A Seed Saver's Garden

[heirloomgal]

@Pulsegleaner Have you grown some of the lesser known marigolds out there? I ordered 2 new ones last night: Tagetes lucida aka Mexican Tarragon and Tagetes erecta aka Cempoalxochitl Marigold. I'm also going to try Huacatay, Tagetes minuta. I'm hoping their growth pattern allows then time to make seed. Was never much of a marigold fan, but last years results with Tagetes tenuifolia was so wonderful I'm kinda on a roll now.

 

[Alasgun]

@heirloomgal, i saw your mention about liquid organic fertilizers and wanted to offer this. I do use liquid nutrients SOME (General Organic’s Bio Thrive grow and bloom) but there is a rub to the liquid nutes. I read this many years ago, it made perfect sense and i’ve followed the thinking (mostly) every since.
They described raising plants on liquid nute to a hospital patient on an I.V. They sustain life and you can surely grow nice stuff using them alone; however just like the I.V they are not designed for complete nutritional support for the life of a plant. With the I’V you can provide everything the patient needs thru a feeding tube etc and the patient does fine for a while but at some point in time the normal bodily function get wacked out and slow down. In Agriculture this shows up in a number of ways and i believe fruit quality suffers when this happens.

Typically when we think “organic” were looking at the entire symbiotic process where microbes breakdown nutrients for the plants and the plants exuding food for the microbes etc.

They are fast, effective, user friendly, affordable and useful sometimes but i still strive to focus on things that feed the microbes first, believing this gives me the highest quality produce.

An exception to this would be Compost tea. With tea my goal is to bolster the existing micro-herd and along the way the plants really like the boost provided by the tea inputs. I started a batch today that will be applied up in the greenhouse as i begin to water and start bringing the soil temp up Prior to planting.

just a thought.

 

[Branching Out]

My approach is kind of along those same lines Alasgun. Dry organic fertilizer is incorporated into the soil before planting, with the occasional liquid feed given once green growth begins. I tend to view the liquid fish or kelp less as fertilizer, and more as an inoculant that will give a boost of microbes to both the soil and the plants. Just my personal perspective of course.

 

[Pulsegleaner]

@Pulsegleaner Have you grown some of the lesser known marigolds out there? I ordered 2 new ones last night: Tagetes lucida aka Mexican Tarragon and Tagetes erecta aka Cempoalxochitl Marigold. I'm also going to try Huacatay, Tagetes minuta. I'm hoping their growth pattern allows then time to make seed. Was never much of a marigold fan, but last years results with Tagetes tenuifolia was so wonderful I'm kinda on a roll now.

I generally don't pay much attention to marigolds unless I see a particularly striking one. And as for the culinary ones, I already have so many herbs taking up space I really don't have room for all that many more.

 

[heirloomgal]

@heirloomgal, i saw your mention about liquid organic fertilizers and wanted to offer this. I do use liquid nutrients SOME (General Organic’s Bio Thrive grow and bloom) but there is a rub to the liquid nutes. I read this many years ago, it made perfect sense and i’ve followed the thinking (mostly) every since.
They described raising plants on liquid nute to a hospital patient on an I.V. They sustain life and you can surely grow nice stuff using them alone; however just like the I.V they are not designed for complete nutritional support for the life of a plant. With the I’V you can provide everything the patient needs thru a feeding tube etc and the patient does fine for a while but at some point in time the normal bodily function get wacked out and slow down. In Agriculture this shows up in a number of ways and i believe fruit quality suffers when this happens.

Typically when we think “organic” were looking at the entire symbiotic process where microbes breakdown nutrients for the plants and the plants exuding food for the microbes etc.

They are fast, effective, user friendly, affordable and useful sometimes but i still strive to focus on things that feed the microbes first, believing this gives me the highest quality produce.

An exception to this would be Compost tea. With tea my goal is to bolster the existing micro-herd and along the way the plants really like the boost provided by the tea inputs. I started a batch today that will be applied up in the greenhouse as i begin to water and start bringing the soil temp up Prior to planting.

just a thought.

