Concord Magazine Hoop House

Just ran across this great DIY for a hoophouse bender via the hightunnels mailing list. Just because they did it at the White House suddenly it's all the rage? Looks like an interesting way to make some tunnels for crop protection.

Plant Propagation Basics

LIFE FINDS A WAY
It's really easy to forget that plants are some of the oldest forms of life on the earth. They have survived (and thrived) for so long because just like us they can make more of themselves. Most often you see this in action as something you plant that spreads all over, often quickly. Even in harsh climates plants can adapt through changes in evolution enabled by propagation. No matter what, they will find a way to survive.

No matter what plant we're talking about there are only two types of plant propagation: sexual and asexual. Within those two there are various methods to propagate but in the end, those two are it.


SEXUAL PROPAGATION
Basically, the seeds you buy in the spring are the result of this method. There's a great reference here at OSU's extension and at Wikipedia but here are the basics. Plants that reproduce sexually contain male parts called the stamen and female parts called the pistil. Each one is comprised of several pieces, but essentially the male parts contain the pollen which is carried to the female part where it eventually becomes a seed.

THE WORLD ISN'T PERFECT?
In some plant species flowers can be male or female, these plants/flowers are referred to as "imperfect". Some examples of these are cucumbers, pumpkins and melons. When you plant these types you must plant both males and females near each other. Unfortunately, there is no way to determine the sex of the seed so make sure you plant several. Once the flowers mature you will be able to determine which ones are which and remove extra plants.

Since "imperfect" plants are unable to move around on their own to distribute their pollen the rely on "pollinators" to do the job for them. Sometimes the wind is enough but since it's more unreliable they count on things like bees and butterflies to help out. If you plan on growing species that are imperfect, make sure to plant things that will attract butterflies and bees. You can do it manually with a q-tip, but that's for a future article.

So, the opposite of imperfect are "perfect flowers", these are ones that have both male and female parts on the same flower. Examples of these are tomatoes, peppers, lilies and roses. These don't necessarily require pollinators as a light wind is usually enough. However, I have found that when you have pollinators around vegetables of this type you will end up with a better harvest.

From the plant's perspective, the whole goal of this exercise isn't to produce tomatoes for your award winning sauce, it's simply a matter of the need to survive through seed production. Now, having all this pollen from different plants being moved around opens up the opportunity for genetic material to spread. The result of this can be unusual or completely new plants! Taking pollen from one type of plant and pollinating a different plant is called "hybridizing" or "crossing". This in itself is a massive subject which I'll deal with in a different post.

ASEXUAL PROPAGATION
As I mentioned before there are two basic propagation methods, the second one is asexual. At this point you have probably guessed this is propagation through something *other* than seed. Depending on the type of plant there can be several method of asexual reproduction, the most common are tuberous, bulbous and self-rooting.

Tuberous propagation is where the root system of a plant starts lateral growth from each side of the plant. As these "tubers" move through the soil they send new plant stalks up through the ground. On the surface these tend to look like completely separate plants, however under the ground they're connected. At some point, these connections become severed, either by old age or more commonly by an underground animal. Once severed, each plant is on it's own to start shooting out more tubers to create new plants. These tubers can be dug up prior to the plant going dormant, split into pieces then planted individually the next season.

I'm guessing you have noticed "bulbous propagation" contains the word bulb in it. If you garden even just a little chances are pretty good you have planted bulbs. Things like tulips and hyacinth fall into this class. Bulbous propagation is similar to tubers in that it occurs under the ground. Here however a large bulb is planted and over a succession of seasons small "bulbettes" form in a cluster around the base of the parent bulb. Season after season these baby bulbs grow larger and larger and eventually disconnect from their parent. Once that has occurred, these new parents are free to start forming their own bulbettes and the cycle continues. When the bulbettes are about two thirds mature you can manually split them from the parent in the spring or fall and replant them. This is precisely what professional bulb companies do. They dig the bulbs up, remove and replant the babies then dry and sell the parents to us.

The last asexual method I call "self-rooting" and is my absolute favorite. If you have some ivy around take a close look around where the leaves are attached to the stem of the plant. Chances are good you will see little creamy white "nodules" around that area. Many people mistake these as disease but in fact they are new root systems under development. Get these little roots anywhere near soil and they will almost immediately shoot into the ground. From that point they push out new foliage and stems and the process starts all over again. Commercial growers take cuttings of plants and exploit this propagation method to produce tons of plant material all over the world. It is by far the fastest and most reliable method to propagate many types of plants. I have used this method for years on MANY types of plants, just a few examples are coleus, basil, sweet potato vine, petunias, impatiens, alternanthera and all of the mums I grow come in as rooted cuttings. Details on how to do this will come in a future article, however if you Google for "plant cuttings" you will find tons of results.

