After Whole Foods partnered with Seed STL for Chefs in a Garden gala, in 2017, Whole Foods found themselves engrossed in Seed STL’s mission and was inspired to do more to impact food access issues in our community. Whole Foods Market decided Seed STL was the perfect fit for the One Dime at a Time program.
Whole Foods Market offers customers the option to donate $0.10 bag credit to Gateway Greening during the months of April, May, and June. Donations will be provided by Whole Foods Town and Country and Whole Foods Brentwood. Whole Foods has also agreed to provide reusable bags at all upcoming Seed STL workshops and events, through their Better Bags program.
“Seed STL is excited about the partnership with Whole Foods as part of their One Dime at a Time program. Whole Foods have been a partner with Seed STL over the years, and their support is greatly appreciated.” said Matt Schindler, Executive Director of Gateway Greening.
Seed STL, a local nonprofit organization, educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. The support from Whole Foods and the St. Louis community will continue aiding over 200 community and school gardens in the St. Louis region, that can connect people to the land, to their food, and each other. Seed STL will participate in a number of in-store tabling’s and The Whole Foods Kids Club in both Brentwood on May 27th and June 3rd, and Town and Country store on April 28th, May 26th, and June 6th, from 10:00am-1:00pm.
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About Seed STL
Seed STL is a non-profit organization that educates and empowers people to strengthen their communities through gardening and urban agriculture. Seed STL has been working to provide creative, grassroots solutions to urban problems since 1984. Programs include supporting more than 200 community and youth-focused gardens across the St. Louis area through educational opportunities, grants, and technical assistance; founding and providing ongoing material and educational support for community fruit and nut orchards; and Seed to STEM program which assists teachers in creating hands-on lessons in the school garden connected to federal education standards.
For more information on Gateway Greening and its programs visit www.seedstl.org or call 314-588-9600.
Seed packets have tons of useful information and it is important to look at all the information over just a pretty picture. Pretty much all seed packets will have the following information on them. Reading seed packets not only helps you become a better gardener but it will also help you learn about the different vegetables and varieties that you grow.
First when you are planting your seeds make sure to hold onto your seed packet! It is very easy to forget which of your varieties did great and which didn’t (drawing a quick little map of your growing area also helps).
Days to Maturity
This is the time from germination to when you can harvest from the plant. These can range quite a bit between different varieties. This is an important measure when thinking about the timing of your garden. If you are planting cool-season plants a little later than you should, looking for plants and varieties that have short days to maturity (DTM) is ideal.
Germination/Days to Emergence
On the back of most seed packets you will see germination or days to emergence window. This ranges from a few days to up to 30 days depending on your vegetables. This is very helpful when figuring out if some of your seeds didn’t germinate. Remember this is an estimate based on ideal conditions. Make sure to read the planting directions.
Seed Depth
Some seed packets will have seed depth but if yours doesn’t the rule of thumb is to plant no deeper than twice a seed’s diameter. This will range from planting seeds on top of moist soil to about 1 inch in depth. It is always better to lean towards planting too shallow than too deep.
Spacing/Thin to
Packets will often provide how far apart to place seeds as spacing but occasionally they will phrase it as “thin too”. Whenever planting seeds it’s best to plant 2-3 seeds per recommended spacing and then once the “true” leaves appear to thin them to 1 plant using a pair of scissors (don’t pull them out).
How to Plant
This information is usually separate from the spacing, emergence, and depth information. It is often in more of a paragraph on the back of the seed packet. It is very important to read this information. It will let you know if you can plant these outdoors, have to start them inside, or if you have to do more advanced techniques such as soaking, cold stratifying, or scaring the seeds.
When to Plant
This information is usually nearby the How to Plant information. It is always based on the first and last frost dates of the year. It will often say things such as “after danger of frost, sow outdoors” or “4 weeks before the last frost date”.
You can also use a planting calendar to help with figuring out when to start planting.
