6 Ways to Keep Gardening on a Rainy Day

We've been having off and on showers here today, making the garden off-limits for any of the weeding and planting I'd like to be doing. Spring is such a busy time for gardeners, it's hard to let any day slip by without accomplishing something garden-related. So I came up with a list of a few useful tasks that can be done indoors that will save you lots of time and possibly money when you get back out in the garden. See how many of these you can accomplish during the coming April showers:

1. Start some seeds. Load up a plastic box or old dishpan with fresh potting soil, lay down some newspaper on your kitchen table and get sowing. This works particularly well when you're sowing seeds in small batches, which for most home gardeners is the best way to do it.
2. Wash your garden gloves. Yuck! Those things are disgusting! Not only do they look awful, but they're almost certainly crawling with bacteria and fungi from dirt and sweat that can cause skin rashes. For pity's sake, take the opportunity of this rainy day to toss them in the washer and hang them up to dry. If they're cotton gloves, you can add bleach to help disinfect them; if they have synthetic materials, try adding a little vinegar to the rinse water.
3. Research a garden problem. Have you spotted a pest or disease problem you can't identify? Or do you have a problem spot in your garden that's maybe so shady or has such poor drainage that you can't get anything to grow there? A rainy day is the perfect time to take to the Internet or your stack of gardening magazines and try to track down a solution. The answer is out there--you just have to dig it out.
4. Clean and sharpen your tools. Again, spread some newspapers on your kitchen table and haul in your pruners, loppers, hedge clippers, trowels, shovels and spades (wipe them off with a dry rag first). Start by washing them with a wet, soapy rag or a Lysol cleaning cloth and drying them. Then take a sharpening stone and sharpen those cutting edges. Finally, wipe the metal parts using a cloth and some mineral oil.
5. Write out some plant labels. How many of us actually take the time when we're planting to write out plant labels? I certainly don't. What I usually do is take whatever label came with the plant and throw it in a box in the laundry room, with the full intention of writing out my own label later. Now is the time! Stock up on one style of plant labels (check your local garden center or an online store like Gardener's Supply) and grab a permanent, waterproof marker and get busy. With the labels all written out, you can run around your garden after the rain stops and stick your neatly printed labels where they belong.
6. Shop for more plants. A little rain should never stop a gardener from buying plants. If you don't feel like trudging around a drippy nursery, go online and shop in the comfort of your very dry desk chair. Try an online nursery you haven't ordered from before or for some varieties you're not likely to find anywhere else, check out one of my favorite mail-order nurseries, Annie's Annuals.

Anatomy of a Seed Packet

As I sort and sift through my box of seeds, gathering ideas for next year’s garden, one thing has become apparent—there is a lot of room for improvement in the packaging of seeds.

I appreciate that some seed companies are run on shoestring budgets, but I’m not sure that absolves them of the responsibility to provide adequate information about their products. And for the bigger companies, there’s really no excuse. I don’t know if there’s any way to gather this data, but I have to wonder how much money gardeners waste each year buying seeds that they prepare or plant incorrectly due to lack of information on the package.

So in an open plea to seed companies everywhere, here is a list of the essential elements I often find missing on seed packets:

1. A photo. Yes, the botanical drawings are lovely and quaint, but I want a little more reality. And to be honest, I don’t want just one photo, I want two—a close-up of the flower or fruit, as well as a photo of the plant in situ. I’d settle for that second photo to be available on the company’s website, but the more you can show me right on the package, the more likely it is that I’ll be tossing that pack into my shopping basket.
2. The full botanical name. Yes, Latin can be scary, but it helps. Really, it does.
3. Germination requirements. It’s not enough to just state the planting depth and width and when to plant. If seeds require filing, nicking, soaking or chilling in order to germinate and that information isn’t on the packet, you’re inviting people to waste their time and money with your product. Let’s not do that.
4. Harvesting information. I’d be more willing to try new and unfamiliar varieties if the seed companies would give me even the slightest clue when and how to harvest. It isn’t always obvious. What will the fruit or vegetable look or feel like when ripe? Can I expect multiple harvests from one plant? Come on, just a hint...
   
5. "Best Used By" date. Every reputable seed company stamps their packets with a "Packaged for 20--" date. But it would be great if they’d also add a "Best Used By 20--" date to tell me that those 2009 lettuce seeds won’t last beyond 2011, but the 2009 tomatoes could be good until at least 2013.

It’s true that you can often find all this information on the Internet if you go searching for it, but not always, particularly for rare varieties. Call me silly, but I think it should be right there on the package. And who knows this information better than the people who are selling these seeds?

