Phipps Trip to the Orchid and Bonsai show!

I know, I know, I promised a review of seed companies this week. But Tim (my husband) and R (my little boy) and I went to Phipps Conservatory and Botanic Garden last Monday and it was awesome and I need to tell you all about it.

Also I haven't finished the review of seed companies.

It's coming.  I promise.

Anyway! Last Monday was President's day and Tim and R were home. I spent some time at school working on some awesomeness for the Home and Garden show (about which I will also write), then we all went to Phipps together. We have a membership to Phipps, it was part of Tim's birthday present to me and I'm pretty sure it's going to end up being one of the best birthday presents ever.

Phipps has some exhibits that are permanent and then they have a rotating display of seasonal shows that are pretty much always amazing. Not that everything at Phipps is perfect, but I do enjoy them. The show going on right now is the Orchid and Bonsai show. I haven't had a chance to get into it much on this blog yet, but I freaking love orchids and bonsai. My indoor plant room is filled with orchids and eventually, I'm confident this blog will be filled too.

One of the most exciting changes for us has been the inclusion of a miniature railroad in one of the center courts of the conservatory. R, like most little kids, loves trains. During the summer there's a great kids garden area, but in the cold icky months there isn't much for them there, and the trains really give him something to look forward to. In addition this trip they gave us a little scavenger hunt for him, it was a sheet with little images of various things around Phipps and the names written down. This gave R something to focus on while we were looking around, and Tim an opportunity to guide R in a more interactive way.

As a budding horticulturist (pun intended) I really love checking out the stranger specimens and looking around for pests and IPM methods. (IPM= Integrated Pest Management). A popular one at Phipps are these little sachets of Encarsia formosa. Encarsia formosa are a biological control method for problematic bugs, they are a parasitic wasp that lays their eggs inside other undesirable bugs, usually white fly. The eggs hatch and the offspring burst forth, killing the pest. One the highlights of this trip was telling Tim about this and watching the look of abject horror spread across his face. The insect world is so horrific and awesome.

Here are some pictures I took from my trip, they'll do a better job that I ever could of explaining how excellent the show was (and is since I believe it's going on until Feb. 28th).

The Center courtyard. Lush as always

Just look at these amazing Phaleanopsis.

Those markings are glorious

Tiny bonsai orange tree with fruits!

WITTLE FRUITS

This is called the Voo Doo Lily and it's Cool AF

Look at this magnificent inflorescence! Look at it

Sunken Garden over flowing with beautiful Orchids!

Victorian Garden. I think those are the graces in the back but I can't be sure.

Whimsy! Color! Palm Trees in Pittsburgh in February!

This is R's favorite part, the mini railroad garden.

Have I mentioned the glass art yet? Chihuly.

This is Romero the Corpse Flower today, it's giant stinky bloom is replaced with this big green stalk.

Inside the vestibule.

Mmmm. Yes. Cattleya Orchids.

That's all I have for you this week. We're getting geared up for the Home and Garden Show next week so hopefully I'll have the review ready to go in the very near future.

Happy Planting! 

RTDP: How to Read Seed Packets

Once you’ve procured your seeds, or while you are in the process of procuring your seeds you are going to want to know how to read the information contained on the seed packet. Seed packets are a wealth of information about the plant you’ll be growing.

I have a story for you about the importance of seed packets.

In 2013 I planted my first garden at our home. We bought the house in December of 2012 and I spent months meticulously planning every inch of my brand new raised beds. I knew from my research that it was generally a good idea to plant marigolds in one’s garden, they function as a natural pest deterrent and they look pretty. So I went onto Botanical Interests and picked a variety of marigold. I chose a variety that had pretty round flowers, but didn’t take the time to bother reading much about them. After all, I’m really good with plants, I know how big marigolds get.

The infamous marigolds.

I started the seeds in my little indoor greenhouse along with the rest of my seedlings for the year. Hardened them off, then planted them all over my garden. In early may they were already these cute perfect little marigold plants, all nice and compact with sweet little buds forming. But they didn’t stop growing. They kept growing. They produced tons of these big round luscious marigold, with a nice spicy marigold fragrance. I actually really liked these flowers and if you are interested in growing quite possibly the biggest marigolds EVER, I recommend them. (Botanical Interests Website) Unfortunately they were not what I’d had in mind. Instead of cute little compact plants that would fit comfortably into my garden plans, I ended up with giant bush-like beasts covered in flowers. They took over. They crowded out the tomatoes and the leafy greens, the swiss chard was a gonner. All because I didn’t read the seed packet. If you look carefully at the seed packet on the right you'll see that it clearly says " 2'-3' tall " and if I'd been paying attention I would've noticed that and not been so very confused by the size of the plants.

If you’re familiar with the test taking strategy “RTDQ” (Read The Damn Question) then you may also find RTDP (Read The Damn Packet) a useful gardening strategy.

