Gardening 101

September 30, 2005

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Fertilizing the Organic Way

Guest post by Niki Jabbour

The real secret to growing healthy plants is to feed the earth. If you wish to garden organically, you must begin by considering your soil and what you can do to improve its health, fertility and boost its organic matter. The ideal garden soil is dark in colour, smells a bit sweet and is loaded with earthworms.

Soil Amenders

By working soil amendments such as compost and manure into the garden and feeding plants with organic fertilizers you will build the soil and replenish spent nutrients.

Carla Isnor of Halifax Seed says that a garden can only benefit from a generous seasonal application of organic matter. “It’s important to continue to improve your soil every year. Always put some of your annual gardening budget into the soil. A garden has to be built from the ground up.”

Access to good quality compost is closer than you think. You can easily recycle your kitchen scraps, grass clippings and leaves by turning them into compost, black gold for the garden.

Compost may be created in a free-formed pile or enclosed in some type of container. Either way your composting area should be located in a sunny spot that is out of sight, but conveniently close to the house.

Still don’t have time to compost? This fall gather leaves in garbage bags, poking several holes in the top and bottom of the bags. Add a few shovelfuls of grass clippings, garden soil and a sprinkle of water. Shake the bags well and check every few weeks to see if they have dried out. If so, add a bit of water and shake again. Come spring, open the bags to find rich, dark leaf compost, a wonderful soil amendment or mulch.

Manure has been a traditional soil amendment for many years and should be composted prior to incorporating it into the garden. Fresh manure is very high in nitrogen and may burn your plants.

For the urban gardener bagged manure is convenient to transport and easy to apply. Composted cow and sheep manure are readily available at most garden centers and allow a relatively quick and mess-free application of organic matter to the garden. Many nurseries are also offering bags of mushroom compost, an excellent soil additive that is rich in organic matter and nutrients. For those of us close to the ocean, seaweed is an invaluable and inexpensive slow release soil amendment. It contains over 60 minerals and several plant hormones.

Seaweed is also rich in micronutrients such as iron, copper, boron and zinc. Add freshly rinsed seaweed to your composter or till it into the vegetable garden in the autumn.

Organic Fertilizers

When it comes to feeding your plants, organic fertilizers offer a slow, steady release of nutrients that are derived from plants, animals or natural minerals. Because they break down more slowly than synthetic fertilizers, organics usually only need to be added once or twice per season. They also are less likely to burn plants or leach into groundwater.

Bonemeal and Bloodmeal are perhaps the best known organic fertilizers and available at virtually every garden center and nursery. Bonemeal is a rich source of phosphorous and calcium and can be worked into the flower and vegetable gardens in the spring and fall. As it stimulates root growth, Bonemeal should be sprinkled into the planting hole when transplanting annuals, perennials or shrubs.

Bloodmeal is a good source of nitrogen and releases its nutrients relatively quickly. It is ideal for encouraging lush green growth in leafy vegetables or foliage perennials.

Fish Meal and Kelp Meal are also good organic sources of nutrients. Fish Meal contains varying amounts of nitrogen, phosphorus and potassium, but has been known to attract cats, so if frisky felines are a problem in your garden, use with caution.

Kelp Meal is essentially seaweed in a granular form and offers most of the same benefits as fresh or composted seaweed. Besides using it in the garden, sprinkle it on the compost pile to speed up decomposition.

Niki Jabbour is an Ornamental Horticulturist and a writer from Halifax, Nova Scotia. Fertilized by sea breezes, her gardens are comprised of a colourful mixture of perennials, annuals, vegetables, herbs and flowering shrubs, with a few patches of clover and chickweed thrown in for good measure. A member of the Garden Writers Association of America, Niki is also the weekly gardening columnist for the Halifax Daily News and the Chester Clipper.

