A lot of confusion surrounds GMO seeds, as the term is now used in reference to Monsanto; and there are many gardeners concerned that they might buy some by accident.
That is simply not possible.

You won’t find GMO seeds this way.

Here’s what you would have to do to get it:

1. Buy a farm. Call up Monsanto and tell them you want to sign that long intense contract that even controls you and your crop after you stop growing GMO. Buy seeds from them, buy Round-up from them. Grow the crop, but don’t save any seeds, or they will sue you.

2. Buy land down wind from a farm that is growing GMO crops that are wind pollinated, like corn. Let them cross pollinate your non-GMO crop. Save the seeds. Just don’t let Monsanto find out, or they will sue you.

3. Buy GMO veggies at the store, like corn or zucchini. Save the seeds and replant. Chances are they won’t grow, because the seed is too immature to germinate. So what if Monsanto finds out? They might sue you anyway.

Here’s the thing to remember, Monsanto doesn’t want you to have their seeds without the contract. They are not in seed packets at your local Farm and Garden. They’re just not.

So usually when someone says they only grow non-GMO, what they probably mean is they are growing heirlooms and open pollinated, not hybrids.
But a hybrid is only a cross between a plant and a similar plant, like a tomato and another, slightly different, tomato. Bees do it naturally, and growers do it on purpose.
That’s okay.

A GMO is not plant to plant. It’s a tomato and a fish, or corn and E. Coli.
Really big difference.

The danger of foods containing GMO.

The post 3 Ways to Get Your Hands on GMO Seeds appeared first on Gardening Jones.

Like a lot of other places, spring weather in the Northeast has been crazy.
The last two weeks have been on the cold side, including a few frost and freeze warnings, and believe it or not, it snowed on May 13th.

The worst seems to be over now.
Here’s what is going on in our Zone 5/6 gardens:

A new house-and-garden tree.

The cold hardy Avocado Tree arrived, making the small olive tree look even smaller. They both have been inside, then out, then back in, and today will make their final move out until fall.

Homegrown avocados this winter? Yeah, it could happen.

What looks like a mini sunflower, smells like chocolate, and you eat the tuberous roots?

We decided to contain the sunchokes, and this is one of the buckets they have been transplanted to.
They are coming up nicely and we’re looking forward to how pretty they will make the roadside garden look.

There’s always a project to do.

The frame to hold netting over the fruit trees is finally finished. It would have been done sooner, but Mandolin decided to help.

Seriously though, it’s a much sturdier structure than it would otherwise have been.

Here they come!

40 pounds of taters are sprouting.
There are a number of different kinds, and a few different growing methods.

Gotta love garden experiments.

Pushing the growing season.

Cloching worked well for the dry beans. We also tried it with bush green beans, with no success.
Of course, the fact the seeds were older may have been a contributing factor to their demise.

A jump start on the nightshades.

Likewise it worked well for the tomatoes, eggplant and peppers.
We even have some early buds.
No flowers on the peas yet though, go figure.

The bush the rabbit missed.

Earlier in the spring we discovered rabbits had chewed down a number of our blueberry bushes.
They missed a few, though; which are now heavily protected.
Bring on the Blueberry pancakes!

Photo bombed buckets.

We scored some food-grade buckets at an out of the way diner, and plan on using the cabbage, cauliflower, gherkins, and some other veggies for a little lacto-fermentation later in the summer.
Mmmm, healthy goodness.

It’s garlic… And onions.

As it turns out the wonderful growth that we thought was the onion experiment, is actually garlic.
If you look in the background you can see the wee little fall planted onions are just coming up.

Live and learn Dear Journal, and take better notes.

The post Dear Journal -First Half of May 2013 appeared first on Gardening Jones.

Also known as ‘peat pots’ these seed starting units are simply mesh holding in dried peat. Peat itself is just vegetation that has partially decomposed. Pretty basic.

So why would some of my gardening friends claim they will never use them again? In fact, calling them ‘horrid’ and expressing that they cause the plants to become root bound, stunting growth.

Starting seeds in peat pellets using a re-purposed plastic container.

One of my friends suggested the mesh has been made stronger over time, and that is why the peat pellets no longer work.

Squash seedling one week old.

We found this interesting because we would swear by the pellets after starting a lot of seeds in them this year. The roots were coming out the bottom and sides, though many were still in the mesh. It was easy enough to tear open when the time came to transplant. Our tomatoes were well over 18″ tall when they went in the ground, and you can see the root growth of a pepper plant below.

Pepper plant ready to go in the garden.