GENETIC DIVERSITY
Even this basic introduction on plant propagation requires some introduction to plant genetics. Don't let this scare you off, they are quite similar to us. Every male and female plant flower contains the genetic material to reproduce that plant. During the fertilization process this genetic material is passed to the children of those plants. And, just like humans, there is a ton of genetic diversity which can cause a plant to evolve over time. It is because of this that sexual propagation can, and often does, lead to different plants. If you are a parent of several children you know this for a fact, even though they have the same parents each child is different. Yes, I know there can be twins and such, but this is not the norm. This is a huge subject, enough for books, but the basic thing to take away is this: sexual reproduction (seed) won't always produce the same plant as the parents.

Asexual propagation is the opposite, it's like cloning the parent. In fact, rooted cuttings will be a copy of the parent plant. Well, there can be exceptions referred to as "sports" but that's for another conversation as well. Bulbous and tuberous propagation produce almost carbon copies but the chance for "genetic drift" is slightly higher.

CAN THEY DO BOTH?
As a matter of fact, many plants can be propagated both sexually and asexually. A really good example of this is the coleus. Coleus has perfect flowers (male and female parts) and will produce seed that can be grown into new plants. At the same time, you can take cuttings from it and root them for a copy of it. Why would you choose one over the other? Back to genetic diversity, the chances are pretty good that the seed from that plant won't look like the parent. The cutting will.

Now, in a variety where the genetics have been stabilized it could be just a matter of convenience. Many tomatoes, especially heirlooms, have been around for so many years that the seed are almost always "true". Grow them, save some seed and the next year you have a really good chance they will be the same. However, if you want to push the growing cycle, root a cutting from the parent and you magically get a 6-8 week head start. I do this all the time with many types of plants. We maintain what is called "stock" material for precisely this purpose. I always have the option of starting that plant from seed but many times I can dramatically reduce the growing time, sometimes by half.

MORE TO COME
Hopefully you have a better understanding of the basic of plant propagation. In the future I will address things like genetic drift in more detail and how to avoid it. As always, comments are welcomed!

Greenhouse tray sizes

HELP!?
How many times have you been looking around the garden center looking at labels and wonder what numbers like 1208, 1803 and 606 are? Even worse, if you start your own seeds and order from any of the supply companies it gets even more difficult to understand. I myself suffered from terminology shock when I first started gardening and found scarce help on terminology. So, I'm going to pass along what I have learned.

SIZE DOES MATTER
The foundation of understanding anything I am about to explain starts with one basic term: the standard size of a greenhouse tray. The image you see at the start of this article is the front and back of what is called a standard 1020 tray. These numbers indicate nothing other the width and length, in inches, of the tray: 10" by 20". In reality they're like 10.5" x 20.5" but you get the idea. Any time you hear someone refer to a "standard tray" or a "1020 tray", that's what they mean. These come in several flavors: with holes, without holes or a web tray (pictured to the right). These are ALL 1020 trays, just different types.

TO DO THEIR DUTY
To confuse you even more manufactures produce different weight trays as well. All this means is that the heavier the weight, the heavier duty the tray is. For example, Dillen offers three different weights of trays: light, middle and heavy. Overall I prefer the mid-weight as they offer a good balance of price and durability.

YOU SAID 1020 WAS STANDARD
Unfortunately, the 1020 standard defines the OUTSIDE dimensions of the tray, NOT the inside. The result is that trays from different manufactures won't always fit inside each other. Yes, I did say it was standard but but it's a loose one. Basically, you're stuck buying trays from the same manufacture if you ever want to stack them. As an example, most of the time I use web trays for effective drainage but because they are flimsy I put them inside a solid tray for transport. If I purchased the web trays from Landmark and solid trays from Dillen I wouldn't be able to do this. I've tried, it doesn't work.

INSERT NEW TERM HERE
The next term describes those little plastic things that go inside the tray, these are referred to as inserts. They come in all sorts of sizes depending on the application, crop and time of year in which they are used. The numbering system for these isn't really a standard per se but commonly used. Open up a hard goods catalog or go to the website of one of the manufactures and you'll see numbers like 3201, 1204, 1201, 606 and so on. These numbers describe the number of individual inserts that go in the tray and the number of "cells" per insert. For example a sheet of 1204's would have 12 individual inserts with 4 cells per insert. This is the most common size for spring bedding plants and vegetables, you have probably bought many of these. A 1201 (pictured above) would be 12 individual inserts with a single cell, these are commonly referred to as a "sheet of pots". Of course, like the trays, inserts from one manufacture most likely will not fit in a tray from another one.

