October 22, 2002
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Recipes

Healthier Pumpkin Pie

This recipe uses arrowroot powder mixed with milk or soy milk in the place of eggs to thicken the filling. Sugar is substituted with maple syrup. The quantity of maple syrup used in this recipe is minimal. More can be added if you have a heavy sweet tooth, but do keep in mind that maple syrup is quite sweet. If you have problems with gluten any kind of gluten free flour can be used but I prefer the taste of spelt as an alternative to wheat.

Filling

  • 1 medium sized pumpkin or 1 can pumpkin puree
  • 3 tablespoons maple syrup (or more to taste)
  • 1 tsp ginger powder
  • 1 tsp ground cinnamon
  • 1/2 tsp fresh grated nutmeg (or nutmeg powder)
  • 1/8 tsp ground cloves
  • pinch of salt
  • 1/4 cup arrowroot powder
  • 1 cup milk or soy milk

Crust
(Makes enough for a bottom crust with decorative top.)

  • 2 cups spelt, kamut or whole wheat flour
  • 1/3 cup canola oil
  • 1/3 cup chilled butter
  • 6 tablespoon ice water

Crust option: a mix of half butter, half canola oil works best in my opinion, but all canola oil for a vegan pie also works very well.

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 325º F. Cut pumpkin(s) in half and remove seeds. Place cut side down on a tray and bake in the oven until the pumpkin is soft and easily poked with a fork. Scoop the flesh from the pumpkin and mash or puree in a food processor or blender. As an option I often bake the pumpkin(s) cut side up (so pumpkin half acts like a bowl) and sprinkle with half of the spices and a drizzle of maple syrup so that the flavours bake right into the pumpkin.
  2. While the pumpkin is cooking you can go ahead and prepare the crust. Mix together the flour, oil, butter and ice water. This can be done manually in a bowl or using a mixer. As an option different flour types can be used, but I prefer the nutty flavour of spelt.
  3. Divide the dough in half and roll between two pieces of plastic wrap or waxed paper.
  4. Dissolve the arrowroot powder in the milk using a blender or food processor until the mixture is smooth. Add the pumpkin, maple syrup, ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, salt and cloves, and blend to a smooth consistency. Pour the mixture into the pie crust.
  5. Roll out the remaining dough thinly. Use fall-themed cookie cutters (i.e leaves or turkeys) to create shapes that can be placed together on top of the pie to form a “top crust”. Place one shape in the center of the pie and form a ring of shapes around that central shape. Try to place the shapes so that they touch or join slightly.
  6. Bake for 35 minutes or until the crust is browned and the filling is slightly set. It is sometimes difficult to tell when spelt or whole wheat flours are browned but there will be a noticeable colour change. Don’t leave it in until it is too brown! This pie sets up nicely after the pie has been left to cool for a few hours. Do not worry if the centre appears too soft when it is first removed from the oven. This baby will thicken up due to the miracle coagulation powers of arrowroot.

More Options: The cookie cutter top makes for a fancy-looking pie that will impress your friends, but it isn’t necessary. You can always use the other half of the dough to make another pie!

I have also made these as “personal pies” done in 3″ tart tins with one cookie cut per tin. They’re really cute!

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October 4, 2002
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Houseplants Projects Propagation

Share Your Plants

Your parents probably tried to instill the virtues of sharing when you were in your formative years. The reasoning is that it’s a nice way to treat your peers and it teaches you to be unselfish and thoughtful. When it comes to gardening, sharing plants through propagation isn’t just a friendly gesture but is actually beneficial to your plants and an economical way to expand your collection. Propagation forces you to take a few minutes and give some individual care to a plant that may have been neglected otherwise. It also involves cutting back a plant that may have become unruly, or digging up a plant that may be too big for its current space. Economically, it provides you with a number of plants you didn’t have a few minutes before, which you can then use to expand your garden or trade with friends for new plants. There are many different ways to propagate new plants from your own plants. The following are a few simple methods to get you started.

Offsets

Some plants will literally do the work for you by producing little plantlets or offsets from the base or the stem of the “mother” plant. For instance succulents and cacti will often produce miniature versions of the parent plant around the base, which can be removed and planted in a new container of soil, or moved to a new place in the garden. Spider plants (Clorophytum) and strawberry plants will send off shoots containing small plantlets that can be pinned down to some moist soil, where they will grow their own roots. You can fashion a pin by bending a paper clip into a “u” shape. [see instructions on side]. Once the plantlet has produced its own roots, the shoot attaching the plantlet to the mother plant (an umbilical cord of sorts) can be cut, leaving you with a new plant that can be given away.

Division

Division involves pulling up large, overgrown plants and breaking them apart at the roots to produce several plants. Spring is the best time to divide indoor plants. Since it is the beginning of the growing season plants will just be coming out of a rest period into a huge growth spurt and could use the extra space in their pots. The best way to prepare for division is to water the plant the day before so that the soil is compact and easy to extract from the container. The following day, carefully remove the plant from the pot onto a surface covered with newspaper or sheeting. Smaller plants can be pulled apart by holding the plant in both hands and gently separating the stems and roots that have become entangled in one another. If the plant will not divide through gentle tugging it is better to use a knife or pruning shears to get the job done. Torn stems and roots can introduce diseases into the plant and prevent a quick recovery. Remember that propagation is similar to a delicate surgical operation. Open wounds can invite all sorts of diseases and pathogens into a plant that has just undergone a sensitive procedure.

