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Plants for Privacy

Published May 21, 2013 at 4:11 PM in Jim's Articles

Jim Hole

Privacy on our decks or balconies isn’t such a big deal when it’s snowy and cold outside. But come summer, we want to enjoy every moment possible outdoors, yet still have a little physical separation from our neighbors. Lifeless privacy screens will do the trick, although I think tall colourful plants are a far better choice. They strike the right balance by providing just enough seclusion without sacrificing beauty.

The simplest way to create a dramatic and beautiful living privacy screen for the summer is with strategic placement of the right varieties of colourful annual vines in large pots. Here are some of my favourites.

Black-eyed Susan
I’m torn about what I like best about this vine: the pretty heart-shaped leaves, or its yellow (or orange) flowers with their dark centres. It will quickly reach 2 to 2.5 m in a typical season, and enjoys sun. I find that black-eyed Susan wilts quite severely when it’s stressed for moisture, but recovers well and looks none-the-worse-for-wear once it gets a good soaking.

Canary Bird Vine
Canary bird vine is a great choice along a chain link fence. This sun lover grows amazingly fast reaching over 3.5 m. It sprawls and can look quite wild, but provides a very dense screen. Although it’s related to the nasturtium, its open-faced yellow flowers are reminiscent of tiny orchids. Canary bird vine is great if you want a visually impenetrable barrier.

Hyacinth Bean
Like the canary bird vine, hyacinth bean grows aggressively to about 3 m, and tends to sprawl. It produces fragrant flowers that are highly attractive to butterflies and hummingbirds. After the blooms fade, it develops electric-purple pods for added visual interest.

Bougainvillea
Bougainvillea is one of my favourite privacy screen plants. Its growth habit isn’t particularly aggressive, so it’s a bit more “see through.” But it produces a nonstop mass of flowers all summer long. Bougainvillea thrives in the full, baking-hot sun on my west-facing deck, and is the most colourful of my privacy screens.

‘Pink’ Bower Vine
Bower vines have glossy, bright foliage that provides a nice background for their trumpet-shaped blooms. I like that the flowers have a darker rose-pink throat, which is very pretty. If we had a mild winter climate, bower vines would continue to grow to about 8 m but, since we don’t, expect about 1.5 m during a typical prairie growing season.

Potato Vine
Not to be confused with the sweet potato vine (from the morning glory family), this vine is from the potato family. Its white, star-shaped flowers aren’t anywhere near as showy as, say, bougainvillea, but potato vine is easy to grow and maintain, and has a nice understated look.

If you’re growing your screening plants in containers, remember that large pots produce larger plants. Bigger containers are also easier to maintain because they don’t dry out as quickly. And to encourage fast, strong growth, be sure to fertilize your containers at least once a week.

Often, two or three plants are all you need so that you don’t feel so exposed to the world around you. Unlike with a solid rail or fence, living privacy screens allow for a bit of dappled light to penetrate, yet let me avoid that goldfish-in-a-bowl feeling. Hey, I think my neighbours are great, but I prefer they don’t how many dollops of sour cream I put on my baked potato.

The Gift of Grafted Tomatoes

Published May 02, 2013 at 4:14 PM in Jim's Articles

Jim Hole

Gardeners are always looking for ways to get more fruit from their favourite tomatoes. So, it doesn’t surprise me that commercial growers are making a small, but significant, push to get grafted tomatoes into the hands of gardeners. And that’s because grafted tomato plants have an extra bit of oomph compared to non-grafted ones of the same variety.

If you’re into the sciencey aspect of gardening, you’ve probably heard about fruit tree grafting. The technique knits a branch or bud of a great variety onto another tree with superior roots. That same technique has been used for decades in Japan with tomatoes, and has been gaining popularity in North America. As with fruit trees, grafting tomatoes produces more, as well as higher quality, fruits. Even with our relatively short growing season, grafted tomatoes will produce at least a 10 to 30 per cent greater yield.

