Seed Shopping

[ysabetwordsmith]

The first of my seed orders for spring planting got finished today.


From OPN Seed:

Bee Lawn Mix
Our Bee Lawn Mix is for homeowners that want to plant an eco-friendly lawn alternative, but have height restrictions that would prevent them from planting some of our taller seed mixes. Whether it be urban or suburban, this mix of fescues, clovers and low growing, bee friendly flowers provide foraging, habitat and color to your landscape. Plant it in areas that receive at least 4 hours of sunlight a day.
(I tried this last year and really liked it for patching bare spots in the lawn.)

20th Anniversary Prairie Native Seed Mix
2018 marked our 20th year in business and we created our 20th Anniversary Prairie Seed Mix to celebrate. Fast forward to 2022 where we've freshened the mix up a bit to keep things fun and exciting! This mix will need at least 6 hours of sunlight a day and the finished height of this mix will be between 3 to 6 feet tall. Performs best when planted in well-drained soils.


From American Meadows:

Monarch Butterfly Wildflower Seed Mix
The Monarch Butterfly Wildflower Mix is an easy-to-grow compilation of 27 wildflowers that will thrive in any sunny location throughout the US. Including 4 different types of Milkweed to ensure Monarchs have plenty of host plants to lay their eggs on, this mix also contains a variety of nectar-rich wildflowers for energizing monarch populations before they migrate. A blend of annuals and perennials provide early and lasting color. This is your go-to mixture for creating an official Monarch Waystation or simply helping out the local pollinators in your area.
(I tried this last year and just loved it. Although optimized for monarchs, it also serves bees and birds.)

Partial Shade Wildflower Seed Mix
Partial Shade Wildflower Seed Mix is a colorful, varied mix of 26 annual and perennial wildflowers. A complementary color palette of pinks, reds, blues, and golds will brighten up any part-shade garden or meadow for many seasons to come. Hearty blooms will attract pollinators from summer through fall. Plant in an area with at least 4 hours of sun per day. This mix contains 100% pure, non-GMO and neonicotinoid-free seeds, and is guaranteed to grow.

Edible Flower Seed Mix
Edible wildflowers have become increasingly popular in the culinary world, so why not grow your own? This mixture contains 16 flowers that are perfect for garnishing your favorite dishes and putting in salads, as well as brightening up your landscape with their gorgeous blooms!

Ice Plant Seeds
Looking for a unique addition to your garden or meadow this year? This annual Ice Plant mixture is the perfect choice! Vibrant colors of orange, pink, purple, red and yellow liven up the summer garden and this succulent is easy to grow, needing full sun and well-draining soil.

Comments

[filkerdave]

I wish we could do more planting of veg here. It's not consistently warm enough, even in our small greenhouse, until mid-June, so we can start seedlings inside but we have to bring them in at night for quite a while.

I've considered adding a heat source to the greenhouse just to make it easier and extend our very-short growing season.

Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

>> I wish we could do more planting of veg here. It's not consistently warm enough, even in our small greenhouse, until mid-June, so we can start seedlings inside but we have to bring them in at night for quite a while. <<

There are various things you could do, some of which work faster than others.

>> I've considered adding a heat source to the greenhouse just to make it easier and extend our very-short growing season.<<

This is one of the fastest. There are heaters for greenhouses, if you can afford it. But there are also older methods that are much cheaper.

https://www.ruralsprout.com/heat-greenhouse/

For instance, manure will get quite hot as it breaks down, some types more than others. Historically, greenhouses were often stocked with boxes or barrels of fresh manure in fall when the temperatures cooled. Over the winter it would break down, providing heat. When finished it could be spread as fertilizer. If your cold season lasts longer than it takes the manure to cool down, you can always dump it outside and add fresh hot manure to raise the temperature.

https://oldworldgardenfarms.com/2022/06/16/compost-pile-get-hot/

https://modernfarmer.com/2015/05/get-a-load-of-our-manure-guide

You can also make a hotbed the way you would make a coldframe, except the bottom layer is crammed with heat-generating materials. The surrounding walls and clear cover keep the heat in. You can grow your plants right in there, anywhere in the yard that has enough sunlight, until the weather warms enough to leave the lid off.

Heating can also be done with hot compost, which can be easier to keep going as long as you want it. The articles I'm finding are very shallow on history, but the instructions should still work.

