Allison on Seeds

Allison Lea, our incredible seeder,  eagle-eyed pest finder, and all around special person wrote this beautiful piece on seeds. We love her writing, and hope you enjoy these thoughtful words.

I've had seeds on my mind lately. Not surprising, given the time of year, and the fact that I've been planting seeds for a living for the better part of a decade. It's easy to forget about seeds, during the long months of a Vermont winter. But then that first warm day comes, and with it the scent of damp earth, and suddenly I am visualizing thousands of seeds lying dormant in the ground, waiting and working. I consider myself lucky, because I get to experience an early spring in the greenhouses. While the outdoor seeds are still mired in mud, ice, snow and more unpleasant bits of thawing matter, I am opening crisp white packets and distributing their contents into the warm fluffy soil from Vermont Compost: onions, lettuce, kale, various greens, annual flowers, tomatoes, peppers. I love my job for its ability to provide me with an invaluable set of simple lessons for life. First: start small. Some of the seeds I plant are truly no bigger than a pinprick. Yet even the smallest one contains all the knowledge it needs to become a complete plant. Inevitably, I have moments when I feel as though I'm flailing around in my life, looking for answers outside myself, or feeling overwhelmed by the sheer volume of information literally right at my fingertips. And then I find myself standing at my seeding bench inside the greenhouse, holding a handful of seeds in my hand and realizing I have all the answers I need. I've always had them. Second: calm down a little and be still. While there are many seeds which travel for miles and miles on the wind or hitched to the back of some animal (mainly my dogs, it seems), all the seeds I've handled germinate best when they are left in peace. They're not going to be thrilled if I keep jostling the tray around, or picking them up, examining them for signs of life, and putting them back down. Likewise, when I allow myself to slow down and breathe a little, I start to get more of a grasp on the person I am becoming. Stillness is the key to sprouting, so when I feel myself flitting here and there, reluctant to make a commitment or put down roots, I go back to my seeds, peer at them thoughtfully, and then step back and let them be. Third: not all seeds are going to germinate. Some seed packets will say 60% germination rate. These seeds I sow a little thicker, in order to compensate. If all of them sprouted, I would have a very crowded plug tray, and unhappy plants. I have lots of great ideas, but they're not all going to come to fruition, so letting go of my attachments seems like a good plan. And finally (although the lessons continue indefinitely) cracking open is a good thing. I've seen thousands of little seedlings, and that first green shoot pushing up through the hull never ceases to delight and amaze me, whether it happens in the greenhouse, or out in the garden. So as I strive to make sense of a world which appears to be literally cracking apart under our collective feet, I will keep coming back to the modest little seed, looking for signs of something new and amazing coming through.

Today's Tips

Planning Your Ornamental Landscape

Landscaping your property yourself may seem like a daunting task, but it's easier than you think. In an ornamental landscape, it's important to consider how plants go together - color, texture, size, and shape are important aspects of creating a beautiful and interesting landscape. Using contrast helps bring out complementary features of the different plants. An example of color contrast could mean using plants with flowers from opposite sides of the color wheel, such as blue and orange or yellow, or light and dark colors next to each other. You can also create contrast with texture by using plants with different types of foliage - a plant with lacy foliage could go next to one with glossy leaves - for example, amsonia with heartleaf bergenia.

The Right Plant in the Right Place

One of the most important things to consider when planning your landscape is what plants are suitable for your microclimates. Take a walk around your yard and house and you will undoubtedly find areas that are shady, others that receive salt from driveways or paths, some that are perpetually wet, and yet others that may be very windy, sunny, or cold. It is easy to look at these as "problem" areas where you cannot grow the plants you would most like to. Another way of looking at these areas is as opportunities to create a more diverse landscape and get to know unfamiliar plants. Below you will find examples of some of the plants we grow that fit well in these microclimates.

