WINTER GREETINGS!

If you’ve managed to put yourself in rhythm with the seasons, then this is probably a time of dreaming and planning and contemplating. Curled up in a warm spot in the house, wrapped in blanket or sweater, enjoying the snow, thoughts weaving in, out and around. They settle for a bit on the resting seeds, doing their own dreaming, and we try to match our thoughts with theirs to see the plants they are to become, in spite of our interference (their opinion), with our help (our view).

Or we sit at our desks, pencil/paper/eraser/seed list/notes, waiting for some organization to come out of all those, sometimes conflicting, ideas in our heads.

Or had you forgotten about that part of winter? Been too busy to notice and remember? Thankfully, for those of us in that category, this year winter is patient and there is still time. The seeds are waiting for us, so are our garden plans.

What new adventures do you contemplate in your garden this coming season? Are there changes in store, new varieties to try, more of this, less of that? Or maybe you think of finally making those cold frames, a more permanent pea fence, or a less permanent one. A hand or foot operated thresher, a row marker, some new beds . . .

Or are you truing to paddle down the other stream, with fewer varieties, less garden, simpler crops? Mentally, I find this one much harder.

Then there is the challenge of which crops to save seed form, who crosses with whom, who needs to be separated, who can grow side by side. Can room be made for corn this year? Is there enough spinach seed still? Would anyone notice if the "flower" beds were planted with Flowering Vegetables instead?

And how about nature’s garden, both within and without our own. What harvests do we plan on, beyond our garden fences? What seed do we want to bring in, or encourage within? For some of us who happen to be so situated, the wild harvest season will begin soon – when the maple sap starts to run.

It’s nice to be on the same track as Nature for a change (those who choose to garden in a kindly manner). Saving seed, planting seed, sharing seed. Reveling in the diversity, enjoying the beauty, getting lost in the creativity of it all. Being a good friend. Then in the end, we get to eat some of the best food available on earth. And to top it off – it’s fun, enjoyable, satisfying, and good for the body, too. Not many things in our society today can give us all that!

Now the trick will be to remember all that, this spring and summer, while vigorously swatting the air between the black flies and mosquitoes, while contemplating loudly where in the world did all those weeds come from, while wading in the wet, or shuffling in the dry. While looking for a recipe for raccoon pie, and trying to rationalize a coon into a vegetable since you’re pretty much a vegetarian who wants to eat her own corn this year, while . . .

GERMINATION TESTING

Everyone has their own favorite method for testing seed germination. The most common seems to be to lay out the seed on a damp paper towel, then roll or fold it up, put it in a plastic bag, and set in a warm spot. It does the job.

But if disposable stuff isn’t much a part of your life anymore, a cotton cloth or rag works just fine, too. From experience, I’d not recommend terry cloth. If you let the seed sprouts grow too long, they grow into the terry loops and it’s a heck of a job getting them out.

I use a dampened muslin towel or rage, folded out on a cookie sheet. The seeds are counted out in rows (with a good record of which seeds are where), the cloth folded over or another damp rag laid on top. Set another cookie sheet or plate on top, and put it all in a warm spot.

It’s easy to open this up to check on the progress of the sprouts, and to spray or sprinkle with warm water when necessary.

The number of seeds tested depends on how many seeds you have of that variety, usually 10 or 25, since that makes it easy to calculate ht percentage germination. Just multiply the good sprouts by 10 (if 10 seeds) or 4 (if 25 seeds) and you’ll know you have 50% or 80% or whatever germination rate.

If the rate is low, you then have to decide whether or not to plant those seeds at all (figuring the vigor overall could likely be poor also), or to simply plant thicker than usual, if you particularly want that variety.

Usually germination tests are done in the winter so you’ll know whether you can depend on the seed you have or will need to get new seed elsewhere. Or you want to know if the seed is of good vigor before sharing with others. I’ve also done germination tests just before I’m ready to plant the seed. In this case, I sometimes plant in a shallow tray of sand, light compost, wood punk or the like. Then I can carefully pick out the successful sprouted seeds and plant them, either in pots or outside in the ground. You can do the same thing off cloth as well.