Expiration date
Every seed packet has an expiration date similar to how food has expiration dates. Often they are set to expire about 1 year after being packed. The expiration date on the packet has little to do with the actual expiration of the seeds. Most seeds when kept in a cool dry place can last years without losing much germination. Even with seeds that have been expired for years, it is often that only 5-15% of the seeds will not germinate. So if you are using seeds that are a few years expired, don’t throw them, just throw a few extra seeds to guarantee germination.
Variety Description
Often seed packets will also have a description of the seed variety it contains. This is like the sales pitch for what makes this variety different from any other variety of that crop. This is where you will learn if the variety is more resistant to pest or disease, more heat or cold tolerant, faster growing, or other things that would make it unique in comparison to other varieties. Although this section can be very helpful and important it is also vital to know what standard they are using as a comparison. As an example we were looking at a variety the other day and at first were excited because it claimed to be very cold tolerant. Then we read the rest of the description where it said something along the lines of “this super cold tolerant variety even survives when we have one of our big winter storms where temperatures can plunge below….20F.” So just because something is considered cold tolerant somewhere else doesn’t mean it will survive our cold here. This can also be the case with disease resistance. If a variety claims to be very resistant to fungal diseases but the seed company you are getting it from is in the southwest where it’s dry and isn’t very humid (aka there isn’t much fungal disease to begin with) it might still get fungal disease here.
This time of year there are fallen leaves everywhere, sometimes literally bags of them. Although many people consider leaves a nuisance to get rid of, if you are a gardener you should see them as an opportunity to improve your garden for free! Fall leaves are very high in carbon and so have several uses in the garden.
Leaves make a fantastic mulch in the garden, especially if they have been chopped up by a mulcher or lawnmower as they are less likely to blow away. Like any mulch they help to encourage beneficial soil life, suppress weeds, and maintain soil moisture. More so than other mulches though leaves are great at encouraging beneficial soil fungal growth which many garden soils are deficient in.
If you have more than you need as mulch they are also great to have on hand to add to your compost pile when you need more browns. They can also be piled up on their own and after a year will break down into a special type of highly fungal compost called leaf mold.
Two of our great volunteers digging up sweet potatoes
Anxious to harvest sweet potatoes? Hold off! While you can technically harvest as soon as the tubers reach a decent size, the longer they are in the soil the sweeter and higher in vitamin content the sweet potatoes will be.⠀
Ideally, gardeners should wait until right before the first frost to harvest to achieve the best flavor. This requires you to watch for when frost is predicted and harvest right before that. Sweet potatoes can survive a frost but since they are a tropical plant, there is always the risk that a frost will kill the vine which will cause them to start rotting in the ground. (We typically harvest our sweet potatoes in late October depending on the timing of the first frost.)
The first step to sweet potato harvest is to remove the leaves and vines so you can find the roots.
While sweet potatoes can be eaten straight from the ground, you are likely to be disappointed in the flavor. Curing triggers the sugar-producing enzymes and heals nicks, so skipping this step results in starchy, tasteless sweet potatoes with limited shelf life.
Sweet potatoes curing in our hoophouse
Curing is a two step process. First, leave the tubers in the sun for several hours to dry the skin in order to prevent rotting during the next step. Then move the potatoes to a warm, humid place for 4-10 days. This is when the starch is converted to sugar. Ideal conditions for this step are 85-90°F and 85% humidity. A hoop house usually provides optimal conditions but a pantry with a small bucket of water and space heater will achieve this (keep an eye on the temperature). The closer you get to those ideals the better but those two options aren’t always the most practical for gardeners. We have also seen success form those who lay their sweet potatoes out in a sunroom or porch where there is plenty of air and protected from rain. We have even met people who have had success laying them on their dining room table with a fan running. No matter how you do it make sure to regularly check the sweet potatoes and get rid of any that are spoiling. At the end of the curing process, place them in a cool spot for storage. Ideal conditions are 55-60°F and 75% humidity. Basements frequently approximate these conditions.
