buying seeds – ONE HUBCAP FARM

Posted on April 8, 2014 by Mary Ann

It’s Seed Starting Time

Well, actually, it’s been seed starting time for awhile, but it’s not too late to start yours now. Back in early March, I spent some pleasant hours in the garden shed starting tomato, pepper, herb, and flower seeds for the spring.

Seedling flats filled with soil

I reuse the plastic 4- and 6- pack containers in which I purchase annuals and other plants for the garden. They fit nicely in the rectangular trays the nursery provides, and also fit perfectly under my grow lights. When I plant tomatoes and peppers, I sterilize the soil with a solution of bleach to kill soil-borne diseases. I do not sterilize the soil for other plants because they are not as susceptible to disease. I also use new seed starting mixture or potting soil to avoid disease.

Some of my seed packets

Ready for the grow lights!

I took these pictures earlier in the winter when I started my plants for the spring garden. These plants are outside now (the ones that lived, anyway) and I now have a crop of tomatoes under the grow lights.

Resting under the grow lights, waiting to sprout

On nice days, I put the growing plants outside for a little morning sun. Artificial light is not as good as sunlight, and the plants become straighter and sturdier when exposed to the sun. At this time of the year, I watch the weather carefully and bring them inside if the temperatures get into the high forties. Temperatures below forty will damage tomatoes. Of course, I leave my cool-weather-loving plants outside as long as the temperature remains above freezing.

Every day, I leave the plants outside in the sun a little longer until they are able to tolerate being outside all day. Like people, plants can sunburn from too much exposure to the sun at once, although they do eventually become accustomed to constant sun exposure, unlike people!

Posted on March 15, 2012 by Mary Ann — 2 Comments

Save Seeds from your Grandparents

Last week, I sowed tomato and pepper seeds in flats of potting soil, and they are busy germinating inside my house under grow lights. I haven’t seen any green leaves sprout above the soil’s surface yet, but I expect to see some soon.

My mother and my aunt have been cleaning out my grandmother’s house, and they rescued some seeds from a dark closet where they have been sitting for nearly 20 years. I sowed some of them thickly along with my new seeds. I know, I know, there’s no way they’ll germinate because they are so old, but I could not resist trying to germinate seeds of “Frank Carruth’s tomatoes,” “yellow tomatoes,” and “Moon and Stars Watermelon.”

Thrifty children of the Depression, my grandparents used the payment envelopes that came with their power bill to store the seed. According to my aunt, the Frank Carruth, for whom my grandparents named the tomatoes, owned a furniture store in the South Carolina town, Landrum, where they lived. People knew him for his “green thumb,” and he accepted payments for the power company, where my grandmother paid her bill.

Although I don’t know exactly how my grandmother got the original seeds, I like to imagine him handing over some seeds, a plant, or a few tomatoes, with her change from paying the power bill, and admonishing my grandmother to save some seed for the next year’s garden. According to my uncle, the seeds are a German Pink tomato, and Mr. Carruth might have brought the seeds to the US from Germany after he finished his military service in World War II.

The variety still exists in heirloom seed catalogs and my uncle thinks he has some seeds in his freezer he’ll give me. Seed companies like Seed Savers Exchange, http://seedsavers.org/, and Baker Creek Heirloom Seeds, www.rareseeds.com, were started with seeds people found and wanted to preserve. Heirloom seeds have a story, like that of the Frank Carruth tomatoes; no scientist made them in a laboratory. My favorite seed company, out of Anderson, Heavenly Seed, www.heavenlyseed.net, carries many heirloom, open-pollinated seed varieties as well as hybrid seed that do well in South Carolina.

In hopes of preserving seeds from the very plants my grandparents grew, I’ll plant these seed and see what happens. As I open the envelopes carefully labeled with my grandparents’ handwriting, I remember working with them in the garden, imagine what might have been happening when they removed those seeds from that tomato to save. Unfortunately, I was busy with high school and away at college during most of the gardening years from which those particular seed were saved, and even when I visited, I was not very interested in gardening. As I save seed from the plants in my garden, I hope I can build a library of seed that will outlive me.

