Free Seeds!
We are excited to announce that on Monday, May 3, we are releasing seed bundle #2 to existing Door County Seed Library members. This seed bundle contains 20+ packets of seeds for directly planting in your garden, including:
- Beans
- Beets
- Carrots
- Cucumbers
- Flowers
- Leafy greens
- Lettuce
- Herbs
- Peas
- Radishes
- Summer and winter squash
- Plus, some bonus packets!
We have prepared 410 of these seed bundles -- that's over 8,000 packets of seeds! They are available while supplies last. If you can’t use all of the seeds, please share them with your friends and neighbors.
This year the seed bundles are available through your local Door County Library branch. Due to coronavirus restrictions, you will need to call your local branch to make arrangements to pick up your seeds:
- Baileys Harbor: 920-839-2210
- Egg Harbor: 920-868-2664
- Fish Creek: 920-868-3471
- Forestville: 920-856-6886
- Sister Bay-Liberty Grove: 920-854-2721
- Sturgeon Bay: 920-746-7121
- Washington Island: 920-847-2323
Note: The Ephraim Library branch does not have seed bundles. Please call the next closest branch.
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May Garden Calendar: Planting Time
May is a very busy month in the garden with lots to do! Hopefully with your garden plan in hand, your seedlings started, and your tools ready, everything will come together smoothly, but it does take a bit of coordination! To help you stay organized, we’ve outlined some gardening tasks for the month of May.
~Keep watering your seedlings! Additionally, you’ll want to thin seedlings so that each hole in your flat has only one plant growing in it. To do this, just cut the weakest looking seedlings at the surface of the soil. This practice allows your winning seedlings to thrive and get the nutrients they need. If you planted crops outside already, thin those to their recommended spacing too (you can usually find this info on the seed packet).
~Start hardening off your seedlings about one week before you transplant them into your garden. By slowly acclimating them to the outdoors, you’ll save them a bit of transplant shock when they go from the controlled climate in your house to the garden outside. The general idea is to gradually increase their exposure to the outdoors over time. For instance, take your seedlings to a protected location outside for one hour the first day. Do this each day for a week, adding 1 hour each day of the process. By the end of the week, you’ll be at 7 hours and the plants will be ready to be transplanted. Get creative with the space you have and look online if you need inspiration. Try to resist transplanting crops like tomatoes and peppers until June to ensure that the soil is warm enough for these heat-loving crops!
~Make sure your beds are all ready for planting. Clear away last year’s debris, weed your beds, fill your raised beds with a bit more soil if needed, and till your beds if that’s your style. A great low-impact and low labor method of preparing your garden beds is to put a tarp over them for 2-3 weeks prior to planting and remove it when you’re ready to plant. The tarp can simultaneously block weed growth and help break down organic matter and crop residues. Plus, it saves you the backache of tilling!
~Continue to direct sow seeds into your garden following the guidelines on your seed packet. Seeds that can be direct sown in May include: beets, bok choy, broccoli, carrots, cauliflower, dill, kohlrabi, lettuce, Napa cabbage, peas, radish, spinach, Swiss chard, and turnips.
~Watch out for pests! Believe it or not, you may start to see your very first garden pests around the middle of May. Keep an eye out for leaf miners on spinach and chard. Look for flea beetles on cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, and radish. And keep your eyes peeled for cutworms! Learning to identify pests early will help you treat them before they can decimate your crops.
~Lastly, take a deep breath! You will make it through May and, hopefully, you’ll be feeling prepared for the summer ahead of you. If you aren’t able to get everything you wanted in the ground according to schedule, don’t be afraid to take a chance and give it a go anyway! What’s the worst that can happen?
As always, feel free to refer to our comprehensive Door County Planting Calendars, which are sorted by seed starting date. Or use this calendar if you prefer one that is sorted alphabetically by crop type, Happy planting!
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Community Connections: Cathy Grier
By Renee McAllister
Just off the Oregon Bridge on the corner of Third Avenue and Oregon Street in Sturgeon Bay is the home and garden of Cathy Grier. She bought the house with a garden already started, and has maintained it for the past four years. The previous owners mainly had perennials and some fruit trees. Cathy has added lavender, raspberries, strawberries, and herbs.
Growing up in a small town in Connecticut, Cathy was surrounded by fields and forests. Her career of playing guitar has allowed her to travel, and she fondly remembers the beautiful gardens of France. She especially likes the aromatic plants in her Sturgeon Bay garden and how they attract bees.
