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March News: Plus - Growing your Own Seedlings

A patchwork of seedlings growing in our shop under lights

A patchwork of seedlings growing in our shop under lights

 Longer days and warmer temps signal Spring is just around the corner - don’t forget to Spring Forward this weekend!  Flint is busy with seedlings growing under lights in our heated shop. So far we have pansies, rosemary, lavender, kale, and greenhouse tomatoes for grafting.  Soon we'll outgrow the shop space and start heating our seedling greenhouse. Once we make the move, our work steps into high gear and we fasten our seatbelts and prepare for takeoff!  Over just a few short months we fill three greenhouses with our seedlings for our annual Spring Seedling Sales,  three greenhouses with the tomatoes Flint is currently grafting,  and two unheated greenhouses with spring greens (the cilantro is already 2" tall)!  Cate Farm has our stellar crew returning to help out - we are very fortunate to have such great employees, who make all that we do possible.

    Last Fall's burdock root has now all been washed and shipped, and our remaining CBD hemp crop will be processed as sales necessitate.  Stay tuned for future newsletters about the CBD hemp experiments! 

    Interested in growing your own seedlings for your garden? We encourage you to do so, it is fun and rewarding. March is time to plant onions, leeks, peppers, various herbs & flowers, among others.  For more information on growing your own seedlings, and growing the best possible garden, check out our Growing Tips

 

Professional Gardening Tip: Growing your own Seedlings

 
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   The word 'Stupendous' barely serves to describe the wonder of nature's seeds - to think that a seed the size of a pinhead contains all the genetic information to turn into a 6 lb. head of cabbage, or a head of broccoli, or a 10 foot tall tomato plant!  Crazier still, some seeds can sense long-red light wavelengths and they determine whether or not it is a good time to germinate based on the presence or lack of this specific type of light. A dense canopy already established above the seed in the soil will trigger the seed to wait to germinate, but clear blue skies overhead give the seed the go ahead to get growing.  All this information in a tiny seed - go figure!

   This leads to my common refrain that Plants want to grow, we humans just need to set the stage so they can fulfill their genetic destiny.  Conditions such as adequate light, water, nutrition and a place to take root are imperative for success.  

   Select A Potting Mix: It’s important to start with a high quality potting mix.  Soil taken from the garden doesn't do so well in containers.  A more porous, less dense, well balanced potting mix like Vermont Compost Company's 'Fort V' works very well for us.  We have tried many mixes, and Fort V is a proven winner (and no, this is not sponsored content).     

  Before filling containers with potting mix it’s a good idea to moisten the mix with water.  The mix should be damp, but not sopping wet - if you squeeze a handful of moistened mix into a ball and water drips out, then that is a bit too much water. 

    Fill your Pots: Fill your containers (whether plastic, fiber or cardboard) to within 1/4" to 1/2" of the rim. This allows the plant plenty of growing medium and provides headspace for proper watering.  The soil/air interface of the potting mix is important because stale air at the base of the young seedling (from filling the container only half way) can foster 'damping off' organisms that can set back or kill seedlings.  We fill pots by scooping potting mix into them and lightly tamping the surface without “packing” them. Air movement around seedlings from fans can help prevent damping off as well.

    Watering: Watering is one of the hardest jobs in the greenhouse, a surprise to most people. The goal is to get water to the bottom of the container, without excess water (and the water soluble nutrients in your potting mix) flowing from the bottom. Too little water may keep the top half of the container moist, but the bottom half could be bone dry. 

   It is beneficial to keep the surface of the potting mix on the dry side to prevent damping off mentioned above. In practice, this means watering thoroughly and less frequently. Once seeds have germinated and emerged, water thoroughly every 2-3 days, depending on how sunny it is.  If seedlings are wilting, definitely water immediately.  

  For home gardeners, a good way to ensure thorough watering is to water your plants from below which allows your plants to absorb water through capillary action.  Simply pour a few inches of water into a small tray and place seedling on the tray.  Water will be absorbed through the drainage hole of the pot and siphoned upward through the soil to water your plants!  Once seedlings are damp it is important to dump any excess water in the trays and never let seedlings sit in standing water.  

     Light: Adequate lighting is also a key to success. Direct sunlight is ideal, but 12-14 hours of electric lighting works well this time of year. Ordinary cool white fluorescent bulbs, like 4' shop lights, perform fine; we have used them for nearly 40 years to start our first plants. The key to success is to lower the bulbs to within 2-3" above the plants to provide adequate light intensity. This light intensity keeps seedlings from stretching or getting 'leggy'. 

  Potting Up and Hardening Off: Good potting soils contain enough plant nutrients that there’s no need to add fertilization to your seedling.  Once plants outgrow their small pots, simply transfer them to larger pots with fresh potting mix. This should be sufficient until the seedling gets planted out into your garden.  Check out our tips about hardening off your seedlings for more information.

Does all this sound like a lot of work?  It is! Growing vegetables and flowers from seed takes time, patience and practice, but it also opens up all kinds of possibilities and it can be really exciting!  And hey, if you forget to grow those sungolds, or you find you need an extra zucchini, or you forgot to plant some perennials, don’t fret - we’ve got you covered.  

 Best of luck and success in your gardening  efforts!

The Team at Cate Farm 

February News: Plus - Storing Seed

Farm equipment covered in snow

Farm equipment covered in snow

Happy Winter! Snow covers the ground, and greenhouses idle in anticipation of Spring.  Farm work is less urgent, yet there is still plenty to accomplish before the rush of the coming growing season.  Greenhouse repair work and washing burdock root are saved for warmer days; but this reflective time of winter is also perfect for analyzing last growing season’s ups and downs, looking over seed catalogs, planning crops for the 2020 season and ordering seeds and supplies.  Grower conferences populate the calendar, farmer friendships are rekindled and of course we find time to take the dogs for a Nordic ski around our fields and woods.

   Flipping the calendar page to February makes Spring seem that much closer and real.  Flint repurposed the wood shop temporarily and has rosemary, greenhouse tomatoes, and other seedlings germinating under lights. The whole space will be packed with small plants until mid March, at which point we start heating our seedling greenhouse.  Before you know it, we’ll be swimming in seedlings!

Professional Farming tip- Storing  your leftover garden seeds:

Before each growing season, Cate Farm buys over 250 different varieties of seed!  That’s a lot of packets, and a bit of cash. Sometimes we buy more seed than we need for one season to get a bulk price break, but in general, we don’t want to run out of seeds just when we need to plant them on schedule.  It’s better to buy a few extra seeds than too few. Hence, we have lots of seed left over at the end of the growing season. 

    Most seeds will store for multiple years if kept cool and dry.  Each seed packet lists the germination percentage at the time of sale, usually 80% or better.  We keep seed packets in plastic bins in our 50-60F shop over the winter, in a shaded location. We keep very expensive seeds, like some fancy tomato varieties, in the freezer in a plastic bag, which is the best way to preserve seed viability.  The fridge works very well too, if seeds are sealed in a plastic bag (refrigerators tend to dehydrate). 

   Just a few vegetable seed types do not store for more than a year.  These include onions and parsnips. We will plant these types after a year of storage and see what happens, but because we can’t count on good germination we usually reserve them for our home garden. 

  Every winter we take physical inventory of our viable seeds and place our seed orders accordingly.  

Check Out this Seed Storage Guide from Johnny’s Seeds!

We hope you have a great garden!

The Team at Cate Farm