At the heart of any grafted plant is a vigorous rootstock that not only imparts greater yield potential, but also often provides greater disease resistance. And you get the great flavour of the preferred variety because the genetics from the rootstock remains separate. As a sidenote, peppers and eggplants, which are closely related to tomatoes, can also be successfully grafted onto tomato rootstock.

To graft tomatoes, growers cut plants in two (at the two true-leaf stage) halfway up the stem, then align the cut ends of the rootstock to the cut ends of the desired top (technically called a scion) and hold them in place with special clips. Plants are then kept in the dark for a few days, under high humidity and moderate temperatures, to allow the graft to knit together. They are then reintroduced to normal growing conditions, and as the tomatoes grow, the clips fall off. A noticeable swelling at the graft point indicates where the two tomato plants were connected.

Grafted tomato plants are a bit more expensive because of the labour involved to produce them, but you’ll be pleased with how they perform. Many popular varieties can be found as grafts including ‘Beefsteak,’ ‘Early Girl’ and ‘Sunsugar.’ You can also find heirloom varieties such as ‘Brandywine’, ‘Cherokee Purple’ and, one of my all time favourites, ‘Constaluto Genovese.’

'Constaluto Genovese' Tomatoes

The only proviso with grafted tomatoes is to never plant them too deep. If they’re planted with the graft below soil level, roots will emerge from the scion, and the benefits of the vigorous grafted rootstock will be lost. Look for the bulge on the stem of grafted tomatoes, and make sure it remains at least 5 cm above the soil surface.

It is possible to buy rootstock and do your own grafting. In fact, I’ve grafted my own tomato plants and think the whole process is fun (that’d be the geeky scientist in me). But grafting can be a challenge in home environments because light and humidity conditions often aren’t conducive to easy and successful grafting. It’s certainly much easier to buy a grafted tomato and simply enjoy the bragging rights to all those extra tomatoes. Which is what I’ll be doing.

No Need to Turf the Grass

Published Apr 19, 2013 at 8:53 AM in Jim's Articles

Jim Hole

Urban lawns are under ever increasing scrutiny when it comes to water usage. They’re accused of using far too much water relative to what they give back. Yet, growing up on the farm the opposite was true. We had a massive lawn that served as the perfect spot for pick-up games of football. My brother, school friends and I spent countless hours there. Since we only had a small well on the farm, our water was restricted to household use. The only water our lawn received was from the sky.

Today in urban environments—with our relatively inexpensive and seemingly endless supply of high-quality city water—lawns can account for a disproportionately large amount of domestic water consumption. But urban lawns can be part of an ecologically sound and sustainable program with the proper soil, correct use of irrigation and the right grass species, drought-tolerant ones.

Let’s start from the ground up. Good quality soils are like the foundation of a house. You can’t build a quality house on a bad foundation, nor can you build a quality lawn on a bad soil. Good soils are better able to store water, so it’s important to have at least 15 cm of loam (a fertile soil comprised of roughly equal parts clay, sand and silt) before sowing seed or sodding.

Lawn irrigation systems can be as rudimentary as a sprinkler attached to a hose, or as complex as an underground, pop-up sprinkler system with automatic timer. Regardless of which system you use, the objective is to get as much of the applied water to the grass roots with the least waste. I’ve seen far too many irrigation systems that do a better job keeping sidewalks wet than keeping grass roots hydrated. If you have a drag-around-the-lawn sprinkler, just make sure it’s the kind that applies coarse droplets (fine droplets tend to evaporate before they reach the ground). Also, with either system avoid watering on warm and windy days to reduce evaporation. While this advice may seem obvious, it’s amazing how often I’ve seen sprinklers running full blast while the wind is blowing and the sun is blazing. Keep these tips in mind, and you will reduce a lot water waste, as well as save yourself some money

One of the biggest breakthroughs in lawn water conservation has come about thanks to the work of plant breeders. Outstanding drought-tolerant grass varieties that require 30 to 50 percent less water than conventional lawn grass varieties, without sacrificing performance, have come onto the market.