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April 6, 2005

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From the Ground Up: Adventures in Making My Own Plot

Guest post by Kelly Gilliam

So you’ve just moved into a new place. You look around, and find yourself in a jam. Maybe your new yard doesn’t come with a garden plot, or perhaps the plot there is so overgrown with weeds that it looks like it hasn’t been touched in ten years. Whatever your situation, there’s no reason you can’t forge ahead and create your own sustainable and personal garden. All you need are some good tools, a little bit of research, and a plan for what you want to grow.

Last year I was presented with the problem of starting over, completely from scratch. After much prodding, my upstairs landlords had given me the okay to use a small, five-foot-square plot of land. They had left it unused and uncared for, apparently for the entire time they had owned the house. It baffled me that the clay-logged soil, infested with weeds, could ever have housed a working garden. Regardless, I was hell-bent on making my own little garden to grow not only hardy plants, but vegetables and more sensitive species as well.

I started by deciding exactly what it was that I wanted to grow. Being in love with the idea of one day growing all my own fruits and vegetables (to the point where I wouldn’t have to buy any save for the off-season), I decided the bulk of my plants would be vegetables and herbs. Luckily, my new plot received almost full sun and would be ideal for growing tomatoes, cucumbers, and herbs.

The next step was to break up the clay soil and add organic material to support the plants. Thankfully, I had recently bought Andy Sturgeon’s “Planted” and it proved to be an indispensable resource on soil types. At the time, I was working at a greenhouse so I was also able to learn from my co-workers. For my five by five foot area I settled on 30 L of mushroom manure, 60 L of topsoil and 20 Kg of washed sand. I dedicated a full day to re-conditioning my soil.

My first act in the plot was to rip out all of the larger weeds—anything over 15 cm in height or spread. I decided that I couldn’t rip out all of the smaller weeds, so I took my good, heavy-duty metal shovel and worked from one end to the other, turning over all the soil to break it up.

If there’s one nugget of wisdom I’d like to impart, it’s the value of getting yourself a good metal shovel. Plastic shovels, while cheaper, cannot take the strain of tough soil or tons of use (that goes for the handle as well the blade). It’s definitely worth the money to go all out on a good shovel; if you do you can get a life’s worth of use out of it.

For the next round of digging, I took the sand—all 20L of it—and threw it over the garden in segments, turning over each area with my shovel and a large metal-toothed rake as I went. I had decided that it was best to break up the clay with sand first, and then try to work in the organic material.

I worked in the mushroom manure using the same method I had with the sand. I chose mushroom manure not only to break up the soil, but also to add lots of nutrients. I did not want to be fertilizing every few weeks all summer, preferring to create something much more sustainable and low maintenance.

After I had finished with the manure I added the topsoil, to give the soil lots of bulk and more drainage. I had removed particularly large clumps of clay along the way and needed some filler for those areas.

When I was done, after nearly three hours, I was left with rich, dark soil that drained well but could also hold water on those long hot days when the plot would be in full sun. I was tired, but I was really excited that I had personalized my garden, and without even planting anything. I started to better understand that gardening all begins with the soil—that seems like such common knowledge, but it is easily overlooked in the haste and excitement of planning the look of a garden.

The next day I went to the greenhouse where I worked and picked up my vegetables, herbs and ornamentals. Because of the direct sun my garden would receive almost all-day, I made sure to pick lots of sun-loving plants. Tomatoes took up most of the room in my garden in the long run; my four baby plants eventually grew to over three feet tall and produced fruit constantly up until November, with no fertilizing. I planted several varieties of rudbeckia, as well as four types of basil, rosemary, dill, borage (a great herb with a cool cucumber flavour and beautiful little, blue, star-shaped flowers), fennel, cucumber, a lime plant, passionflower, and many other flowers. I also planted bee balm right beside my herbs and tomatoes to attract bees for pollination.

With a little research and a lot of persistence I had started from the ground up and made my own little garden according to my own tastes and needs. It took remarkably little of me save a few hours in the sun (with lots of sunscreen and water by my side), and I gained much from it. Not only did I have a garden, but I had created the area all myself and I really felt like it was my own. I had a bond with my garden that I’d never quite experienced before.