Did we just get lucky and maybe get an old batch, or did we do something different that made them work? Sure wish we knew.

Of course there are so many other ways to start seeds: in pots, in bathroom tissue rolls, in handmade starts formed from newspaper, even hydroponically. Everyone has their favorite way.

For now, we’ll stick with what worked for us.
What’s your experience with peat pots, and what has worked best for you? Please share.

The post Jiffy Peat Pellets- Yay or Nay? appeared first on Gardening Jones.

“Put your back into it” is not just an expression for gardeners, it’s literal.
Let’s face it, gardening is a very physical activity. The larger the garden, the more it requires from you.
Building raised beds helps a lot with the bending aspect, as does mulching to prevent weed growth.
But the older we get, the more difficult gardening can become. And it’s not just age that can add to the difficulty, many gardeners suffer from car accident related or other injuries.
Yet we love it so much, we keep going.

Whether you are just mulching your veggies…

We can talk about what to do or take for the sore muscles, like heat pads and soothing baths with Epsom salt, gardeners love Epsom salts, but there is also something we have found that helps:
Exercise.

Exercise, G. J.? But gardening is exercise, how can that help?

Many years ago I was misdiagnosed with scoliosis, and a physical therapist showed me a few easy exercises to help strengthen my back muscles.
So recently, I started doing these exercises again, and found that I could play much longer in the garden without the pain I normally would have suffered.

filling a few containers…

It’s so easy and slow, that it’s almost yoga-like.
Here’s what to do:

1. Sit on a straight back chair, and place your elbows at your waist, palms up and arms out front. Keeping your elbows in tight, move your arms to the sides as far as you can, then forward again.

2. Still sitting, bend your upper body down to the floor between your legs and bounce a few times. Straighten back up.

3. With arms across your chest, turn to the right and then to the left as far as you can.

4. Lay down on a mat or other comfortable surface. Bend your knees and place your arms at your side. Try to bring the small of your back down to the mat without lifting your butt.

5. Still laying down, bring one leg at a time to your chest, use your hands to hold your knees, to gently help get them a little closer.

or building weed free pathways.

Repeat each exercise 5-10 times and you will strengthen your back as well as loosen your muscles before the real workout begins.
No more heating pad needed.

Here’s the disclaimer- always consult your physician before beginning any new activity.

Of course, if you are already gardening, you’re most likely ready.

The post 5 Easy Exercises to Help Prevent Gardening Related Back Pain appeared first on Gardening Jones.

Gardeners know the benefits of compost, or ‘black gold’ as they call it.
But there are times when you may want to apply that gold in a liquid form.
Why?
Well, to not disturb young plants or their soil, for one.
To get that richness right to the leaves, for another. Did you know plants take in nutrients from their leaves as well as their roots?
Crafty little devils they are.

Yours or theirs.

The gardening sites I have seen make this much more involved than is necessary.
A lot of the internet is like that, unfortunately.

My friend and fellow Master Gardener Tami says it does not need to be all that complicated.
A gardener after my own heart.

So here’s the easy way:
1. Get 2 buckets.
2. Get some compost.
3. Get some water.
4. Get some molasses (optional).

Place the water in 1 bucket. Add the compost, broken down or not, homemade or purchased, but preferably in an old pillow case or similar fabric that will strain out the larger pieces. Add some molasses.

Any ol’ bucket will do.

After one day soaking, pour the water from one bucket to the next, then put the bag of compost back in to soak. This is a simple way to aerate the tea.
Repeat for 3 days, and you are ready to go.
Or grow, as the case is.

Add more water, brew.

Read more about how compost tea spray works, as well as other great info on Foliar Spraying, here.

The post How to Make Compost Tea, the Easy Way appeared first on Gardening Jones.

When the story of the upcoming swarm of 17-year locusts first hit the news, visions of crop damage of Biblical Proportions entered my head.
You know, the kind of stuff a b-rated sci-fi is made of.

But after reading a lot on the internet, I came across this news release from Indiana University.

Frame is ready.

What a relief! You see, the cicadas are expected to travel up the east coast from North Carolina to New York. Some sources even mentioned the Hudson Valley region, which is not terribly far from us. I did finally find a map, and we are just on the fringe of their expected path.
With an estimated trillion of swarming red eye bugs coming this way, I wanted to learn how to protect the gardens.

As it turns out these much anticipated cicadas don’t mess with the majority of crops, mainly they will go after fruit trees and shrubs.
Luckily those are the plants the dang squirrels and rabbits damaged last fall and this spring, so we were already preparing to cover them with netting, using PVC pipe as a frame.