The product I like is a blend of some of these new varieties. It’s called Less Water Grass Seed from Manderley. New to the market this year, the product has been independently certified by the Turfgrass Water Conservation Alliance. The TWCA is committed to water conservation, and part of its mandate is to ensure that the endorsed varieties look good and are drought tolerant.

I’ve seen test plots of some of these new varieties at Manderley’s Fort Saskatchewan area location, and their performance under drought conditions is remarkable. Not only do they endure dry spells exceeding well, they’re able to recover more quickly from them, too. The good news is you don’t have to rip up sod to convert your lawn to a less thirsty patch of grass. You can simply overseed with these new blends, and over a few growing seasons your lawn will be converted to these new grass species.

With high-quality soil and drought-tolerant grasses, can you forget about irrigating entirely? Well, my answer is a qualified…perhaps. Irrigation is critical for establishing new grass. But once established, drought-tolerant varieties can survive some very long spells of dry weather and still look pretty darn green. When it comes to watering these varieties, the real question is what degree of brown (or should I say “off-green”) can you tolerate? Drought-tolerant varieties can only endure so much before looking rather parched. So, it will be up to you to decide when to fire up the sprinkler.

Personally, I think we urbanites worry too much about the greenness of our lawns. Because when I think back about playing football in our yard, I don’t remember whether the lawn was green or brown. I remember the brilliant catch I almost made. So close…

Protective materials jump-start the season

Published Apr 11, 2013 at 11:43 AM in Jim's Articles

Keep plants safely under wraps

Jim Hole

When is it safe to plant? That’s one question that never seems to lose its popularity, and one that I get a lot when the last remnants of snow finally disappear. I think the true answer is a lot more rhetorical than absolute, as in: Is it ever really completely safe to plant? Well, that depends if you’re more of an optimist or a pessimist. Being that I’m firmly in the camp of the optimists, I believe it’s always safe to plant early… provided you take a few precautions.

Now, I know that when most gardeners use the word safe, they’re really referring to a date when the threat of frost has passed. But while frost is certainly a concern, you should also be ready to provide protection from other threats like hail, wind and bugs. The good news is that upping the safety ante isn’t that difficult.

One of the best ways to do that and jump-start the spring season is with a fabric-covered, metal-hoop tunnel. The one I like is called a Giant Tunnel Cloche, which is about a metre tall, half a metre wide and two metres long. The fabric provides a few degrees of frost protection and holds in warmth and humidity to get the plants off to a great start. It also protects plants from voracious early season insects like root maggots and flea beetles, eliminating the need to use insecticides to control these pests.

If you don’t grow your plants in rows, I suggest you use Victorian Bell Garden Cloches. These plastic bells remind me of old diving helmets because besides being same size, they have a little breathing vent on the top that can be opened to reduce the amount of heat that builds up on sunny days, and allow the plants to breathe. They’re best for heat-loving plants such as tomatoes, cucumbers and melons that perform better in our climate when given a jump-start on the season. Once the plants begin to crowd the inside the bell, simply remove the cloche and store until next season. Keep in mind that although the plastic bells trap a lot of heat during the day, they offer little frost protection at night, so you can drape a blanket or towel over the bells if the nighttime temperatures threaten to fall below freezing. Even if it snows after planting, the bells are strong enough to withstand the weight without being crushed.

If on-the-ground plant protection isn’t your thing, consider a pop-up greenhouse. For a modest investment, you can get a plastic-clad, metal-tube greenhouse that can be used on a deck or on the ground. The one that I like by FlowerHouse is almost two metres tall, which is big enough to let most people, including me, stand inside. It’s easy to set up and also easily collapses for winter storage. In fact, it comes with zippered bag so that the greenhouse can be hung up and stored out of the way. With this walk-in model, you can place shelves inside to take full advantage of the space. Mesh screens at the door and the upper gable end make for easy ventilation. As an added bonus, it’s a great place to escape should mosquitoes be a problem this year.

