Beating the Winter Blues

 

The onset of autumn is a feast to the gardeners' eyes. Although we try hard to have colorful gardens for the entire growing season nature always socks it to us wit the blast of brilliant fall colors. It is almost as if nature gives it to us two ways. First with the palette of colors and the warning that goes with it that winter is just around the corner. Gardeners

generally have had little to look forward to over the long dark nights of winter. I sometimes wish I could hibernate along with the bears and wake up just in time for the snow drops to bloom. Imagine a nice long winter's nap just and not being woken by Santa on the rooftop! But alas we must endure until spring just hoping our green thumbs do not turn brown in the meantime. I will try in the next few paragraphs to ease our lament even if only a little bit.

 

Get educated this winter! I often find the best way to handle not being able to do something is to learn more about what it is you can't do. I love to BBQ. Nothing sets my juices flowing like getting on the grill and cooking up a storm. Well when there is a storm blowing outside in January it is a little hard to grill, especially at night. So I will cuddle up in bed or on the couch with any one of my ten books on the subject of outdoor cooking.

 

Winter is a great time to learn more about gardening as well. Local book stores will have on prime display books on gardening shortly after the New Year. They too seem to know about the let down that ensues after the last New Years' eve toast is done. The Super Bowl is still a month away and not everyone like football. A cup of coffee and a comfy book store chair make for a fine learning experience.

 

A better way to learn about gardening in the depths of winter is to attend seminars at local nurseries and garden centers. After why suffer the winter blues alone when you could share it with fellow gardeners for an hour or two on a Saturday afternoon. Not to mention the free refreshments often served as well.

 

Adams Fairacre Farms three locations offer gardening and cooking seminars from January through early March. Many of the gardening classes include organic methods or at least the least intrusive way of doing things in the garden. One seminar I teach there is entitled Organic Gardening. This class delves not only into organic methods but the logic and laws behind labeling of organic products.

 

The Berkshire Botanical Garden in Stockbridge, MA offers classes on an ongoing basis throughout much of the year. They are also offering a horticulture certificate program in conjunction with the Mass. College of Liberal Arts. Classes run all winter long and include Ecology for Gardeners, Landscape Design and Botany for Gardeners. For more information visit their web site berkshirebotanical.org

 

The New York Botanical Garden offers classes this winter in Horticultural Therapy, general gardening, Garden Writing and Photography and Landscape Design. Their web site claims an offering of over 900 classes throughout the year. Their web site is nybg.org.

 

My favorite winter time gardening activity is actually an offshoot but closely related outdoor activity. Watching and feeding wild birds. In fact bird feeding and watching is second only to gardening as America's number one outdoor passive activity. I am not sure who it was that coined gardening as passive but that is where gardening is placed in reference to outdoor activities.

 

Bird watching and feeding can actually be separated into two very distinct categories. For instance bird watchers think nothing of going down to the shores of the Hudson River on Christmas Day and counting the different species of birds flying over the sometimes frozen river. Let's face it even if Christmas day arrives and the temps are above normal it is still cold and windy down by the river. Bird watchers will also think little of hopping on a plane to Costa Rica and trudge through the jungles for a chance to add to their "life list". A life list to a bird watcher is a written documentation of how many species they have seen or heard throughout their bird watching adventures.

 

Bird watchers seldom are bird feeders. They will spend hundreds on a new spotting scope but not a dollar on bird seed.

 

Bird feeders on the other hand are content to spend Christmas Day inside around the tree and watch birds at their feeding stations.  This while staying warm and cozy. In exchange for staying warm during the winter many bird feeders fork over $15 to Cornell University to in "Project Feeder Watch". This program has "bird watchers" taking a tally of birds at feeding stations and sending the collected data to the Ornithology Dept. at Cornell.

 

Now there is a marketing scheme waiting to be hatched. In a sense of brotherhood and camaraderie why doesn't someone build a small bird watchers' hut and take it down to the Hudson and offer the bird counters a warm place to observe from. And lets' say they charge $15 and send it off to Cornell? Bird feeders are the backbone of the bird feeding industry. Bird feeders will come out to my bird feeding seminar on a cold Saturday in January. As well the hard core bird feeder is on a mission to have the most feeding stations in the neighborhood. Number two on their agenda is having the best squirrel proofing story!

 

Winter is also a great time to visit your nearest garden shop or nursery and peruse the new selection of seeds coming onto the market for spring. There have been a plethora of new organic varieties added to seed racks in recent years. Burpee has added a whole panel of certified organic seeds to its consumer display racks.  Seeds of Change, one of the original all organic seed companies, not only sells only certified organic varieties but their entire collection are made up of almost entirely of heirloom or indigenous varieties.

 

Winter is a time to head for warmer climates for some.  Winter is also a time for gardeners to take stock of the past seasons successes and challenges. Winter may also be a time to make sure that next winter comes with a little more color. What better time to remind yourself to pot up some tulips or daffodil bulbs for winter color next year than right now? Winter is a black and white season (OK gray and white). But that sad fact should not keep us gardeners from planning ahead for our season that is everyday closer than it was yesterday.