Another approach is passive solar heating. That's how a greenhouse works in the first place, using a clear cover to trap heat, but there are ways to beef it up. A dark floor or lower wall can absorb more heat. Water bottles or barrels, especially black ones, can soak up quite a lot.

https://www.merithomes.com.au/the-5-main-elements-of-passive-solar-build-design/

https://www.motherearthnews.com/organic-gardening/how-to-design-a-year-round-solar-greenhouse-zbcz1502/

You can also use layers of protection. The greenhouse is one layer. If you then drape a floating row cover over your plants, that's another layer. And so on. Each layer typically raises the heat by one climate zone. This book has a great guide to layering, and to cold-climate gardening in general:

https://www.amazon.com/Four-Season-Harvest-Organic-Vegetables-Garden/dp/1890132276


Now we move on to the plants themselves. Again, there are several approaches here, and they can produce boggling results. Methods include choosing crops that are already cold-resistant, pushing the cold tolerance of warmer crops to create a hardier cultivar, using a landrace to adapt to local conditions, or cultivating edible native plants.

First, look at garden plants and cultivars that are already known for resisting cold. Even if you need to push them colder, you're starting at an advantage.

https://extension.oregonstate.edu/news/these-cold-hardy-vegetables-may-stick-it-out-through-winter

https://www.theseasonalhomestead.com/top-15-cold-tolerant-vegetables-for-fall-amp-winter-gardening/

https://www.gardenbetty.com/cold-hardy-vegetables/

https://www.seedsnow.com/blogs/news/47143105-19-frost-hardy-vegetables-to-plant-this-fall

https://rootedrevival.com/20-cold-hardy-vegetables-greens-for-your-garden/

https://www.gardenfundamentals.com/perennial-vegetables-cold-climates/

https://www.sustainablemarketfarming.com/2021/04/14/winter-kill-temperatures-of-cold-hardy-vegetables-2021/

https://www.growingwithnature.org/cold-hardy-perennial-vegetables/

https://cfgrower.com/unusual-cold-hardy-fruits/

https://practicalselfreliance.com/hardy-permaculture-plants/


Next, you can push cold hardiness farther in any plant, through various methods. The Russians did this to extend the range where they could grow fruit trees. The overland method simply involves growing plants wherever you can, saving seeds from the hardiest, then planting those a little farther north. Lather, rinse, repeat. Just source your seeds from far-north, cold-weather nurseries and you should see some benefit from this. In a single location, however, you can do it by cold-stressing a set of plants and then cultivating the survivors. Thus you can grow tomatoes that will survive being snowed on.

https://www.lowtechmagazine.com/2020/04/fruit-trenches-cultivating-subtropical-plants-in-freezing-temperatures.html

https://wildmountainseeds.com/product/heirloom-survivors-grex/


For landraces, see my Recurring Posts tag as I've been listing sources for such and discussions about the benefits of landraces. The author of the series has a high mountain valley garden with a short cold growing season, so his landraces should be useful to you.


Finally, look around you for edible native plants. This will depend entirely on where you live. Search your location (such as a state) and "edible native plants" or similar. These will, at least, survive local growing conditions and some also provide food even in winter.

https://duffymeadows.wordpress.com/2020/01/09/the-best-wild-edibles-rare-fruits-for-cold-climates/

https://www.ecolandscaping.org/09/developing-healthy-landscapes/ecological-landscaping-101/edible-and-landscape-worthy-native-plants-of-new-england/

https://irma.nps.gov/DataStore/DownloadFile/649684

https://www.popsci.com/story/diy/edible-winter-plants/

Re: Thoughts

[filkerdave]

This will be more useful when we build on our land in Idaho, but thank you! The greenhouse itself is only 4' x 8', so a lot of these are overkill for what we can do.

Re: Thoughts

[ysabetwordsmith]

Miniature version: Paint some gallon jugs black, fill with water, and tuck them under tables wherever the sun reaches. You can also use them to make mini-greenhouses over individual plants. I do that a lot.

Another option for small greenhouses is to insulate the lower part, or at least the northwest sides of it. Haybales are cheap and effective, plus in spring you can break them up for mulch.

It might even be small enough that you could cover it with a clear tarp. If your windows aren't double-glazed then that extra layer of trapped air could make a big difference.

For building on larger land, see Permaculture Principles along with zones and sectors. These help identify and manage challenges such as cold winter winds.