Author: Maureen Gilmer

Maureen Gilmer is celebrating her 40th year in California horticulture and photojournalism as the most widely published professional in the state. She is the author of 21 books on gardening, design and the environment, is a widely published photographer, and syndicated with Tribune Content Agency. She is the weekly horticultural columnist for the Desert Sun newspaper in Palm Springs and contributes to Desert Magazine, specializing on arid zone plants and practices for a changing climate. She works and lives in the remote high desert for firsthand observations of native species. Her latest book is The Colorful Dry Garden published by Sasquatch Books. When not writing or photographing she is out exploring the desert on her Arabian horse. She lives in Morongo Valley with her husband Jim and two rescue pit bulls. When not writing or photographing she is usually out riding her quarter horse.

When in Drought, Choose Succulents

Barrel cacti, agave, and echeverias are all bold succulents for droughty landscapes.

Whenever there are statewide water cutbacks in California, everyone has to rethink some of the plants in their home landscapes. Rather than viewing this as a tragedy, make it an opportunity to dive into some of trendiest plants filling gardens of the rich and famous. If you’ve always wanted that great, clean succulent garden look, there is no better time to make the change.

In the past, most gardeners planted annual flowers for pockets of color. Instead, plant these same spaces with exciting and colorful succulents. This is a great idea for high-profile areas around outdoor living spaces, pools and spas, or courtyards where you can enjoy their diverse beauty up close and personal. Be prepared to treat them as annuals, if you live in a frosty climate. You can also overwinter them indoors. Just dig and pot them up at summer’s end to green up indoor rooms all winter long.

The Best Soil for Succulents

The single biggest problem with succulents in traditional gardens is too much water caused by over irrigation in slow-draining clay ground. Too much water rots succulent roots and stems—killing plants quickly. Solve the soil dilemma by creating pockets of Black Gold Cactus Mix potting soil to improve rooting conditions. Do this with larger succulents by replacing the soil one hole at the time. You can provide even sharper drainage by amending mixes with additional Black Gold Perlite.

Sometimes succulent pots need extra water-holding amendments, especially when irrigation cutbacks start drying out your planters. Black Gold Cactus Mix has just enough water-holding capacity to keep roots growing well.

forms gilmer3 — Jewel-box succulent container garden

Planting Succulent Beds

Once your soil and pots are prepared, its time to bring the vibrant echeverias, festive flapjacks, and ever-popular black aeoniums into your yard. If you’re planting a six-inch potted specimen, dig your hole twice as wide and half again as deep as the nursery root ball. Puncture the natural soil at bottom of the hole numerous times with a piece of pipe or rebar. Go as deeply as you can to provide miniature sumps that encourage filtration and keep water from accumulating at the bottom of the hole. Then fill with potting soil, and plant away.

Planting Succulent Containers

If you have a built-in masonry planter, create a close-range jewel-box garden. This term is used for the vivid succulent gardens that are as colorful as the contents of grandmother’s costume jewelry box. Here you can plant a lovely rainbow of kalanchoes, flowering aloes, and geometric crassulas. When you add hardy sedums and sempervivums, they’ll survive through the coldest winter to anchor next year’s display.

Remove the top foot of soil in the planter and replace it with cactus potting soil, then arrange your colors in drifts or swaths of small bright plants. Accent them with sparkling slag glass, driftwood or special rock minerals and crystals for an exciting jewel-box look.

Although this California drought is a disaster for many, it may be the catalyst you need to replace water-intensive plants with exciting new succulents. In the beginning, you may not know their names or their ultimate forms, but over the coming months, you’ll learn to recognize them and get a feel for how each grows. Though we are often averse to change in life, it’s often the doorway to our greatest accomplishments.

Succulents: Beware Over Packed Pots!

color-gilmer2 — This composition of mixed succulents may look pretty, but the gang-potted group will not survive unless transplanted into their own Terracotta pots.