I’ve since moved from that basement suite into another urban basement suite, and that little plot is now somebody else’s. My current place doesn’t have any land of its own, but there is a perfect spot in the yard, calling my name, waiting to be transformed. I find myself really excited at the prospect of once again creating my own personal space.

Kelly is a city-dweller from Vancouver, B.C. Originally from the prairies, she was amazed to find that in Vancouver you can garden three-fourths of the year. She’s currently attending film school, and whenever she’s not in the stages of production she can be found digging around in her garden. She is also a photographer and her work can be viewed at Devileye.net.

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August 15, 2003

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I say potato, you say Solanum tuberosum

Guest post by Erin Fisher

What is Binomial Nomenclature?

Binomial nomenclature is also referred to as the latin or scientific name. Latin was at one time the universal (read: European) language of science. All scientific treatises were written in Latin. If you know your latin roots, looking at scientific names can be fun and can give you a clue for the common name or identifying characteristics of the plant: Toxicodendron diversilobum is poison oak.

The scientific method of naming plants is related to the study of taxonomy. Taxonomy is a systematic way of classifying all living organisms. Based on set theory, taxonomists group plants into divisions, families, genera, and species. The characteristics used to group plants have changed over the years. Flower characteristics, such as the number and placement of petals and male and female sexual organs, stem anatomy and genetic information are now used together to group species taxonomically.

Examples of characteristics that determine which division a plant is in: if the plant has a water and nutrient distribution system (mosses and worts don’t); if the plant has seeds (ferns don’t); if the plants have flowers (conifers don’t). Examples of characteristics that determine which family a plant is in: if genetic information indicates a common ancestor within the family (like people – if we have the same grandmother, we are family); flower petal and male and female sexual organ number and placement. Genera and species are often determined by the size of family characteristics – small petals versus large petals, long stamens versus short ones. Genera often have a wider range of sizes and species are, well, more specifically classified.

What is a Plant Species?

Generally speaking, plants of separate species are unable to interbreed. A species is also a group of plants that can be readily distinguished from other plants based on physical appearance but, because plants are so variable, species can be broken down into subspecies and varieties, because sometimes plants that look different can actually interbreed.

Binomial nomenclature refers to the two part name of each species. The first part of the name is the name of the genus and the second part is a modifier of the genus name that indicates the species. Toxicadendron is a genus name and can be used by itself to indicate a member of the Toxicadendron genus or can be used in combination with diversilobum to indicate the particular species within that genus. Diversilobum is only a modifier and is not informative by itself. There is only one genus called Toxicadendron but the species modifier diversilobum can occur in many genera.

Why Use Binomial Nomenclature?

Binomial nomenclature is useful because you don’t have to know what every species looks like to have a common botanical language. In my first plant taxonomy class, we learned to identify families by a gut feeling (or “gestalt” as my prof called it). Once you can look at a plant and know its family, it is pretty easy to use a key to figure out the genus and species. Thus, knowing families is actually more useful than memorizing every plant’s two part name. Many families have common characteristics such as flower petal arrangement (for example, a solitary flower with six petals not fused is typical of the Liliaceae or lily family) or reproductive organ arrangement (for example, four stamens, two tall and two short, is characteristic of the Brassicaceae or mustard family). For many common plants, you can know the genus by casual observation. For example: the genus Lupinus, or lupine (Fabaceae or pea family) can be apparent from the pea-type flowers arranged in a cone-like inflorescence and its distinctive leaves, but identification at the species level will take more investigation into the details of floral morphology. Some genera are more difficult to key to species than others and maybe it’s not even important which kind of lupine you’ve got. If someone tells you about a plant they have and you’ve never heard of the species, you can get a pretty good idea of what the plant looks like if the genus is familiar to you, even if the particular species isn’t. You do this all the time and may not even know it. Begonia is a plant genus name.

Why Not Use Common Names?

