first published February 23, 2006

It may only be February but spring is in the air—or rather it’s on the minds of many gardeners as they begin the process of growing plants with an eye towards the “real” spring. When gardeners start their own seeds inside their homes or hobby greenhouses, they often experience this overwhelming desire to immediately start fertilizing as soon as seedlings emerge. Maybe it’s simply our instinct to nurture that kicks in but while many young seedlings do grow better with a little fertilizer, discretion is the greater part of valor when it comes to dispensing plant food to vulnerable baby plants.

I’m often asked how much fertilizer to apply to seedlings and quite frankly the answer is not simple. Initially the question seems rather straightforward, but really it’s like asking how much gasoline to put in a car for a 100-kilometre trip without knowing the quantity of fuel already in the tank and the make and model of the car. With seeds, you just can’t recommend an amount of fertilizer without knowing the total quantity of nutrients in the soil mixture and the species and variety of seed that you are trying to grow.

THE SOIL’S THE THING
There are soil mixtures sold specifically for starting seeds. The problem with any of these ’seedling’ soils—and I’ve stood on this soapbox before—is that there are no national standards for any of the mixes on the market. In other words, when you buy seedling mix it is pretty much buyer beware. Poor-quality seedling mixtures are far too often plagued with excessive levels of salts that can outright prevent seed germination or, at the very least, burn seedlings struggling to emerge from the briny mix. As a professional grower, I never buy cheap seedling mixtures for one very simple reason: I can’t afford to. Saving a few dollars on seedling soil and risking damage to thousands of dollars worth of seed is pure folly. For home gardeners, I don’t see the basic economics being any different; it’s just the magnitude of the situation that changes.

Since there is no simple, cheap method available for would-be growers to make an honest appraisal of the saltiness of a seedling mix, word of mouth from other gardeners and a little faith-based buying from a reputable company are the only choices.

FUEL RESERVES
Once you know that the soil mixture is free of excessive salts, you can start to think about fertilizing the seedlings. Take a close look at the species and even the variety of seed that you are trying to grow. The rule of thumb is that the smaller the seed, the sooner they need a shot of fertilizer to grow vigorously. Intuitively, it makes sense because small seed doesn’t have the volume to contain much ‘fuel’ to feed vigorously growing shoots and roots. Begonia seed fits within this category. At the greenhouse we feed begonia seed just as soon as we see its tiny seedling leaves emerge, otherwise the begonias can literally starve to death. On the other hand, seeds of plants like nasturtium, corn or beans can begin to grow without any supplemental fertilization, simply because the seeds contain an ample supply of fats and sugars; enough to keep the seedlings happy for a fairly long time after emergence from the soil.

When it comes time to fertilize seedlings the operative phrase is to ‘use caution’; more seedlings are lost from overfertilization than underfertilization. At the greenhouse we’ve learned this from experience. I remember one year seeing a distinctive brown swath of burned seedlings evident among a sea of healthy green plants on our growing range. Rumor had it that a certain head grower was a little overzealous with the fertilizer and to this day I’m still proclaiming my innocence!

Now, assuming that your seedlings do require fertilizer, I find 10-6-16 applied at one-quarter strength until the seedlings hit the true leaf stage to be a good choice. (True leaves are those that emerge from the stem immediately after the first seedling leaves.) Not only does 10-6-16 provide a good balance of major nutrients but it also contains calcium and magnesium, two essential nutrients that aren’t found in the vast majority of commercial fertilizers.

Fertilizers were never meant to be the lone salvation of seeds, but rather a valuable tool in raising healthy seedlings—provided they are used properly. The journey from tender seedling to mature plant has enough pitfalls. Some basic knowledge about fertilizers can make the journey just a little less perilous.

If a tulip bulb is planted upside down it won’t grow.

