Sometimes I Don't Plant

I have an area that has been in a state of transformation since we moved into our house two years ago. It sits in a corner of our house as well as at the end of our drive/patio. There is a lot of run-off both from rain and snow melt which means it can be a basement issue. The former-former owners put down a strip of concrete next to the wall to help divert water away from the very old, stone foundation. 

A large hydrangea occupied the space, but it wasn't my cup of tea. Hostas occupied the space underneath with pretty bland varieties and imagination. I tore it all out and started from scratch with plants, but the drainage made that challenging and plowing snow off the end of the drive meant there was always going to be some damage. 

My youngest child was clearing out all the stone cover in her yard from the previous owners. She wanted plants, not red granite. We took home stone over the course of several months 10 buckets at a time until we brought it all home and had a pile on the concrete waiting for the next step. 

 

I scrapped and shoveled and sifted all the soil in this area and used it to fill sunken stump holes in our yard. The buried river rock was sifted, rinsed, and reused in a separate area that already had a river of river rock going through it. The junk went into old wood chuck holes that dot our rural property. Nothing went to waste. I kept harvesting soil until I hit clay. Once I hit clay, the drainage project began. I cut a channel down the center at an angle to pull water away from the corner of the house. Once we have a gutter and downspouts on the back of the house, this will complete the roof diversion of water. The channel met up with the well established low point drainage coming off the concrete. I followed old lines which I outlined with simple edging block which was also a gift from my daughter's house. 

 

 

 

I was gifted a large roll of weed barrier which I usually shun for most landscape projects. I used cheap landscape pins since holding this in place until I got the stone down was my main objective. I have no interest in planting this area, and the stone will never break down like wood mulch into an organic bed. This is the PERFECT application for weed barrier, (second only to putting it in my vegetable garden with my tomato plants to prevent soil splash, reduce weeds, and keep my feet clean). I used pins to hold it to the contours formed by my drainage areas cut into the clay bed right up to the edging. the only area not covered is the concrete strip you see at the bottom of the photo.

 

 

I painstakingly went through the stone rinsing off the soil that had stuck to some of the stone before laying it in my bed. My goal is to have this as sterile as possible, so removing dirt and possible weed seeds was important to me. There was quite a bit just from moving it out of the original beds at its former home. Now I have an area that hopefully won't grow anything and will be an appropriate area to pile lots of snow with some salt from driveway deicer. It does provide a very good area to hold plants during vacation or to serve as a mini nursery area.

 

 

 

 

Home seed gardening 101

The seed catalogues have been coming in since late fall with their beautiful pictures of growing season promises. We look at the costs of seeds and think to ourselves, "I could grow more if..." and you can. You will need extra equipment as most of us don't have a spot warm enough or light enough to grow at home. That is not what I am going to touch on in Seeding 101. I want to teach you about the WHEN of home sowing, not the HOW.

The first thing you need to do is inventory what seeds you may already have on hand so you aren't purchasing duplicates and spending money that your could have used on other gardening pursuits. In 2012, I started to track my seeds more effectively in an Excel spreadsheet.

I prefer the spreadsheet because I can sort this by any of the categories to make a usable tracking sheet while I am in my basement doing the actual work of seeding. I started winter sowing last year with very good results especially for hardy perennials. I can create a list by sowing week which creates a chronological list verses an alphabetical list. It helps me to track when I used saved seed and what year I collected it. There are also the very important notes that I transfer over from the seed packets. This helps me to remember which ones I need to soak ahead of sowing dates or to stratify early enough to achieve better germination. It also has tips for direct sowing outdoors and the temperature needed to germinate seeds indoors or out.

The one question I see all the time which is answered in so many ways is, "When should I start (fill in the blank)?" Someone with unlimited space will have a different answer than the person working with limited resources. The most important part of the equation is your last anticipated frost date. Someone can tell you that you can have your tomatoes in peppers blooming by mid-May in Wisconsin, but that doesn't mean you can plant them outdoors. Both of these are very cold sensitive crops. Even if a cold night doesn't kill them, the set back on blooming can be weeks of delay. The answer for when you should seed them is right on the seed packet. The companies you buy from spend the time and effort of providing this information for you so you can be successful. Follow their advice. The key to timing is not counting forward, but counting backwards. Look at this seed chart which any good grower will use when considering the timing of their crops to transplant time.

Take a look at 2023. On the left side of each month is a gray area which indicates which growing week we are looking at. The first week of the year is week 1. If you look down, you will notice that sometimes the week at the end of the month and the beginning of the month is the same number. When counting back from your frost date, count these numbers just once. Here's how this works:

I plant out my tomatoes and peppers in USDA zone 5b the first full week of June as the earliest date I will do this. In 2023, that is week 23. My seed packets tell me that this can be anywhere from 6 to 12 weeks depending on the variety I am planting. The latest I will plant is week 17 (April 23rd, for 6 weeks), the earliest is week 11 (March 12th, for 12 weeks). If I want my plants to be a bit larger and have the growing space of warmth and light available, I will choose the earlier date. If I have limited area and have to fit more plants in less space, I choose the later date. That is how you time your seeding dates.

I have included this very helpful publication from our University of Wisconsin Extension office which has a nice overview of sowing information for vegetable planting in our state. We do span several growing zones, 3-5, so adjustments have to be made based on which part of the state you live in. Check your own extension office for possible publications pertinent to your own growing area.

Happy planting!