Common names can be easy to remember and, when talking to folks from your own region, useful. But if you just know a plant as ‘butter and eggs’, it can lead to miscommunication because there are lots of flowering plants with yellow and white petals known as ‘butter and eggs’. ‘Butter and eggs’ could be of the genus Ranunculus (family: Ranunculaceae or buttercup) or the genus Dendromecon (family: Papaveraceae or poppy). If you know which genus or even which family the plant belongs to, this knowledge can help you find the plant in a nursery or talk about it with other people. Common names can be more informative than ‘butter and eggs’ and still cause problems. For example, cactus is the common name for any plant with succulent leaves and spines. But plants have evolved this characteristic several times throughout history and there are several plant families with cactus plants within them. In Africa, cacti are commonly found in the Euphorbiaceae family – a family that also contains spurges and Poinsettia whose ovaries are above the flower petals. In South America, cacti are found in the Cactaceae family – a family that only includes succulents and whose ovaries are below the flower petals. While cactus is a useful term in describing appearance and growth habit, it is not useful in describing flower structure.

How Much Do You Need to Know?

The levels of classification that are relevant to most botanists are family, genus, and species. Tribes, or sub-families are also used to group genera in very large families such as Asteraceae (sunflower) and Fabaceae (pea). As you may have noticed, plant family names almost always end in -ceae. Genus names are a little more variable, but generally end in -us. Species names are all over the map. When you look at species names, they can sometimes tell you something about the appearance of the plant (example, variegata) or where it is found (example, gypsophilum, or gypsum-loving). Sometimes it is named after a person. A common species specifier in California is eastwoodii, after Alice Eastwood, a prolific and dedicated California botanist. Again, species monikers by themselves have very little information about plant identity – they are designed to only be used with genus names.

Pronounciation

Binomial nomenclature can be intimidating to pronounce, but just remember your basic Latin: almost all consonants are hard and almost all vowels are long. There’s also room for your own interpretation: more than half of the California botanists I know pronounce -ceae (seee-eee), not (ki, long i). Most of us are not that hung up on a specific pronunciation. If anyone EVER gives you a hard time about your pronunciation, you are allowed to tell them to lighten up. Practice on your favorite plant names and starting getting familiar with the common plant families in your area. Once you get proficient at identifying members of the snapdragon family (for example), you’ll be able to identify plants that seemed really different, because of their different colored flowers or differently shaped leaves, as cousins.

For a database of flowering plant families and their characteristics (technical, text only) visit http://biodiversity.uno.edu/delta/

Erin is a restoration ecologist working in the San Francisco area.

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October 4, 2002

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Harvesting Seeds

There are a variety of reasons for harvesting your own seeds; some personal, some environmental. Perhaps you have a variety that you like and you are concerned that seed companies may discontinue stocking it. You saw some wildflowers while on an outdoor hike that you’d like to grow in your own garden. You have a heritage variety and you want to continue growing it in future years. You want to trade some of your seeds with some of a friend’s seeds, you want to grow organic seeds, or maybe you just want to save money and avoid buying new annuals next year. Whatever the reason, you don’t need to be a botanist or a farmer to do it. If you can grow plants, you can produce your own seeds. There are however, a few things you may want to know before you get started.

Plants either have all the parts to pollinate themselves, (called self-pollinators) or they are aided in accomplishing this by insects, the wind, or human intervention (cross-pollinators). Self-pollinators are commonly referred to as ‘perfect flowers’ as they contain all the parts to successfully pollinate themselves. The comparatively imperfect cross-pollinators produce all the parts to pollinate, but not all in one place. Parts are divided between blooms or are ‘self-incompatible’, identifying their own pollen as foreign material. Pollen must find its way from one plant to the next. This method is preferable for the survival of the species because it ensures that the plants produce genetically diverse seeds– seeds that contain different genetic information or traits then the original plant. This enables the plant to better adapt itself to the environment it is in, or acquire traits that will help it become more disease resistant. Self-pollinators on the other hand, essentially produce clones, which makes them more susceptible to any problems that may arise.

