Putting baby plants outside

Mort, I have a couple hundred parsley plants now, and twice that in green onions! They're all over the house, near any window with sun, with some LED grow lights on them. But it's been warm enough a couple of days to take them out in the sun for the day.

How cold is too cold outside for the baby plants?

Those babies can handle anything above 30 degrees (actually a little colder than that). What they won't like is too much direct sunlight with those ultra violet light that the glass stops. Put them out for three or so hours the first day and increase the time an hour or two as they get used to the UV rays. Think of yourself spending too much time in the sun before you have a good tan.

That's a lot of parsley; for the restaurant, I assume.

Time to plant

The snow is up to the windows but I've already had my hands in soil. I started three varieties of leeks; King Richard for summer, Pandora for late summer and Bandit for fall and wintering over. I have also planted parsley and scallions. I figured out a great way to grow scallions. I plant one to two dozen seeds in each compartment of a 6-cell flat, put the flat in a plastic bag to keep the soil moist until the seeds germinate and then just let them grow in the flat for about 8 weeks when I transplant the cells to the garden. I don't separate the individual plants just plop the whole cell in the ground. For the restaurant I do this about every three of four weeks and when they want a bunch of scallions I just pull a whole bunch, wash them, cut off some of the root and put a rubber band around them. It amazes me how many years it took me to become this clever.

Porcupines and gardens

I thought it was groundhogs eating my broccoli until the day I saw a porcupine up on hind legs munching happily. In my opinion the only good thing about porcupines is that they don’t run away relying on their quills for protection. The fisher is their only predator; fishers have learned to grab the porcupine’s nose, flip it over and attack its unquilled belly. Few porcupines have learned that Homo sapiens have learned how to shot a gun. The porcupine was still munching away when I returned. One down but I soon learned that was just the tip of the problem.

            Porcupines are generally nocturnal. Trying to protect my crops I pitched a tent next to the garden. Sure enough the animals woke me; I shot two in the Brussels sprouts and one in the apple tree that night. It took two years and about a dozen porcupines shot before I found an electric mesh fence that worked well for a couple of years. I thought the problem was solved. Since it is a bother (not much of one but nonetheless) and who wants to do something that isn’t necessary, I decided to wait until I had a problem before putting it up. At the first sign of damage I put up the fence but this time the animal managed to get through the fence.

            The porcupines won time after time. All they had to do was find a place they could get their nose under the fence and the quills would insulate them the rest of the way. I pegged the fence down where they got through and they found another way in. I pegged all the places they might be able to get through and they dug down far enough to make it. I got a motion detector camera thinking if I knew when they visited I could be waiting for them. There was no pattern to visitations. I got a motion detector that would turn on a light. That didn’t work.

            If you have a problem with porcupines, I think I can help. Things you need to know: 1) they like to eat corn, cauliflower, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, apples, pears and the bark on trees, 2) they mostly eat at night but can sometimes be seen in the garden or eating grass at sunset 3) I’m convinced they can communicate something as complex as how to get under an electric fence 4) they are excellent climbers and if you are looking for them during the day, your best bet is to look up.

            Solution: 1) The electric fence is great. I have 20 inch VersaNet from www.premier1supplies.com  Put it up before the animals get a taste of your garden because once they find such delicacies they will be persistent in getting through. If they get through the fence, put it outside the garden on mowed sod as it is harder for the animals to dig under.

            Solution  2.) If the garden is close to the house and you have a gun, get a motion detector and set it up to pick up motion in the area they will be interested in. Set it up so the motion detector turns on a radio in your bedroom. You also need to have the motion detector turn on a light as it will not work with a radio alone.

            I hope you don’t have a problem as great as mine. I am still killing 6 to 10 porcupines a year.

Weed control or The Best Garden Tip Ever

Control of annual weeds in a garden is easy if you obey the ten day rule. Rake the seed bed before planting, not days before planting but just before planting. Mark your calendar to cultivate the rows in ten days. Chances are you won’t see any weeds and will wonder why you should be running the hoe along between the rows. Take your hoe and drag it along just barely below the surface then look at the hoe. You should see a lot of white or light colored threads. These are weeds that have only had time to put up a slender stem and down an equally slender root. In a couple of more days the root will branch out and start to take hold of soil. Once it does that it will be more difficult to pull and when pulled either by hand or by hoe it quite likely will be able to hold onto enough soil to stay alive. The first ten day cultivation will kill 80% or more of the weeds that will be sprouting from seed.
That is the core of the ten day rule. As a vegetable farmer there have been times when that first cultivation was all that I got around to doing and yet I harvested a crop. Going back for cultivation after another ten days is certainly a good idea and getting down close and personal to complete the job by hand weeding in the row while thinning if necessary is always my goal but I want to emphasize that first ten day cultivation. I make it a higher priority than planting seeds. My first year with a market size garden I kept planting seeds because I obviously wouldn’t get a crop if I didn’t plant. At the end of the year I found there were several plantings that never reached the market because the weeds overwhelmed them. No sense planting something that won’t make it to market so now I make sure nothing I plant is lost to weeds—maybe lost to deer, or porcupines, or woodchucks (groundhogs), or mice, or crows, or turkeys but not weeds.
PS: Deer, porcupines and woodchucks are kept out of my gardens with electric fence. I got a barn cat that seems to be helping with the mice and for crows it is important that they not see me planting corn (I’m serious. Don’t leave any corn seed above ground and if crows do pull up your corn seedlings for the seed, plant deeper next year.) Turkeys did not bother me until last fall when they took a liking to lettuce and arugula. I’m covering these crops with row cover and trying to scare the turkeys with shots, shouts, and firecrackers in the hope they will take the hint that they are not welcome in the gardens. The jury is out on that one. I am reluctant to try putting up a high fence as they could fly over it.

Garden questions answered

If you have a question on growing vegetables organically, I’d be happy to answer it to the best of my ability. I’d appreciate it if you checked the columns I already have on line by clicking on the link to the right, Mort’s Organic Garden Columns. I’m also interested in answering philosophical questions and if you are interested in reading the rest of the book in its current draft, email me at mort @ mortmather.com I may rescind this offer come spring when I start getting busy in the garden again.