Myth or truth-you tell us…

Many plants, especially perennials, leave a lasting impression on our customers and new staff. By using our God-given senses, it is surprising how particularly smell tends to be the most powerful. Be it the enchanting fragrance of Lily of the Valley to the not-so-enchanting smell of Valerian. Fragrance, for the most part, can induce childhood memories for most of us.

Lily of the Valley Convallaria majalis

When we think of fragrance, we automatically associate flowers. This is true for such perennials as Lily of the Valley, Garden Pinks, Primroses and Peonies, just to name a few.

Other parts of a plant can have varying degrees of fragrance or scent. The foliage of Russian Sage, Salvia, Beebalm, Thyme and Gasplant have a unique and distinct association with the scents we find in teas, potpourri and ointments.

The roots of certain plants can leave a lasting impression on most of us, as well. The smell of the roots of a perennial not too common, Codonopsis sp., or the less hardy Houttuynia (Chameleon Plant) which can become noxious on the West Coast, are reminiscent of the smell of a skunk or unlaundered gym socks respectively.

Valeriana montana

You also have the common Valeriana (Nature’s form of Valium). White clusters of flowers with a real sweet fragrance adorn this plant most of the summer, yet, the smell of the roots can cause one to lose his/her appetite. To others, the scent can be mind-altering. Just ask your cat!

For the past few days I’ve been preparing the coldframes for the occupation. From an earlier entry you’ll remember these as our freestanding greenhouses overlooking the Sturgeon. That hasn’t changed. That’s the nice thing about coldframes: bread gets stale, beer goes flat, but a coldframe always remains the same.

This, of course, is a lie.

Coldframes change too. Come February, they are dingy places. Bugs, for instance, come to them to die, leaving mummified carcasses and disembodied wings. Long dormant furnaces grow fond of the easy life, and only Norman the Tall, our systems fix-up guy, seems able to coax them back into service. Air pumps that run non-stop, keeping each frame’s plastic skin inflated, finally decided that enough is enough.

Most interesting, however, are the topographical changes. The winter freeze-up causes the ground beneath the frames to rise and fall, scattering crests and troughs across the asphalt. Bob Stadnyk’s perennial frames have been hit hardest, with the pavement sinking, in parts, almost 30 cm. Last year we had them filled. This year they’ve sunk again. A frustrating irony arises here, one in which the grower, instead of skipping along hand in hand with Mother Nature, battles relentlessly against her. (Which, it could be argued, is the basis of conventional agriculture anyway.)

When you grow plants, you see, you enter into a relationship with them—one in which it’s best to remain completely in charge, just like we’d all prefer with respect to any relationship. Argue otherwise if you can, but no right-thinking gardener could expect much of the petunias she has allowed to wallow in the fetid puddle of a sinkhole. Therefore, no matter how shaky, the analogy stands. If you can’t manage wet-dry cycles, you simply can’t grow. So, come February, you get out there and cover every depression with whatever you can find, be it wooden pallets, Styrofoam, lengths of old hose, or new asphalt. Whatever Mother Nature reclaims as hers, you struggle to replace.

So, is this an act of love for the plants we grow, or of defiance of the forces that ultimately decide their fate? Are we quixotic, or are we hubristic?

You tell us.

Hits & Misses: Temperature Swings Caladiums & Thunbergia
An Invitation: enjoygardening.com
Question of the Week:
Industry News: pesticides
Timelines: Easter Lilies

Dips into arctic temperatures, no matter how brief, always present
challenges for growers and this past week was no different. I was just
nicely in bed the other night when I received a call from our security
company informing me that a temperature alarm had gone off at the
greenhouse. All told, we have 26 alarms dedicated to monitoring just the
temperatures in our growing ranges, never mind all the security and fire
alarms. The reason for this particular call was simple; the heat was set low
in a cold frame to prevent some perennials from growing too rapidly, and
because that night was cold, the alarm registered the low temperature and
sounded, right before the heaters started up.