My dilemma is container gardening; I don't usually add any fertility to my main gardens since they are in pretty good shape, but since I started giving beans a high priority I've moved my tomatoes and eggplants into containers. So, when I prepared the soil for the containers last year I added chicken manure, kelp meal, alfalfa meal and some azomite into the soil. That did provide wonderful results for a period of time, but eventually the nutrients ran low. The pots are not huge and tomatoes in particular are hungry critters. So the container situation leaves me in a quandry in terms of how to continue to provide fertility after I've already amended the soil. Especially once the plants get large, I'm watering everyday and lots of leaching happens. This year I'll be doing tomatoes, okra, peppers and eggplants in pots, plus most of the flowers - even more containers than last year. Do you think it's possible to find a fertility amendment for the soil in the containers that will last all summer, and I just haven't found it yet?

 

[heirloomgal]

This was such a wonderful surprise I had to make a little post about it. I did a little experiment and planted my second oldest batch of seeds for a variety I have called 'Dark Orange Muscat'. Most all my tomato seeds this year were from other people, but these were grown I think in 2016 by me. I planted I think about 50 varieties from various sources. 'Dark Orange Muscat' was not only one of the first to sprout, it had 100% germination AND it came up in 3 days on a mat!!! Wow! I'm so happy! As you can see I overplanted because I didn't know what to expect.

I really swear by a few things when it comes to storing small seeds (nightshades) and it seems to be working. Never store them on the main floor of a house - the humidity & temps fluctuate too much, especially in a home where much cooking goes on. It's also warmer up there. I also swear by darkness, not only in terms of no lighting, but keeping the seeds stored in small plastic envelopes, put inside another dark, thick paper envelope that is totally opaque.

Here is my other little seed miracle - I planted over half a dozen okra varieties, all newly purchased, so I can't be sure of their age. But some were new to the seed vendor, so I'm assuming at least a few were grown in 2022. Back in 2014 or 2015 I planted okra for the first time, a variety called 'Burgundy'. I'm surprised I got it to seed in time, and knew enough to save the seeds cause I wasn't really doing that back then. I tucked them into envelopes as I described above and totally forgot about them. I decided to grow them again this year, and almost bought a new pack because it seemed the others were far too old. But I saw (and bought) so many neat new okras I said heck I'll just try the old ones. I planted the whole lot of okra seeds Saturday night. Guess who was the first one up! In 2 days!

 

[Alasgun]

For containers i‘ve previously used a “super soil” of my own making and it will carry the heaviest feeder thru one season.

I don’t know if they (the stoners) were the first to coin that phrase but “super soil” is a quite popular grow method.

The way i went about it was to start with a base potting soil, in my case Roots organic 707. I’d dump 2 or 3 of the big bags on the shop floor before adding a long list of amendments, (which i can produce if there’s interest) and raked it all together, mixing thoroughly. Next i’d shovel my mix into 32 gallon brute containers. (any plastic garbage can works)

At the time i was using 12ea 16 gallon containers so i needed 192 gallons of planting mix / 25 cu.ft./ 6ea 32 gallon cans.
Once the soil was in the cans i’d activate it with roughly 2 gallons of Compost tea and A Gallon of whole milk After which the lid was shut tight. These cans sat out behind the house to cook for 3-5 months and when needed were brought out one at a time.

it’s a lot of work up front but the end product was light years ahead of anything i’ve ever used. The amendment ratio was off the chart and im sure it would fry most stuff if used right away but the cooking, break down period made it safe for anything i used it for.

You can be over whelmed by “the internet scientist” who will jerk you this way or that but don't get discouraged this is DIRT SIMPLE.

 

[heirloomgal]

Thank you @Alasgun ! I'm going to research this 'super soil' - I've never heard of that! If I could actually find a way to do container growing without all the work of having to make batches of liquid organic fertility for the watering cans, my work load would decrease, a lot. That would be wonderful.

If it needs to be 'cooked' I'm thinking this year won't be the year I'll be able to try it in practice since I've got 2 months until planting time. But in the meantime I can research it, cost will factor in too, so I'll be curious to see how that might add up. (I tend to blow the budget on seeds!) Wow, always something to learn here on TEG! Super soil!

 

[Alasgun]

I’ll pull out some helpful information for you, it’s not difficult.