It’s not necessary to test all your seed each year, unless it’s all had a rough life for some reason or other. I test seed only when I have reason to question its viability. Maybe the seed is old, or it is seed I haven’t saved before, or the seed growing year was poor. Or last year’s crop came up spotty, or that particular variety generally has poor germination. Or maybe I just want to know how all the varieties I’m planting of one crop compare with each other. I might do a test of all the beans, or tomatoes, or broccoli.

I also keep a general eye on germination of many seeds by counting how many seeds I plant, then making a note of the number of healthy seedlings that survive. This is usual for those crops started inside, though I also note the easy ones in the garden, such as the cucurbits.

There are many seeds you may want to test grow in the winter in such a way that you can add them to your dinner when the sprouts are the right length.

I had an interesting experience with spinach seed last winter. The previous season I had, for the first time, grown Norfolk Spinach. The crop had grown well and I’d had a good harvest of seed. But it had been some years since I’d grown spinach seed, and since I planned to offer it through the Seed Exchanges, I decided to test it. I had no reason to think it wouldn’t germinate.

In January I tested a sample. No germination. That certainly wasn’t what I expected, so I did another test, then another, then once more. Still zero germination. The seed looked fine, it had been well cared for. I could think of no explanation. I had seldom had zero germination of any seed, and when I did it was always because of very old seed. Needless to say, I didn’t send any of that seed out.

In the middle of March, when I started planting in the greenhouse, I still couldn’t believe that spinach seed wouldn’t grow. So I planted some in a pot. It grew just fine! I transplanted it into the garden later, and had a nice, healthy crop of Norfolk Spinach.

GARDENSHARE

SEED COMPANY: Dana from the U.P. reports, "Another alternative seed company which I had good luck with this year is: Fox Hollow Herb & Heirloom Seed Co., PO Box 148, McGrann PA 16236, $1.00 for small catalogue. A lot of old fashioned and open-pollinated stuff. I grew their Boston Morrow squash this year, and it was the largest in my garden, shaped like Hubbard, but with soft, orange skin. Good flavor and moist."

TOMATOES: Larissa from Minnesota says, "Our main crop tomato has been High Country paste from Fisher’s in Montana. They have been dependable on ripening a moderate crop of small paste tomatoes, despite blight and the fact that they appear to be a somewhat unstable genetic variety – lots of diversity in the fruit, although I have been selecting for the best past characteristics. Flavor is bland though."

Kathleen from Wisconsin shares, "I’ve had problems with Heinz for the last few years, too – blight and rotten fruit. Nova has been doing better. It’s a little later, but still pretty early, fruit is slightly longer than Heinz, too, plus it’s indeterminate so I get more fruit per plant."

Jim Ternier of Prairie Grown Seeds, Saskatchewan, Canada, has a number of short season tomatoes listed, including several that were bred in Quebec especially for cool June nights.

Two years ago I received some Early Chatham seed from the Chatham Experiment Station (here in the U.P.). Someone had sent them the seed which had been grown in Houghton County since 1940’s, and they passed it on to me. Early Chatham had been introduced by Chatham in 1939 (bred by Dr. A. F. Yeager) and was a popular tomato in the northern areas at one time. It was dropped from commercial sources between 1988 and 1991. There was one person from Vermont offering the seed through the Seed Savers Exchange in 1993, but I received no response to my inquiry to him, and the next year that listing was gone.

Last year (1994) I distributed, through NSN and SEE, ten samples of seeds including one to Jim Ternier. This year he is selling it through his Prairie Grown Garden Seeds Catalogue. So it is once more back on the market, though possibly temporarily.. But I’m still offering it, and I assume at least some of the folks I sent seed to will have saved seed themselves, and will share with others, and so on.

Maybe it isn’t even that it is a good little tomato that makes me so fond of the Early Chatham. I think it is because I know the story, and it’s a local story. One of our members from Crystal Falls wrote to me that he was a tester of this tomato as an Ag student in High School. He says, "they were a tremendous improvement over what was available then up here".