So whether you choose to cover your plants or not, our short gardening season begs that we heed this message I once read on a T-shirt: “Dear Optimist and Pessimist: While you were all busy arguing about the glass of water, I drank it. Sincerely, The Opportunist.” Sigh… Win or lose, there are few things more uplifting than a spring garden.

Beyond the Gladioli

Published Mar 21, 2013 at 1:35 PM in Jim's Articles

Lesser-known spring-planted bulbs

Jim Hole

When it came to spring-planted bulbs, Mom often chose gladioli. She would plant long rows of her favourite varieties in the field by our house. I was always amazed at just how quickly the green spikes would punch out of the earth, and later produce such a remarkable multitude of colourful flowers. While I still have a soft spot for glads, there are other spring-planted bulbs that I think deserve a place alongside them. Here’s a short list of my favourites.

Freesia
There’s something inherently attractive about the way a freesia’s trumpeting flowers open sequentially along its arching stem. It’s no surprise its captivating beauty makes the freesia one of the most popular cutflowers. Available colours include white, yellow, bronze, pink, red and violet. Just remember to keep your freesias out of blazing hot spots; a location with morning sun and afternoon shade is ideal for growing these bulbs. Freesias grow 30 to 45 cm in height, and you can expect to see them bloom in late summer.

Ranunculus
When I visited a poinsettia-breeding facility near San Diego a number of years ago, the owners also showed me their massive field of ranunculus. It was right next to a strip mall, and I remember thinking how lucky the shoppers were to see such a stunning display. Ranunculus have fabulous, fully double flowers in a multitude of intense colours and are easy to grow. One word of caution, though: they hate the heat. Cool temperatures (mid teens to low 20s) are ideal for growing ranunculus, so plant them early. Expect these plants to grow 30 to 60 cm tall.

Crocosmia
Native to South Africa, crocosmia has thin arching stalks of starry flowers in bright red, orange or yellow. It grows 60 to 90 cm tall and looks great in containers or flowerbeds. The variety I really like is ‘Lucifer.’ You’ll love the look of its large, bright-red blooms, which, as an added bonus, attract hummingbirds.

Sparaxis
But what I like best about sparaxis is its spatula-shaped petals. They’re joined at the base to form an open lily-like flower. The six petals are most often reddish-mauve or yellow at their bases, while the outer part of the petals are most often white, orange, pink or red. Sparaxis is another South African plant. It has sword-shaped leaves, grows 25 to 40 cm tall and booms in late spring to early summer. I grow mine in containers.

Ismene
Of all of the spring-planted bulbs, I think ismene has the coolest-looking flowers. It’s a member of the amaryllis family and is native to central and South America. Some varieties produce gorgeous incurved petals that make the flowers look like an exotic creature from a coral reef. In fact, one of its common names is sea daffodil. Ismene grows 30 to 60 cm tall and has white to cream-yellow flowers.

Gloriosa
OK, I changed my mind. Gloriosa can definitely hold its own alongside ismene for having the coolest-looking flowers. The petals on gloriosa curve inward with the stamens on the outside of the flower, much like a martagon lily. With its rippled and fiery red petals trimmed with yellow, there’s little doubt why it’s also known as a flame lily. Plants can grow as tall as 2 m, so give them plenty of space. Expect blooms in summer.

I realize the bulbs I’ve described aren’t as well known as glads, even though they can all be successfully grown here. However, like glads, they are not winter hardy to our climate, so the bulbs must be dug out in the fall and stored indoors for replanting the following spring. If glads are the only spring-planted bulbs you’ve ever grown, my advice is to be a bit adventurous this spring and try a few new ones. Like the saying goes, strangers are just friends you have yet to meet.