Work in the garden starts in May and it remains productive until fall. The garden harvest provides many meals since she is a vegetarian. When using produce from her garden, she admits she doesn’t always follow a recipe. A favorite homemade pizza utilizes tomatoes and herbs from the garden. She freezes and cans extra vegetables.
Her style of seed saving is to let some plants, e.g., radish, cilantro, dill, parsley, and Chinese cabbage mature and go to seed. In spring she walks through the garden looking for new seedlings. She then moves them around to a permanent spot. She also loves to look at seed catalogs.
Because her entire yard is a garden, she does not have to mow grass. The garden has several rows that are 8-10 inches wide. Straw is placed between the rows to help keep weeds down. The straw paths also help insulate the plants by keeping them from drying out. She mentions she does not have to water them much and does not spray for pests.
Her garden has a beloved peach tree that is six years old. Her least favorite plant is quack grass -- it always keeps coming back! Her choice of garden tool is a cement trowel. Having an unorthodox style of garden meant that it attracted some visitors and pets. They crushed some of her tender plants, so she moved the start of the garden back three feet and added a small rope fence.
She plans to add a garden house soon to provide shade in the yard. Cathy is still getting to know the property and what works well, but likes to use sunflowers to fill in space, and birds enjoy the seeds throughout the winter. She shares her garden in the hopes of encouraging others to start a garden and grow food.
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Seed Saving Tip: Preventing Cross-Pollination
By Penne Wilson
If you are trying to save true seeds (meaning seeds that will produce plants like the parent plant), it’s important to know the species of your vegetables. That's because varieties within a species are able to cross-pollinate and breed among themselves. For example, if two members of the Curcurbita pepo species, such as Heirloom Table Queen acorn squash and Cocozelle zucchini squash, are planted close to each other and allowed to cross-pollinate, the result will be unstable, “feral” seeds. Although the seeds will (most likely) be fertile and produce squash, it is impossible to predict what traits they will have. Therefore, if you want to keep seed varieties pure, you need to make sure that vegetables don’t cross with anything outside their specific variety. There are five isolation techniques that you can employ to control pollination.
- Natural self-isolation. A small number of vegetables primarily pollinate themselves before their flowers ever open. These are called self-pollinators, and include peas, beans, lettuce, and regular-leaf tomato varieties. If you select self-pollinators, you don’t need to do anything special to save seeds other than give a bit of space in between the varieties. Note that in a home gardening environment, there is always a small chance of creating an unstable cross when you grow multiple self-pollinating varieties, but if you are adventurous, you can test the new seeds and, if you like them, maybe even take the time to breed and create a new cultivar!
- Isolate by distance. While this is the most common method to prevent cross-pollination, it can be problematic. Like many garden-related topics, experts vary widely on the recommended isolation distances, but the pollen of vegetables that are wind- or insect-pollinated is believed to travel up to 1 to 3 miles! If you are going to use this method, there are several tips to increase the likelihood of getting pure seeds, including: 1) plant only one variety per species, 2) plant a large population (the more plants you have, the more likely you are to get pollen only from your garden), and 3) save seeds from the center plants (pollinators typically start feeding at the outermost flowers first and then work their way toward the middle, so the middle flowers are less likely to be cross-pollinated). And consider checking with your neighbors to see what they are growing!
- Isolate by time. If you plant varieties that will bloom at different times, you can practically eliminate the chance of cross-pollination, but this method takes diligence to ensure that the different varieties never flower at the same time.
- Isolate by bagging. Although this may be a fun seed-saving experiment, it’s fairly labor intensive for a home gardener. The concept is to cover individual blossoms in bags just before the flower opens so that no insect is allowed to enter the flower. Once the blossom opens, you open the bag and hand pollinate the blossom and close the bag again. After the blossom dies, the bag is removed. It’s important to mark the vegetable so that you remember which ones you hand pollinated! Bagging can be used with wind-and insect-pollinated plants.
- Isolate by caging. With this method, entire groups of plants are enclosed in a cage that keeps insects out. This method only works with insect-pollinated varieties, because the caging material must allow air and light in.
If you want to trying saving true-to-type seeds, we encourage you to start with these self-pollinating crops: tomatoes, lettuce, peas, and beans. These crops typically are pollinated even before their flowers open, so cross-pollination is rate and they are the easiest way to ensure a successful start on your seed-saving journey. And if you are not concerned about saving true-to-type seeds, then things are much easier! You don't need to worry about isolation or cross-pollination. Simply save some seeds and see what grows next year!