Cover crops have many benefits for the garden. A cover crop is simply a plant grown, not to harvest, but for its benefits to the soil. You can grow cover crops anytime that you have a spot in the garden that doesn’t have a crop growing in it. Fall and winter are a great time to have cover crops in St. Louis, as the garden is usually bare unless you are growing some type of overwintering crop like garlic.
Cover crops have the ability to improve soil quality by adding organic matter and nitrogen. They also cover the soil surface, meaning less erosion and fewer weeds will germinate. Possibly the biggest benefit that cover crops have is that they feed the beneficial microorganisms in your garden soil. These organisms feed off the compounds that living roots exude into the soil and dead organic matter as mulch. Feeding these organisms improves nutrient availability and soil structure, making it easier to dig and easier for water to absorb into the soil.
In the past we have offered several types of cover crops made of single species or a blend of two species but increasing research on cover crops has shown that having more species in your mix increases the benefits of cover crops. In addition, our increasingly warm winters have meant that cover crops that used to be killed by the winter are now surviving the winter more years than not. Due to both of these facts we have changed our cover crop offerings to just two blends to simplify things and increase the effectiveness of the cover crops.
The first blend is the “winter kill blend.” This is a blend of 4 species of cover crops that were selected to die when the coldest part of winter comes. This type of cover crop should be planted in September so there is enough time for the cover crop to grow before the cold kills them. The winter kill blend can be a great choice if you don’t want to have to worry about killing the cover crop in the spring. It is also the best option if you want to plant cool season crops where the cover crops will be growing. This blend includes oats, berseem clover, phacelia, and tillage radish. Oats are particularly good at adding carbon to the soil and feeding beneficial organisms. Berseem clover is one of the best nitrogen fixers so it can add fertility to the soil. Phacelia blooms over a long period, helping to feed and sustain beneficial insects in your garden. Tillage radishes wide arching leaves help to quickly cover the soil, reducing weeds, and their large tap roots help to break up compaction and increase water infiltration.
The second blend is our “overwintering blend.” The “overwintering blend” is a combination of 4 cover crops that were selected to reliably survive our winter. Overwintering cover crops can be a great choice if warm season crops are more important in your garden. This blend can be planted as late as mid-October, right around when you are ripping out your warm season crops. It then grows throughout the winter and spring and is ready to be killed or removed around the end of April, just in time to plant your warm season crops again. The 4 species of this blend are annual ryegrass, winter rye, crimson clover, and winter peas. Annual ryegrass creates a short dense turflike growth with a dense mat of roots holding and covering the soil, reducing erosion and weed germination. Winter rye adds an enormous amount of carbon to the soil and provides support to the winter peas. Crimson clover adds nitrogen to the soil and produces flowers to feed beneficial insects in the garden. Winter peas also fix nitrogen in the soil while also being edible. The tender growing tips of pea plants are delicious all winter long.
Bok choy is a delicious and nutritious vegetable that is pretty low maintenance to grow in St. Louis, EXCEPT, it tends to quickly bolt once it gets hot. Given St. Louis’ erratic spring weather this tendency can be a huge problem. It’s not unusual for us to hear from gardeners who had their bok choy bolt and stop producing before the plants were even big enough to harvest. So this spring we did a variety trial with the goal of identifying one or more varieties of bok choy that were resistant to bolting and produced well in St. Louis and we are happy to say we found 3 varieties that did exceptionally well. Before we get into that let’s first talk a little about bok choy.
Bok Choy Background
Bok choy is a member of the brassica family. But it is Brassica rapa, not Brassica oleracea (the species that includes cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, kohlrabi, brussels sprouts, collards, and kale). Like Brassica oleracea though Brassica rapa is a species that was domesticated into many different crops. Brassica rapa includes bok choy but also turnip, tatsoi, broccoli raab, napa cabbage, komatsuna, field mustard, and several other types of less common greens.