Having our greenhouses monitored by a security company is not a luxury but
rather a necessity. Any grower who has been in this game for any length of
time can attest to the heartbreak of checking a non-alarmed greenhouse in
the morning, only to see and often smell that unforgettable odour of frozen
plants, all because a heater failed in the middle of the night. I’m grateful
to have the monitoring system in place, but as the years go by it sure is
getting harder to take those late night calls!

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Hits & Misses
*************
Hit: Caladiums
Caladiums are a great looking tropical plant that we grow in the greenhouse
for customers to put in their pots and planters. The biggest challenge with
growing this crop is to keep them from getting chilled, either in transport
to the greenhouses or even after they are growing in the greenhouse. Some
varieties will suffer chilling injury when temperatures dip to 10 degrees
Celsius. We find that they love temperatures in the high 20’s or even low
30’s, so we put the bulbs in pots on a our heated floor and covered them
with a plastic tent to increase the heat even further. This gives the
caladiums the necessary jumpstart to get them growing vigorously and the
results are already visible on our crop.

Miss: Thunbergia
Our thunbergia (you might know it as black-eyed Susan vine) was planted up
in hanging baskets this past week and hung along the glass wall in one of
the greenhouses. We positioned the baskets just above the fin tube pipe that
distributes nice warm water from our boiler throughout the growing area.
Normally this would be the ideal environment for heat-loving plants like
thunbergia, but it was my sister in law Valerie who noticed that the plants
seemed very chilled. Since the glass wall is only single pane construction,
it’s a poor insulator and as the warm air of the greenhouse hits the glass
and cools, moisture forms and cools rapidly as it runs down the glass. This
creates a cold waterfall that can very quickly lead to chilling injury on
plants grown too close to the glass. The same principle applies to plants
grown in your home if they are sitting by a large window.

It’s a good thing that Valerie noticed the problem…you can never have too
many eyes watching your crops!

*************
News
*************
You’re Invited!
If you haven’t been to our site www.enjoygardening.com (or just haven’t
visited it lately), I’d like to invite you to check it out soon for two new
reasons. In addition to the interesting information already on the site, Bob
Stadnyk, our perennial department manager, has recently begun sharing what’s
on his mind in the world of perennials (and believe me, Bob’s mind is a
fascinating place to explore). We’ve also introduced a new feature “The
Unlikely Gardener,” brought to you by one of our own growers with a very
unique perspective on the behind the scenes workings of our greenhouse. I’m
really enjoying these two latest contributors to our gardening forum and I
think you will too.

*************
Question of the Week
*************
A 40 degree Celsius drop in temperature in 5 days! What can you say? That’s
just late winter in Alberta. Invariably with these kinds of rapid
temperature plunges we get a ton of questions from our customers about the
effect on garden plants. We can’t really give them a firm answer because
there are so many variables that effect the outcome: the plant species, the
rate of temperature drop, the lowest temperature reached, the level of
moisture in the soil, the amount of snow cover, the list goes on and on.
What we can say is that it is extremely likely that there will be some plant
damage-it’s just a matter of the degree. Still, I believe our biggest worry
is not the cold but rather the drought. A heavy spring rain will do much to
alleviate the incredibly dry soil conditions but at the very least I’d
recommend that you keep your garden hose handy come March.

*************
Industry News
*************
I was at a meeting last week for pesticide applicators licensed in the
greenhouse and interiorscape fields. I couldn’t help but think that the
world of pesticides is evolving and, by and large, it’s evolving for the
better. Licensed applicators in Alberta must pass a written provincial exam
and have extensive application experience. As well, to retain a license they
must be committed to accruing a minimum number of continuing education
credits on the subject each year. Licensed applicators are much better
trained than in the past, and today’s pesticides and their registered uses
are a far cry from the days of indiscriminate DDT application. It is
unfortunate that pesticides are often vilified by the public in general
because they really have come a long way since “Silent Spring”.

