Simply Put – A Few Seed-Starting Hints

For vegetable gardeners, one way to make vegetable gardening cheaper is to start your own plants from seed, rather than buying pre-started plants. Depending on the plant, some seeds may be planted directly in the garden, while others are best started ahead of time in pots.

The seed packet will tell you if you are not sure. (It will say something like “sow directly in the garden when all chance of frost has passed.” Or, “start indoors 6 to 8 weeks before the last frost date.”) It’s been a long time since I have grown vegetables, being blessed with both a non-vegetable-friendly shady yard, and a workplace full of pre-started plants.

Examples of vegetables that are usually sown directly in the ground:

• Radishes
• Carrots
• Beans
• Corn

Frequently, these are large seeds that germinate reliably and quickly (radishes, beans), or seeds that are difficult to transplant (carrots). And usually relatively cheap seed, at that.

Examples of vegetables that are started ahead of planting in the ground:

• Tomatoes
• Peppers

These are plants that have a long time from seed to harvest, so you can get an earlier harvest by starting the plants ahead of when they should be planted out. Some large seeds—pumpkin, squash, cucumbers– may be directly planted or pre-started to avoid certain animal pests (e.g., crows, squirrels) from eating the seeds.

If you are only going to plant a few tomatoes, and you want a selection of sizes and colors of tomatoes, then it may be better to just buy the plants, as the seed is relatively expensive. Look at the prices and think about what you want to do. Make a garden plan (map) in advance, look at your space, and decide how many plants you need/have room for.

Information on planting dates, and numerous videos on starting transplants and other topics may be accessed from the University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center (HGIC) website.

The key to starting seed indoors is being able to provide enough light. Vegetables are full-sun plants. A fluorescent light fixture several inches above the plants, run for about 16 hours a day provides enough light, or an unobstructed south-facing window in a cool room. On mild days they can be set outside for more light, but initially in a protected area so they don’t sunburn.

Okay, so maybe starting plants indoors is actually a fair amount of work and you want to buy the transplants anyway. A lot depends on how dedicated you are to the hobby. If you just want a couple of pots of cherry tomatoes on the deck, or a pot of mixed herbs, then by all means, buy the transplants. If you are planning a large vegetable garden, then you will save a lot of money by starting some of your own plants.

* Behnkes has ALL the seed starting supplies you need to succeed…light fixtures, heating mats, bio-degradable pots, Jiffy seed starting greenhouse kits, watering cans, and much more. Visit one of our retail stores or shop for your seed starting supplies online.

Gardening Basics: Simply Put
What to Expect in March

March: the month of the onset of Daylight Savings Time and the vernal equinox. “In like a lion, out like a lamb,” etc. As your gardening interest starts to revive like sap in a sugar maple, what is there to look forward to at Behnke’s in March? March is sort of a funny month, very weather dependent. Right now, it’s cool and soggy with the moisture left from the melting glacier. In two weeks, it could easily be 70 degrees. With that in mind, we horticulturists are now ”ramping up.” Staff that we haven’t seen since Christmas is coming back to work, and the trucks are rolling in.

Houseplants are already in good supply, and we are unpacking and setting out hardgoods as fast as we can. Hardgoods are everything without roots: bird-care products; seeds; warm-weather bulbs such as gladiolus; all those labor-saving tools; ceramic containers; fertilizers and so on.

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A spilt low down on a large camellia. Branches that leave the trunk at a sharp angle like this are prone to split.

Gardening Basics: Simply Put
Broken Limbs & Pruning Hints

When you walk through your yard or garden after the snow melts, you are likely to see damage to your shrubs from the snow load, especially on evergreen plants which hold more of the snow.

Branches may have torn completely off of the plant, or may be broken but still attached. Any obviously broken branches that are still attached should be removed from the plant. They should be cut back to undamaged wood on the larger branch to which they are attached, or back to the trunk. If the branch has fallen away completely leaving a stub, then the stub should be removed. Pruning of small branches is not difficult, but there is a “right way” to do it so that the wound heals more rapidly.

There are plenty of easily accessible brochures on the web about pruning, and the Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center has some videos. Here are some places to start: (from the University of Maryland; Purdue University and the University of Minnesota).

(Pay attention to the pruning technique near the end of the “large trees” video, especially shot of the branch collar. People tend to want to prune back flush to the trunk of the tree or shrub, but that is incorrect. The video shows the correct way.)

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Gardening Basics: Simply Put
Feeding the Birds

The recent heavy snowfalls have made it difficult for birds to find natural food, so it’s a good time to give them a hand. I admit that I used to feed the birds year round, but over the years I guess I got lazy and stopped. Looking at the forecast a couple of weeks ago, I felt a pang of guilt and bought a Droll Yankee brand bird feeder and some seed and set up a bird feeding area in a sheltered spot. Especially during the height of the storm, we were bird central. My home is on a heavily wooded suburban lot, a couple of miles from Rock Creek Park, so we tend to have a lot of birds close by. The sorts of birds you get at your feeder will depend on your environment.

In spring, during the nesting season, birds feed heavily on insects. But during winter, whatever insects are around are dormant and only certain birds hunt for them. Woodpeckers and nuthatches clamber around on the trunks of trees, looking for insects (or their eggs) hiding under the bark, while wrens hunt through the logs in the woodpile. I find that suet cakes (blocks of fat with berries and seed, hung in a suet feeder) attract a lot of woodpeckers, and occasionally wrens, nuthatches and chickadees.

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For answers to your gardening questions, try HGIC, more properly known as the University of Maryland Extension Home and Garden Information Center.

The Cooperative Extension Service was born from the land grant college system, as a way for universities to get information on nutrition, gardening and home economics to small town and rural families and the latest scientific agricultural information to teachers, farmers and nursery owners. Over the years, Extension has been invaluable as a source of information through brochures and classes, and most recently, through the internet.

The Home and Garden Information Center was developed to offer an efficient way of answering questions from an increasingly urban population. HGIC staff, all of whom are Certified Professional Horticulturists, answer questions from gardeners via telephone and email. The website is excellent, with many free online publications, others that may be ordered, ( including the newly updated Master Gardener Handbook), and self-led discovery of plant/pest problems under ‘plant diagnostics’.

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