Seed packets are a wealth of information. Not every packet has every piece of information, but they all will have most of it. To help you learn how to use these resources, I’ll be comparing different seed companies and showing you where to find different things so that hopefully you’ll be able to decode any seed packet you come across.

The information you’ll find is generally, but not limited to:

My favorite seed packet! It's so darn pretty

1- Common Name

This is what we generally call the plant.

2- Scientific Name

This is the binomial Latin version of the plant name, this is useful because this name is the same for your plant no matter where you are or what language the rest of the information is in. Plus it sounds super science-y.

3- Cultivar/ Variety

As I have learned many times over, one tomato is not the same as another variety of tomato, different varieties have different needs and produce different things.

4- Type of plant

Some plants such as tomatoes and green beans have different types of plants, Flowers have annual, pereniall and biennial. Green beans have pole vs. bush beans, tomatoes have indeterminate (IND) vs determinate (DET), for more info check my glossary page. Also sometimes you will find Organic seed, I’ll be discussing later the benefits of organic and whether or not they’re worth the extra cost. If any of these terms are confusing to you, please check out my Glossary page.

5- Weight of seed

How much seed do you have?

6- Price

How much does the seed cost?

7- Image of mature plant

What does the plant look like?

8- Seed company name

This is pretty self explanatory, who produced and packaged this seed?

9- Mature plant size

SUPER IMPORTANT, Learn from my fail.

10- Sun exposure

Does your seed need full sun, part sun, shade? If you’re a little unsure what the different requirements are check out the definitions on the Glossary page.

11- When to sow

Sometimes this is presented as a small map of the US with color coded planting days, sometimes it’s listed as days from last frost (See previous post about garden scheduling)

12-  How many days to germination

How long until your seeds first emerge from the soil.

13- How long until harvest, or bloom season

How long from germination to harvest or bloom. Some seed packets will say this is from transplant to harvest, not germination but it will state that. Remember: RTDP

14- Depth of planting

How deep to plant

15- Spacing and/or Thinning

How far apart to plant and then how far apart to thin your seedlings. More on this in a later post when we discuss growing plants from seed

16- Further description of plant

Tell me more! Tell me more!

17- Contact info for seed company

Just in case

18- Lot number and harvest year

This is really useful if you save seeds and can’t remember how many years you’ve been holding onto them.

19- Suggestions and bonus info

BONUS!

Let’s get some practice reading! 

This variety of poppy was popularized when it became the symbol for WWI memorials in England and later the VFW.

Not every seed packet has every piece of information, but they all have most of it. This one here is lacking both a description of the plant (They're big fluffy red poppies), Sun exposure, and the scientific name (Papaver rhoeas, if you're wondering). But it has most everything. It also has a good example of the when to sow map of the US, I find this to be a bit more general than I like, so I usually go by last frost date and count back. If your seed packed doesn't give you any specific information that you want, like the scientific name or optimum sowing day, just google it. Like I googled the scientific name just now. 

As a general rule it is safe to assume that if there is no sun exposure listed, and you are growing something for flowers or fruits (meaning something you eat with seeds inside, not just sweet things), that you should plant it in full sun. 

Let's do one more, I haven't broken down a veggie seed pack for you yet, so let's do some nice green beans.  This was a packet of seeds that I bought at a dollar store. They didn't germinate well. I'll be doing a much more in depth review of seed companies later but, SPOILER ALERT,  dollar store seeds usually suck. 

Didn't grow well, but for $0.59 it was worth a shot.

This is an awesome seed packet, the only information missing is what sort of sun exposure the beans need to grow (full sun, but beans can tolerate a bit of shade better than many other garden veggies can).  

That's about all there is to seed packet reading. Just, Read The Damn Packet (RTDP). And if you are confused by something, don't be afraid to look it up. Google is an amazing resource, but so are your favorite gardening books, friendly neighborhood gardeners and me! Feel free to write a comment or shoot me an email with questions.  I, like most gardeners, love talking about gardening and really welcome any opportunity to talk some one's ear off about plants. 

Next blog post: Seed company reviews- The good, the bad and the meh.

Procuring your plants and seeds and when (Planning your veggie garden Part 3)



Hyperbole and a Half memes are the best memes

Okay. You’ve decided what you’re going to plant. And you’ve decided where you’re going to plant it. So… where are all these plants coming from? And when do you have to get them?

Never fear. In this third and final installment of Planning Your Veggie Garden we will cover both of these topics. (I probably could’ve split this into two blog posts, but I didn’t.)

When do I need to do things?

I’m a planner. I like to know when I have to do things before I have to go out and do them. So let’s start with our growing calendar.

In much the same way that our current understanding of human history can be divided into BCE and CE eras with the turning point being 2016 years ago, your garden calendar can be divided into Weeks-Before-Last-Frost  and Weeks-After-Last-Frost.  In Pittsburgh our average last frost date is sometime around May 1st. I like to assume it’s May 1st because I’m an impatient gardener. Other, more reserved gardeners say around May 10th or Mother’s day, to be on the safe side.