Those big, popular succulent collections sold in pots and troughs (otherwise known as “gang pots”) are dying out all over. Each container may be packed with a dozen or more species of succulent plants that often originate from vastly different locations and have different cultural needs. Many are native to South Africa while others originate from Mexico on the other side of the world. Dry climates are not all the same. There is more variation in the growing preferences of different succulents than you might think.

balcony outside — This wrought-iron slatted window balcony shelf offers great drainage for succulents.

That’s why these ganged creations just don’t last that long. Those succulents that need drier conditions are in conflict with those that need more moisture. In the end, the one-size-fits-all gang pot results in gang watering, which will cause mixed-succulent-pot decline due to too much or too little moisture.

Secondly there’s no way to adjust the lighting given to different succulents in gang pots. Different succulents often have different light requirements, but when they are set in one position in gang pots, you can’t give different plants the sunlight they need. This is why you never see serious succulent aficionados growing this way. When you are unable to control light or moisture well, these plantings die out in spots and look generally ratty most of the time.

Choose Individual Pots

It’s far better to grow window box and balcony succulents in individual pots. That way you get to rearrange them any time you want. Watering is simple because you must look at each pot to determine how dry it is. Just like kids, succulents can be very different, even when closely related, and unless you treat them accordingly, they’ll show it in the form of decline.

clay-maureen-gilmer — Planting one specimen, such as this star cactus, in an artful Terracotta pot is best.

Growing individuals in Terracotta pots is the best way to create a beautiful composition that blends easily, offers plants what they need, and allows you to bring them all indoors at season’s end to brighten your winter home. Don’t fall for big, overflowing gang pots this year. Shop for the succulents you love, then bring them home to be planted in their new pots, and placed out in the sun where they thrive.

Potting Mix and Drainage

Key to your potted succulent’s success is Black Gold Cactus Mix, which ensures each new succulent is planted in very fast-draining soil. Choose pots in scale with the size of the plant with very large or numerous drain holes. Once planted, top the soil with a thin layer of Black Gold Washed Gravel or White Rock to hold in moisture and discourage perlite floaters that otherwise accumulate there.

darcy-Jade-in-Red-Pot-720px — A specimen jade plant in a red clay pot. (photo by Mike Darcy)

Consider setting your pots on an open, free-draining, slatted shelf on the patio or balcony that encourages drainage. This ensures there’s plenty of free drainage plus pot walls are in the open air where oxygen and moisture readily exchange through Terracotta. Open air also encourages evaporative cooling to keep containers adequately cool in the high heat of late summer. If left in plastic containers, direct sun can cause such high interior soil temperatures that roots can literally cook.

Over time you can add and subtract from your collection as your succulents grow large and take on their best looks. They can be fed individually, evaluated for health often, and best of all, a diseased or pest-ridden plant can be moved elsewhere. That’s why succulent lovers keep their specimen plants in individual pots rather than gang pots that spoil the overall success of the team.

DIY: Make This Trickle-Down Succulent Tower

Donkey Tails (*Senecio morganianum*) in a vertical can cascade.

This idea came from deep within Mexico where plastic nursery containers are rare and coveted. Tin cans are used, whenever possible, instead of pots to save money. When I found the tower at Xochemilco, I realized this is trickle-down-watering at its finest. It’s also the most innovative idea I’d seen for recycling and saving money. It also offered a great way to grow more plants with less water and space. Anyone with a fence post, porch post or just a single 4′ x 4′ in a post hole can create this vertical green tower.

String of Bananas (Senecio radicans)

Cascading Succulents

The good news is that it’s used for the most beautiful of all succulents: string of pearls (Senecio rowleyanus), donkey tails (Senecio morganianum), string of bananas (Senecio radicans), and rosary vine (Ceropegia woodii). All produce long, dangling tresses that soon cloak the post in pendulous foliage. Though frost tender, they benefit from your cover, or simply remove cans before the first frost and decorate your sunny windows for the winter.