Fertilizer Fables

Published Mar 12, 2013 at 2:26 PM in Jim's Articles

Jim Hole

OK, I confess. I’m fed up with fertilizers. My sour attitude comes from seeing one too many before-and-after ads featuring tomatoes miraculously transformed thanks to brand “X” fertilizer. The other problem is there are so many fertilizers claiming to be the greatest—a quick web search unearthed no less than 50 for tomatoes alone—that gardeners are increasingly confused about which to buy. To cut through the…um…fertilizer, and simplify the entire plant feeding process, all you need to know is some of the science behind plant nutrition. So here’s the short course on fertilizers to save you some time, money and stress.

First, remember that fertilizer always plays second fiddle to excellent quality soil. Not only is good soil an essential environment for plant roots, it also contains nutrients that are slowly released into the root zone. No fertilizer can make up for poor garden or potting soil, regardless of claims to the contrary.

Next, you need to know a bit about the fertilizer analysis on labels, which is often misunderstood. It’s mandatory in Canada for every fertilizer package to state the percentage (by weight) of the three major plant nutrients: nitrogen, phosphorous and potassium (if you want to get picky, the phosphorous is expressed as phosphate, while the potassium is expressed as potash). In the three number sequence found on labels (e.g. 10-4-3), the first number represents nitrogen. It is, overwhelming, the nutrient required in the largest quantities by all plants. Phosphorus (second on the label) and potassium (third) play lesser roles.

Nitrogen is fundamental to plant growth and is responsible for lush, leafy growth. Plants deficient in nitrogen are often small, pale and lacking vigour. Therefore, as a general rule, fertilizers should always include a fair bit of nitrogen.

Phosphorus is often touted as the nutrient responsible for root growth and flower production, but contrary to popular belief, it has little to do with either. In reality, flowering is initiated by things like temperature, day length and plant maturity, not by an abundance of phosphorus. Historically, gardens and lawns have often been inundated with phosphorus, which did little to improve plant growth and was wasteful, besides. That said, phosphorus is required to fuel plant growth, although in much smaller quantities than nitrogen. Plants sip rather than guzzle phosphorus.

Potassium is one of those hard-to-describe-exactly-what-it-does nutrients. I could expound on terms like metabolism and ionic balance (which I learned about in university, and still give me a headache to think about), but suffice it to say that plants, such as cucumbers and tomatoes, grown with adequate potassium will have better quality fruit and be more resistant to disease.

Beyond the three major nutrients there are a myriad of trace elements that are essential for plant growth, and are often included on fertilizer labels. Iron, boron and the weird-sounding molybdenum are some of the elements critical to plant growth. But they’re called trace elements for reason. As an example, for every one-million nitrogen atoms required by a poinsettia plant, only one atom of molybdenum is needed. And they’re rarely lacking in the average garden or potting soil. So don’t lose any sleep thinking about whether or not your garden has enough trace elements.

With this basic understanding of plant nutritional science, the next question you may be formulating is this: Does a one-size-fits–all fertilizer exist? Well, there’s no such a thing as the perfect fertilizer. But there are some excellent ones on the market that can be used on a wide variety of perennials, annuals, vegetables and shrubs. I use an oilseed-based fertilizer with a 10-4-3 analysis on every plant in my yard (except my lawn), and the results are exceptional. The simplicity of using only one garden fertilizer suits my needs perfectly. Sure, I could fine-tune my tomato fertilizer program and, perhaps, harvest a few more tomatoes from each plant. But that’s just not worth it for me. I’ll take the simple approach any day.

Besides, if I really want to impress my friends with my high-yielding tomato plants, I’ll do what I suspect they do to the fertilizer ads: I’ll turn to Photoshop to make the fruit production look even more outstanding!