*************
Timelines
*************
February 23
The Easter lilies are looking great, and by maintaining an 18 degree Celsius
temperature on the growing range, we should see the lilies in bloom 10 days
before Easter Sunday. There is a bit more variability in height than in
previous years but fortunately our customer’s preferences for plant sizes
are equally as varied as the plants are in height!

Chemical fertilizers are not as good as organic blends.

Myth or truth-you tell us…

Potatoes should be planted in a new front yard before grass is seeded.

Myth or truth-you tell us…

There is an abundance of compost on the market. Lots of manufacturers with many blends and plenty of supply means we have much more production capacity than demand. The reason for this over production is compost producers continue to believe that gardeners will use the recommended amounts of compost when in reality they use far less. An average garden should receive an annual application of compost. If the average garden is 5 x 5 metres (approximately 250 sq.ft.) an application of 5 cms (2 inches) of compost is equal to 1.25 cubic metres (1.5 cubic yards). This translates into 42 30 litre bags of compost. How often do you see people hauling home that much compost? Seldom do gardeners use even a tenth of that amount.

Good quality compost is essential for healthy plant growth. Most homeowners remove almost all the vegetation from the garden in the fall. This results in the soil being depleted of organic matter and thus the ability to hold moisture and nutrients. If compost use was to increase we would all see the added benefits to the enviroment with less water consumption and more modest fertilizing along with money savings. Since most gardeners do not understand the basics of soil management, compost manufacturers need to help educate homeowners on the correct amount of compost to use. The most common problem is gardeners can’t easily calculate coverage rates for each bag of compost. Here is a simple way to do it.

Pace the length and width of your garden and calculate the area. Multiply this number by 2 for the number of 30 litre bags of compost required.
Note: If your garden has very poor quality soil, get it tested. You may find other problems that can be solved at the same time.

first published February 16, 2006

In my vegetable farming days, whenever someone mentioned lettuce, we just assumed they were referring to iceberg lettuce. Heck, back then even romaine lettuce was deemed to be somewhat exotic! But now the world of lettuce has evolved so far beyond these two types that I guarantee today a majority of people would be very disappointed if served an iceberg salad in any upscale restaurant.

The impetus for the amount of breeding work that lettuce (or Lactuca sativa as it’s known in Latin) has undergone over the last few decades is its tremendous popularity—the market has transformed a rather mundane vegetable into a multitude of diverse and interesting varieties sure to please both palate and eye. And not only has western society fallen in love with the interesting flavours, textures and colours of new lettuce varieties, we’ve also embraced the idea that they are healthier for us. But is that really the case? Well, if you measure a couple of key nutrients in lettuce the answer is yes. All lettuce varieties are not created equally.

OFF WITH THEIR HEADS
The fact is if you’re planning on sowing the most nutritious lettuce into your garden this spring, you are better off choosing the leafy varieties. Iceberg lettuce takes a backseat to romaine and leaf lettuce when it comes to two disease-fighting, plant-produced chemicals (phytochemicals): beta carotene and lutein. These nutrients, referred to collectively as carotenoids, are found in all types of lettuce but are more concentrated in leafy lettuce than in head lettuce. In fact, on a fresh-weight basis, leaf lettuce varieties can contain over 10 times as much carotenoids as iceberg types.

The reason that romaine and leaf lettuce are superior to iceberg or head lettuce has more to do with their leaf architecture than to some inherent genetic superiority over iceberg varieties. Because iceberg lettuce forms a tight head, only the outside leaves receive the sunlight necessary to produce high levels of carotenoids, whereas romaine and leaf lettuce have a far greater percentage of leaves exposed to the sun. The result is that romaine and leaf lettuce are more nutritionally dense on a per weight basis than head lettuce.

