How to Share Your Plant Starts for Profit

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Plant Starts

Image by Shameer Pk from Pixabay

by Sandy Swegel

Sharing plants is a simple joy in life. Sharing plants and making money, well that’s even better. Read on to learn how to share your plant starts for profit.

My happy group of gardening buddies first got to know each other because of our great avarice for more seeds. We had all joined a local gardening email list so we could talk more about plants and gardening, but the more we spoke with each other, the more seeds and plants we wanted. Every time someone mentioned a new variety of tomatoes or annual flowers or ground cover, we had to have one of those.

The first year, we decided to meet in person and share seed packets. Armed with dozens of recycled envelopes, we doled out tiny seeds to each other, taking home three Cherokee purple tomato seeds or six cosmos seeds. This quickly became confusing and chaotic and required so many tags in our seed trays. So the next year we decided to become more economical. We’d each buy a packet of seeds and grow out all the plants…and then swap our plant starts. We definitely got more plants than we would have grown on our own and we each had unusual varieties you can’t buy in stores.

But the third year of our avarice proved to be the year we figured out that we could get as many seeds as we wanted…and they practically paid for themselves.  All we had to do was start our seeds and sell 2-month-old plant starts to each other and to the other greedy gardeners who envied our ever more diverse gardens. We learned that anyone can sell healthy organic heirloom tomato starts, especially if you have pictures of last year’s garden.

You can try your own mini plant exchange and sale. We price our seedlings cheap ($1 or $2 at most). I can afford all the heirloom tomato plants I want if I just sell three seedlings for $1 from each seed packet. Throw in some herbs and flowers and soon the plants barely fit in the car. Our little group now has a giant plant sale every May where everyone brings their plants to sell to each other, but thanks to free advertising on Craigslist and neighborhood electric poles, we also sell our humble little plants to the public.

Avarice never ends, of course, and now we have to grow more plants so we can make money so we can afford backyard greenhouses. Last year our small group of about 12 home gardeners sold some $4000 worth of plants that they started in closets and on top of refrigerators just two months before. Not enough to get rich, but enough to buy more seeds, build hoop houses and season extenders, and have a load of precious organic sheep manure delivered to our gardens.

So enjoy your seed shopping and think about swapping some of the plants you start with others. We learned that while there is no end to avarice among gardeners, there is also no end to generosity. It is a great joy to have an abundance of little plants to share with friends and strangers.

4 Ways to Compost in Winter

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Composting in Cold WeatherPhoto of hands holding fresh compost.

by Sandy Swegel

It snowed yesterday.  It’s going to snow again today.  This makes me so happy because it means I get a vacation from work.  My gardening business is a lot like a teacher’s schedule.  Work like crazy most of the year then I get a wonderful interlude to catch up on the rest of my life.  Working in the garden may come to an end during Colorado winters, but eating usually continues and we continue to make lots of food scraps that any gardener would hate to waste.

When I lived on acreage, I did all my food composting by sending it through the chickens.  The backyard chickens loved food scraps and eagerly ran around when I brought the compost bucket. Even if it was just onion scraps and things they didn’t like to eat, they relished scratching it around and mixing it with the coop bedding and poop. Spring compost in the making.

Without chickens, there are still ways that you can compost in winter and capture your kitchen scraps:

1. Use your regular compost bin

I empty mine to about ¼ full of compost in progress with lots of worms.  I fill it all the way to the top with dry leaves and sort of hollow out the center. The leaves don’t freeze solid and all winter I drop the scraps down the middle of the leaves.  The leaves provide some insulation and the food scraps and leaves at the bottom of the pile are warmed enough by the earth that a tiny bit of composting keeps happening even when temps get well below freezing. The earthworms are slow but still keep working and reproducing.

2. Compost in a protected sunny spot

Keep a plastic (black if possible) bin against the house on a sunny side.  I started with the bin half full of partially finished compost that hopefully has some worms already busy in it.   The center, next to the ground, will stay unfrozen so the worms will stay alive.  The compost probably won’t process much over the winter except on sunny days.  You may need to secure it against raccoons or other varmints.