For the sake of argument we’re going to say that May 1st is our last frost date, because it’s my blog and I say so.

Laying out your calendar is super easy. You can print out some pages from Google, or write them down on a piece of paper like I did in my journal. You’ll want to count back from the date of the last frost 2 weeks, 4 weeks,  6 weeks, and 8 weeks. Then you’ll also want to mark the week/day of last frost, and 2 weeks after.

I also like to include a “Before Planting” to-do list with my garden calendar.

This is a quick and dirty list of generally what you need to do around those times. Your seed packet will tell you this information, or should. And if not it’s easily available online. Next week’s post is going to be about reading seed packets.

For a more comprehensive list I highly recommend the Week-by-Week Vegetable Gardeners Handbook, it’s a great resource where you can plug and play your own last-frost date to customize it to your needs. It’s filled with amazing info and very user friendly. (Find on Amazon here: LINK)

Before Planting: (You can do a lot of this stuff when it’s still absurdly cold out)

Wash and sanitize pots

This is what the inside of my garden journal looks like

Procure Seeds and Germination mix

Clean and Prep tools

Plan Veggie garden

Fix anything that needs fixed around the garden

Order seeds

8 Weeks before Last Frost (3-15-16 in Pittsburgh)

Start tomato and eggplant seeds

Start very large gourd seeds*

6 weeks before Last Frost (3-29-16)

Start some pumpkin seeds *

Start marigold seeds

4 weeks before last Frost (4-13-16)

Sow Spinach

Sow Beets

Start Sunflowers *

Sow Cold-hardy crops

2 weeks before last Frost (4-27-16)

Sow Lettuce

Begin hardening off seedlings

Week of Last Frost (5-1-16)

Run around outside in your underwear

2 weeks after Last Frost (5-24-16)

Sow Green beans

Sow Zucchini/ Summer Squash

Sow Winter Squash

Sow Gourds

Plant transplants (Sometimes I do this earlier, if I’m feeling anxious, which I usually do, but not before the last frost)

(* Things marked with this are things that people disagree about whether you should start them inside or direct sow them. As a general rule if I can direct sow things into my garden I do, but I’m still experimenting to see what works better. If you're not sure try starting half your seeds indoors and direct sowing half of them and see what does better)

How and Where do I get these plants?

At this point people often wonder things like: Why do you sow some plants directly into your garden and start others indoors? Why do I start some plants myself? Can’t I just buy seedlings?

Why sow some directly and transplant others?

Starting seeds indoors is a way to extend your active growing season. In places where we don’t have a very long growing season (In Pittsburgh it’s about 171 days), we need as many growing days as we can get. You can do this through a number of different means, using cold frames, cold tunnels for your beds, and most simply, starting your seedlings indoors. Also it gives us gardeners something to do when it’s cold and grey outside.

Lots of seeds don’t need to be started inside Lettuces are an easy example. Don’t waste your money transplants, and don’t bother with all the work of starting seedlings indoors. Lettuces grow super well straight in the soil and actually hate being transplanted.

The best little greenhouse in Pittsburgh! (At least I think it is)

Starting your seeds indoors does have it’s own issues. You need the space, you need a set up so that your seedlings get warmth and light. You need to remember to keep them watered and keep the humidity up (I’ll be writing another post all about the particulars of seed starting inside in the very near future).

Once your seedlings have sprouted and are wee baby plants, you’ll also need to harden them off, which is basically toughening them up. In your little green house your seedlings have a super comfortable life, they’re kind of sissies. So it’s important to slowly get them used to life on the outside. Take them out for a few hours a day, starting in part sun, then slowly into full sun (if you do it too fast you can give them sunburn, which I’ve done to my tomatoes, it won’t kill them, but it will stunt their growth for a little while). Slowly leaving them out for longer and longer periods of time until eventually they’re strong, tough little plants ready to take on the hazards of the garden.

If this all sounds like a bit more work than you really want to  don’t panic. You can always go to a nursery, plant sale, or even a home-improvement store (spoiler alert: their plants tend to suck), and buy as many seedlings as you want for your garden. There are some plants (cucumbers and peppers specifically) that I seem to just be really bad at growing myself. I haven’t figured out why, I think it might be the light. Anyway, when I buy nice strong hearty seedlings from other growers they do much better.  Sometimes I think that if I could afford it I would do this instead of starting my own.

But who am I kidding? I love seed starting!

Although, I also love plant shopping. I tend to end up with a great number of unexpected plant adoptions in the spring and have to find space for them in the garden and around the house. The Phipps Mother’s day weekend plant sale is particularly difficult for me to resist and I highly recommend it to any gardeners who want a chance to shop around from a variety of amazing local growers all in one place.

Next week: How to read your seed packets.