For most who live where there is summer rain, this vertical system solves the problem of keeping succulents dry enough, so they don’t rot in the heat. It was invented in Mexico City by a cottage-level succulent grower to protect cacti and succulents with overhead tarps where it rains in the afternoons. It will work with your climate, too. When you grow plants under patio covers on posts, they’re covered from rain but still exposed to plenty of sun. This keeps them dry until you decide they need water.

Rosary vine (Ceropegia woodii)

Watering and Drainage

Watering is the most fun since each can drains into the one below it and so on. That means every drop of water you apply is utilized. This system will work for virtually any kind of plant and offers a great way to grow herbs, greens, and flowers, too.

If you use succulents to create your version, you must ensure the cans drain quickly by using a nail to punch numerous holes in the bottom, not just one. Use only Black Gold Cactus Mix when planting each can. Tin cans are ideally sized for cell-pack succulent starts or small 2″ potted seedlings, the largest root ball that fits.

Potting Mix

Due to the small root zone, keeping water in the cans is vital for less drought-resistant plants, such as cilantro. Take advantage of Black Gold Waterhold Cocoblend Potting Soil to help each plant maintain moisture over a much longer period as well as benefiting from higher fertility levels and RESiLIENCE®, which may reduce wilting. Pine needles are used in Mexico for mulch which is stuffed into the tops of the cans to hold on to moisture and extend time spans between trickle-down watering.

There are a dozen variations possible on this basic idea, from fancy wire bales on the cans to upsizing everything too much larger containers for the same trickle-down on a larger scale. It’s endless how Black Gold potting soils can turn discarded cans into the biggest problem solver of the season. Start collecting them today. Then plant your succulents any time of year and sow winter greens late summer for easy picking on the porch.

Mulching Gardens With Black Gold Amendments

When the drought is long, soils are poor, and money is short, one way to revitalize struggling garden plants is to protect their roots with mulch. Good mulches help to retain moisture, cool the root zone, and discourage weeds. The conventional wisdom is to mulch with wood chips or ground up bark, but both are very slow to decompose and can bind needed soil nutrients. The better option is to protect small beds and containers with organic-rich amendments that give back.

Garden Mulches for Soil Enrichment

Rich compost, peat moss, coir, or Black Gold Earthworm Castings are all amendments that double as mulches–alone or as home-mixed blends–in small ornamental gardens or vegetable gardens. All offer needed organic matter, which helps soils better retain water and maintain porosity. They also offer structural and water-holding benefits. For example, Black Gold Garden Compost Blend contains peat moss for water retention and compost give poor soils better aeration for easier establishment and performance.

Amendment mulching is often most effective in shaded areas because it helps to simulate conditions on the forest floor. If you take a cross section of this “duff” layer, you’ll see that it’s mostly leaves or needles with a fine, dark layer that sits right on top of the earth. It’s rich in decomposing organic matter, which is why shade plants are often surface rooted.

Landscape Mulches for Trees and Shrubs

This is also true of acid-loving plants, such as azaleas or camellias, which develop a wide, shallow root system where the majority of the soil nutrition lies. In fact, without a yearly surface application of organic matter, these plants can suffer. All too often you see the surface roots of azaleas exposed after years without the addition of a mulch layer. The organic matter is essential to keep their roots moist and cool, especially when drought descends. We recommend mixing a 1:1 of Black Gold Garden Compost Blend and Black Gold Peat Moss for acid lovers. Both products offer needed organic matter and peat moss is a little more acid, which benefits these plants.

Assess your favorite plants, planters, individual trees and shrubs to determine if they will benefit from this special treatment. Apply a 2- to 3-inch layer of amendment around the base of the plant. Always keep it few inches clear of the trunk to prevent bark-to- mulch contact, which can induce stress and rot. Extend the mulch layer out to the edge of the drip line.

Don’t work the amendment in. Just smooth and pat it with your palm to flatten it out for better soil contact. Moisten often with just a light spray or collected household water to keep these amazing shrubs and trees happy on minimal rainfall. For areas with brief drought, mulch provides great short-term protection from an abnormally dry or hot summer.

