YORKTON - A gardener’s work is never done. A snowy garden doesn’t mean that we can’t be thinking about the coming garden year, and planning things out to make the best use of time and effort.
Have you received some seed catalogues? Maybe you have already ordered some seeds, especially if you are planning to grow specific plants that you really enjoy and can’t easily find at the greenhouse, or plants that definitely need some extra time like tomatoes and peppers. March and April are times to start some of the seeds, but it is always important to plan that out. If we have grow lights or nice sunny windows, it’s a bit easier, because those new little plants will require lots of light. But if we don’t have proper window space for good light, we may want to wait a while. Plants get too leggy and could suffer from damping off.
What is damping off? Damping off is a condition caused by various fungus in the soil, and they are very adaptable and can survive even on our gardening surfaces such as garden pots or garden tools.
The problem is easy to see: what seems like a healthy seedling will suddenly be laying flat on the soil surface. If we look closely at the soil line of the container, the seedling’s stem will look flattened or collapsed. Sometimes gardeners might make matters worse by thinking that the plant is dry, and water it. But because the damping off fungus loves cool and wet conditions to attack plants, we are only helping the inevitable to come even faster.
Sadly, plants that are infected with damping off will perish. Once we have seen the signs, there is no recovery for the plants. But we can take steps to try to make sure it won’t happen again.
First of all, be sure that the containers we are using are clean. Give them a good bath with nice soapy water. I read that we can even soak the containers for 20 minutes in water with 10% bleach, then rinse them very well. But…If we have containers that had plants with damping off issues, we shouldn’t use them again, just in case.
Use proper soil that has good drainage and has been pasteurized. That means get a good potting soil mix. I have read this time and time again, and yet it bears a solid reminder: do not use garden soil. Yes, it is free out there in the back yard. But garden soil might be rich in the very fungus that we are trying to avoid. If we eagerly plant our seeds indoors in this kind of soil, we risk the waste of our good seeds, our valuable time, and we might end up with damping off. So we really aren’t saving much by doing something risky.
Another bit of good advice is that we shouldn’t plant our seeds too deeply, and we should try to ensure that they have good light and good air circulation so that they germinate and get strong as quickly as possible. Great gardeners have told me that they have a small oscillating fan near their seedlings. It might seem that the fan is a bigger force than the seedlings, but the gentle air movement helps keep the soil dry, and helps to make those little seedlings a bit tougher.
Look at the calendar; as of this date, March 6, we are 74 days away from Victoria Day, the signature day for gardeners do their planting. It all depends on the weather of course, but it might even be earlier! That’s like ten weeks and a bit away! We all know how quickly a week goes by, so let’s start planning now! Visit the hort society at www.yorktonhort.ca. Thank you to our friends at YTW for their fine work. Have a fun garden-planning week!