Although Brassica rapa is from somewhere in Eurasia, the exact location of its original domestication is debated. However, bok choy specifically is generally accepted to have been developed in the Yangtze River Valley of China. From there it spread throughout East Asia and then to the rest of the world. As its place of origin, and where it is still the most popular, China has the greatest diversity of bok choy varieties and where the bulk of the world’s bok choy is still grown.
When bok choy was developed there were two main types that were developed; green stemmed and white stemmed. Green stemmed varieties are generally speaking more forgiving and adaptable. White stemmed varieties are generally the ones you will see at the store because the brilliant white colored stems look nice and they tend to be more juicy and crunchy.
Here you can see all the bok choy in the trial on May 20th. You can see on the right that one variety has already bolted and another is in the process of bolting.
Our Test
In an attempt to find a variety that would grow well in St. Louis, despite our erratic springs/summers, we identified 7 varieties that were claimed to be the most heat and bolt resistant. The 7 we tried were:
Chun Mei
Chun Yu
Jimao Choi
Mei Qing Choi
Extra Dwarf Pak Choi
Hotau Improved
Joi Choi
One by one extra dwarf pak choi, mei qing choi, hotau improved, and then jimao choi bolted with extra dwarf bolting in mid-May and Jimao bolting by mid-June. Even these varieties that “failed” did quite well considering how most bok choi performs in a St. Louis spring. Hower joi choi, chun mei, and chun yu left the others in the dust.
Joi Choi
A head of joi choi that was harvested mid-June.
Given that white stemmed varieties tend to be more picky about their weather than green stemmed varieties we were shocked when joi choi, a large bok choy with thick succulent white stems, was one of the last to bolt in our test. The other white stemmed varieties in our trial bolted in May. Joi choi bolted over a longer period of time than the others, where all individuals of the same variety bolted within a week. The first one started bolting in the second week of June but we didn’t end up harvesting the bulk of the joi choi until the end of June which is impressively late. By this time those plants had endured many days in the 80’s, 90’s and even a day that reached 100 degrees.
Mature heads of chun yu and chun mei in mid-June
Chun Yu
Chun yu is a green stemmed variety that produces baby sized heads. It never actually bolted but by the first week of July it was starting to elongate and look a bit ragged so we harvested it.
Chun Mei
This is what chun mei looked like in mid-July when we finally harvested them. Although they may not be the prettiest they still tasted great, with no bitterness.
The winner of the trial. Chun mei was almost identical to chun yu in size and look but seemed a bit more bolt resistant than chun yu. Like chun yu it never actually bolted but started elongating and looking ragged in July. Unlike chun yu though this didn’t happen until mid-July! This is incredibly late in the season to harvest bok choi that hasn’t been protected from the heat in some way. By the time we harvested the chun mei those plants had endured 38 days of temperatures in the 80’s, 15 days of temperatures in the 90’s and even a day that reached 100 degrees. Not too shabby for a cool season crop prone to early bolting.
Conclusion
All of the varieties we tried did comparatively well against most bok choy we have grown in the past but if you are looking to grow a large bok choy and/or a white stemmed bok choy, joi choi is a great one to grow. If you want to grow a green stemmed and/or baby bok choy, try the varieties chun yu or chun mei.
We are into tomato season! If you have noticed some of your tomatoes developing a brown or black spot on them it could be blossom end rot. This rot is mostly seen in tomatoes but it can also affect cucumbers, melons, squash, and peppers. Luckily, blossom end rot is not a fungus! Instead, it is a structural deficiency caused by inadequate calcium when the tomato is forming. This structural deficiency may provide an entry point for other diseases but even without a fungus, the bottom will be sunken, water-soaked, and maybe black or brown and leathery. Some varieties are more prone to it than others – elongated and pear-shaped sauce tomatoes are the most susceptible.