Be aware that if you want cross-pollination to occur in your garden, you need to make your garden favorable to pollinating insects or be prepared to do all the pollinating yourself. Grow plants nearby that attract pollinators–butterfly bush, Queen Anne’s lace, bee balm, salvia, and cleome are a few, and avoid using chemical sprays that will kill all insects both harmful and beneficial.

In some cases you might want to keep cross-pollination from taking place. Plants that are closely related, for example different varieties of melons, will cross-pollinate producing seeds that are a mix of the two varieties. If you want to keep your varieties true, plant similar species of plants on opposite ends of your garden.

Open Pollenated, Heirloom, and Hybrid

Before you decide to save the seeds from a particular plant you will need to know whether they are Open-pollinated, Heirloom or Hybrid. Open-pollinated plants are those pollinated–naturally or through human intervention–by the same species of plant. Heirlooms are older plant varieties that have maintained relatively unchanged in a particular region for several generations, and all are open-pollinated. Hybrids are plants that have been cross-pollinated using two different species of the same genus of plant. They are bred professionally under controlled conditions, to produce certain desirable traits. Grocery store produce is usually hybridized and often bred for mass production or large-scale farming. Many of the characteristics that are bred into these plants, such as thick skins for transport, or high water content for size, are not desirable for small-scale gardening. This is one reason why you may not want to save seeds from store bought produce. Seed packaged for the home gardener by seed companies may also be hybridized. These plants are bred to contain traits that are desirable to the small scale gardener such as colour and taste. However, seeds produced by these hybrids doesn’t guarantee that those desirable traits will be carried over to the next generation. In most cases the such traits may actually disappear entirely after a few generations. Or the seeds may be sterile and won’t produce fruit anyway. Either way, growing seeds from hybrids is a gamble. Checking the seed packet or catalogue of the grower is one way to find out whether seed are hybrids. Packets will often say F1 to indicate hybrids or OP to indicate open-pollinated.

Harvesting Seeds

If this will be your first time saving seeds, start out with some easy plants that flawlessly produce seeds without any intervention. Annuals such as cosmos, marigolds, pansies, corn flowers and many others are some of the easiest. Collect seeds from the highest quality and healthiest plants. A good specimen is disease and pest free, has bright foliage and flowers, and grows vigorously.

Under usual circumstances snipping flower heads off after they are spent (deadheading) is crucial to encouraging a plant to continue producing new flowers. To save seed, leave the flowers on the stem after the flower dies off instead. That way, the plant will start putting its resources into producing seed instead of new flowers.

Before long a seedpod will replace the spent flower. Don’t remove the seed head right away: leave it on the stems as long as possible, letting it ripen within the pod. Seeds are generally ready when the pod turns brown, dries out or cracks open. If you notice that the seed pod is prone to cracking open on it’s own (snapdragons, violas, pansies), attach a lunch-sized paper bag around it using an elastic or string, catching the seeds as they fall. When the seeds are fully ripe, cut the stem at the base of the plant and shake the seed head inside the bag to dislodge the seeds from the casing. If some seeds are lost to the soil they will come up on their own next year. This is called self-seeding, and many annuals reproduce themselves this way.

If the seed heads are not fully dry and ripe when you cut them off, either hang the stems (with the seed cases) or lay them flat to dry on a newspaper or paper towel pad away from direct light. Make sure that all seeds are completely dry before removing them from the pods: if you package them before they are fully dry they will go moldy in storage. This is the simplest way; it’s easier to dry the whole seed head then a bunch of loose seeds. When the pod is dry, extract the seeds by carefully crushing or breaking open the seedpods. Separate crushed debris from the seeds by sifting everything through a fine mesh screen. The debris will fall through and the seeds will remain on top of the screen. Some seeds such as those from marigolds or black-eyed susans can simply be pulled from the seed head.

