You can never tell how well (or badly) a horticultural therapy will be received. My last session on growing an early kitchen spring garden maxed out with a baker’s dozen of clients who crammed around the table. It appeared that some just came not expecting what to get out of the day, but the idea of a spring garden in early March was enough to fill the room.
“While many of you may think it too early to start a garden, I have to tell you I have been late in starting my greens for early spring planting. If you have a window that gets a good amount of light during the day, you can start a garden today that should start giving you enough for a simple salad by mid-April. In fact, some of the radish seeds I have picked out for you today mature in less than 1 month.” We then got into a discussion and back and forth of how seeds grow and the different types of things you can easily grow at this time of year.
“How deep should I plant the seeds,” asked one woman. “Great question. The easiest way to consider it is by the size of the seed. Tiny seeds like lettuce should be covered with 1/8 to 1/4 inch of soil, while larger ones like squash can go as deep as 1 inch. The reason for this is that a seed has only so much energy before it needs to tap the nutrients in the soil and light. If you plant a small seed too deep, then it may die out because it used all the energy in the seed before it could tap the power of the sun.”
“Can we plant peppers and tomatoes now,” asked another. “Not for what we are doing. Those plants require higher temperatures and more light than you get at this time of year. It will be at least another month before you want to start tomatoes.”
“When can we place our boxes outside,” said another client. “It depends. If we have nice sunny days when the temperature will get into the low 50s, it’s a good idea to put the box outside for as long as it is warm and then bring the box back in when it cools down. It won’t be until late March or early April when you could leave these boxes outside all the time.”
After we cleared the air of questions I then got down to some of the tricks of planting seeds, “How do you think, you can plant some of these seeds,” I asked as I passed around packets and lettuce and claytonia seeds, both of which are very tiny. As my clients strained to see the seeds, I saw that doubts started to creep in their minds as to how easy the task would prove to be. I then showed them a hand seed sower that I got at Johnny’s that would make the chore a snap. A collective sigh.
We then got started. We needed to wet and mix the soil before planting because if you don’t the seeds will float around as the mixture attempts to absorb the water. I always find that groups vary between mud lovers who will mix the soil and water with bare hands to those who will only work with gloves and a trowel. People paired off naturally and made nice mixes in buckets. We then used electrical wire that we attached to the insides of the boxes as a hoop that would support plastic to create a warm greenhouse-like environment for the seedlings once they emerged.
Even though we had a pretty tight fit in the room, the trepidation somewhat expressed initially gave way to hopeful enthusiasm for the emergence of salad greens and a radish or two.
