How To: Clean clay pots
by Leslie Cox; Monday; February 8, 2021
Are your lovely clay pots streaked with white and green deposits all over the outside?
The white is caused by an accumulation of salt which has leeched out from the fertilizer you used to keep your potted plant, or plants, healthy as well as the salt which is in the clay itself. The green is naturally occurring algae which forms on damp surfaces.
Don’t despair! There is an easy way to clean up your clay pots for the new gardening season. Just combine equal amounts of water, white vinegar and rubbing alcohol in a suitable spray bottle.
Spray the cleaning mixture on the outside of your clay pot and scrub with a handled bristle brush. Allow the clay pot to dry thoroughly before you fill it with soil and a plant…or plants.
NOTE: LABEL THE BOTTLE IMMEDIATELY!
You do not want to accidently spray your young seedlings with this mixture.
Garden Tip: Practice pruning sanitation
by Leslie Cox; Monday; February 1, 2021
It is pruning time in the garden this month. Recommended you practice strict sanitation methods in your garden, especially when pruning your fruit trees, shrubs and berries, to avoid spreading any diseases.
Clean your pruning tool with a 10% bleach solution (1 part hydrogen peroxide to 9 parts water) when you finish with one plant and before you start on another.
If you are pruning a plant that has infected areas, disinfect your pruners after each cut. Or use 2 pruners…with a container or bottle of disinfectant at the ready. After making a cut, place pruners in the disinfectant and use second pruners to make the next cut. This way you, hopefully, will not spread the infection any further on the tree.
Where possible, remove infected branches by cutting 10 cm (4 inches) below the infected area and destroy the branch.
Lettuce ‘Prizehead’
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Lactuca sativa var. crispa ‘Prizehead’ |
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Days to Maturity (from direct seeding): 50 – 60 Description: A tall, looseleaf-type lettuce. Broad, light green leaves are upright with red-blushed, curled tips. Excellent, mildly sweet flavour. Special Notes: An heirloom variety dating back to the mid-1700s. Suited to early sowing in spring and is also slow to bolt when temperatures begin to heat up. Sow some seeds in mid- to late August for fall harvesting. In some regions, ‘Prizehead’ may survive through the winter with protection, depending on your region. How to Grow: Start seeds indoors under grow lights 4-6 weeks before your last frost date. (For us in Black Creek, this would be around the 1st week of March.) Direct seed outdoors when soil temperature reaches a minimum of 1.7 °C (35 °F). Optimum soil temperature for lettuce seed germination is 10 – 21 °C (50 – 70 °F). Amend soil with compost and a complete organic fertilizer before planting. Sow seed at a depth of ¼ – ½ in (6 – 12 mm) in rows 18 – 24 in (45 – 60 cm) apart. Thin seedlings to a spacing of 8 – 10 in (20 – 25 cm) for leaf lettuce types. For a continuous supply of lettuce throughout the season, sow a few seeds every 2 – 3 weeks. Cover early and late sowings with a poly tunnel or row cover to protect lettuce from frost. Ready to harvest in 50 – 60 days from direct seeding in optimum temperatures. Special Growing Notes: Can withstand light frosts but will do better if given some protection. A thick layer of mulch, floating row cover or erecting a poly tunnel will save young plants in the spring and extend the season further into the fall months. How to Use: Excellent in salads and sandwiches. Pests & Diseases: Aphids, cabbage looper, cutworms, leafminers, slugs and whitefly are a few of the more notable pests. Of particular concern are aphids as they can transmit diseases such as lettuce mosaic and leaf roll. Anthracnose can also impact on lettuce plants. In our Zone 7a garden: We like ‘Prizehead’ for its cold hardiness in our cooler garden. We often plant a row of ‘Prizehead’ and harvest individual leaves for our salads. When the heat hits in the summer, the kale in the next row usually is tall enough to shade the lettuce somewhat. If any plants are lagging in the heat, we will harvest them. Depending on our motivation to put in a winter garden, we will sow a row of ‘Prizehead’ in mid- to late August…depending on the temperatures at that time. Otherwise, I will grow a few seedlings under my grow lights indoors for some fresh greens in the winter.
Posted on January 27, 2021 |
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Garden Tip: Check old seed viability
by Leslie Cox; Monday; January 25, 2021
Time to check through your supply of seed varieties you have on hand and check the date on the packets. Not all vegetable or flower species have the same seed life. For instance, bean and pea seeds are viable for 3 years; lettuce, kale, cucumber and eggplant are viable for 5 years.
I have made up a chart listing vegetable species and their viability seed life. Click here to go to the page on my website.
Finding information on seed viability life for flower and herb seeds is a little more difficult. In the meantime, until I can cobble together a useful seed chart for these species, you can utilize a general rule of thumb where annuals and perennials are concerned.
- Most annual seeds are viable for 1 – 3 years
- Most perennial seeds are viable for 2 – 4 years
Of course, these viability parameters only apply to seeds that have been stored properly. All bets are off if you have left your seeds in the unheated garage or greenhouse where moisture could get to them.
Okay. Now that you have sorted through your seeds and set aside the older ones, you could do a germination test to see if those older seeds are still viable. Before you throw them in the garbage. Seeds can be expensive, so no point in needless spending if those old pea seeds are still good.
Click here to go to my instruction sheet on how to do a germination test, if you have never done one before. The test is easy. You just need to invest a few days of wait time.
And if you live anywhere near our region on Vancouver Island, you will have days of wait time to invest in seed germination trials while the snow is still covering the garden.
Garden Tip: Get a jump on weeds
by Leslie Cox; Monday; January 18, 2021
If there is no snow on the ground and the ground is not frozen, it is a great time to get a jump on those weeds.
With many of the bulbs, re-seeding annuals and herbaceous perennials still in winter hibernation, any weeds you may have in your garden will be sticking out like a sore thumb right now.
Regular walks around the garden will reward you not only with fresh signs of new growth appearing but will also expose those opportunistic pesky bad weeds who always like to gain the upper hand on the good plants by showing up early. Just make sure you are pulling an actual weed and not a self-seeded desirable perennial.