As landscapes everywhere are being altered to be more efficient, don’t forget that amendment mulch can mean so much more to your plants. If you already have bark mulch in place, the next best thing is to sprinkle amendments over the bark, so they can filter down and provide support the next deep water day or after a welcome summer cloudburst.

One-Pot Herb Garden – Anywhere!

Repurposed wood crates become one-pot herb gardens featuring thyme, rosemary, cilantro, chives and more

Fresh-from-the-container culinary herbs turn a New York loft, a Chicago studio, or a Los Angeles condo into flavor central. Nothing is quite like fresh mint in your mojito, just-picked basil on a mozzarella sandwich, or cilantro in your salsa. No store-bought herb carries this intense flavor, because once cut, the essential oils immediately begin to lose pungency. Cut and eat immediately, and you’ll find intense herbal resonance in every dish you make.

In a single good sized pot or any other repurposed vintage container, it’s possible to plant a garden of culinary herbs today and start tasting in just a matter of weeks.

1-IMG_5868 — ‘Pesto Perpetuo’ basil is a great container option.

Choosing the Right Herbs

Blending the right herbs that share similar preferences makes care and watering a snap. Most herbs need direct sun, so choose a bright planting spot, such as a fire escape, a window box, a terrace, or balcony. Just beware of direct exposure to the heat of intense afternoon sun, and be sure to water heavily on a daily basis at the height of summer.

In cities like Chicago, winds whip through downtown creating challenges for rooftop gardens and other plants exposed to such conditions. As we approach summer, the wind combines with the hot sun, causing herb garden to struggle for moisture. It dries herb’s tender, oil-rich leaves if moisture is inadequate.

Choosing Potting Soil

Thanks to the amazing ability of Black Gold Moisture Supreme Container Mix, contained herbs will stand up to the rigors of urban life without fail. This amazing moisture-holding potting soil ensures that when your pot heats up, your plants don’t suffer wind damage due to the strengthening effects of RESiLIENCE®. Despite its absorptive qualities, this potting soil also provides adequate drainage to ensure there’s plenty of oxygen in the root zone.

Parsley - Pam- Beck — Fresh parsley and thyme are easily contained in pots, window boxes, or small beds.

Annual Herbs

An annual herb garden typically features two popular summer plants: cilantro and basil. Both are annuals grown fresh from seed each year and mature into large plants. These blend perfectly with chives for a triad of often used and delicious foliage. If perennially nipped and cut, they remain small for a time, but with rising heat and extended days, they will stretch out to flower and their flavor will become stronger and less palatable.

Perennial Herbs

The second group is the smaller, long-lived perennial herbs sized for a grand herb pot. In-ground gardeners treat these as landscape plants, enjoying new growth and harvest each year without replanting, though overwintered plants may lose verve and require some replacement in the future. Key to success is growing the right herbs that won’t become too large over the season. Start with those you use most often and organize them in pots by form with spreaders around the edges and upright herbs toward the center.

Thyme is one of the best cascading herbs that will spill over the edge of the pot, buying room for more upright plants in the center. Oregano is spreading too, but since this herb is so often used in the kitchen, it manages to retain a modest size from frequent pinching. Sage is very slow growing and loves the sun, so place this fuzzy-leaved fellow on the hot side of the box. The same is true for creeping groundcover rosemary that spills off the face of the box. Plant purple fennel in the center for an incredible bronze-colored haze that yields lots of anise-flavored cuttings for cooking and baking.

Everyone can dive into herb gardening no matter where they live by selecting a large, well-drained container, and using high-quality potting soil to reduce watering demands. Once planted, begin dreaming of all sorts of herbal dishes, then snip your way to fresh and easy all summer long.

Raised Beds: Respecting the Law of Return

To enrich a full raised bed, use low volume, high potency organic fertilizers before planting time in early spring.

If you’re growing vegetables in raised beds, you must respect the Law of Return. This law states that nutrients extracted from the soil by growing plants must be compensated for by tilling their dead remnants back into the soil or fertility loss will result. Because plants are often grown more densely in small or raised beds, proportionately more nutrition is drawn from the soil each year than in in-ground gardens. The chances of running a deficit are very real, and your plants will show it, but by then it’s too late.