Seeds from fruits and vegetables should be collected when plants are at their peak, before they are over-ripe and decay has set in. Some vegetables such as beans are the exception and should be harvested when the pods are dry. Seeds from most fruits and vegetables are incased inside a wet environment (the part usually eaten). In the case of very wet pulp such as tomatoes, the seeds can be washed from the pulp and then laid out to dry on newspaper or a screen. The same can be done with pumpkins, squash and other soft pulp vegetables. In the case of harder pulp fruits and vegetables they are simply opened up and the seeds removed manually.

Storing Seeds

The best way to store seeds is to package them in paper envelopes or bags since they allow for good air circulation and don’t sweat. However, any container will do, keeping in mind that humidity and lack of air circulation will cause mold, disease and prompt seeds to germinate prematurely. Film canisters for one aren’t recommended as the plastic promotes humidity and stagnant air. The temperature should be cool to make longer storage possible-refrigerator storage will work if you can’t find a naturally cool place. Be sure to write the date, name of plant and any growing instructions you are aware of on the envelope or package. This will come in handy when using the seeds a year or more later, and will be appreciated if you give the seeds to someone else. It’s worth it (but not necessary) to put a bit of extra effort into the packaging if the seeds are to be given away. Use specialty papers for the envelopes or create fancy labels to mark them. Some envelope and label templates are provided here for you to print out on any paper (or sticker paper for labels that is compatible with your printer type).

Store seeds carefully by placing envelopes inside large glass jars with a bag of silica or powdered milk. These products absorb excess moisture. Reuse the tiny bags of silica gel that come inside new shoes–dry them for a few minutes at a very low temperature in your oven. Alternatively, make a tiny package of powdered milk by pouring a pile into the centre of a piece of breathable fabric or tissue paper. Pull the corners together and close it up with a piece of string or elastic to create a sachet. The best jars for storage are wide mouth mason jars used for canning. They have the proper airtight seal that is essential for long term storage. If you store the jars in a cool, dark place the seeds should last from a year to a few years, depending on the type.

Testing Your Seeds

If you are saving your seeds for extended periods of time, test the seeds before you use them to see if they will still germinate. This is easily done by placing 20 or so seeds (depending on size) onto a half-piece of damp paper towel. Fold it over so that the seeds are covered. Then place it in a plastic baggy with a few pinholes punched into it and set it aside in a dark, warm place. Bear in mind that some seeds need light to germinate and some have other specific requirements-some may need to be soaked first, or may require a certain temperature for germination. Knowing your seeds will help you in this process: however most seeds will do fine with the standard procedure. After a week check to see how many seeds have germinated. Again some seeds will have a longer germination period than others, so if they haven’t germinated by week’s end, wait another week to be certain. If a fair number of seeds have germinated then the seeds are good and can be used with little trouble. If few seeds germinate, increase the number of seeds sown per inch or don’t bother using them at all.

Plants for Beginners

bachelor’s button
nasturtium (Tropaeolum majus)
forget-me-not
pansy/viola (Viola x wittrockiana)
marigold (Tangetes)
foxglove (digitalus)
snapdragon (Antirrhinum)
poppy (Papaver)
love-in-a-mist (Nigella damascena)
blanket flower (Gaillardia)
columbine (Aquilegia vulgaris)
black-eyed susan (Rudbeckiahirta)
cosmos
zinnia
tomatoes
beans
squash
pumpkin

Make Decorative Envelopes

To get you started on making and decorating your own seed packets we have designed a small envelope template and labels that you can print out in colour or black & white. We have also designed four seed packets of common garden plants: snapdragon, viola/pansy, Oriental poppy and columbine. The packet includes a full colour illustration of the plant, as well as care and seed sowing instructions on the back. Instructions for putting the envelopes together are included on the print-out.

Suggestions for Use

Print the labels onto plain or sticker paper. We used plain, white sticker paper and clear sticker paper available for use with ink jet printer.

Print the envelopes onto any paper that is appropriate for your printer. We used construction paper, plain paper, colour ink jet paper and clear, thin vellum. If you are using vellum use rubber cement to seal.