So what company comes closest to achieving excellence in seed packaging? Without a doubt, it’s Renee’s Garden. They don’t usually include the botanical name and they use illustrations rather than photos (although their website includes plant photos), but their packs are well-written and informative, so much so that they even add an extra flap to contain the additional details. They often include general notes of interest about the plant as well as tips for using or cooking the harvest. Their 2009 seed packs include a “Sell By” date in addition to the “Packed For” date—useful for the retailer, not so much for the gardener. Still, the amount of information they provide on their seed packs far exceeds that of any other company I’ve seen.

I understand that Baker Creek is in the process of upgrading their seed packs, going from generic packages to variety-specific packs with photos and more details, to which I say “Amen.” Let’s hope that other seed companies will be following suit.

Seed Time

The rain is back and it looks like it will be sticking around for the rest of the week, so it's time to do some indoor gardening. I've been sorting through the seeds I have left over from the last couple years, trying to figure out what is still likely to be viable and what needs to be replaced, what I can start now and what needs to wait.

I'm going to try soaking my seeds first this time. I've known that certain hard-coated seeds need soaking, but this time I'm going to try it with all of them. Some things I've read lately indicate that it can improve germination rates with just about any seed.

I'm also going to give Jiffy plugs one more try. I've used these before and have never had much success with them. But I found that I still had at least 50 plugs left, so I'm going to give them another shot.

I'm usually thinking about what seeds to sow much later in the season, but doing the 100-ft. diet challenge is making me anxious to increase the output of my vegetable garden much sooner. I can't eat last year's pumpkins forever!

Taking Inventory

There's something about this time of year that makes me crave order, and since there's not a hope in hell of actually achieving that in the garden, I thought I might at least establish a little order in my collection of seeds. Tonight I sorted through the haphazard assortment of seed packets that I've been tossing into a small box I kept in the laundry room. The grand total (once I tossed out more than a dozen empty packets that were in the mix): 55 packets of seeds. Here's the actual list:

Vegetables

Beans: Romano (Pole), Roma II (Bush), and Emerite Haricot Vert (Pole)
Broccoli Raab
Cabbage: Copenhagen Market
Cantaloupe: Hale’s Best
Carrots: Romeo Round, Nantes, and King Midas
Corn: True Gold
Cucumbers: Straight Eight and Lemon
Lettuces: Buttercrunch (2 packs), Black Seeded Simpson (2 packs), Mesclun (Burpee salad mix), and Farmer’s Market Lettuce Blend (Sweet Greens and Reds)
Peas: Oregon Sugar Pod
Peppers: California Wonder (Sweet Bell)
Spinach: Bloomsdale Longlasting (2 packs)
Squash: Black Zucchini

Herbs

Basil: Spicy Globe
Catnip
Thyme: Generic and Magic Carpet

Flowers

Amaranth: Love Lies Bleeding
Baby’s Breath (3 packs)
Canterbury Bells: Calycan mixed colors
Carnations: Triumph mixed colors
Coleus: Rainbow mix
Cosmos: Little Ladybirds
Delphiniums: Pacific Giants mixed colors
Forget Me Nots: Firmament
Foxgloves: Excelsior mixed colors
Hollyhocks: Indian Spring mixed colors
Marigolds: Lemon Drop and Crackerjack
Morning Glory: Dwarf Early Call
Nasturtiums: Fiery Festival and Tall Climbing single mix
Nicotiana: Sensation mix
Poppies: Oriental (2 packs), California Golden, California Tropical Sunset, and red generic
Sunflowers: Mammoth and Velvet Queen
Cutting garden mix
Wildflower mix (2 packs)

(Note: If you could see how little actual planting space there is in my front and back yards, you'd understand how laughable this list is.)

These seeds are the remains of whatever I've bought over the last three years and I expect that most are still viable. They include freebie packets that I've gotten in the mail, bargain packets that I can't resist when they go on sale 10 for $1, and some higher-class varieties I've purchased from Pinetree, Renee's Garden, and Seeds of Change.

I know I'll only be able to plant a fraction of these seeds this year, and another fraction next year, and most will probably not last beyond that. I need to declare a moratorium here and now on buying new seeds until I have significantly gutted my current collection. It is the rational thing to do.

But already new seed catalogs are arriving in the mail, tempting me with pretty pictures and seductive descriptions. They sound so alluring, so easy. Some even include coupons. I am, after all, only human.

The Ultimate Seed-Saver

Just when you thought that all the various countries of the world couldn't agree on anything, they suddenly do agree on one thing--that the planet's future is so precarious that we need to build a gigantic storage facility in the Arctic to stash the millions of varieties of seeds that produce the world's food. Check out this article by Rick Weiss in today's Washington Post: "The World's Agricultural Legacy Gets a Safe Home".

I can't decide whether I'm depressed to think that we're so close to doomsday that this kind of facility is necessary, or relieved that someone is making plans to survive it. Probably the former, but maybe I'll feel better after a little gardening...