Get netting with opening 1 inch or less.

This project just moved to the top of the To-Do list.

Secretly, I hope we get a chance to see at least one, and get a good pic.
Then we can put it here:

Wow! Look at this great shot we got!

Are you in their path? Are you a cicadas geek?
Enjoy the fun by keeping up with the Swarmageddon and an interactive tracking map here.

The post Cicadas and the Home Gardener appeared first on Gardening Jones.

You can purchase some dry bean seeds from your favorite seed supplier, or save some money by getting some ‘soup’ beans from the grocery store.

We did this back in 2010, and have not had the need to buy seed since.
Dry beans like those pictured below from the local grocery were a little over $2 per pound, about what you would pay for a packet (1/8 pound) of seeds at your local nursery (or more through the mail with shipping charges added).

“What?” you may be thinking. Yes it’s true…and it gets even better:
Since the beans are seeds, we had enough seed left from the harvest to plant the following year, and so on.
For approximately $5 we have enough dry beans for the rest of our lives.

“What???” You may be shocked and amazed but it’s true.
These beans will never become soup, but their kids will.

(no soup for you!)

Dry beans are easy enough to plant.
When the weather is good and warm, just drag your trowel through the soil to make a small trench.
Throw in beans. You can take the time to carefully set them in but we don’t. They seem to handle overplanting very well.
Cover the trench and water.
Even easier, plant before a rain.

Only a week after planting.

Beans are a very healthy source of protein and are high in fiber, good for a lot of what ails you.

We really love them too, most especially as hummus. You can use a variety of beans to make it.

Some beans you can pick young for fresh eating, then let the rest dry on the plant.
Beans produce more the more you pick, so have at ‘em. Dry or fresh you just open the pod to get the beans.

This worked so well that we did purchase a few seeds to add additional color to what we grow. Now we harvest a wonderful assortment each year, without having to buy any more seeds.
Ever.

We have also learned that you can get an even bigger harvest by warming up a bed simply by clamping plastic on it, and keeping the seeds/seedlings warm until the weather is better for them.

Here they come, a full month early.

Note that most dry beans are bush types or semi-vining, meaning they cling on to each other. If you buy beans in the store, chances are you won’t have to trellis them. Check a seed catalog first for more specifics on their needs.

The Video
More on growing Dry Beans
Homemade Hummus
Other seeds from the market

The post Buy Dry Beans Once, Grow Them Forever appeared first on Gardening Jones.

Don’t
Purchase seedlings that have flowers on them. You may think you are getting a head start, but really what the plants need to do first is establish their roots, not produce babies. Let them get settled in.

Do
If you started your own plants and they are budding, pinch those flowers off. Really, you’ll get more fruit in the long run.

The tomatoes are ready, is the soil?

Don’t
Over fertilize. It’s fine to give your plants some good healthy compost, but take it easy on the fertilizer. Too much will grow wonderful bushy and green, albeit unproductive, plants. Same goes for your peppers by the way.

Do
Give them a bit of Epsom salts. They love that stuff. If they don’t need it, it won’t hurt. It is good to have it as a preventative measure to help grow healthier plants.

Do
Plant your transplants very deep. ‘Up to their necks’ is what the farmers say. This way they will grow a great root system, as mentioned above. The better the roots, the more productive the plants will then be.

Ready to rumble.

Don’t
Water from above, if you can help it. This can cause soil to splash up on the stems, making them more prone to disease. Try to use a soaker hose whenever possible with tomatoes.

Do
Mulch, especially if you are watering from above. This helps prevent that soil splash just mentioned, as well as holds the moisture your tomatoes may need.

Do
Put in the stakes you are going to use for support at the same time you plant. You don’t want to go back later and start damaging those roots you both worked so hard for.

Do
Know what type of tomato you are growing. If it’s a ‘determinate’ type, it may suddenly stop producing. Learn more by following the link at the end of this post.

Don’t
Stress it. Are you feeling over run with tomatoes? Are you concerned about fruit flies in your kitchen? Simply wash some of those tomatoes off and toss them in the freezer. When you have time, thaw to use. A bonus: the skins will slip right off after defrosting.

Happy in their cloched bed.

Do
Enjoy a variety if you have the room. Roma and plum tomatoes are best for preserving, slicing types for fresh eating, and of course cherry tomatoes for snacking. Plant tomatoes based on how you intend to use them.