In some areas, blossom end rot occurs simply because there is not enough calcium in the soil. This isn’t usually the case in St. Louis because our soil’s parent material is limestone, which is composed primarily of calcium carbonate (CaCO3). So, adding calcium, as you might assume, may not fix the problem.
If a lack of calcium is not the problem it could be too much moisture when the tomato fruit was forming followed by a significant dry period for the tomatoes. This uneven soil moisture makes the abundant calcium in the soil unavailable to the plant. The solution is two-fold.
First, mulch the soil with 2-3 inches of compost or leaf mulch. This evens out and maintains soil moisture as the mercury climbs. It also suppresses weeds and improves soil structure and health.Second, check soil moisture before watering. Insert your finger 2″ deep into the soil. If it is moist, hold off another day or so. If it is dry or nearly dry, water deeply.
Another potential cause is that the plant is growing too vigorously and the plant couldn’t keep up with its calcium uptake. This vigorous growth is caused by excessive nitrogen. If you are fertilizing your tomatoes, make sure that you are using an OMRI-certified fertilizer lower in nitrogen, lower the dose, and/or fertilize it less frequently. However, regular application of healthy compost, crop rotation, and planting cover crops to promote long-term soil health is preferable to regular fertilizing.
Looking for resources on growing fruit trees holistically in the Greater St. Louis climate? Gateway Greening, in partnership with The Giving Grove, is happy to provide our recommended tips and tricks to successful growth. Below you will find recommended tree varieties, a holistic spray regime fact sheet, and individual tree information sheets that will guide you through planting specifications, a timeline of care, pests, and disease to looks out for.
In St. Louis, right around now is the time to start planting zucchini and summer squash. These plants love our long summers and produce lots of fruit but lots of gardeners have trouble with pests getting to them.
One of the most common pests that kill squash is the Squash Vine Borer. If you have had problems in the past with your squash plants looking healthy one minute and then wilting and dying out of nowhere then you may have had vine borers. This is a tell-tale sign of them because the borer eats its way up into the base of the squash plant and prevents nutrients and water from being taken up by the roots and reaching the rest of the plant.
There are few options for dealing with vine borers. First, you may want to plant varieties that the vine borers do not find as tasty. If you like zucchini or summer squash, think about trying Tromboncino squash. If you are looking to replace pumpkins or winter squash you can try Seminole Pumpkins. Both of these varieties have little to no pest pressure from vine borers. But if you do not want to grow those varieties you still have some options. The Squash Vine borer starts as cocoons in the ground. In Missouri, the adult moth emerges from the cocoon around late May to June. The moth’s wings are green and it has an orange and black body. It looks similar to some wasps.
Once the moth has emerged it lays eggs at the base of squash plants. About a week after the eggs are laid they hatch the borers that eat their way up into the squash plant. After they’ve had their fill in the squash plant which is about a month to six weeks, they go back underground and stay underground until the next summer.
A bed of summer squash covered with insect netting
The simplest method to prevent squash borers is to cover your squash plants while the adult moths are out. You can cover your plants with a floating row cover or insect netting. This cover can be put on the right when you plant squash and you can leave it on until your squash plants start to flower. You can water through the covers. You can hold up the covers with PVC or small metal rings.
If your squash died last year do not plant squash there again. The vine borers will be in the ground and if you cover the squash plants, you are trapping the vine borer moths under the row cover with your squash!
If you have not covered your squash there are a few other things you can do. To see if you have the borers look at the base of your squash plants. Holes and orange goo at the base are signs that the vine borers are in the squash. You can try and cut them out by cutting an incision lengthwise at the base and then covering it with soil after you pull out the borer. There can, however, be multiple borers in one plant. You can also try to kill the borers while they are inside the stem of the squash plant. You can do this by taking clothespins or something sharp and stab into the side of the base of the plant.
There are other ways to deal with vine borers but we find growing squash they do not like or using a physical barrier as the most effective ways to deal with them.