3. Make a trench

This takes a bit of planning before the cold weather arrives, but produces amazing results and saves time and labor.  Dig a long trench right in the garden…about a foot deep and a foot wide.  Leave the soil heaped right next to the trench with a rake nearby.  I left the excavated dirt on the side of the trench. Every time the indoor compost bin was full, I just took it out to the garden and dumped it into the trench.  If things weren’t too frozen, I pulled some of the excavated dirt on top of the food scraps. If there was snow on the ground, I just put the scraps on top, and eventually, it fell into the trench.

This process attracts all the worms to the trench.  Some composting takes place in the Fall but most decomposition happens in early Spring.  By early May, when it’s time to plant tomatoes, the compost is broken down enough that I can transplant my tomatoes directly into the filled trench that is crawling with decomposers and happy earthworms.  If it was a very cold winter and the compost isn’t finished, just plant right next to the trench.  Some people like to compost in trenches all year.  They set up a three-year rotating system where they compost one year, plant the next and use the area as a walkway the third year.  Pretty clever!

4. Make a windrow

John, the Worm Man, Anderson in northern Colorado keeps his worms happy all winter by setting up short windrows of compost, food scraps, and worms.  He throws old carpet or tarps over the top.  Periodically, he lifts the carpet and puts new scraps on top of the piles.  The worms slow down in winter but keep working and reproducing.  For small households, just make a pile on the ground and cover it with a tarp.  The tarp keeps moisture and some heat in.  Just slip the food under the tarp.  Worms show up.   This doesn’t work so well if you have raccoon or mice and rat issues.

Photo of a windrow compost

BBB Seed’s Wildflowers to Attract Butterflies and Birds

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Wildflower Seeds

by Heather Stone

Photo of two birds on a birdbath.

Photo courtesy of pixabay

It brings great pleasure to see more birds and butterflies about the garden and we as gardeners can do a lot to attract and protect the birds and butterflies that visit our garden. These critters simply need a safe place to live and healthy food to eat.

Wildflowers to attract butterfly and birds seed packet.

Butterflies

For butterflies, providing food (host plants) for caterpillars, nectar sources for adult butterflies and a safe place to overwinter can all be accomplished in a small area. Caterpillars of some species of butterflies have very specific larval host plants, while some will eat a wide range of species. Nectar is the primary food source for most adult butterflies. Planting nectar-rich plants in the garden is sure to attract more butterflies. Depending on the species, butterflies overwinter in all stages of life from egg to adult. Some places they overwinter include leaf litter, the bases of bunch grasses, rock piles, brush or wood piles, behind loose tree bark and near their host plants.

 

Birds

Just like butterflies birds need healthy food to eat and shelter. Start by planting native plants in your garden that provide seeds, berries, nuts and nectar. Shrubs and trees, especially evergreen species, provide excellent shelter and nesting sites for birds. Birds also need a year-round water source such as a bird bath. Providing nesting boxes and offering food in feeders will attract even more birds.

Photo of an orange and yellow butterfly on a marigold bloom.

Photo courtesy of pixabay.

Try planting our Birds and Butterflies mix to attract more birds and butterflies to your landscape. The mixture of annuals, perennials, introduced and native wildflowers is designed to attract butterflies over a long season of bloom from spring until fall and a variety of birds to the seeds come autumn.

 

Sources:  Gardening for Butterflies, The Xerces Society

https://www.nwf.org/sitecore/content/Home/Garden-for-Wildlife/Wildlife/Attracting-Birds

Back To School

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The Importance of Learning Gardening

by Sam Doll
Back to School Learning Gardens.

What do you think of when you imagine a classroom? Do you think of rows of desks, educational posters, a whiteboard with a professionally dressed teacher at the front? There may be a few toys or tablets with games designed to teach kids their alphabet or basic math.

That traditional classroom is useful for certain things, like learning grammar and division, but it is really inadequate for teaching kids about the world they live in and interact with every day. This is especially true with food.

Most kids, especially those from low-income or urban areas have very little understanding of what food actually is or where it comes from. Kids learn through their senses, so when they aren’t given the opportunity to actually see and touch and understand how food comes from the earth to their plate, it is hard for them to have a deep understanding of the food system and it is harder for them to make healthy choices. Ketchup has no connection to a tomato and the tomato has no connection to the earth.

We know that good nutrition is linked to higher academic achievement. We also know that gardening has many positive outcomes for children, including better nutrition, social skills, and academic achievement.