On the other hand, even though iceberg varieties have a significantly lower concentration of carotenoids than their leafy relatives, breeders haven’t completely ignored them. In fact, today’s iceberg varieties pack a more powerful nutritional punch than the varieties enjoyed years ago. ‘Great Lakes,’ one of the standard varieties that we grew on the farm years ago, has about half as much carotenoids as ‘Top Gun’ or ‘Legacy,’ two new commercial varieties. This advancement is a real triumph in plant breeding.

PRETTY ON THE PLATE, PLEASANT ON THE PALATE
In the flavour, texture and colour categories, leaf lettuce offers many more choices than iceberg lettuce—although one could argue that the sole reason for growing and eating iceberg lettuce is for its crunchy texture and not its mild flavour or pale presence on the salad plate. Leaf lettuces on the other hand have textures that are crisp to slightly chewy and their flavours are wide ranging. ‘Bon Vivant,’ a popular seed blend of leaf lettuces, contains a mildly sweet, peppery and slightly bitter varieties. As for colour, leaf lettuces can be deep green, red, bronze or red-tinged. The leaves also vary greatly in shape—‘Bronze Arrow’ has attractive oak leaf-shaped leaves and ‘Lollo Rossa’ has deep-red leaves frilled at the edges. If you’re in the market for a tasty deep-green romaine with large compact heads, I recommend ‘Parris Island,’ a reliable favourite we’ve enjoyed for a few years now.

Lettuce has to be one of the easiest vegetables to grow, and if you sow seed every two weeks throughout the spring and early summer, in an average year you can harvest lettuce continually from early summer well into September. Lettuce seed can be sown in tidy rows if it is a romaine or iceberg variety or simply scattered in a patch if it is a leaf variety. In about a week, seedlings will emerge. It really is that simple to have fresh greens for salads, whether you have a large garden or a balcony window box.

Although lettuce may not be as nutrient dense as vegetables such as broccoli or pepper, there is no denying its popularity, and eating a variety that not only tastes good but also is as rich in nutrients as possible makes sense. So, for those who eat salads made of the new varieties of romaine and leaf lettuces more for the health benefits than the flavour take heart in the fact that at least it requires fewer bites to stay on a healthy diet than it did in my “salad days.”

The last of the tranquil weekends, I fear, are nearly behind us. It’s too bad; these are my favourite times at the greenhouse. Right now, the place is filling, but slowly. It can still be managed easily by one or two people—which means most of the growers can spend weekends with spouses, day-tripping to shopping malls and indoor golf centres. Get here at 8 am to water Indoor Plants and Hole’s is the picture of serenity. At that hour, the ventilation fans are still, and the place is bright and silent. This is a welcoming solitude, the kind that fixes you firmly in the moment, making you a bit more aware of the world than you otherwise might be. This past Sunday, I took a minute to watch a flock of cedar waxwings, maybe five or six hundred strong, pass over the Sturgeon River in an undulating wave, little silhouettes backlit by the rising sun.

Once things get going, which will happen at the end of the month, moments like these will be memories. More plants mean more staff, which in turn means a lot less of the old sacred quietude. Soon there won’t be a free moment anyway. By the end of March just about every square metre of greenhouse space will be blanketed in plants making unreasonable demands for attention. Come May, the tranquility of a weekend morning in the growing ranges will have been shattered entirely by the traffic of stocking carts piloted by Front Greenhouse kids hoping to cover next year’s tuition.

At that point, you don’t think too much about how you once had this little world to yourself. You just soldier on. Maybe, during the few minutes it takes to soak them down, you lose yourself in the kaleidoscopic dazzle of 500 flats of pansies in full bloom. Or perhaps you’re held, for the briefest moment, by the sweet scent of alyssum spilling out of a coldframe. Mostly though, you just push through the dry heat and gusting wind of the prairie summer, drawn on by thoughts of home and cold beer. Actually, probably not beer. By the end of the day, you’re too beat. You get home, spend a few moments extricating dirt from beneath your nails with a toothpick, then fall asleep by eight.

At night, hopefully, you dream of cedar waxwings.