigged up a small fan with power supply to pull air through the plant window. Fingers crossed it works! There’s always taking the baby plants in and out each day for sunshine but I’d really rather not. Because I’m lazy.

The small fan. You can see the plexiglass gap there and a larger gap is at the top, which you can see in the next picture.
The cause of all this nonsense (Gram the cat) walks by the clamp I need to put back up to hold the plexiglass in place. Briar supervises.
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Damping off fungus attacks

Well we are having some damping off fungus in the plant window.  Lost the only surviving tommy toe tomato seedling and a lot of onion seedlings are falling over. I had hoped we left enough air circulation despite our cat blocking plexiglass but apparently not. The chef is looking into tiny fans to put there. I’ll have to start another tommy toe too.

Onion seedlings falling over from damping off, which is caused in seedlings ny overwatering. I set them outside in hopes that some might make it.
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Anybody need any loofah gourd seeds?

Wes and Paula cleaned off last year’s loofah gourd harvest. We have almost two pounds of seeds. That is almost a kilogram for our science readers. Wes was annoyed we did not get tare for the bag but it’s a very light bag, and I didn’t want seeds everywhere. Let me know if you want seeds. We might be able to supply you…

Wes has some sort of plan for the loofahs themselves. There is a whole rubbermaid tub full of those. This is from maybe half a dozen plants.

Loofah gourd seed weight in pounds and ounces.
Loofah gourd seed weight in science units.
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Learning about the best parsnip planting times

My parsnips (“Harris model”) said on the package I could do either spring or fall planting. While researching whether this was true for Oklahoma, I came across a useful post on an Oklahoma gardening forum (expand the featured answer by “macmex” who is located north and east of us, in Talehquah in northeastern Oklahoma) It sounds like you CAN plant them in fall, but as a biennial, they may flower (“bolt”) in the spring before the roots are big enough to be useful. So, we’ll see what happens with my fall-planted ones, but I have just put out a row of them today and I will put out another row each week until the third week of February and see what happens to those.

I also read everywhere about parsnip seeds that they do not keep well. Mine are going on two years old now so I put a lot out to make up for potentially poor germination rates.

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Trimming the onion shoots for root growth

I read recently (but can’t for the life of me remember which book) that when sprouting onion seeds, you should trim them to promote more root growth. I did this to half of my sprouts. This will make sure it doesn’t kill them first. If these turn out okay I’ll do the other half.

Supervisor Briar is not concerned about onion haircuts. I put them back in the plant window after their trim.