A Hale for Kale

Published Feb 27, 2013 at 2:43 PM in Jim's Articles

An Under-used Plant

If you only know kale as a colourful, frilly vegetative decoration on buffets, it’s time to think again. Now I admit that, until recently, I was among the many who didn’t give kale the kind of respect it deserves. Even though my mother always grew a bit of kale every year, I relegated it to the category of boring greenery used to cover ice cubes. But a couple of things changed my perspective. First, my wife fell in love with acertain ornamental variety and, secondly, a customer educated me on the culinary delights of baked kale. Now I’ve come to think kale is under used and under appreciated. Here are some of the reasons why.

First of all, kale is the same species as cauliflower, cabbage, broccoli and Brussels sprouts, although it belongs to a different subgroup called acephela, which essentially means headless. Kale is thought to be indigenous to southwestern and central Asia and to the Mediterranean region. Yet, despite it’s warm origins, kale is remarkably cold tolerant—it can be planted in mid to late April in many regions of the country. Not only can it be sown when the weather is cool, it also easily endures below-zero temperatures. So kale performs and looks great from early spring well into the fall when other frost-sensitive plants—decorative and edible—have become crispy brown.

There are several outstanding varieties in the ornamental category, ‘Red Bor’ is the one that first caught my wife’s attention, and it looks great as a feature plant in a large container. It’s a tall reddish-purple variety with especially frilly leaves.

Another of my favourites is dinosaur kale that. As its name suggests, this type has a primeval look. It’s shorter than Red Bor and has thick, crinkled blue-green leaves, which makes it a standout in flowerbeds. Another intriguing variety is ‘Ornamental Peacock Red,’ which has finely cut, deeply serrated leaves that look feather like. The outer leaves of this kale plant are dark crimson, while the inner leaves are rose-pink. It is the shortest of the bunch at 20–30 cm, (about half as tall as dinosaur kale) but no less spectacular.

Now when it comes to eating kale, Red Bor and dinosaur are good options (Ornamental Peacock Red is best left for show). However, one of the best edible kales is ‘Starbor,’ which has frilly lime-green leaves. It grows well indoors so you can have fresh kale year round.

As many people know, kale is great in salads. But my favourite way to eat this leafy vegetable is baked. Last summer a customer gave me the scoop on kale “chips” when she let me know that kale leaves brushed with a bit of oil and baked make excellent chips. They’re surprisingly tasty (I was a bit skeptical), as well as nutritious. In fact, kale has become somewhat of a nutritional darling, of late, because of its high levels of vitamins and minerals. Mom was right all those years ago; it is good for you.

To grow your own kale, rich soil and a sunny spot are best. The only trouble you may run into is the cabbage butterfly, which is attracted to this family of vegetables. Fortunately, there is an excellent biological control for the worms called BTK, which is safe and easy to apply. You’ll also find that cool temperatures will enhance the colours, so ornamental kale will often look best in late summer and fall.

Now that you’ve discovered what I have—that kale is tasty and beautiful—the next time you hit a salad bar, you’ll be thinking the kale is on the wrong side of the bowl!

Get a head start on spring-planted bulbs

Published Feb 15, 2013 at 2:20 PM in Jim's Articles

Jim Hole

There’s something miraculous about green shoots suddenly springing out from brown, seemingly lifeless flower bulbs. For me, that’s part of the joy of spring gardening. So, too is enjoying their beauty. Turning those bits of brown into thriving plants is quite easy. Just follow these simple tips, and you too can throw your hands into the air and exclaim, “It’s alive!”

First let’s get the category right: What exactly is a spring-planted bulb?’ Well, in laymen’s terms they are bulbs you have to wait until spring to plant because they are too wimpy to survive our cold winters. Because they’re tender, the bulbs need to be stored indoors until the weather is warm enough for them to be planted outside. Now before a botanist emails to correct me, the term bulb is a bit of a misnomer—a catchall for any plant that produces an underground storage system. To be botanically accurate, you’d have to refer to dahlias and begonias as tubers and to gladioli as corms. But because we generalize, all three are lumped into the category of spring-planted bulbs. Whatever you call them, these three are the most popular plants in the category, and are best started indoors.

