Growing Your Food From Seeds and Transplanting Established Plants

Growing Your Food From Seeds

Propagating plants from seed is what nature does all the time. Most seeds have certain basic requirements to germinate successfully – the right amount of moisture, warmth, air and light, although most will germinate in the light or dark.

Larger seeds can usually be successfully sown outside, directly in your garden beds, but for the rest you can give them the best start by sowing them under glass or in seedling trays or pots. Once seeds have germinated, light is essential for healthy growth.

You need to have an idea of the best time of year to sow particular seeds for your area. Talk to other gardeners nearby, friends and family. If your area suffers from frosts throughout winter it is best to leave sowing your spring / summer vegetables until the last of the frosts. Use the charts at the end of this book as a general guide.

Of course if you have a glasshouse or a sunny spot inside you can get a bit of a head start. Some plants are meant to be grown through the winter, such as most peas and beans, onions, many root crops – and others will cope through milder winters, so your location is very relevant.

All in all, growing your own food and saving the seed is a very rewarding pastime. I must emphasise again that good record keeping is essential in all aspects of organic gardening, but especially for seed collection and saving.

Your garden diary and the seeds you save can become a great legacy to leave for your children – along with the love of gardening and giving your body healthy fuel.

I developed my love of gardening from watching my grandpa in his garden. He truly loved to spend time in it. It would have been wonderful if he had kept a journal of some kind. But he did save seeds, which I was given when he passed over. Those memories, along with his saved seed encouraged me to create my own organic garden.

I encourage you to get growing with your own seed, your neighbour’s seed, seed from anyone who’s willing to share, or even purchased seed.

 

Transplanting Established Plants

Enrich your soil.

Before you reach for your spade, consider if you have chosen the best position for your plant – does the spot you’ve chosen have enough shade or sun for that particular plant? Have you allowed enough room to accommodate the height and width of the plant when it is mature?

If you have poor soil where you intend to place your lovingly selected plant, you’ll give it the best chance of thriving by improving the soil before planting. You can do this by making several successive applications of organic matter to the soil around where you are planting.

You can use compost, well aged animal manures, lucerne hay, worm castings etc. Apply each layer to the soil surface, about 10cm (4inches) deep. Don’t dig it in – worms and soil microbes willingly take on this task for you. It will take a while and several applications over a few months for your soil condition to show improvement, but it will happen!

When you’re ready to plant, dig the hole about double the width of the pot, but only slightly deeper. Loosen the soil in the bottom of the hole and score the sides of the hole with your garden fork.

Push a little of the soil back into the hole and settle your plant onto it, making sure that it is no deeper or higher in the ground than it was in the pot. If the plant was a little pot-bound, tease the roots and spread them out over the mound of soil in the hole, removing any damaged roots with a sharp pair of secateurs.

Gently back-fill the hole around the plant and water in well.

Cover the soil surface around the plant with a 10 cm (4inch) layer of mulch, such as wood-chip, compost, pea straw or well rotted manure. Your plant should quickly adapt to its new home.

Don’t add compost to planting holes.

We are often advised to add generous amounts of compost in the planting hole. I recommend against this for several reasons. For one, it can be particularly harmful in poorly drained soils.

The natural process is for leaves and other organic matter to fall onto the soil and break down slowly, which nourishes plants and builds up the topsoil.

Filling your planting hole with a concentration of topsoil can lead to problems.

If the organic matter isn’t fully composted, the composting process will continue underground, removing nutrients and oxygen from the soil, rather than enriching it.

If the surrounding soil is poor, the plant’s roots will not explore further than the hole it was planted in, virtually making it ‘pot-bound’ in the ground.

As the organic matter continues to break down it will decrease in volume, causing the plant to sink in the planting hole. If it was planted in poorly draining soil, the plant will be sitting in a ‘plug’ of water and most likely suffer root-rot.

Back-fill the hole with the soil you removed. Add compost or mulch to the surface and water in well.