That is why school learning gardens are such a powerful education tool. These outdoor classrooms can be installed either on school campuses or remotely and provide a unique, hands-on opportunity for kids to learn lessons in nutrition, science, and community while getting a tasty, healthy snack right from the garden!

One of the biggest organizations pushing for school learning gardens is Big Green. Started by Kimbal Musk, food entrepreneur and brother of Elon Musk. Big Green installs learning gardens at low-income schools across the country.

They provide dedicated garden instructors, so teachers aren’t being asked to do more than they already are and kids are getting information straight from the experts. Started in Boulder, Colorado (BBB Seed’s hometown), Big Green has built learning gardens at over 378 schools in seven states.

At BBB Seed, we are dedicated to educating people of all ages about the benefits of eating healthy, protecting our pollinators, and gardening with organic methods. To get educational materials sent straight to your email, make sure to sign up for our newsletter at the bottom of the ‘home’ page.

 

Take a Listening Walk

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By: Sandy Swegel

The skies were gray this morning.  The landscape was brown and dead.  I kept looking for Spring but at best there were just the green tips of bulbs appearing among dead leaves. Maybe the buds were swelling on trees.  It was cold, but it still felt like Spring.  How could that be?

The loud demanding chirping of some birds interrupted my thoughts and I realized I could HEAR Spring. So I took a listening walk to a nearby pond and while I couldn’t really see Spring…the pond scenery was just as brown as my yard was…but now I knew…nature is waking up.

I could hear the male birds in rapt mating calls…doing their best to make some new baby birds.  Lots of mating and birthing going on in Spring.  I could hear some tiny chirps that I think were baby sparrows or finches.  There was rustling in the winter leaf debris.  I couldn’t see anything but I could guess there were baby caterpillars and insects under there that the birds were scratching to find.  I suspect there were little mice in there too.  Which meant that snakes were waking up and slithering in the grasses.

There wasn’t much to see, but I could hear nature erupting in new life. Spring is noisy.   A nature walk in January is pretty quiet except for some chickadees and perhaps large animals running off, startled by a human invading their wild territory.  But Spring makes an absolute racket.  Even the water is noisy.  A week of warm weather had melted ice and brooks were babbling again.

Very early Spring is subtle.  I know from the sounds that new life is starting.  But it’s a slow lazy waking up.  Snow is coming later in the week and I’m reminded of the adage that March is the snowiest month.

The avid gardener has just a few tasks in early Spring.  One is to enjoy nature without having to work to weed or control it.  Another is to do some pruning while the trees and shrubs are still dormant.  But after a cold morning walk, the best thing this gardener can do is go inside and start some more seeds under the lights.  Outside, Mother Nature can call the shots.  Inside, I’m getting a head start on all those seeds that I want to grow now!

Photo credits:

cuddlesandmuddles.wordpress.com/2013/03/06/world-book-day-activities-taking-a-listening-walk/

www.twrcwildlifecenter.org/volunteer/baby-bird-program/

Quit Working so Hard This Fall

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Garden Clean Up

by Sandy Swegel

The old adages say cleanliness and hard work are virtues. That may be true in your kitchen, but in the garden, a little sloth can save many lives and make your life a little easier.  Mother Nature isn’t just messy when she clutters up the Fall garden with leaves and debris….she’s making homes for her creatures.  Old dead leaves may look like clutter that needs to be tidied up, but it’s really nice rustic sustainable homes for many of a gardener’s best friends.

Here’s who is hiding in your garden this winter if you DON’T clean up.

Ladybugs in the garden beds next to the house.  Ladybugs want a nice sheltered home safe from wind and exposed soil. I most often find them under the leaves and dead flower stalks in the perennial garden.

Butterfly larvae (aka caterpillars) in leaf bundles. Sometimes in winter, you’ll see a couple of leaves looking stuck to a bush or tree or in a clump on the ground.  Often there’s a butterfly baby overwintering there.

Lacewing at the base of willows or in the old vegetable garden.  Insects don’t work very hard in the fall either.  Often they are eating happily on the aphids in your vegetable garden or your mini forest and just go through their life cycle right there.  They lay their eggs on the bottom of leaves and the leaves fall to the ground.  If you clean up too much, you’ll clean up all the beneficial insect’s eggs

Slugs in your hosta garden. Even slugs are a good thing to leave for the winter.  They will be plump food for baby birds next Spring.