(The information in this article is from Seed Saving: A Beginner’s Guide to Heirloom Gardening by Caleb Warnock. We highly recommend this excellent, concise book, which is available through InfoSoup at the Door County Library. )
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Recipe of the Month: Warm Asparagus with Wild Garlic Pesto
By Deb Moore
Spring gardens, fields, and forests bring forth tender greens, mushrooms, wild ramps, and asparagus; all are prized for the freshness they bring after a sparse winter growing season. My mom’s family is from Germany and I had the good fortune to be over there when asparagus was in season; it is a highly celebrated vegetable in Germany, with many a Spargelfest to be found. This recipe is like one I had during my visit and can be found at Germanfoods.org. Three of the four spring ingredients are highlighted, although I’m sure the addition of some lightly sautéed morels (if you can find them) would be a welcome addition. The pesto does have a kick, so use sparingly. You will have extra, but I’ve found that it is a good addition to many other dishes, as well.
Ingredients:
2 lbs. asparagus
Small bunch of mixed greens (about 3 cups)
Wild ramp leaves (about 2 cups)
¼ cup olive oil (canola could be substituted here) +1 Tbsp.
¼ cup pine nuts
1 Tbsp. grated Bergkase cheese (This can be difficult to find; gouda works well.)
2 tsp. white wine vinegar
1 tsp. honey
Splash of lemon juice
Wash and peel asparagus spears from just under the head downwards. Add a pinch of salt and a splash of lemon juice to a pot of boiling water and boil asparagus to desired texture; I usually let it go for about 6-7 minutes. When finished boiling, briefly roast or sauté for just a few minutes; this step can be omitted, but the bit of depth it brings to the flavor is worth it.
While the asparagus is cooking, whip up the pesto. Put the ramp leaves, oil, and honey into a food processor or cup for use with an immersion blender and blend until smooth. (You may need to add a bit more oil until it reaches your preferred consistency.) Add the pine nuts, grated cheese, and blend. Season with salt and pepper.
To serve, spread mixed greens on a serving plate. Toss cooked asparagus with 1Tbsp. oil and white wine vinegar; arrange dressed asparagus over greens and drizzle with pesto. Enjoy!
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Book Review: The Language of Flowers by Odessa Begay
By Renee Borkovetz
I remember my Grandma always had a book on the language and meaning of flowers as a staple coffee table book. It was fascinating going through that book years ago, looking at the beautiful illustrations and stories associated with each flower. This book by Odessa Bega may not be the same one my Grandma had, but reading through it invokes the same love I have for flowers as I did back then.
Back in the Victorian era, it was extremely popular for people to give flowers and let the recipient determine the message based on the type of flower, its color, and other distinguishing features. This practice is not nearly as popular today, but there are still a handful of flowers that hold special meaning, such as red roses on Valentine’s Day for love and affection.
The Language of Flowers is a contemporary book, published in 2020, highlighting 50 of the more common flowers we know today along with lovely illustrations for each one. Each chapter dives into the history of the flower, its uses, specific meaning, color significance, as well as poetry or literary excerpts about the flower. Some flower meanings include red carnations for pure love, white carnations for talent, and yellow carnations for disdain, to state a few.
This book would be great to read several ways -- from cover to cover, pick and choose specific chapters at a time, or pick up a copy to have as your own coffee table book to read at your leisure. The Language of Flowers is available through InfoSoup at the Door County Library.
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Featured Grower: Leslie Wiser
By Mikayla Kifer
Leslie Wiser grew up in the Midwest with Taiwanese and Chinese heritage on one side of her family and German, Polish, and Jewish heritage on the other. As she spent time learning about and connecting with both sides of her family, she became aware that their access to culturally relevant foods was limited. So when the time came to start her own farm, Radical Family Farms, she knew that she wanted to honor her culinary heritage. She reached out to both sides of her family to ask which vegetables and ingredients they missed the most and they became Radical Family Farm’s crop list.
Now she practices “beyond organic” identity farming. The production side of the farm focuses on regenerative, no-till, no-spray methods while the interpersonal side of the farm focuses on strengthening her connection to her family history while allowing others in her community to do the same. According to Leslie, “food for me is one of the last and only ways to hold onto my family heritage.” Thanks to Leslie, local chefs, community members, and her own children are now able to access foods which strengthen their connection to family and to home. To learn more about Leslie’s story and support Radical Family Farms, check out their website, this video, and this interview!
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Leslie Wiser of Radical Family Farms
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~~The Door County Seed Library planning team
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