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October 4, 2002

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Seed Starting – Germination

Guest post by Beate Schwirtlich

What Happens When A Seed Germinates?

The whole purpose of starting seeds indoors is to cheat winter a little.

Ironically, even as we cheat nature, we must imitate her. Light, soil, water, air, and a basic understanding of the process of germination are all you need. Once you know the simple things a seed requires, starting them indoors won’t seem half as complicated.

Seeds are their own energy source, a plant in embryo form. They store energy in a form that is released and used only when water, oxygen, soil, and a close-to-ideal temperature are a part of their surroundings.

Until then, they remain dormant. Germination inhibitors are part of the make-up of every seed. They actually prevent a seed from germinating until its chances of survival are good. Usually chemical in nature (five per cent of seeds are simply waterproof, dormant until their seed coat cracks), germination inhibitors put a seed into dormancy. Without these, a tomato seed, for example, would spout right inside the fruit of the plant that formed it, where there is moisture and warmth, good conditions for germination. Inhibitors give a seed time to travel away from the parent plant, and allow it to overwinter, or be stored, giving that seed the best possible chance to reproduce successfully and to spread. Germination inhibitors ‘wear off’ over time, allowing a seed to sprout the next year.

The seed coat or outside of a seed protects it during dormancy. Hidden inside that coat is the radicle or beginning of a root, the hypocotyl or beginning of a shoot, either one or two seed leaves or cotyledons (the seed’s food supply), and the epicotyl, which will become the first true leaves. The seeds of some plants have a second food supply, called the endosperm. Plants with one cotyledon are called monocots. Those with two are dicots.

Spring like conditions soil that’s wet and beginning to warm up, and longer days and stronger sunlight signal the seed to break dormancy. Light triggers germination of many small seeds, while other seeds germinate best in darkness. Some seeds prefer warm temperatures, others cold. Such differences are a reflection of biodiversity. Simply, plants native to areas with warm conditions produce seeds that germinate best in warm soil, while those native to cold places prefer cool soil.

Know what conditions your seeds naturally prefer, and try to emulate them.

Water does two things to a seed. First, it activates enzymes that stimulate the release of food energy stored during dormancy. Second, it splits the tough seed coat open so that oxygen gets in. Energy stored in the cotyledon ‘burns’ and is used only in the presence of oxygen, powering the seedling’s cells as they begin to divide and grow. This process is called respiration.

Soil holds the water and air that a seed needs to respirate. Too much water drives out air pockets in soil. Don’t over-water. Without air, seeds can’t use their stored energy through respiration. Never let seeded soil dry out. Without water, seeds can’t use their stored energy.
This stored energy only lasts so long. That’s why a sprouting seed works so hard to break the soil and unfold into the light quickly. It’s also the reason that germination of many seeds is triggered by light. If a small seed germinated in a moist but dark environment, it might run out of energy before ever reaching the soil surface. But if a seed needs light, it won’t germinate until it’s close to the soil surface. That way, it has a chance to survive. But before a seed begins to grow up, it grows down, anchoring itself with a root, the first life to emerge from the seed coat. The root allows the spout to begin to absorb water and food from the soil.

A seed can only store so much energy. That‘s why smaller seeds must be planted shallower, larger seeds deeper. Little seeds planted too deep will exhaust themselves and die underground. Large seeds can easily dry up if planted too shallow. Really small seeds should just be pressed onto the soil surface.

Next, the shoot begins to grow, splitting the seed coat even more. Soon, the growing shoot pushes the seed leave(s) above the soil. They unfold, sometimes still wearing their dried up seed coat on their tips. As the root continues to grow, a bud will appear between the seed leave(s). From this, the first two true leaves will grow, enabling the plant to begin to photosynthesis, the production of energy using light.

Lacking light, seedlings will compensate by shooting up towards the light source and becoming ‘leggy’ and weak. Provide lots of light twelve hours a day. Use a south-facing windowsill, or good artificial lighting.

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