The challenge of raised beds is that there’s no room for adding gobs of compost to the box because it was filled to the top in the first place. The fertility of all raised beds will decline each year unless you return it with fertilizer to compensate for these losses.

Add Organic Matter

High-density gardening in raised beds draws proportionately more nutrition from the soil over the course of each season.

To keep microbe populations high, organic matter is needed. If your potting soil is decomposing so the soil level has dropped, can you refill it with any of the Black Gold potting soils with RESiLIENCE® or just use Black Gold Garden Compost and work it into the old stuff. But if your soil mass is maxed out, use fertilizers that provide higher levels of nutrition without much volume. Older soilless mixes can also acidify, which will inhibit plants from taking in needed nutrients while reducing soil microbes and overall soil health. A simple soil pH test should be conducted to determine soil acidity/alkalinity. To return acid soils to a neutral ph is ideal, a liming agent is required.

Fertilize

Organic fertilizers are slower to become available to plants than synthetics, so preparing your raised bed soil well in advance of planting time. Fall is ideal, but early spring works just as well. This allows time for the various raw materials to decompose, interact and create the synergy between plants, microbes, and earth to give your garden everything it needs, naturally.

For gardens where there’s little space, two organic fertilizers offer everything needed to fuel this year’s vegetable crops. They’re like ordering a la carte or choosing a combination plate at a Mexican restaurant. The combination is a tomato & vegetable fertilizer with added alfalfa meal.

An organic tomato & vegetable fertilizer, with a balanced ratio of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium should be added. Estimate at least one bag of fertilizer for each 4′ by 8′ raised bed to calculate how much you need.

Rose growers have always been keen on using alfalfa Meal a la carte, which contains about 3% nitrogen plus other benefits. What makes it doubly valuable is that alfalfa is a legume, a nitrogen-fixing plant, so all of its remnants from baled hay to this byproduct of milling also contain vestiges of the mycorrhizae, unique fungi that live symbiotically within these plants.

To apply these fertilizers, spade up your raised bed with a fork to open it up a foot or so deep, then sprinkle the fertilizers evenly over the soil. Let them filter down into the nooks and crannies, then spade over each bed again to help the soil tighten around the fertilizer. Once thoroughly blended, rake the surface smooth so it’s ready to plant. Water deeply, if there has not been sufficient rain.

The Law of Return

The longer the garden sits after you’ve returned nutrients to the soil, the more fertile it becomes. As temperatures warm, microbes activate and enrich the soil further. So when it’s time to plant your peas in March, and anything else after that, complying with the Law Of Return will guarantee you vegetables show their appreciation with the most generous harvests you can imagine.

Raising Agave Pups

This beautiful old mother agave has produced a bevy of pups around herself to take over after she flowers and dies.

Agave are the most widely adaptable succulents, but what sets them apart is that they flower only once at the end of life and then they are gone. It literally takes an entire lifetime for each plant to save up enough fuel to reproduce. They do this by bolting, sending up flower stalks much like a head of lettuce does in early summer. Some agaves can produce enormous bloom stalks up to twenty feet tall, with nectar-rich flowers raised high for accessibility to bats and hummingbirds. Some gardeners allow the bloom stalks to remain standing until the flowers fade and the stalks dry out, while others prefer to remove them more promptly to maintain a more controlled appearance.

Agave Pups

Agaves reproduce another way to maintain their numbers when the climate is too dry for seeds to germinate. They form “pups” around the aging mother plant. An agave pup, or offset, is simply a new vegetative shoot that rises from the parent’s root system. When the parent plant dies, the pups remain alive to take the parent’s place, though it takes years to fill in the ugly gap where the parent plant formerly existed.