Salt-Tolerant Plants (good for near the road where the salt truck spray in the winter) : Common Thrift, Sea Holly, Daylilies, Artemisia, Heuchera

Juglone Tolerant Plants (many plants won't grow near trees in the walnut family): Hollyhocks, Daylilies

Cold-Tolerant (superhardy) Plants: Campanula, viola, sedums, Lady's Mantle

Shade-Tolerant Plants: brunnera, hosta, heuchera, dicentra, Goat’s Beard, white baneberry, astilbe, cimicifuga, heartleaf bergenia

Water-Loving Plants: Joe Pye Weed, Highbush Cranberry, ligularia, Chinese Globeflower,

Low-Maintenance Plants

If you are a very busy person (as I know I am), it is wise to choose plants that require little or no maintenance in order to look beautiful and survive. These plants require little pruning or deadheading, and can fill your landscape with color, texture, and wildlife.

• Day lillies
• Grasses
• Shrubs
• Sedums
• Perennial herbs
• Perennial geraniums
• Peony

Woody Ornamental Plants

This year we are offering an expanded selection of ornamental shrubs for your landscaping projects. Many of these are also dual-purpose, providing a number of other benefits such as privacy screening, coppice material, shade, windbreak, food and shelter for wildlife, nectar for birds and insects, erosion control, and more. Some examples include:

‘Winter Red’ and ‘Southern Gentleman’ Winterberry Hollies – Plant these two together for a stunning year-round show! Female plants are deciduous, with leaves that turn yellow in the fall and are replaced by masses of large scarlet berries that provide winter food for birds.

‘Summer Wine’ Physocarpus – A beautiful, fast-growing perennial with arching stems covered with dark purple-bronze foliage. White, button-like flowers appear in June and provide pollen for insects. Makes a great privacy screen.

‘Hakuro Nishiki’ Dappled Willow – A gorgeous ornamental plant with pink shoots that open to green and white variegated leaves. Yellow flowers appear in April and stems turn red in winter. Flowers provide pollen for insects. A fast-growing plant that makes a great privacy screen.

These are all some of the easiest plants to grow. Once you are armed with a list of simple plants, just keep in mind these other factors:

• Color
• Texture
• Placement

Once you understand what kind of plants like what type of conditions, you will feel confident to play with plants like a painter plays with colors. It is all about the right place for the right plant; so learn to identify the micro climates within your yard, come up with lists of plants that fit each micro climate, and create your own box of paints!

If this is hard for you, remember, we are here to help you!

First Days in the Greenhouse

Beautiful bacopa cuttings ready for potting up

It is finally that glorious time of year when work in the greenhouses begins. Our first cuttings have arrived and we have started potting them up, giving each plant new room to grow in wonderful Vermont Compost Company potting mix. (See note below) We can imagine that they feel the same way we do upon first entering the greenhouse, as they shed their cardboard boxes and we our many winter layers. At first the sunshine pouring down dazzles us, and we squint in the brightness. But soon we are all reveling in the lovely feeling of the rich soil, the moist, 85 degree air on our skin, and the intoxicating scent of rosemary. Within a few days this greenhouse will be filled to bursting with vigorously growing young plants.

'Gorizia' Rosemary cuttings before repotting

Bronze-leaf begonia cuttings, awaiting potting

Golden sage and rosemary

Buddy dibbling the pots for planting

Allison, our seed master, seeding the first trays

Allison seeding trays

Kate potting up rosemary

By Sophia

Note: "Cuttings" are plants that can only be started from rooted stems. Instead of the plant producing seed and being propagated from a seed, plants that are 'vegetatively propagated'  (as it is called) are only true to type from the stem cuttings. In some cases, this means that they are cloned hybrids - a cross between two plants and they would revert back to looking like one of their parents if you planted the seed.  Another reason plants are propagated this way is because they are too slow to germinate and in our climate, they would be hard to establish. We buy in our rooted cuttings because making them ourselves would require heating a greenhouse all winter long and for now it is more efficient to buy in these beautiful cuttings from growers in Quebec and Massachusetts who specialize in this kind of greenhouse production. And just to be clear, this is old-fashioned plant breeding and propagating - these are not test tube babies or genetically modified organisms.

