Posts from — January 2012

Do you garden in the zone?

By which I mean, do you pay attention to the USDA Plant Hardiness Zone Map when planning your garden or making purchases at a nursery or garden center?

Among the helpful guidelines created to help gardeners know what to grow is the concept of the gardening zone. You may have been aware that our area has until recently been labeled as Zone 5.

On Wednesday, however, the US Department of Agriculture revealed a new climate zone guide that takes into account the northern warming trends and reconfigures the zone from the 1990 map. The 2012 guide is based on date gathered over the 30 year period from 1975 until 2005.

You can find the new interactive map here. Viewers can enter their zip codes for more personalized information or view their state in a closer up view.

The map merely reflects the data that has been gathered. Whether these warming trends represent climate change or variations in weather is not a controversy that a map settles. Hardiness zone maps help gardeners determine what plants will grow best in their zone.

In short, some plants do grow well here in Michigan, while others do not. Zones are a short-cut for explaining the weather science behind why apple trees thrive in our state, but orange groves do not. When making garden plans or purchases, it makes the most sense to plant varieties and plants that stand a chance of thriving in your zone.

Have you witnessed these shifts in your own garden? Have warmer temperatures have made it possible to grow plants that were iffy for our area?

Ah, January in Michigan! During this month, we experience winter at its finest. Cold, snow, ice, rain, fog– we see it all. January is also the gardening season when seed catalogs and seed displays pop up as fast as weeds in the springtime. One week the store aisles are full of holiday clearance, and the next week towers full of little packets promising all sorts of garden wonders appear to inspire and tempt us.

My first spin around the rotating floor display stand showed that there were even more variations on packing and labels this year. Even the big labels are offering more in categories like heirloom and organics. There’s truly something for everyone.

What do the terms mean when we are discussing seeds? Here’s a review of some definitions to consider when making seed purchases.

Annual– an annual lives or grows for only one season. Annual flowers give one season of color to a garden. Most vegetables are annuals too, growing and being harvested in one season. Some annual plants will reseed themselves; with other annuals, seed saving is a possibility. For most annuals, count on one season.

Perennial– are plants that live at least two seasons. Perennials grow and bloom over the spring and summer, and die back in the fall or winter. In the spring, they return again from their root stock rather than from reseeding. Fruit trees are perennials, as are asparagus and rhubarb. Plants may be perennial in some regions but not others, due to varying weather conditions.

Organic seed — To label seed as organic in the US, suppliers must meet standards set by the government. The growers of organic seeds have to avoid synthetic pesticides and fertilizers. They must also avoid the use of genetic modification techniques.

Hybrid — A hybrid is a variety that results from crossing two different inbred parents that differ in one or more characteristics. Hybrids are made to improve the characteristics of the resulting plants, such as higher yield, better color, greater uniformity, or disease resistance to name a few. Seeds of hybrid plants, if saved and planted, would not necessary result in plants resembling the parent.

Non-GMO — Seeds that have not been genetically modified.

Heirloom — Heirloom varieties can be defined as variety that has been nurtured, selected, and handed down for many generations. These varieties are known for their flavors, rather than uniformity or ease of shipping. Some sources say the variety must be 100 years old, some claim 50, and others use 1945, the end of WWII, as the starting point. The definition of this word is also debated.

Open-Pollinated — These seeds are created by self-pollination or by the repeated crossing to the same parental type. The seed of the fruits produced by open-pollinated plants can be saved and planted the next year, with the resulting plants being true to the parental type. (With the exception of plants in the cucurbit family, I would add.)

I’ve previously mentioned two of our favorite seed companies, Baker Seeds and Seeds of Change. Both companies focus on offering heirloom varieties that are open-pollinated and non-GMO seeds.

If you are planning your garden right now, what companies do you rely on for seeds? How important are terms like organic, heirloom or open-pollinated when it comes to making seed purchases?

From the White House to neighborhoods, home gardening is on the rise. This helpful graphic comes from the Mother Nature Network. The infographic presents information from a study by the National Gardening Association, which has a great website with many resources for gardeners and a whole area devoted to gardening with kids.

It’s encouraging to see the increase in home gardens, just in the two years cited in the study. What’s really notable is the collective economic impact of gardening. I’m not much for keeping track of how much money we save gardening, especially compared with those serious types who weigh and record all of their home produce, but I know with our way of gardening, we “earn” much more in produce than we spend in garden costs.

The graphic does not include what to me is one of the other most interesting questions of the research– the why question. Why do people participate in food gardening? The top reasons were (by %):

To grow better tasting food ……..58
To save money on food bills ……..54
To grow better quality food ……..51
To grow food I know is safe ……..48
To feel more productive …………40
To spend more time outdoors ……..35
To get back to basics …………..25
To have food to share with others…23
To live more locally ……………22
To have a family activity………..21
To teach my kids about gardening …30

You can read the study cited here.

What are your motivations for growing your own food? Will you expand your gardens this year?

Photo by Hester Jane. Used with permission

One of the things I love about gardening is that the activity provides an outlet for discovering new ways to recycle and re-purpose the materials that flow through our lives. In our garden, we have used empty bottles to make cloches and yogurt containers for starting seeds. We used old windows to make cold frames. Small branches can become bramble for the peas to grow on, and twine has been re-used for squash and pumpkins to grow on. The compost is a constant reminder of our success at keeping yard and kitchen waste out of the garbage system and instead making a rich nutritious “food” to feed our plants.

Last week a friend sent me a link that made my inner gardening recycler both giddy and inspired. The post on a “Cool thumb-controlled watering pot made with recycled materials” from the Fun in the Making blog is a nifty new idea inspired by pottery “thumb pots” in 17th and 18th century English gardens. It’s just the right tool for watering seedlings and delicate plants. This is the sort of simple and manageable project that would be great fun to do with kids. I will be making one as soon as I can.

The thumb pot is a lesson for children and adults alike on fluids and pressure and the power of the thumb!

Thanks to Cathy for the link!

According to the BBC, a woman in Sweden recently found the wedding ring that she lost 16 years ago on a carrot growing in her garden. The ring, which she designed herself, went missing from her kitchen in 1995, when she removed it to do Christmas baking.

She’d long given up hope of finding it again. She was pulling up carrots when she noticed the gold band wrapped around a small one. How fabulous is that?

My discoveries haven’t been momentous but are still exciting to me. In 1982, the first year we gardened in Ann Arbor, I found a small Yoda figurine when double-digging the vegetable bed. We continue to find interesting objects in our garden. Even now, we find interesting bits and pieces — mostly broken glass– every season. We cannot count on finding things in garden, but the discoveries keep things interesting.

What’s the best thing you’ve found in the garden?