Nature grants us the option of filling in that hole ourselves by transplanting offsets into this gap. But for those who want to move their agave or do away with it altogether, a second option is to remove more pups and pot them up to accent yard, patio, porch or garden. Rehabilitating a flowering agave is also the perfect way to obtain lots of new agaves for the landscape without spending a dime. If the pups are relatively uniform in size, they can be planted in a series of identical pots for a bold visual repeat in the garden. For this, and all other agave plantings, use Black Gold Cactus Mix that ensures free drainage so roots won’t rot.

Transplanting Pups

Excavate pups carefully to avoid any unnecessary damage to the leaves and roots. Wounds are the fast track for diseases to enter these succulent tissues and cause ugly brown rot. Wash away the soil and cleanly cut the root tips that are frayed or torn from newly dug plants. Set the prepared pups in the dry, warm shade for a week or two to callus off root tips, as well as scratches and nicks anywhere else.

Repurpose nylon window screen to cover the pot drain hole, so potting material won’t sift through the bottom. Fill the pot 2/3 of the way full with dry potting soil and nestle the agave into the soil, then fill in along the edges being sure not to cover the base of the rosette. (Set soil level low enough to fill the top of the pot with a lot of water when watering is needed.) Gently pat the soil down to reduce any large air pockets.

flower stalk — A single Agave desmettiana produces a tall bloom stalk to flower and set seed at the end of life.

This dry planting method is unique to cactus and succulents. With moisture held within their succulent tissues, you need not water the transplants immediately, if outside conditions are moist and cold. Add some pieces of broken tile beneath the pot to create a gap that facilitates more rapid drainage. If the surface soil is visible, use decorative washed gravel for a nicer appearance and to keep white perlite from floating to the surface.

With so many Agave cultivated all over the Southwest, there are always plants flowering each spring and summer for lots of free pup opportunities. Although Agave species vary in climate preferences, when you harvest pups from local plants, you know that they are bound to do well because that’s where mom raised them.

Soil Matters to Lavender

Distinguished by long thin wand-like flower stems, English lavender is the hardiest of them all.

The Serenity Prayer asks us to “accept the things we cannot change, the courage to change the things we can, with the wisdom to know the difference.” If you’ve tried growing lavender with little success, maybe it’s time to identify what you can change to make this year’s garden a fragrant bee filled blend of drought-resistant lavenders for landscaping. It only takes a little wisdom to make a difference.

french lavender — French lavender is the commercially grown species popular throughout southern Europe.

Origins

Lavender comes from Europe where it has been grown in the South of France since Roman times. There, the Mediterranean climate mirrors that of California where winters are wet and mild with long dry seasons extending from May to as late as December. These plants are naturally adapted to loose friable soils, sandy loam and fill soils that don’t pack down. In areas with persistent humidity, extensive summer rain, and dense acid soils, lavenders languish.

A Need for Porous Ground

Naturally, fast-draining soils ensure the roots are exposed to plenty of oxygen during the growing season, and if irrigated or rain falls, it moves in and out of the root zone quickly. Such porous ground, particularly on a south-facing slope, helps to counteract the slow soil surface evaporation caused by humid climates with stagnant air.

spanish lavender — Larger flowers and a shorter stature define the heat-tolerant Spanish lavender.

In northern California where rainfall can be very heavy in winter and soils are dense and extremely rich, lavender struggles despite its preference for the climate. Fields now growing commercial lavender are plowed into mounded rows well above grade to enhance drainage and keep the root zone sufficiently aerated.

Amending Soil

Fortunately, the soil is among the things we can change by adding amendments that open its structure. Prepare the natural soil by blending it with pumice and Black Gold Garden Compost Blend. Use this enhanced mix to raise up the soil surface so the crown or base of the stem of the plant is above the surrounding grade. This is also a good way to create soils that are perfect for rocky outcrops and raised beds where lavender thrives.

In San Francisco where conditions are cool and damp, growers prefer to mulch their lavenders with minerals such as washed sand or decorative gravel that help reflect heat back onto the plant. This porous material also creates a dry barrier between damp soil and the plant foliage to discourage mold.

Choosing a Lavender

All three species have yielded endless horticultural varieties to choose from.