SQUARE PEG, ROUND HOLE
Within the inserts themselves growers have different ideas on what the best way to grow small plants is. Some argue that a round cell in the insert is best for root development while others argue for a square. In some cases, manufactures have solved that by making the cell square with rounded edges. And even outside the square or round you have the 1803 which has 3 triangular cells per insert. Personally, I have taken to a round shape as that makes transplant into larger pots easier as my dibble creates a round hole.

HOW DEEP DO YOU GO?
Hopefully you've been keeping up with how exceptionally well these standards are maintained (hah). Similar to how the trays come in various flavors the inserts have options as well. Many of them can be purchased in different depths to handle crops that need additional root area. Most manufactures give them names such as "deep", "extra deep" or "jumbo". I have even seen manufactures use the cell depth in the product number instead of giving them names. Your mileage may vary between manufactures.

SLIM IT DOWN
At some point, I'm not exactly sure when, growers realized that 10"x20" consumed space in the greenhouse that many crops didn't need. Manufactures responded to this with trays that were still 20" long but slimmed down to a width of 8" to 9". Unfortunately, they didn't develop a standard term for this so each manufacture has their own names. Some call them "slim jim" others call them "skinnie minnie" and yet others call them "slimline" They're all the same idea, reduce the width of the tray so the growers can fit more trays per square foot in the greenhouse. A word of caution on these: standard 1020 inserts DO NOT fit in these trays. Not only that, many of them are considered seasonal or special order so you'll need to order PALLETS of them at a time.

IDENTIFY ME
Some manufactures will advertise something called a "tag locator" on their trays. Often times the part number is a "T" or "TL" in it. This is simply a small slot somewhere in the tray, usually on one of the sides, to insert a tag. Most often these are used to tag the tray with an order number, fertilizer rate or greenhouse location information. These are quite useful if you have an entire tray of a single variety but they're getting harder and harder to find since most trays grown for retail have a tag in each insert. These are more common with growers that supply to landscapers since they don't often tag the plants they plant. At anywhere from .03 to .25 per tag this can save a ton of cost in the long run.

PAY THE PIPER
Greenhouse trays are plastic and therefore require petroleum to produce. Over the past several years I have seen the cost of trays, inserts and pots at least double. There are a few manufactures out there developing alternative products, such as trays made out of rice hulls, straw or even manure. They haven't become all that popular and are still cost prohibitive. Until growers purchase them in large amounts the price will continue to be out of reach for most of us.

RECOMMENDATIONS
I hope on your next trip to the garden center you'll be able to understand the products you are looking at a little better.

A few things I have learned over the years when buying trays.

• Purchase all of your material from the same manufacture. I can't stress this enough, this alone will save you a TON of aggravation.
  
• Buy the heavier duty trays, they'll hold up for several years. That is unless you're growing and selling whole trays for a profit, for those buy as cheap as possible.
• If you opt for the lower cost trays avoid moving them around. I try to limit moves in the greenhouse to 1 or 2 otherwise they crack and fall apart.
  
• Use trays with holes or web flats for proper drainage. I've had better luck with the web flats holding up over time and because of the lower amount of plastic they cost about the same as cheap solid trays.
  
• Find a good distributor and purchase all material from them to get maximum discounts.

USEFUL INSERT APPLICATIONS

• 606 - Good general purpose insert for flowers and vegetables. Use these when you want the plants to get a little fuller and taller than those grown in 1204's.
  
• 606 Deep - Good for pansies, petunias and violas. I use the plants from 1 of these inserts to plant up 10" hanging baskets. 6 deep rooted starts are perfect for a 10" basket.
  
• 1204 - Almost the defacto for spring bedding plants and early vegetable transplants. In order to get around the normally huge minimum orders go to East Jordan Plastics, they have a 1 case minimum.
• 1201 - Great for seed starting. Start 12 varieties in the space of a single flat. They don't tear easily so they can be reused 2-3 times.
  
• 3201 - Our standard size herb and vegetable pot. A sheet of these has (32) 2.5" pots, 8 per row in 4 rows. They're extremely economical and allow for fairly large size plants early in the season. W
  

Ornamental Peppers

A HEALTHY OBSESSION
A few years ago we were shopping at a warehouse store and found this pot full of these strange pointy little peppers. We bought it, took it home and that was the start of our obsession with ornamental peppers. Today we grow and sell nearly 50 (or more) varieties of these things and get all sorts of questions about them.