Don’t
plant them outside before the soil temperature is 50F. How warm the soil has become is a function of how close the sun is, the depth, and how much sunshine the area gets. Surface soil can feel warm but 6 inches down it can still be quite cold. Some gardeners plant their tomatoes out when the overnight lows are consistently above 50F. Not the same thing, but close.

Tomatoes under glass.

Do
speed up the process by covering the area with black plastic, and turning the soil over every so often. If you plant early, keep those heat loving tomatoes warm through the use of cloches.
In a pinch, canning jars will do the trick, just don’t let the plants get fried. That’s for the green fruit.

Learn more about growing tomatoes here. Scroll down for all previous posts.

The post 13 Do’s & Do Not’s of Growing Tomatoes appeared first on Gardening Jones.

Not long ago we looked at the espalier method of growing fruit trees. The photo on that post was of a huge garden at Kylemore Abbey in Ireland. The trees were grown against a wall as a way of increasing how much heat they received.

But the espalier method, a simple pruning and staking technique, also serves well to save space.
Here is a picture taken by my friend Jack Goldfil of allotment plots in Paris:

You can see how the trees have been pruned, allowing only the side branches to grow. These are further controlled by tying them to wires running across the whole area. Even in a garden plot this size there can be fresh fruit.

Now of course our garden areas are much larger. Still, we like to get the most from the areas we have growing. An additional concern is the squirrel population that took ever single piece of fruit from our trees last year.
Every. Single. Piece.

So we moved a few of the trees that were only put in last year and purchased a few more.

What we now have are 8 semi-dwarf fruit trees, one dwarf almond tree, and 3 bush variety cherries in a bed about 22′ by 4′. Since everything was just planted this spring, we won’t prune until after the harvest.
We are also going to build a structure above to drape netting over, in an effort to keep the squirrels out.

Remember to never prune more than 1/3 of the tree branches at one time. We will prune some in the fall, and a little more in the spring, containing the area they take up.
You can also plant crops below, as pruned trees don’t cast much shade. This year we planted potatoes and covered them with straw, additionally cutting down on the need to weed.

One other thing to keep in mind is that some trees, pears for example, need more than one variety to produce fruit. You can purchase “2 in one” of “all in one” trees that have been grafted with another variety. Just be careful when you prune to keep some of each variety growing on your tree.

Here’s Jack’s gardening page:Jardiniers du 4ème, where she shares more of her beautiful photos.

You Can Grow That! is a monthly collaborative effort by gardeners around the world to encourage and help others learn to grow.
You can find additional posts by clicking on the pic above. You can also follow us on Pinterest.

The post Fruit Trees in Small Gardens -You Can Grow That! appeared first on Gardening Jones.

Carrots poking through much earlier.

Pretty much any vegetable gardener will tell you that it takes forever for carrot seeds to sprout. Parsnips take even longer.

Is it coincidence that these, two of the tiniest seeds of edible plants, are the slowest to poke through the soil?
Check out this chart prepared by Heirloom Seeds:
Click here to view the chart.

If you take a look at the best temperatures for germination, you will notice part of the problem.
Carrot seeds are planted early in the spring, long before the soil temperatures reach 75F. Parsnips can germinate at a little cooler soil temperature, but 70F is still much warmer than what the normal planting conditions are.

This year we started basil seeds, which are about the same size as carrots, indoors. They pushed through the soil much faster than they did when they were direct sown. Of course, they were in warmer soil and with even amounts of moisture.

That is the key with all seeds, but especially those that are in cooler soil than what is optimum for growing. And here I always thought it was the small size of the seed that was the connecting factor.
Silly gardener.

So what can you do? Carrots really don’t like to be transplanted, so starting them indoors is not the answer.
Part of the solution we looked at before, cloching. This simple method of covering the seeded area with plastic will help warm the soil and speed up germination. It also helps hold in moisture, with is the second factor and probably the more important one.

Give your direct sown seeds this kind of attention.

There’s an even easier way to cloche to improve seed germination times. Since you are only covering the seed until you begin to see green leaves, you can just lay the plastic on the ground and simply use some rocks or anything heavy to keep it from blowing away. Clamps will hold it on a raised bed.
And you don’t need to buy fancy plastic. The drop cloth kind you can get wherever house paint is sold works fine.

If for some reason you can’t cloche, at the very least keep those seeds moist until they poke through.

Cloched peas sprouted faster than uncloched.

Our carrots and other early veggies are about a week ahead this year, it would have been more if we thought to cover them earlier.
Now you’ve just learned what it took us 30 years to figure out.

The post Improving Germination Times of Direct Sown Seed, Pt. 2 appeared first on Gardening Jones.