Indoor Supplies

Most spring-planted bulbs aren’t difficult to grow; they just need to be started indoors for them to reach maturity in our rather short growing season. The rules for starting them are the same as for starting all plants inside: use a high-quality, pasteurized potting soil (such as my Better Choice Potting Soil), clean pots and grow lights (T5s are a good choice). Then, for best success, keep the soil adequately moist and keep the room temperature on cool side (16°C to 18°C).

Begonias

Begonias are the slowest growers, and should be started indoors right about now to ensure summer blooms. In other words, begonias should be started 12 to 14 weeks before being transplanting outdoors. I often receive inquiries from gardeners looking for begonia tubers in May, which, unfortunately, is far too late for these slow-growing plants.

Dahlias

Dahlias aren’t quite as slow as begonias. Eight to ten weeks will produce some good-sized plants that will be off to a roaring start in the garden. Dahlias can stretch (become lanky and weak) if indoor temperatures are too warm, so don’t start them late and try to overcompensate with extra heat. A dahlia kept at 18°C will grow more slowly than one kept at 24°C, but it will be much tougher and better adapted to the outdoors. One word of caution with dahlias: there are so many spectacular varieties available that addiction can be a problem. I know gardeners whose garages have turned into dahlia storage facilities because they’re hooked on collecting and growing so many.

Gladioli

Gladioli are speedier growers and can be planted in spring without being started indoors. Even so, some gardeners like to give them a couple of week’s head start indoors. Perhaps the biggest challenge with gladiolus is ensuring you acquire the best varieties before they disappear from the shelves. Fortunately, gladioli are not difficult to store. Simply keep them in cool storage until it’s time to plant.

If you’re a bit trepidatious about growing bulbs, don’t be. The toughest part, if you want to bother, is trying to remember the correct botanical terminology. But I guarantee you’ll love the flowers no matter what you call them.

Grow Lights

Published Jan 28, 2013 at 12:59 PM in Jim's Articles

Jim Hole

As everyone knows, sunlight is essential to plants. The good news is that it’s free. But at latitudes like ours, we have a huge deficit of it during the winter. And that’s a problem if you’re looking to start seedlings in your home. Fortunately, grow lights can solve the problem, but they’re a bit of a mystery for many people. To help you understand, here are the basics.

First, let’s review a bit of plant science: the reason plants have leaves is so they can harvest sunlight and convert that energy into usable plant food. Without sufficient light, a plant will starve to death.  No amount of fertilizer or water will save it. It’s easy to understand then how supplemental light will help you give your seedlings what they need. But you also need to understand that not all lights are grow lights.

For example, incandescent bulbs produce a lot of heat, but they don’t give much usable light energy for plant growth. Most of the energy they emit is a type of red light that causes plants to become stretched and lanky. Such seedlings are notoriously weak. They often topple over and die before they’re mature enough to be transplanted. Yes, you can find incandescent bulbs labeled as grow lights, but they’re a poor choice producing too much heat and not enough of the right kind of light.

A much better choice, and one I really like, is a compact fluorescent bulb called a T5. The “T” stands for tubular (in reference to the bulb shape) and the “5” refers to the diameter of the tube. For some strange reason, fluorescent tube diameters are measured by eighths of an inch. So the tube in a T5 is five-eights of an inch wide, while a tube in a T12—an older style bulb that served as a grow light—is one-and-a-half inches.

T5s are relatively new in their popularity for starting plants indoors, and provide an excellent proportion of usable energy for plant growth. Don’t be fooled by their small size. A highlight (pardon the pun) of the T5s is that they produce more lumens per watt than other fluorescent tubes, which means they’re more energy efficient. T5s also emit nearly double the light of T12s without producing as much heat. That means they can be placed very close to seedlings without risk of burning. Another excellent feature is that these bulbs last a long time—seven years based on 12 hours of use per day. These bulbs are a bit more expensive than some other grow lights, but their efficiency and performance are worth the extra expense.