A loss of a variety or line is a great loss, but I think we also lose a great deal when we lose the stories that go with the seeds.

A BEAN IS A BEAN

. . . or, are looks only skin deep. In this case, bean skin.

My garden beds are about 4 feet wide and I’ve planted four rows and five rows of beans per plot. But I’d never noted if there was a difference in yields. A note from Larissa prompted me to do a test plot this past summer.

She said, "We plant bush beans four rows per 3.5 foot wide bed, with an Earthway Seeder, and the pole beans are planted in a double row with a trellis. The slightly wider spacing has increased our yields per plant (same yield per plant with less density), probably because our garden gets a heavy dew every evening even in a dry year. Even with the increased air circulation from a slightly wider spacing, we still have to pull the plants to finish drying the pods in a shed. Pole beans are very much worth the extra effort of trellising when harvest time rolls around – cleaner beans and easy to pick." She also noted that though her 1993 yields were equal to mine, they usually get twice that much.

So I planted half my Jacobs Cattle with four rows, and half with five rows. But in my garden the yields turned out to be the same per plant. They were within my usual yield of 8 to 10 ounces per ten foot single row, in spite of a rough growing year. I’m going to try it again this year to see if it continues the same.

I did another Jacobs Cattle test as well. Kathy from Minnesota sent me some of her JC seed. She had been raising the seed four years, and it had been grown by another gardener in Minnesota for twenty or so years before that. My seed had originally come from Johnnys Seeds about ten years ago, I’ve been saving it since.

I planted her seed in a plot next to my seed. The size, color, and markings of both JCs were similar. However, while the yield from my seed was 8 oz/10 ft row, the yield from her seed was 14 oz! Quite a difference. By the way, both Larissa and Kathy have longer growing seasons than I do.

This summer I also traded seed with a gardener from downstate (Michigan). He sent me some of his Jacobs Cattle after his harvest, and I’m looking forward to seeing how they do in my growing JC trial. His were of a deeper color than mine, as were the Yellow Eye he sent. I have noticed sometimes significant changes in color of bean seed I receive when I plant and harvest them in my garden. Also, a difference year to year sometimes. I assume this has to do with weather and soil type. That would be an interesting experiment as well.

Bringing into our gardens the same variety of seed but grown in different areas could be a good way to strengthen the genetic diversity in our crops, assuming, of course, that the seed is of equal or better vigor in our particular garden. Several years of side by side trial before we mix the seed into our own would be a good idea.

BOOK REVIEWS

"The Desert Smells Like Rain, a Naturalist in Papago Indian Country", by Gary Paul Nabhan.

Nabhan is the founder of Native Seeds/SEARCH, a non-profit group dedicated to the preservation and distribution of native crops of the southwest. He is also author of many articles and the excellent book, "Enduring Seeds".

"The Desert Smells Like Rain" is not a gardening book as such, and has little to do with our northern short season gardening challenges. It is about the Papago Indians, the Tohono O’odham or "Desert People" of Arizona/Mexico. It is about how they live, harvest and gather within that harsh desert country. It takes you to an area so vastly different from ours that it is hard to believe it is the same continent. Yet I found much to relate to, so much that is in many ways no different than the losses we see around us here. More poetry than how-to, but sometimes that is better.

"The Gift of Good Land – Further Essays, Cultural and Agricultural" by Wendell Berry.

Another non how-to book, but one full of experienced insights and observations. It is a book you will want to read when you have time to think about and roll around the ideas. "In the course of writing both books ["Unsettling of American" and "Gift of Good Land"] I have seen enough good farmers and good farms, and a sufficient variety of both, to convince me beyond doubt that an ecologically, and culturally responsible agriculture is possible. Such an agriculture is now being practiced, productively and profitably, by a scattering of farmers all over the country."

"The most necessary thing in agriculture, for instance, is not toe invent new technologies or methods, not to achieve "break-throughs", but to determine what tools and methods are appropriate to specific peoples, places, and needs, and to apply them correctly. Application (which the heroic approach ignores) is the crux, because no two farms or farmers are alike; no two fields are alike."