WHAT'S IN A NAME?
Most garden centers start selling ornamental peppers in the fall, although once in a while (and from us) you can find them in the spring season. Every year we make the rounds to all the garden centers we know of around Chicago to see which ones they are selling and maybe spot some new varieties. Inevitably, we find one we have never seen, or haven't seen in a while and we ask the staff there "what's the name of this ornamental pepper"? 90% of the time we get the response "it's a capsicum annuum". Then we ask "well, which one?" and get the answer "they're all the same".

Now, I understand that training in garden centers can sometimes be a little slack, but that's just flat out wrong information. Yes, they are all in the Genus Capsicum and I believe all are in the species annuum, but that's like saying all Solanum lycopersicum (the tomato) are all the same. Or take it the next step and say all Solanum are all the same. I have said it before, and I will say it again, that's just wrong.

I know for a fact ornamental peppers have named varieties, when I order tags for my plants I order them PER VARIETY with NAMES ON EACH. Yes, the label companies sell "generic" ornamental pepper tags but most growers use those for the Walmart's of the world that want to maintain as few SKU numbers as they can.

ARE THEY EDIBLE?
When someone sees ornamental peppers for the first time, this is almost always their first question. The answer is yes, but having tasted almost every one we sell, some just don't taste all that good. The only time you really need to be concerned is if the grower has used a fertilizer that's rated for ornamental crops and not for edible ones. These fertilizers often contain trace elements that establish themselves in the plants and could cause harm if ingested. Ask the garden center where you're purchasing them what type of fertilizer was used, if they can't answer you order from us, we use Daniel's fertilizer on ours which is safe.

WHAT DO I DO WITH THEM?
Another common problem is that people don't know what to use them for. The most common application is in baskets, planters or urns as "filler". Ornamental peppers bring a ton of color to planters, especially in the fall alongside mums, ornamental cabbage and Swiss chard. During the summer months they can be used in mass for borders, again, they add a ton of color.

HOW DO I CARE FOR THEM?
Care is similar to other ornamental plants, water when they start to dry out and don't over water them. During active growth they require feeding, again similar to other ornamental plants. A weekly dose of MiracleGro will suffice or use a controlled release fertilizer such as Osmocote.

ARE THEY PERENNIAL?
No, they are annuals like other peppers.

DIFFICULT FROM SEED?
No more than other peppers, germination can take anywhere from 3 to 10 days and they're ready for transplant in 4-6 weeks depending on the variety. Medusa is EXTREMELY fast to germinate, 2-3 days, which amazes me every time I grow them. About the only warning I can give is some of the varieties can take up to 24 weeks to mature (like Black Pearl). So, if you're not a patient person, don't grow those varieties or even better, buy them from us!

CAN I SAVE SEED?
You will have better luck saving seed from the varieties that are not F1 hybrids, they tend to "drift" genetically quite quickly back to their parents. We successfully save seed from open pollinated varieties but different types will need separation to prevent cross pollination. Even then they only seem to hold "true to variety" for 2-3 seasons.

SHOULD I TRY THEM?
If you're bored with the same old, same old by all means YES! Ornamental peppers are quite easy to grow, even from seed, and produce long lasting color well into the fall.

Daniels plant food

I recently posted about Osmocote controlled release fertilizer (CRF) and mentioned that I also use a liquid feed fertilizer along with it. Well, the one I'm using today is called Daniels Plant Food and it's working great for us. They have formulations for home gardeners, professional growers as well as for garden centers. All of their products are produced from a seed extract so they're extremely organic which is why I chose them. Keeping away toxic chemicals is not only safe for you, it's safer for the plants. I mean really, avoid fertilizer burn by simply avoiding the chemicals that run the risk of burning plants!

The home gardener version is the same basic formulation as their standard professional version, 10-4-3, only it comes in a much smaller container. It's available online from many sources and local retailers are offering it more and more. For those of you that are professional growers, call your local distributor to see if it's available, I use BFG Supply here in Chicago.

Application rates for the home version are listed on the bottle and are quite easy to follow. For professional mix rates it can get a little difficult, but with 10% N it's not too hard to figure out the math. I use Dosatron injectors and they have a nifty little calculator on their site to calculate the amount of concentrate and the injector settings. If you're using Dosamatic, I bet they have something similar.