Butter Lettuce, I love you

Green butter lettuce has to be my all time favorite lettuce....perfect texture, a color that can only be described as translucent and pearly, and a delicate flavor that truly is butter-like. I eat it in all sorts of situations and for all sorts of meals. Breakfast is toast with a thin spread of butter, snipped chives, some shavings of cheddar and a pile of butter lettuce leaves. Lunch is butter lettuce with a white wine vinaigrette, a piece of bread, and maybe a little tuna with herbs. Dinner will always include a butter lettuce salad with lots of snipped chervil. Or perhaps some grilled flank steak with butter lettuce, cilantro, thai basil, shallots, and a little hot pepper drizzled with a light sesame dressing.

Late May and June are the butter lettuce weeks. I plant a four pack of the lettuce every week from mid- April through August and I am rewarded with huge, green and white pillow-like heads of tenderness.  Here is a blog recipe from David Leit, who also appreciates this delicacy.

He is recommending a blue cheese dressing, which will be great later in the summer, but for now I cannot get enough of the delicate flavor and taste, so I will stick to my lighter dressings.

Raised Beds

by Julie

My home garden is often neglected. There are a few reasons for that - 1.) I am way too busy in the spring and don't have the time, and 2.) I would rather go swimming in the summer than weed. Yes, it's true. Our Vermont summers are so short, that I often make choices that don't benefit the garden come August. So in the early spring, before I get too too busy at Red Wagon, I try to make gardening choices that will entail less work come summer and get the plants off to a really good start so that they are strong enough to handle my abuse and neglect later in the season.

This year, the Red Wagon crew came over and installed some great raised beds in the back yard. My regular garden is quite shady because of some neighboring trees (not mine or I would cut them down!) so I decided to put in some raised beds in the overgrown meadow behind the house and hopefully this will help me tame the wild. It's a sloping, wet mess with a huge forest of Japanese Knotweed trying to take over everything in its path. I have dug a trench around the knotweed and Elise covered a 20 x 20' patch of it with black plastic that my neighbor, Paul,  gave me (I think he is worried it will spread to his yard, I would be too if I were him). Hopefully the combination of black-out and containment will slow it down.

About half way through the installation, the raised beds look like this:

We filled the raised beds with leaves, composted donkey manure and a thick layer of compost from Red Wagon Plants, which is mainly potting soil from years past that was given to us by the plants that did not sell. It's a great fill for raised beds, and not readily available to home gardeners, but I would recommend a mixture of top soil and compost. In the first year of a raised bed, the bottom layer can be some rough organic matter such as leaves, lawn clippings, etc. Just make sure that there is a good amount of the actual planting medium (at least 8").

I used a thick layer of cardboard and burlap coffee bags under everything to smother out the grass.

Here are the finished beds:

Our workshop on April 17th will be all about raised bed gardening with special guests Markey Read and Tim King. Please call us or email us to register. ..... 802 482 4060 or julieATredwagonplants.com.

Planning for a Full Harvest all Season Long

Growing vegetables in your backyard, community garden or in some containers by the kitchen door is a great way to feed yourself -- whether it be just a few ripe tomatoes in August or a full fledged homesteaders garden, you are on the right path to feeding yourself and your family.  Gardening is a great way to improve how you eat while spending some contemplative time outside. With all of these benefits in mind, it is easy to jump into gardening enthusiastically, and you will reap even more rewards with a little bit of planning. In Vermont, our gardening season seems short but can be stretched year round with a few simple tips.  I always recommend that people take a look at how their vegetable gardens have been in the past and find just one or two things they would like to improve so that they can grow more of it for a longer season.  For example a common questions I hear is "how can I keep cilantro from bolting?"  Well, in short, you can't! But with a few changes in your gardening practices, you can grow it all spring, summer, and fall without ever seeing it go to seed.  The trick is to understand the life cycle of each food crop and how to best plant it to maximize it's harvest.  With certain crops, like zucchini, it is best to understand how prolific they are and to plant them conservatively so that the entire garden (and thereby your diet and your neighbors' diet) is not taken over with just one thing.  It is also helpful to plant things seasonally so that the harvest is not so overwhelming in August with little to eat before or after. Succession Planting for Successful Gardening Certain crops should be planted multiple times throughout the season to ensure a continuous harvest.  How often you plant is a matter of taste and space and time. The following list describes the maximum you could do with each crop, but adjust according to your needs and priorities -- this is just a guide.