If you haven’t ordered seeds or started seeds for the spring and summer, it’s not too late. Begin sowing the seeds of peppers, eggplants, tomatoes, and warm season herbs inside, even though you won’t be able to set them out into the garden for another six weeks or so. Wait to sow seeds of beans, corn, squash, and other summer vegetables directly outside in the garden in early-to-mid April. We have plenty of time, so look at some seed catalogs or websites, and start a garden with a story yourself

Posted on May 18, 2011 by Mary Ann

Are You Confused about the Different Types of Seeds?

For the novice gardener searching for seeds in a catalog, the array of terms like hybrid, non-GMO, open-pollinated, and heirloom might make the task of deciding among all the tempting descriptions of plants more difficult. Depending on which catalog you read, some types of seeds are almost vilified, while others are ignored.

Almost all seeds on the market for gardeners are either hybrid or open-pollinated. Scientists genetically engineer GMO (genetically modified organism) seeds by inserting genes from plants, bacteria, or other living species into a plant’s DNA in ways that cannot happen in nature. For example, Bacillus thuringiensis, or BT, is a bacteria organic gardeners apply to plants to kill caterpillars. Scientists figured out how to insert the BT gene into corn genes, and the resulting seed kills the corn earworms when they begin feeding on the ear of corn. The corn you eat has the BT gene inside it.

Proponents say this reduces the amount of pesticides introduced into the environment, while skeptics don’t like messing around too much with the natural order of things. You will know it if you buy GMO seed: you will probably have to sign some document saying you won’t sell or even save the seed, and you may have to put up a sign near the field identifying the crop. There is no danger of the home-gardener accidentally buying some GMO seed at the local store and planting it; it’s usually reserved for farmers.

Open-pollinated seeds form when the pollen of one plant is transferred to another plant, usually with the help of wind or insect pollinators. The resulting offspring are similar to the parent plants because plants that are similar genetically cross with each other. Gardeners save seed from open-pollinated plants and expect to get a similar plant from the seed next year. All seeds were originally open-pollinated, and farmers and gardeners were able to save seed from plants that did well in their gardens for free. Once a crop sets seed, they could grow gardens indefinitely, as long as they saved seed from the crop each year, without ever buying any more seed.

Heirloom seeds are usually open-pollinated, and they have some historic or cultural value. They are seeds your great-grandparents might have grown. The definition of heirloom seed varies from catalog to catalog, but some examples are Brandywine tomatoes, Kentucky Wonder beans, and Red Russian kale.

Hybrids pollinate either by wind or with the help of a plant breeder, but the seed grower makes sure pollination occurs in controlled circumstances among varieties of plants that are distantly related. The seed, the offspring of two specific parents, is usually the first generation of the breeding between the two plants that possess desired characteristics. For example, a breeder may cross a tomato resistant to tobacco mosaic virus with a tomato resistant to cracking to get a tomato resistant to both cracking and tobacco mosaic virus. The seed of a hybrid tomato, however, contains the genetic traits combined in an uncontrolled manner and the traits of the offspring are unpredictable. Hybrids often do not even produce seed, or they may produce sterile seed that will not germinate. If you plant hybrid crops, you will have to buy new seed every year. Breeders label seed “F1” hybrid, which denotes the seed as the first offspring of the parent plants.

Each of the types of seed has its own advantages. Hybrids often offer better disease-resistance than open-pollinated varieties, but open-pollinated varieties often taste better and, if you save the seed, you don’t have to buy the seed again.

Harvesting a tomato crop at all has been an ongoing challenge for me because the disease has been killing my plants. Last year, I planted many different types of seeds and the hybrid tomatoes resisted disease the best. A few of the open-pollinated seeds did fairly well too, and I’ll grow them again along with some new types. Last year I actually had a tomato harvest, and, although purists would eschew any seeds not open-pollinated, I am practical: it’s better to grow something in my own garden instead of buying it elsewhere, even if it’s from hybrid seed. Planting many different types of seed is the best way to ensure a harvest: if one variety dies, something else may survive.