The bottom line is don’t do a good job of cleaning up in the Fall.  Take away any very diseased leaves.  Clean up the thick mats of leaves on the lawn so they don’t encourage lawn fungus.  But leave the flower stalks with seeds and the leaves in the beds.  They insulate and protect plants and insects.

Another good reason to be a little lazy this Fall.

Photos: http://www.nashvilleparent.com/2013/07/fall-for-fun/http://antsbeesbutterfliesnature.blogspot.com/2009/11/overwintering-caterpillars.html

Native Metallic Green Sweat Bee

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AGAPOSTEMON: METALLIC GREEN SWEAT BEE

by Jessica of TheBeesWaggle.com

The green sweat bee is a beautiful native bee that comes out to pollinate from spring to fall.  These beauties typically nest underground in tunnels, which are sometimes adjacent to many other sweat bee nests.  They will sometimes even share an entrance into many diverging nesting tunnels.   It has even been documented that these sweat bees are even willing to nest next to other species of bees!

Nests are formed as they dig the holes with their jaws into the side of a dirt hill, and use mud to form partitions between each egg.  There is no honey made by these bees, but they are great pollinators to many flowers, which means more seeds of those flowers for the next season!

These bees are often on the smaller side (1/4 inch) but can approach 1/2 inch long.  The males have a green head and thorax, while the females are typically all green, with exception to one who has black and white abdomen with a green head and thorax.

They can be seen across North America feeding on a wide variety of blooms, as they are generalists.

Next time you are out gardening or amidst a large plot of flowers, watch closely and you might catch a glimpse of these remarkable bees.

A Working Garden Club

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Finding a Garden Community

by Sandy Swegel

There are lots of garden clubs around. I personally belong to three and follow another two email-only groups online. When I first started gardening as an adult, I didn’t think I’d ever be a garden-club-kinda girl. Growing up in a Southern Big City, garden clubs to me meant you had to wear your best dress and go to a lovely tea with people of a certain social class in a beautifully manicured rose garden. That was just my own prejudices showing through because the love of gardening knows no class lines. However, I didn’t think I’d ever get my fingernails clean enough to go to one of those parties. With age and experience comes some wisdom and now I do go to one of those formal groups with officers and Robert’s Rules of order and I admire the community of members who have known each other for decades and who are so wise about local gardening.

I belong to another scruffier group that is especially interested in “culinary gardening” – gardens with lots of edibles. We mostly meet through email because there are quite a few market farmers and community garden volunteers so people don’t have time to meet with all the work they have to do…but any questions you ever have can be answered on our email list. We also order seeds and roots and greenhouse supplies together in bulk to save a lot of money. Every once in a while I meet someone who says they belong to this group and I have to ask their email address before I recognize them. We do have a heck of a delicious holiday party once the season ends.

A third occasional club I meet with has one primary task…to maintain a public rose garden a few times a year. So we are a kind of working group. We don’t all know each other well, but we know and love our roses.

I was at a small town garden tour yesterday and met people from a different kind of gardening club. They are a small (fewer than ten members) club who is a real WORKING group. No sitting around chatting about plants or looking at slide shows for them. Regularly they meet in one member’s garden and work for a good two hours on a garden project of the member’s choice. Naturally, this is followed by cold drinks and good food. They have met for years and welcome anyone…as long as they are willing to work to their ability. I admire this group because their gardens and knowledge have steadily improved over the years but they have also become a close-knit community based on their love of the earth and growing plants. They share in each other’s lives too and tend each others’ gardens or bring supper if someone is sick. They freely welcome newcomers to their group…if they’re willing to work.

 

 

I’m fond of saying that gardening is like the new church. Good people with shared values coming together and supporting one another in many ways and having a good time. Everyone clearly loves plants but there’s not a lot of doctrine. (well not counting opinions on pesticides.)

If I ever moved to a new town, the first thing I’d do is join a garden club. That’s the way to make true blue friends AND get more free plants.

Photo credits
http://www.dailyherald.com/article/20160204/entlife/160209489/
http://www.shorelinetimes.com/articles/2013/04/09/opinion/doc516475b154574110166725.txt
https://vitalandwell.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/garden-club-kids-2012.jpg

Learning from Kid’s Gardens

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What We Can Learn from Kids’ Gardens

Gardening Tips

There are tons of books and articles on how to teach kids about gardening. And it is lots of fun to teach young gardeners and show them how to pull a carrot or find an earthworm. But kids who like to garden do it for the fun of it…so there’s a lot that we serious grownups can learn about gardening from kids.