Before you select a lavender for marginal areas, consult a local expert to find the best species and or variety to match your microclimate and soil conditions. They vary in cold hardiness, size, and color from the cold-tolerant English lavender to a Spanish lavender to fill that super hot spot. And for those romantics who love the notion of true French lavender in the garden, these plants will be the genesis of homemade tinctures, fragrant waters, sachets, potpourri, soap and a wide range of natural herbal cosmetics.

Once you know what to plant, select a sun-filled area and improve the soil for drainage, then plant in spring so there’s plenty of time to adapt your ground before the summer heat and fragrant flowers to come.

Bottom Heat for Happy Heirloom Seed Starting

The only way to have heirloom vegetables and flowers in your garden is to grow them from seed. Most heirlooms simply aren’t grown commercially, so they’re not often available as seedlings. To obtain those antique varieties and to savor their long-lost flavors, we must order the seed and start the plants ourselves. This also applies when starting your vegetables in advance of the last frost date as well. Virtually any time you must grow anything from seed it can either be a nightmare or a grand success and getting soil temperature right is essential.

Essential Soil Temperatures

germination tray — Plant seeds in a small tray that’s easy to bottom heat in the kitchen or when using the small heating mat.

Seeds are programmed to sprout when the soil is warm enough to ensure conditions for vigorous growth. That’s why it’s traditional to start seeds in a sunny window. It’s not that buried seed needs sunlight (though some seeds like lettuce do need light to sprout), but weak winter sun helps to warm the potting soil to kick off germination. Most summer crops require soil temperatures around 70 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Cool-season crops will germinate in much cooler ground, the average being 45 to 60 degrees Fahrenheit. Beets, for example, sprout in the coldest earth at 41 degrees.

This bottom heat seed mat is available at Gardener Supply (image care of www.gardeners.com).

Cold soil is often the culprit when sown seed fails to germinate, or it takes substantially longer than normal to sprout. Often, delayed germination can cause the seed to rot in the pot before it sprouts. Sitting too long in a very moist or damp conditions encourages damping off, a fungal disease that can wipe out the whole crop of tender seedlings. Avoiding these problems is why bottom heat plays a big part in speeding along this seed germinating process.

Seed-Starting Mats

While perusing your seed catalogs, seek out electric seed-starting mats, which start at about $35 for the smallest size. These are much like a large electric heating pad that’s impervious to moisture. Growers place them beneath the flats to warm the soil from the bottom up to speed germination. It also encourages new roots to grow downward toward the heat source rather than remaining close to the surface of the soil warmed by sunlight. This shapes the roots so that once transplanted, they are better able to access moisture deeper down.

To direct seed into pots or flats, you’ll need a larger seedling mat for uniform bottom heat.

It’s important to use clean seed-starting media when using bottom heat because warmth can stimulate the growth of undesirable organisms. Black Gold Seedling Mix is a quality media that gives seeds and seedlings a good head start. It’s lightweight, porous, and quick to drain, so moisture won’t build up inside a pot to cause seed rot or damping off.

Sowing Seeds

There are two ways to sow seeds. The first method gets a lot of plants germinated without watching a lot of little pots for signs of life. You can start with a small plastic salad box bottom, or something similar, that will be easy to warm with a small seedling heat mat. Plant seeds very close together as they won’t be in there long. Once seeds germinate, use a thin stick to pop out each seedling from well below the roots. Transplant each into a small container of potting soil and place all of these atop the mat to continue deep rooting on the warmth of the mat. If you have a larger heat mat, go straight to seeding individual pots to eliminate the transplanting step.

Long ago I’d set my sown trays on the wood stove mantle where the rising heat warmed them from below. When seedlings appeared, they were moved to a place with sunlight. Cash-strapped gardeners have devised ingenious alternatives to seedling mats, such as repurposed water-proof outdoor holiday string or rope lights wound up beneath the flats to achieve the same end, though this is not as safe and reliable as tried-and-true seed-starting mats. No matter how you get ‘er done, the key is bottom heat to mimic Mother Nature’s earthy warming many months before she wakes from her winter nap.