 

Now if there was only some way of making the 28 days of February not seem like the longest 28 days of the year. Putting the Super Bowl on the first Sunday in February just does not go far enough!

 

 

Hudson Valley Seeds Have Arrived

Recently I wrote about The Hudson Valley Seed Library and their unique approach to garden seeds.  Their "Art Pack " line has arrived and is now available just in time for holiday gift giving.

Each heirloom variety comes in a neat package designed by a local artist.

 

Remember the whole idea behind the library is to cultivate a line of heirloom seeds with attributes to grow in the Hudson Valley. In fact the motto of the Hudson Valley Seed Library is "Seeds with local roots"

 

More Real Dirt for you to play in!

 

Seeds From seedlibrary.org Arriving for Holidays

I just finished corresponding with Ken Greene of seedlibrary.org . We will be offering for sale seeds from the library's "Art Pack" series. These seeds are all heirloom varieties with a catchy art themed package. For instance there is a variety of tomato named "New Yorker". The artist designed a label for the pack depicting a road map of the metropolitan NY area.

 

The seeds will be in Adams Pougheepsiek store in Early December.

 

In January when Ken finishes the offering of local seeds for 2010 we will have seeds for the Hudson Valley that were grown in the Hudson Valley. The seed library works like a regular library. You borrow seeds from the library. Then you plant the seeds in your garden. After harvesting the "crop" save the seeds from your harvest and return them to the library!

 

The goal is to establish seed varieties that are accustomed to the growing conditions of the Hudson Valley.

 

How cool is that?

 

Pretty cool in my camp since spring is less than 4 months away!

 

There's some local dirt for you!

 

Greg Draiss

 

Happy Thanksgiving to My Favorite Gardeners

I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving Day:

 

 I won't because I MISSED CHARLIE BROWN'S THANKSGIVING SPECIAL FOR THE FIRST TIME IN 40 YEARS!

 

Good Grief: Is there anything more endearing to Thanksgiving than turkey, football, apple pie and CHARLIE BROWN?  Yes, friends, family and thankfulness.

 

But, as gardeners, you already know these things as the ground in our gardens gives back more than we can possibly put in.

 

Here's a toast:   TO COMPOST!

 

Greg Draiss for

The Real Dirt

 

Don't Stop Gardening Just Because the Sun Went Down at 4

 

Unusual but fun Pineapple Sage	Lemon Verbena cuttings
Highly aromatic Lavender cuttings	Trays of herbs growing under high a output T5 fluorescent lighting system

 

As a gardener I just love to play in the dirt. In late November that dirt is pretty cold and ornery to mess with. No worry though. I spent Saturday evening installing a new light system on the other side of my basement grow room. While I have large pots of herbs and chiles growing in a hydroponics system the cuttings you see in the photos above are growing under a T5 fluorescent HO lighting system.

 

The T5  system I installed is a Sunblaze 44. I will have room for about 250 cuttings/seedlings when I get done with the three level table made out of 1 1/2 inch PVC pipe.

 

 

Gardening Practices of Pilgrims at Thanksgiving Time

                   Walkway Over The Hudson Items Make Great Holiday Gifts 

 

Just in time for Thanksgiving: a new publication documenting gardening techniques used at the time of the Pilgrims and Native Americans. Of course there were no chemical pesticides or fertilizers at the time so the book is somewhat slanted to the benefits of organic gardening. Either way it is a good read on gardening during pre-colonial America. The story is from Trans World News:

 

"What a lot of people don't know," says Heid, "is the food the Pilgrims grew probably tasted better than the food we eat today and was also better for them."  Fish and all marine life are suited to giving soil the nutrients that make it produce the best food.  In addition to providing soil with vital nutrients like calcium, nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and sulfur, marine life is the best source of trace elements.  Trace elements are near microscopic amounts of different elements that are necessary for the human body to survive and that poor soil often lacks.  "Food can only be as good as the soil you grow it in," Heid explains.

 Many of the soil problems that the Pilgrims had to overcome are problems today because of over farming and soil depletion. Scientific studies show how the nutritional value of fruits and vegetables has diminished dramatically over the past 40 years.  Other studies show organic fruits and vegetables are nutritionally superior to those produced using traditional farming methods.  The answer, is the same now as it was in Squanto's day: using marine-based fertilization. 

 The second half of Heid's book explains how to grow an organic garden using Native American planting techniques and marine-based fertilizer to enrich and improve the soil.  A variety of companion planting possibilities are suggested along with layouts for three traditional Native American gardens.  It culminates with a selection of English and Native American recipes making use of garden produce based on what was eaten at the first Thanksgiving. 

 Heid hopes to revitalize interest in the forgotten gardening methods that gave birth to the very first Thanksgiving. "I really want to show all Americans why Squanto's Secrets worked for our Pilgrim Fathers and how his life-giving secrets are even more valuable today.

 

 

 

 

 

Solutions From Science is a small Illinois company helping backyard gardeners grow healthier and better tasting fruits and vegetables with alternative, marine based fertilizers.