Forget the rules. (or hold them loosely.) Plants grow more easily for kids than for adults. The first time I helped with a children’s garden project, we were planting peas for a Peas (peace) Garden. I had prepped the soil along the fence and about 20 kids of all ages came in and willy-nilly planted their peas. I attempted to teach a few about how to plant peas, but everywhere I looked peas were being thrown about or stomped into the ground. After all the kids left, I asked their teacher if I should replant some of the peas so the kids wouldn’t be disappointed when their plants didn’t grow. The teacher laughed and said, “They’ll grow….they always do.” Plants will grow for kids while adults who do the same thing will have failures. Sure enough. Peas planted 4 inches in the ground, or peas barely touching the soil, all sprouted and grew. Adults who have a playful attitude toward their plants, get better results than some of us who follow the rules too much.

More “Garden Candy”

Garden Candy is what one of the kids called peas because it’s what her grandma called them. Truthfully, we all want more strawberries and fewer cabbages. But they don’t have to just be strawberries. Cherry tomatoes and little round carrots and side sprouts of broccoli all have excellent potential as “garden candy.” Think of raw veggies naturally sweet and little enough for nibbling by small mouths. It may take some encouragement on your part to get the kids to taste the fresh peas or carrots and recognize how different they are than the cooked veggies they know.

More Play

Besides colorful fences around the garden, kids know to mix art and plants together everywhere. And they know some plants aren’t just for eating. Beans for example. Sure you can grow them in little bushes or perfect t-post trellises, but they taste even yummier when grown on teepees trellises that you can also hide inside on a hot summer day. And why grow plain beans with white flowers when you can grow scarlet runner beans! Kids always choose our Festive Rainbow blends of carrots or radishes or lettuces. More color, please. More shiny, brightly colored sparkly things in the garden, please.

More Art

Sure, a Sharpie on an ice cream stick marks where your vegetables are. Adults don’t have time to make magnificent Martha Stewart plant labels. However, kids know garden markers from Michaels’ and little drawings on rocks make great art. So do a few “container gardens” planted in old boots and bright plastic flowers stuck in the ground.

Tall Sunflowers are a Must.

Even kids who aren’t all that into vegetables know instinctively that sunflowers are beautiful and make people smile.

Be Proud of your Garden.

Your friends come over and you start apologizing for your weeds. Your kids, however, are pulling on the adults saying, “Come see my garden” because there’s one lonely marigold in full bloom.

Only Plant what You Love.

You don’t see eight-year-olds planting some vegetable they hate because they know they should. They plant flowers based on their favorite colors and they plant peach pits and apple seeds. And they learn to love kale because the red curly one is so cool.

Don’t Forget to Invite the Fairies and Garden Sprites

A little fairy garden is a delight for all ages (and for the fairies.)

 

 

 

 

 

Photo Credits
https://www.parentmap.com/article/15-garden-crafts-for-kids
https://whidbeyschoolgardens.wordpress.com/2014/08/14/love-our-scarlet-runner-bean-teepee/

It’s Caterpillar Time!

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Beneficial Insects

by Sandy Swegel

Protect our friends. So many butterflies in our area have laid their eggs and their baby caterpillars are getting big and fat and chewing up plants. Be sure you know who your friends are before you squash any of them! You’ll love having the butterflies.

Swallowtail caterpillars
I found these this week, not on the dozens of dill plants I planted for them but on a leftover parsley from last year. Next year, more parsley.

Monarch caterpillars
Also yellow stripey…they look a little more serious. I’m watching for these now. Quite a few eggs on the milkweed plants I let take over part of the back garden…so I’m hoping

Painted lady caterpillar
I almost never see these although I see lots of the butterflies. Skinny little black prickly caterpillars. Their host is the Malva family like thistles or hollyhocks.

Cabbage looper
Well, this is one you’re probably seeing a lot of right now. Cute little white moths fluttering everywhere. Bright green little loopers inching along devouring your cabbages. If you want cabbages, you have to treat these as pests.

 

 

Photocredit:
lagbchbutterflies.weebly.com
www.monarch-butterfly.com
wildones.org