Seeds

We have a friend who has an incredible green thumb. I remember twenty years ago, Claude walked into my apartment, looked at my plants and explained to me that what I thought were fruit flies were something called fungus gnats. He also taught me how to get rid of them and save my plants from death by using diatomaceous earth. For those of you who are not acquainted with this wondrous stuff, it is a powder made of fossilized plankton, which is harmless to mammals but lethal to insects, as the sharp, jagged edges of the dust gets into their exoskeletons and tears them apart. It is great for getting rid of cockroaches, for example, or pests in house plants. Though non-toxic, it is too effective a pesticide to use in the garden, where it would destroy bees and other beneficial insects along with pests.

Claude has since channeled his love of growing plants into a career as an agronomist. He is the guy who farmers and industrial growers consult to solve problems. He does not do a lot of garden consultations for hobbyists like us, but in exchange for a home cooked meal and an afternoon of hanging out with our family, we got some free and valuable advice.

I wanted to know why my lettuce was too small, how to make my broccoli flowers grow big and dense, what plants should grow together and which shouldn't, and how do we decide where to rotate plants from year to year to prevent depletion of the soil. Claude looked at my tomatoes and announced that we had a bacterial infection. It was obvious to his practiced eye when he saw dark spots on the tomatoes, and a lot of the lower leaves were getting yellow. I just thought it was because it was fall. And there had not been spots on the tomatoes I had picked prior to that day. Lo and behold, the next ones starting to ripen had dark speckles on them. Claude told us that this particular bacteria were airborne, and by using a sprinkler to water our plants, we dropped the bacteria right onto them. Also, the wet leaves helped it to spread. He highly recommended watering our plants at ground level and not wetting the leaves. He also told us that once the bacteria was on the plants, it would be on the seeds as well, and would appear on the next generation of plants. His recommendation was to dip all seeds in hydrogen peroxide before planting them. In answer to my specific questions, he suggested that we have a soil analysis done next spring. It costs $30 and can provide us with very concrete recommendations as to how to improve our garden.

Claude's recommendation about the hydrogen peroxide was probably the most timely advice he could have given us, because right now, my life has become focused on seeds. I am saving, drying, packing and labeling all kinds of seeds for next year. Of course, some come from my own garden such as the cucumbers. Others are from things we would like to grow, such as that great Korean melon we bought at the local oriental grocery store.

I have been walking and biking around my neighbourhood on seed missions. I took my youngest daughter Orianne, who has recently mastered her bicycle, on a bike tour of the alleyways of our neighbourhood. The alleys are great because you have a view of everyone's backyard and gardens, and inevitably there are flowers growing against the fence and dropping their seeds on the pavement. What a loss! That is where I come in, rescuing all kinds of interesting cultivars at the limits of their yards. Orianne, while helping me pick dried seeds from four or five different varieties of pink morning glories, asked me if I was stealing. I told her that if I walked onto someone's lawn and dug plants up from their garden without asking, that would be stealing. Seeds are a different category, especially if they are growing over the sidewalk or on the other side of the fence from their garden of origin. I am careful never to walk onto someone's property, I only harvest what sticks out onto public grounds. Some of the beautiful dark pink cosmos I raided for seeds were growing on a square in the middle of the sidewalk.

We went away this weekend, and spent time with another friend who is a superb gardener. We had visited Alex a few years back when he was working on his PhD in philosophy, his thesis describing his experience of being self sufficient, living a minimalist life. He had built his home from recycled materials, provided his own energy using a combination of solar power and a windmill, had the first composting toilet I had ever seen, and an unbelievable vegetable garden boasting the largest imaginable produce: huge lettuces, pumpkins, and squashes. He has subsequently graduated, married and moved into a charming but more conventional house. He has been there for a year or so, and the vegetable garden is just getting started. Alex is particularly interested in heritage plants and unusual cultivars. He is growing, among other things, tomatoes which are green when ripe, some Kong sunflowers which are huge and produce tasty, purple shelled seeds. I came home today with some sweet red pepper seeds, some Kong seeds, some (highly toxic) castor beans (I had never seen castor plants before and fell in love). I also have finally obtained a clump of the elusive red day lilies I have been seeking. I hope they are red. They are no longer blooming and Elyse, Alex's wife, was pretty sure those were the red ones. I also came home with a clump of lilies with lovely small purple flowers, and a few wild gentians which I am trying out on the side of the house.

I am still trying to guard the few giant striped sunflower heads remaining in my garden. The squirrels are bold and the heavy flowers keep drooping down into their range. I have decided not to grow them along the fence next year. Despite my frequent spraying with coyote piss (which is running low), the little beasts keep running along the fence and whittle away at the edges of my last remaining flower in the back yard. I call my technique "pissing them off" but it is a constant effort. I have tied all the flowers in the front lawn to stakes to support them and dowsed their stems in piss. I may yet have sunflower seeds this fall.

One last update on the slugs. Things improved for a few weeks, but we had some rain and the slugs seemed to be coming out in numbers again. I have spread Slug-b-gone everywhere again, and today I did not see any when I harvested my tomatoes but there is still evidence of their appetite. Next year I will start earlier.