 

www.firstthanksgivinggarden.com

LED Table Top Garden Makes Debut

The Aerogarden came on the scene in a hurry and almost left as quickly. Very few new products have come from Aerogro lately and for a relatively new company that can spell trouble. One of the drawbacks of the Aerogarden in my opinion is that once the novelty wears off there is little to do. Especially since unless you eat very lightly or live alone it is hard to grow enough to feed more than one. The product is better used as a cloning device with the seed starting kit.

The Aerogarden has introduced, as a result of excellent marketing,an esoteric method of gardening to the masses: hydroponics. In essence the Aerogarden is a "mainstream" hydroponics unit.

 

This story from The Farmington Daily Times in New Mexico comes the story below about the new table top growing appliance:

 

LED grow light for indoor gardening  PAGOSA SPRINGS Just more than a year ago, Leo Hayes started germinating an idea that had been floating around his head since his days as an automotive technologist an LED grow-light system.

"When I was a technologist for an international company, I had to read a lot about laser technology and LEDs (light-emitting diodes)," Hayes recalled. "I read a lot about what NASA was doing to be able to provide fresh food to their astronauts."

Thirteen months ago Hayes gave the concept his full focus, working with a partner in Taiwan to finalize product design and basic financials for Sonnylight, LLC, which is aims to release the LED Kitchen Garden, a countertop unit, and the LED Grow Garden, a hanging unit, by the end of November.

As director of product engineering at Mitsubishi Motors, Hayes gained a solid technical background and made close contacts in the international industrial-design world, which proved useful as he was fine-tuning the Sonnylight product.

"Plant action is very specific in how much chlorophyll or keratins they produce and how they react to light," Hayes explained.

By working with a master gardener and reading a lot of research from university agriculture departments on the effect of light, Hayes formulated what he called "pulse-point modulation."

"We manage how much power we put into each one of these (colors)," he said.

Sonnylight advantages

Every Sonnylight product has a CPU in it, with "Grow Logic" software. "This helps drive the germination process, because it's more concentrated light," Hayes said. "In the right conditions, you can get up to three times the growth rate, but a lot of that depends on the person what nutrients you give it, what's the soil base, temperature. We provide the light."

Standard grow-light systems with compact fluorescents can use up to 40 watts, according to Hayes. "We're using 15 watts, and we use specific light wavelengths; LEDs have exact wavelengths based on the chemical composition of the diode. In our case we're using two blues, two reds, and for lettuce, cabbage and kale large-leaf plants we add a bit of green."

Plants do their best growth in four narrow light spectrums and only use about 8 percent of the white light, Hayes said. Sonnylight colors correspond with plants' three growth stages: germination, growth and budding.

"If you don't have sufficient blue light, the plant won't germinate properly, so we modulate the amount of light from each different colored diode," he said. "Then, once it starts to vegetate or grow, it switches over to the grow phase; it's all computer controlled."

The grower sets the lights according to five phases: daytime, sunrise and sunset, and 15-minute powering-up and dimming-down periods. "Plants are interesting because they have to have time to shut down and start up in the photosynthesis process," Hayes said. "People grow all the time without that, but this gives options for a more natural process with the plants."

Consumers stay involved in the process by monitoring the amount of nutrients in the water and the amount of water. "The whole product is self-contained you just turn it on, set it and take care of plants. Fifteen years is the lifetime of the lights the life of the product. This is not intended to be a service item."

Staying true to its tag line "Modern Technology Organic Sensibility," all packaging is biodegradable and the hood will be wrapped in a natural cotton shopping bag. Optional accessories for the product will include a heat pad, an off-grid cable for hooking up a Sonnylight to a car battery, two different soil types, and heirloom seeds that reproduce the same kind, so growers can save seeds.

"Consumers can save seeds, or replant them right away; time is not an issue here, as long as you keep them warm," said Hayes.

"If we can help people have a bit more personal control in their lives and control what they eat there're all these scares in the media about food that is what we want."

The business process

Getting Sonnylight products, which have design, technology and global patents pending, to market was a learning process for Hayes. "I can do the technical side, but the whole business structure is a little out of my comfort zone," he admitted. With help from the Next Level Leading Edge class, Hayes started building the business plan in the fall of 2008.

"The class really helped a lot it kept me disciplined," he said. "I found that (designing) the product was easy compared to everything else."

The discipline paid off as Hayes' business plan won first-place in the class. "The good thing that came out of this was that I started surrounding myself by people with business experience," said Hayes, who gave a presentation to the Southwest Colorado Small Business Development Center's Business Advisory Group and received counseling from Bart Mitchell, former director of the Archuleta County Economic Development Association, Fort Lewis College marketing professor Simon Walls and SBDC director Joe Keck.

"Launching a product is kind of anti-climactic you work so hard on each step," Hayes said. "It is kind of fun to think about (the response), but the focus has to be on the steps. It's going to go where it's going to go; all I can do is facilitate it."

Although reticent about it, Hayes has reason to be optimistic: Sonnylight's first magazine advertisement garnered more than 600 inquiries.

For more information: www.sonnylightled.com