When I purchased my first injector for the spring season this year I went looking for something to replace the fish emulsion I had been using. While I absolutely swear by fish emulsion, especially in the home garden, it simply can't be mixed and used with an injector. I was after something organic in nature to reduce the risk of burn, reduce runoff issues and be able to use on vegetable AND ornamental crops. The only one I found was Daniels.

One thing to keep in mind about this fertilizer is where the Nitrogen comes from. The type (yes, there are a couple type of N) is of a source that doesn't "green" up plants at low rates like a chemical fertilizer. It'll provide all the nutrients, major and minor, that your plants need but if you want lush green foliage you'll need to increase the strength. I'm finding that 50ppm N is good for normal use, but an increase to 100-200ppm every week greens up the plants rather nicely.

What you don't know how to calculate ppm of your fertilizer? Well, use this calculator to figure it out. Plug in the NPK of Daniels there (10-4-3) then fiddle with the teaspoons per gallon until you hit the desired rate. Don't worry, I'll be explaining the types of Nitrogen and application rates for different crops in a future article.

All in all, if you're a sworn MiracleGro person today, try dumping that chemical backwash for a season and give the organic option a try. Not only will you see a difference, you'll feel better about it.

Osmocote

A few years ago I started using a controlled release fertilizer (CRF) called Osmocote. I was a bit skeptical at first but since then have become a true convert. If you want to save time and labor feeding your plants, start using this stuff.

The best way to describe a controlled release fertilizer is that it's like an M&M and slowly over time, based on temperature, the outer coating starts to melt away. As this happens small amounts of fertilizer are released into the soil around it. The best part is that the rate of "melting" changes with the temperature. When it's cooler, it slows down, when it warms up, it speeds up. This provides almost the perfect amount of feeding when the plant needs it.

I specifically use Osmocote although there are other brands on the market. From what I've read it was one of the original products of this type. Osmocote is from Scott's, although I'm not sure if they are the original creators or if they purchased it from someone.

They currently offer 2 "grades" of the product, a consumer and a professional version. For years I used the consumer version, and specifically the fruit & vegetable one, however this year I switched to Osmocote Plus professional. These come in 50 lb. bags and are more cost effective in larger volumes. But, for anyone at home, the retail will work just fine. The professional version is also available in several different strengths as well as versions with minor elements (other than NPK).

Applications rates are printed on the retail product, and for the professional version they have data sheets on their website. I've been using 2 TSP for a 4" pot, 1 TBSP for 1 gallon or 8" pots and 2 TBSP for 2 gallon mums. For the plants and baskets we plant up in May I plan on that lasting well through the summer, usually into August.

We apply it in what's called a "top dress" which simply means we sprinkle it on the top of the soil around a potted plant. The other option is to mix the product into your potting mix, however, if you do this only mix what you need for a short time. After the addition into your soil, the outside humidity and temperature coupled with the moisture in the soil will start the time ticking. It's because of this (and that mixing is labor intensive) that we use the top dress method.

All in all, it's a wonderful product. The only real downside is that's its not organic, in any way. But, if you want to prove what it can do, take two of the same plant and put Osmocote on one of them. In 2-4 weeks the one with the CRF will be noticeably different.

Which lantro?

Recently my wife mentioned she had a comment from a potential customer that asked why we didn't refer to Cilantro as Culantro in our store. Well, because they're not the same and apparently this person was quite insistent they were. So, Ithink it's time to set the record straight.

Yes, botanically these two plants are in the same family, Apiaceae, but the comparison stops there. Culantro's botanical name is Eryngium foetidum whereas Cilantro's is Coriandrum sativum. Just because potatoes, peppers, eggplant and tomatoes (and petunias for that matter) are all in the Solanaceae family doesn't mean they're all the same. Do you order a bacon, lettuce and potato sandwich? How about some nice pepper-plant parmesan? Or eggplant sauce on your pasta? Heck, for that matter anything in the family Hominidae are the same as well.

Now, let's add to this the fact that there are actually several named varieties of Cilantro such as Santo and Delfino whereas Culantro has only one that I know of. Personally, I have never grown Culantro but have grown a ton of Cilantro. From what I've read, Culantro has many similarities to it's sister herb such as bolting in warmer/long days. But being the tropical that it is, I would imagine it is unable to take the lower temps that Cilantro thrives in.

Now, from a taste perspective they are in fact similar. Cilantro tends to be a zero or one thing, you love it or hate it. My wife says she doesn't like the "soapy" flavor of Cilantro but I couldn't have a salsa without it.

If anyone has proof that these are in fact the same thing, I invite you to share it.