Mid summer is the right time of year to divide garden plants such as irises after they have finished blooming, or spring flowering bulbs with exhausted foliage. Fall is the best time to divide most other garden plants. Perennial plants have had a full growing season to expand and become too large for their space, and the cool fall air is a relief from the scorching summer sun. The procedure for dividing outdoor plants is similar to indoor plants with the exception that you will need to dig the plant out of the soil instead of simply tilting a pot. Be sure to dig around the plant, taking care to avoid cutting off roots and hurting the plant. If a plant is really large, use a shovel to cut through and divide the roots instead of a pair of shears. Once you are through dividing the plant, put one piece back into the original hole and plant the rest elsewhere or put into pots to give to friends. Fertilize and liberally water the new plants to ensure that the plant settles in with strong root growth before the cold weather sets in.

Cuttings

Making new plants by rooting small pieces of larger plants is a lot easier then it seems. As a technique, it works on quite a lot of plants such as geraniums, fuchsia, hydrangea, and wisteria to name a few. There are a variety of ways to go about this task. It can be as simple as placing some stems of basil or mint from the grocery store into a container of water. Remove the lower leaves and snip the ends off with a sharp pair of pruning shears for a clean cut before you put the stems in water. After a time the stems will root and you can easily plant them in some soil indoors or out. This method can also be used to root stems taken from catnip or other plants growing wild in fields or abandoned lots.

Softwood Cuttings

Although most gardeners have rooted cuttings from the more popular plants such as geraniums, pinks or coleus, few experiment with bushes, vines, or larger perennials. Early to mid summer is a great time to propagate new plants from stem cuttings. Choose shoots that are semi-mature with a hard, woody base that is still soft enough to cut through with a pair of shears, and which has a soft tip with new growth. Cut ½ inch or so below a node, on an angle. The cutting from base to tip should be about 4 inches long. Remove the lower leaves to create a stem. Dip the fresh cut end into a dish of rooting hormone. Rooting hormone is a product that promotes root growth, and often contains fungicides that discourage the stem from rotting before it has the opportunity to produce roots. It can be purchased in powder or gel form. If powdered hormone isn’t coating the stem end properly, lightly moisten the end of the cutting. Fill a small container with some potting soil. Make a hole in the soil with a dibber, a pencil, a stick or even your finger. Place the cutting in the hole, being sure to avoid removing the rooting hormone. Gently press the soil down around the cutting and water thoroughly.

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October 4, 2002
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Art/Craft Fall Gardening 101 Projects Propagation Seeds

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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Gardening 101 Pests & Disease Propagation Seeds Spring

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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October 4, 2002
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Propagation Seeds Spring

A Quick and Easy Germination Test

Guest post by Arzeena Hamir

If the holidays have pretty much wiped you out, here is a simple activity that will not only save you money but will help organize your garden for the upcoming year.

Like many gardeners, my stash of seeds has accumulated over the years to the extent that I often forget what varieties I’ve bought. Some of these seed packets date back several years so before I take a chance, basing my whole crop of sweet corn on that package from 1997, I do a germination test. A test can be done on as few as 5 seeds but a more accurate prediction of germination percentage requires at least 20 seeds.

I use a very low-tech method of germinating seed: damp paper towels and plastic bags. Moisten one towel and arrange your seed on the sheet. If the seed is large (peas, beans, corn), apply another moist towel on top and roll the 2 sheets together into a tube. If the seed is small, the sheet can be folded over and then rolled onto itself. Once rolled, the paper towel should be placed inside a plastic bag or Ziploc to keep it from drying out. Finally, place the plastic bag in a warm spot (on top of the VCR, in the kitchen, on top of the fridge).

Before rolling the sheets, make sure the seeds are not too close to each other. Seeds that don’t germinate can begin to mould and this mould will infect nearby seeds if they’re too close or touching.

After about 2 days, check the paper towel at least once a day to see if the seeds have started to germinate. If the towels have started to dry out, re-moisten them with a couple of drops of water. Most seeds will germinate within 5 days at room temperature.

The majority of vegetable seeds will keep for at least 3 years if they’ve been kept cool & dry. The types of seed that don’t store well include sweet corn, parsnips, Swiss chard, spinach, and members of the Allium family (onions, leeks, scallions, chives).

The percentage of seed that do germinate in the towel will give you a pretty good idea of how they’ll do in the garden. If only 50% of the seeds germinated in the towel, you may want to consider planting the seed closer together to compensate for the seeds that don’t emerge. Alternatively, you may want to peruse your favourite seed catalogue and replace that seed package.

Finally, being the frugal gardener that I am, I hate to see a germinated seed go to waste. I pot-up whatever I can and keep them growing under lights. In the case of root crops, I plant the pre-germinated seed directly in the garden. I get a much better stand by doing this, especially if the soil is still slightly cold and would have caused un-germinated seed to rot.

Arzeena Hamir is an agronomist and garden writer based in Vancouver, BC. She has worked in the organic gardening industry for 8 years as a consultant and trainer. When she’s not planting peas or harvesting zucchini, she runs Terra Viva Organics.

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