Lettuce can be planted from seed or from transplants.  Seed grown lettuce is often grown in a row that can be cut and will re-grow a few times.  Transplanted lettuce can be grown for full heads like what you find in the store.  Both methods require regular planting every week or two for a continuous harvest.  It can be planted from seed in mid-April to mid-August for cut greens and transplanted for full heads from late April through early August.  Some people will transplant a few plants and plant some seeds at the same time in a different area; this method provides two generations of lettuce.  Once the cut lettuce becomes bitter in the heat of summer, it is best to pull it up, recondition the soil and plant something else.  If the goal is to always have fresh lettuce and it is very simple to do if you remember to replant.

Cilantro is very similar to lettuce in its growing habits.  It will grow up to a point and then goes to seed, or bolts.  It i will bolt more quickly in summer heat and, conversely, will stand ready to harvest for many weeks in the cool weather of spring and fall--even early winter.  It can be transplanted or grown from seed.  Like lettuce, it is simple to do both at the same time, thereby giving the gardener two generations.  Cilantro seed is coriander, so it does have a use if you enjoy that flavor.

Dill can be treated just like cilantro, and like coriander seed, dill seed heads have a use in the kitchen, so it is fine to let some of the dill patch go to seed.

Basil can be planted multiple times for best results.  Plants can be pinched to slow down the flowering, but best flavor will come from newly replanted basil plants.  Heat loving. Should only be planted once soil temps are in the upper 50's.

Cucumbers, cantaloupes, and zucchini and summer squash are best in quality when well tended. Just a single plant or two of any of those is usually enough for the home gardener, but by planting it three different times, the quality will always be good. The dates are: June 1st (or last week in May if you are in a warm spot), July 1st and July 15th.  This method will ensure a continuous harvest of prime looking vegetables.  Just remember to pull out and discard the pest and disease prone plants.  If your compost gets very hot and is well managed, it is okay to compost these plants.  Pest problems will diminish when the older, less healthy plants are removed.

Arugula, Cress, and other cutting greens for salads are best if sown or transplanted on a weekly or biweekly basis.  Again, a small amount can be seeded next to the transplanted crops in order to give you 2 generations at once.  This way you can have smaller quantities coming in at various times. Broccoli gives the gardener a couple of options.  It is best if transplanted and can be planted 3 dates in the spring and 3 dates in late summer for a continuous harvest.  I would choose late April, early May and mid May for the spring plantings and then Early August, mid August and early September for the fall plantings.  Full heads can be harvested and the plants can stay in the ground to produce side shoots. Green Beans -- are best when fresh and young.  The seed is relatively cheap, so it is better to rip out old plants and have new ones coming along regularly.  Having multiple plantings also means that no on is stuck picking beans for ours on end.  Sow new seeds when the previous or first generation is about 6 inches high.

Boc Choi, Cabbage, Scallions, Cauliflower -- these can also be planted multiple times.  Cabbage holds well in heat and can be planted every couple of weeks late April through early August.  Boc Choi and Cauliflower are not as heat tolerant and should be planted around the same dates as broccoli (see above). It is best to use row cover like reemay on these young transplants so that flea beetles do not destroy the plants. Spinach is another one that does not do well in the heat, but can be planted multiple times in spring and late summer.  It can also overwinter with a little straw mulch for very early spring eating.  Date to plant are (up to every week) mid April to early June and then early August to mid September. The last plantings in September are the ones which will be over-wintered and eaten the following spring.

Beets, Carrots, Turnips can be planted every two or three weeks from mid-April until about the third week in July.  Summer carrots are not the same as fall carrots and certain varieties do better in summer than in fall. Celery and Celeriac are slower growing and can be planted 2 to 3 times during the season.  Mid May until early July.  These need lots of water and benefit from straw mulch.