Three Sisters Gardens

Along the flood plains of America’s rivers, indigenous tribes cultivated crops for centuries. Before levees, rivers spread out far and wide, yet shallow, with each spring flood depositing yet another layer of rich silt upon those from millennia past. These tribes grew the three sisters of Native American agriculture: corn, squash, and beans. Growing in the three-sisters style is a great way to teach youngsters or to create a family project that demonstrates much about gardens, climate, and history.

087 — Winter squash benefits from the shelter of the corn and beans.

The Benefits of Three Sisters Gardens

Unlike our farm-row monoculture plantings, three sisters agriculture plants all three crops close together on a single mound of earth. First, the corn is sown, germinates, and produces a young stalk. Next, the beans are sown next to the corn to climb that stalk. Like other legumes, beans fix atmospheric nitrogen into the soil to fertilize the heavy -feeding corn. Winter squash is third, which benefits from the shelter of the corn and beans while the large squash leaves shade soil to keep root zone temperatures lower under each mound.

This easy backyard garden project is adaptable to different size spaces by adjusting the mound’s dimensions. It can be just 18″ in diameter for small spaces or for large gardens go up to four feet with proportionately more plants. While irrigating with drip systems, some like to create a depression in the center of the mound that allows for an occasional deep watering ideal for hot dry days.

In the riverbank Indian villages, they saved bones and other leftovers from their fish preparation to fertilize the mounds. The heads, bones, fins, and organs were buried deep into the mound to decompose there and release important nutrients throughout the growing season.

Creating a Three Sisters Garden

ajaxhelper — Buffalo Bird Woman of the Hidatsa tribe.

When creating your own mounds, blend in generous amounts of Black Gold Garden Compost Blend to increase humus levels and overall fertility. To boost microbe and micronutrient content work Black Gold Earthworm Castings Blend into the surface soil where the seeds will be sown. In lieu of fish heads, which attract pests, install pockets of fertilizer deep within the soil mound where roots can find them for long-term availability to the plants.

Virtually any corn, squash or climbing beans can be used, but heirloom varieties of these American plants will be closer to those grown by the Indians. In the west explore Native Seed/SEARCH online for rare strains grown by tribes in the desert and northern Mexico. These are the original three sisters varieties developed by Pueblo farmers, but those heirlooms grown by tribes in the north and east are adapted to shorter growing seasons.

The river gardens were closely protected during the growing season by tribal members who kept a sharp eye out for marauding wildlife or theft. Often young women sat upon an elevated platform for a better view of the field and sang while watching for stealthy young men who’d steal the fresh ears to cook for themselves, and in the process, many marriages found their start amidst the “sisters”.

Buffalo Bird Woman’s Garden is a reprint of the 1917 book that documents the Hidatsa tribal gardens on the Missouri River flood plain. In this personal account, you will learn everything about the gardens and the role of women within them. Most of all we learn from Buffalo Bird Woman just how intimate these indigenous people were with their crops: “We cared for our corn in those days as we would care for a child; for we Indian people loved our gardens, just as a mother loves her children; and we thought that our growing corn liked to hear us sing, just as children like to hear their mother sing to them.”

Three Sisters On The Mound

Sister #1 Maize Any kind of corn grows this way but heirloom varieties are shorter with strong stout stalks. If you find decorative Indian corn in the store and love the color, save those ears in a cool dry place to plant in your three sisters garden next year. Order Indian corn seed online for the widest selection, particularly the new Glass Gem popcorn. Small mound: 4 or 5 seeds 6″ apart.

Sister #2 Beans For this growing method use standard climbing beans. Most indigenous tribes grew beans for drying and winter storage, but any green bean that climbs is fine. Small mound: 4 beans close enough to corn for easy climbing.

Sister #3 Squash Winter squash were harvested, sliced, strung onto sticks and dried in the open air before storage. Stick with one variety to avoid cross-pollination. Small mound: 2 seeds, one on each side of the mound.

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