I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention LED (light emitting diodes) lights, which are gaining in popularity for use in commercial and hobby greenhouses. They work really well, but the problem with LEDs is they’re quite expensive and can be difficult to find. I suspect as cost and availability improve, they’ll become the grow light of choice. Until then I think T5s are the way to go.

No matter which type of bulb you use, you need to remember to keep your reflectors clean. If the shroud around the tube is dirty, it won’t do a proper job of redirecting errant light particles back to your seedlings. The best and simplest strategy before you begin seeding is to give the reflectors a quick clean with soap and water.

So whether you’re planning to start seeds indoors for the first time, or you’re a seedling veteran, now is the time to get your grow lights ready to go. Yes, there’s plenty of free sunlight around. But at this time of year, you’d have to head a few thousand kilometers south to find it.

Mix It Up

Published Jan 18, 2013 at 9:26 AM in Jim's Articles

Jim Hole

I believe the Japanese have a saying that goes something like this: Feed the eyes before you feed the stomach. It makes perfect sense to me. Give me two dishes with identical ingredients, and I know the one that looks the most colourful will always taste better.

Of course, great chefs have finely tuned skills for feeding the eyes, but the truly outstanding ones know that the journey begins in the garden. They know that something as simple as seed selection can transform a dinner plate.

It’s no surprise then that a big trend I’m seeing for 2013 is multi-coloured blends of seed vegetables. Rather than simply having one green bean variety in package, you get a medley. And while it may seem too early to discuss anything to do with sowing seeds, the truth is that the most intriguing blends of vegetables disappear from the shelves when there’s still snow on the ground. Getting them now and holding onto them for a few months is a way better strategy than risking disappointment come spring. That said, here are few of the blends I’ll be buying now and sowing as soon as the ground can be worked in the spring.

‘Easter Egg’ radishes
There is no easier a vegetable to grow than radishes, and I’ll definitely be growing a blend called ‘Easter Egg.’ It includes red radishes but stretches the boundaries with some purples, pinks and white skinned types for good measure. Don’t forget that radishes can be sown outdoors earlier than any other vegetable and that they take the fewest days to reach maturity—you can be eating them in as little as 20 days.

Jewel-toned beets
Beets, like radishes, are typically thought of as monochromatic, but the jewel-toned series includes a variety with distinctive gold skin and one called ‘Candy-stripe’ that has marvelous spiraling flesh. Beets, like radishes, are cool-weather tolerant and can be sown as soon as the ground can be worked. Don’t forget about the beet greens. They are excellent steamed or in salads.

Tricolor carrots
Just as radishes and beets haven’t been divinely ordained to be red, neither have carrots been proscribed to be orange. A blend called ‘Circus Circus’ includes a mix of purple, white, pale yellow and, of course, orange carrots. Keep in mind that while both white and purple carrots may seem odd, they used to be the exclusive colours of carrots. It was the breeding expertise of the Dutch who managed to develop the orange carrot we know today. Carrots, like radishes, can also be sown early. But when it comes to spacing, don’t crowd the seeds. Crowded carrots will yield plenty of tops but few bottoms.

Spicy salad mixtures
I love all kinds of salad, but it’s the really diverse blends of spicy greens that catch my fancy. ‘Mesclun’ is simply a fancy way of describing a blend of leafy vegetables that are harvested en masse from the garden, washed and plunked straight into a salad bowl. Arugula, spicy mustard, endive and mizuna are just some of the greens that make a great combination. The idea with harvesting mesclun mixtures is to clip the tops of the leafy greens and then to let them regrow for a few weeks before clipping them once again. It really couldn’t be easiter.

So there you have it. A few cool-season blends of vegetables that’ll make your dishes look spectacular. Feeding the eyes before feeding the stomach makes perfect sense to me…as long as the interval between the two is as short as possible.