Bulb fennel and radishes are similar to lettuce -- they can be planted each week if really loved, but they bolt in the heat and do best in cooler temperatures of spring and fall.  Best if planted late April to early June and then again late August to mid September.  Very cold tolerant and hold well in late fall,  radishes are sown from seeds and fennel is best transplanted. Corn -- it is possible to do multiple plantings over different weeks, but an easier method is to plant all at once, but with various varieties that have different days to maturity.  There can be a 40 day span between early and late varieties. Peas -- can be planted every week, but this requires a lot of harvesting, irrigating, trellising, and variety research.  It is possible though.  More practically, the home gardener can sow 2 or 3 varieties in late April with various days to maturity.  Fall plantings are sometimes successful but weather dependent. These should be done in mid August.

The following are generally planted just once a year, but the harvest can be staggered with a few tricks: Tomatoes, Peppers, Eggplant -- try a few varieties of each in order to not have everything at once.  Determinate tomatoes will provide you with a big harvest all at once which is a good thing for people who make big batches of sauce for canning or freezing.

Onions and Potatoes are generally planted all at once, and again a few different varieties will provide you with a longer period of fresh eating.  Both onions and potatoes can be stored for long periods of time in cool and dark conditions.  Both can also be eaten fresh. Winter Squash is another crop that is just planted once and stored.  Best if cured for a week or two in a warm spot before eating.

A Few Weeks Later

Here are some more recent photos. The work is flowing smoothly, the plants are doing well, and the extra heat and sunshine of early March is really paying off with lots of lush green growth. If you are in the area, please feel free to come visit and get a dose of spring. We will be opening our retail greenhouse April 23rd (10 am to 6 pm everyday).

You can take a look at more photos by going here. Have a great week. More sunshine and warm temperatures are on their way!

We will begin deliveries to local stores this week, so keep a look out for some herbs and violas to bring a touch of spring to your life.

Don't Fear Frost! Extending Your Growing Season

Here in Vermont, we can count on just a few frost-free months. But with a little bit of planning, strategic planting, and getting the right tools, you can harvest through a bit of frost and snow. But by planning out crop planting so that crops are mature before the short days and cold weather hits, you can then protect them and harvest them well into winter.

Row covers such as reemay are usually used with hoops made of #9 gauge wire so that the fabric does not rest right on the plants. These covers breath and come in various weights. They allow light and water in, but raise the temperature of the soil and air inside the cover.

Cold frames are simple boxes that are filled with good quality soil and are covered with windows (called "lights") or clear plexiglass or sometimes plastic. They are used for season extension, plant protection, as mini-greenhouses, and as a place to overwinter tender perennials. The covers are closed at night and opened on sunny days. Lettuce, spinach, hardy greens, and herbs can be grown most of the winter in a hot bed with a south facing light. "Hot beds" are deep cold frames that hold a thick layer of manure below the soil. As the manure decomposes, it lets out a tremendous amount of heat which keeps the frame very warm at night even in the winter. Cold frames can be made out of wood, straw, stone, concrete with old storm windows on hinges. The windows must be small enough that they can be opened and closed easily by raising them up and propping them with a stick.

Straw mulch is a great way to extend the season for vegetables such as kale, spinach, carrots, beets and other root crops. Once the crops are matured, a very thick layer of straw around the base of the plants will keep the ground from freezing so that the roots may still be harvested. The straw also keeps the top of the crops from freezing in extreme temperatures. Spinach can be overwintered under straw so that an early spring crop can be eaten. Kale lasts well into winter and is also helped by a deep straw layer so that the cold wind does not completely dessicate the leaves.

Every home garden has microclimates. It is a good idea to take advantage of these when planning the fall garden. A south-facing foundation wall is a great place to prep a small area for greens and herbs that will be well sheltered from cold, northern winds. It's a good place to situate a cold frame as well and to plant it with radishes, greens, and other crops that will benefit from the micro climate.

Containers are another great way to extend the season. Herbs, greens and lettuces can be planted in pots, apple crates, milk crates, or window boxes and moved inside when the weather gets too cold. While they might not last all winter long, they will certainly give you some fresh eating for a few months longer...all you need is a sunny spot or some simple grow lights. Thyme, parsley, rosemary, and sage all do well in containers in the home and will last all winter. Kale and lettuce will last up to 5 or 6 weeks longer than they would outdoors.

Photograph by One Green Generation . Creative Commons license.