 

[Alasgun]

Please don't be put off by my source, these soils will grow everything you currently grow with aplomb!
This article is pretty wordy, dont get lost in the minutia. More than anything i want you to just become familiar with whats actually going on here. Pay attention to the details because these weed growers are real scientist and you’ll have to stretch a little to grasp ideas that go against what you might consider “the accepted norms”. People look at me like i’m crazy when i tell them “i never check P.H and dont really care what it is”. Once you really understand whats going on in the rhizosphere ignoring Something like PH is pretty easy.
Here’s a link for making a blend that’ll work for you; tomorrow i’ll give you my recipe and some simple “how too’s” for your consideration.
I’ve edited this quite a bit, trimming to simplify.


Sub cool’s super soil procedure.
Over the past 20 years, I have tried almost every possible way to cultivate our favorite plant. And while hydro is certainly faster and the yields blow soil away, I’ve developed an organic-soil mix that consistently performs extremely well, with very little guesswork involved (i.e., I don’t have to worry about pH or ppms ever).

I spent a few years developing the recipe for this Super Soil mix, and using it in 7-gallon nursery pots, I can run from start to finish adding only plain water. Other than a bit of sweat equity every 90 days or so, using this soil takes a huge amount of the science out of gardening and puts nature back in charge. Also, the recipe is always changing in slight ways as I continue to fine-tune it in my efforts to achieve perfection.

The Base​

Start with at least six to eight large bags of high-quality organic soil. This is your base soil—i.e., your regular potting soil without the additives. Since I want to give you a very specific idea of what I consider to be a balanced soil, take a look at the ingredients in a product called Roots Organic 707.

Lignite, coco fiber, perlite, pumice, compost, peat moss, bone meal, bat guano, kelp meal, greensand, soybean meal, leonardite, k-mag, glacial rock dust, alfalfa meal, oyster shell flour, earthworm castings and mycorrhizae.


Stir It Up
There are several ways to mix these ingredients well. You can sweep up a patio or garage and work there on a tarp, or you can use a plastic wading pool for kids. (These cost about 10 bucks apiece and work really well for a few seasons.) Some growers have been known to rent a cement mixer to cut down on the physical labor. Whatever method you use, all that matters in the end is that you get the ingredients mixed properly.


This can be a lot of work, so be careful not to pull a muscle if you’re not used to strenuous activity. On the other hand, the physical effort involved is good for mind and body, and working with soil has kept me in pretty good shape. But if you have physical limitations, you can simply have someone mix it up for you while you supervise. As far as the proper steps go: Pour a few bags of base soil into your mixing container first, making a mound. Then pour the powdered nutrients in a circle around the mound and cover everything with another bag of base soil. In goes the bat poop and then more base soil. I continue this process of layering soil and additives until everything has been added to the pile.

Now I put on my muck boots, which help me kick the soil around and get it mixed up well using my larger and stronger leg muscles instead of my arms. The rest is simple; as my skipper used to say, “Put your back into it.” This is hard work that I obsess over, even breaking up all the soil clods by hand. I work on the pile for at least 15 minutes, turning the soil over and over until it’s thoroughly mixed.

Then I store my Super Soil in large garbage cans. (And before using any of it, I pour the entire load out and mix it well once more.) Once it’s placed in the cans, I water it slightly—adding three gallons of water to each large garbage can’s worth. Though it makes stirring the soil harder, adding water will activate the mycorrhizae and help all the powders dissolve.

Before Planting​

So we’ve added the water, and now we let it cook in the sunshine—30 days is best for this concentrate. Do not put seeds or clones directly into this Super Soil mix or they will burn. This is an advanced recipe to be used in conjunction with base soil. First you place a layer of Super Soil at the bottom of each finishing container; then you layer a bed of base soil on top of the Super Soil concentrate; and then you transplant your fully rooted, established clones into the bed of base soil. As the plants grow, they’ll slowly push their roots through the base soil and into the Super Soil, drawing up all the nutrients they need for a full life cycle. The Super Soil can be also be used to top-dress plants that take longer to mature. I’ll use this mix for a full year.

The Mix​

• 8 large bags of a high-quality organic potting soil with coco fiber and mycorrhizae (i.e., your base soil)
• 25 to 50 lbs of organic worm castings
• 5 lbs steamed bone meal
• 5 lbs Bloom bat guano
• 5 lbs blood meal
• 3 lbs rock phosphate
• ¾ cup Epson salts
• ½ cup sweet lime (dolomite)
• ½ cup azomite (trace elements)
• 2 tbsp powdered humic acid