Direct Seeding versus Transplanting

2009 Tomato Transplants - Notice the Clipboard.

Which is better – direct seeding or transplanting? Direct seeding of course. Some say that direct seeding is the only way to enable a plant to reach its full potential by preserving an undisturbed taproot. Additionally, some farmers assert that direct seeded plants resist frost better and produce an earlier or larger crop than transplants do. My viewpoint is that direct seeding is the preferred method for growing some plants. Direct seeding is the way to go if you are dealing with the curcubit family. Squash, cucumbers, and melons do very well direct seeded and have difficulty with being transplanted after about a week of growth. Often the roots go into shock and take several weeks to recover, if at all. If peat pots are used and the transplant’s roots are handled very gently the plant may recover and grow again. Otherwise it may be more beneficial to use a hot cap to get a head start on cucubit seedlings. Beans, peas, and carrots also do well being direct seeded because of issues involved with their roots.

Another school of thought is that transplanting is beneficial because it allows you to get a head-start on the garden. This is especially true for tomatoes, peppers, onions, and brassicas such as cabbage, broccoli, and cauliflower. These plants often take a long time to mature and do not go through shock if transplanted correctly. I have been growing tomatoes from seeds for a while because that way I can control what varieties of tomatoes I grow. If pests are a problem direct seeding can help you get plants off to a good start before they would have a chance to munch on your little seedlings. Growing from transplants can reduce the time between crop harvest and a new crop. This can increase overall productivity given the ground is still fertile and disease-free. Both of these problems can be aided by the practice of effective crop rotation. Though transplanting may appeal to gardeners who prefer to have attractive and productive garden beds it can be expensive to always buy starts and can lead to potentially unsustainable gardening practices.

Tomato in 2" soil block with deep dowel hole



Tomatoes – The First Trials

Better Boy - A Hybrid Variety

When first starting with tomatoes I bought starts from a local grocery and hardware store. Early Gird, Better Boy, and First Lady 2 were some of the first hybrid tomato varieties I tried. Each cultivar (specific vegetable variety) did okay but not great. Better Boy seemed to take the heat and be disease resistant. I was able to produce nice looking plants but had some difficulty in producing the anticipated quantity and size of tomatoes. Not many tomato varieties do well here in Tucson. Perhaps it is because we hardly ever see weather between 70 and 90 degrees F. My desire to grow hybrid tomato varieties decreased the more I realized that I could not grow “true” fruit using hybrid tomato seed. After learning this I decided to pursue a more sustainable approach and limit my growing to open-pollinated tomato cultivars. In spring of 2009 I planted Glacier, Cold Set, Fireworks, Zhezha, Super Sioux, Buckbee’s 50 day, and Neptune. Most of the varieties did poorly. Glacier  and Buckbee’s 50 day couldn’t take the heat though Buckbee’s 50 day did better on fruit production and disease resistance, cold set can grow fast but can’t take the cold, when disease approached Fireworks went up in smoke, Zhezha produced 1-2 small fruits, Super Sioux could take the heat but produced little, Neptune could take the heat very well but produced little to average. Zhezha and Neptune were the only 2 determinates I grew. They are both true determinates- dying immediately after producing their 1 crop of fruit. Even if I put a plant on the east side of a structure the unforgiving sun quickly taught me that any plants in exposed pots will have their roots pasteurized by about 2 pm in the afternoon- if not sooner.



Neptune can take the heat!

Buckbee's 50 Day - An all around good variety

The First Cucumbers

My journey to growing good cucumbers has been a bit of a long one. No one ever told me, when I first began gardening in Tucson, what kind of cucumbers might actually grow here. One book that I read cited the “Armenian” cucumber as a good pick for this area but after a couple people told me they dislike the taste I began experimenting with other varieties. I grew White Wonder, a pickling variety, and Marketmore 76 before I found something that might work. Then I tried Suyo Long. Very heat resistant, very tasty. In fact – in my book it remains one of the best tasting of them all. Unfortunately it turned out that Suyo long is also very susceptible to some form of root rot. Otherwise, if grown in isolation, it is a disease and heat resistant tasty variety. The pictures below are from my old house and my new house. They represent a few of the varieties that I have grown.



White Wonder Cucumber. Not that remarkable.

A spring cucumber garden at the new house

Suyo Long with very nice big leaves.

The Suyo cucumber grows while others fail

A mouth-watering Suyo Cucumber

After Pit (or Trench) Composting and thoughts about Solarization



Solarizing my Winter Garden after Composting



I am a fan of pit (or trench) composting because it does not make the area look ugly and because it is so easy. Just throw things in a hole, rotate them often, then keep adding things until you get soil that is good enough to plant in. It turned out to not be too easy or disease-free. Though- if you are trying this kind of method I would recommend starting with a whole season of squash vines and mustard greens before planting anything else. Squash vines because they don’t care if the pile is still hot and mustard greens (brassica juncea) to resist disease.

After several partially successful sessions of solarizing soils I have come to the conclusion that there are better disease management possibilities including using a cover crop. One recently growing area of study is biofumigants such as one species of mustard greens (brassica juncea). This involves using various part of the mustard green in greatly reducing a disease until it reaches controllable levels. My current winter garden, with  just a small group of mustard plants is demonstrating a very significant difference in how well my plants are growing. I was afraid I was going to lose some of my artichokes but growing mustard around them has completely subsided my reoccurring septoria! An analysis by the U of A Extension program gives a good overview of what is being learned in this new and exciting field of biofumagation research.

Mustard Greens fighting my Septoria. Go Mustard Greens!




 

Digging



Digging is good work for the young and healthy

In reading the book or watching the movie “Holes” you develop a good sense of how difficult it is to dig out dirt in a hot arid environment. Admittedly it was difficult for me but it could have been much worse. In many locations around Tucson people commonly complain of hard packed dirt and of caliche - a hard collection of minerals (primarily calcium carbonate). I would not be surprised if caliche was the main ingredient in concrete. Often trees and other deep-rooted plants will perform poorly if the gardener does not break a hole through a sub-surface layer of caliche to allow for water drainage. I borrowed a neighbor’s caliche bar – a metal rod with a spike on one side and a wedge on the other – and used it along with my shovel in digging my winter garden bed. While digging I encountered quite a few small ½ inch to 1 inch chunks of the caliche but found the process to be otherwise uneventful. Soaking the area with water the night before digging always helps.

Before I began digging I laid down my blocks to the perimeter desired. I removed soil down to the 2 foot mark, leaving enough dirt on the inside of the garden bed to be a good foundation for my underground weed block. To create my weed block I “planted” blocks vertically in the ground on the inside of the garden perimeter and cut a metallic insulation material to fit snug against the outside of the planted (vertical) blocks. Thus the Bermuda grass would be blocked from getting its tendrils into the garden by the metallic insulation and by the vertically planted blocks on the bottom and by the horizontal block perimeter on the top. I cannot stress enough the long-term benefit of keeping out weeds from the beginning. It is wonderful.

To go with picture: Digging is good work for the young and healthy.