Aspirin, Sunberries, Container Gardening, & More

Here's my response to an organic small farmer friend in CA regarding aspirin.  He was pointing out that salicylic acid is a plant hormone and that aspirin has a different chemical formula.

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Re:  aspirin---

Technically, you're correct.  Aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid.  Nevertheless, the plant hormone and aspirin have the same anti-inflammatory & analgesic properties.  Willow bark extract has been used for a couple thousand yrs for headache & other pain relief.  I didn't want to go into detail on the chemistry.  You can see why by reading this:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aspirin

Too much, too time-consuming to explain all that. 

Re: light---

I have enough plants to experiment, and I love to experiment.  Plus, I don't care if the tomatoes are great producers; I have enough that if they produce any, I'll be tickled.  I don't can, & am not interested in learning that.  Can tomatoes be frozen without flash-freezing?  Even if they become "mush" when thawed out, can't that be eaten???  I don't know...any thoughts?  [I haven't Googled the question yet.] 

So far, the other plants are doing fairly well--- garlic, strawberries, spearmint, and sunberries (wonderberries).  Am already eating sunberries.  They grow like weeds, & haven't yet been outside; however, even though they are a good-looking plant, I wouldn't recommend raising them.  The berries are small, fragile, & have an almost bland taste.  [Articles I read after tasting the first one say the same about those raised outside.]  In addition, if you eat the berries too soon, they're poisonous.

You & Dixie are right about the light, but I'm giving this a try regardless.

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Bottom line:  the active ingredient in aspirin is salicylic acid, the plant hormone.  It was first extracted from willow bark in a laboratory in 1763 (if memory serves me correctly).  It was then put into the medication, aspirin.  I imagine nowadays it's synthesized in a lab.  The conventional wisdom is:  if you push one tab down into the soil of your plant containers and give that spot a watering, it will help your plants in both root development & disease resistance.  [Some people say:  put the aspirin in the bottom of the new hole when transplanting.  That might be too close to the plant/roots.] 

p.s.  Yes, you can freeze tomatoes (even whole tomatoes) without flash-freezing.  Use them later for sauce or soup.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

Even More on Leggy Tomatoes...& Salicylic Acid

Another friend of mine who is an organic small farmer in NM had this response to the post of several days ago...

...about leggy tomatoes... It is most likely from not enough light. Tomatoes are very sun hungry and need at least( and preferably more than) 8 hours of DIRECT sunlight per day. Most house windows will not get this , which is why people use greenhouses or grow lights. Grow lights are not  that expensive. I got the long fluorescent tube holders with aquarium/plant tubes for pretty cheap in the past.

 

To deal with the legginess, you can also plant them very deep, for instance with maybe only 8 inches above ground and the rest buried. The stem that is buried will send out roots all along its length and it will be stronger therefrom.  Taking cuttings may set you back a little bit as the plant has to put so much energy into making new roots, rather than working off the roots that it has already established.

To make your own rooting hormone, to help them root faster, you can go cut a few willows and put them in water and the “tea” makes an excellent rooting hormone after a few days to water plants that need to root. You can make it faster by shaving the bark off the willow branches with a pocket knife and soaking them in water.

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Great advice; however, I still can't afford grow lights, so I'm pressing on without them.  About half my 50 plants (mostly tomatoes) are now on the back porch.  That porch is very "open", but it is covered; portions of it get maybe four hours of direct sunlight per day.  The primary problem there is that gusts of wind are sometimes very strong.  We'll see how it goes.

Regarding the hormone from willows...good idea.  I've read, too, that putting an aspirin in the container soil does the same thing AND triggers an immune response in plants that wards off disease.  I'm experimenting with that idea.  It makes sense because willows produce salicylic acid...aspirin.

I also like the idea of transplanting tomatoes deeper.  Just make sure only the main stalk is underground; cut off all the lowest leaf branches or they'll rot and likely damage the whole plant.

Thanks again, Alex and Dixie.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

 

Thanks, and More on Tomatoes

Regarding the last post, a few people emailed me with suggestions...thanks!  We'll get to that shortly, but first... after receiving the information, I did a little research & discovered something interesting, as follows.  [Most of you probably know this already; even though I've been around a long time, it was news to me:]

There are two broad categories of tomatoes--- determinate and indeterminate, in relation to growth/height.  The first are the "bush" varieties (such as Roma); the second are the "vine" varieties (such as most Cherry types).  The "vines" are supposed to grow to 6-10 (or 12) ft high. The "bush" guys---3-4 ft.  I never knew that...thought they all grew to 3-4 ft.  I have a lot of cherry tomatoes!  The articles said they're usually grown on a trellis; the cages are for the bushies.  Live & learn, eh?  In my outdoor or non-container gardening days, I guess it was dumb luck that all I ever raised were determinate tomatoes... never, ever had an indeterminate "vine" tomato.

Here's a response I received from a friend in CA who runs a small organic farm there.  He and his wife, among other things, can about 50 gallons of tomato juice each year.

Yes your problem is insufficient light.Also when you 'clone" plants:take cuttings, propagate from them, they don't produce as well as when from seed.

The remedy is a cold frame. yes it is outside, but the plants will have enough natural light. The other remedy is using lights.The best window for plants faces southwest, and gives good light, no tree shade,curtains.
I plant my tomatoes in the beginning of March, then almost immediately, I put them in a cold frame, if the temps go below freezing, I throw a cover over it.I also have heat actuated openers on the cold frame, so it doesn't get too hot in them.I have nice compact bushy plants.I start my peppers over the wood stove, they must have 80+ degrees warmth in early January.When they are 4-5" high, also into the cold frame.

The melons planted later, also do very well in the cold frame.

Cold frames can be made out of an old window sash, and all used materials.The opener is what you have to buy,or be there to open the cold frame yourself.One warm day without the cold frame opened can damage your plants.

Here's his YouTube Channel...entertaining & informative---
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCR3R2OutoTkY4TLSnEUaexw
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I'll post another, different response next time.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

A Couple Brief Notes on Tomatoes

Am having a problem with some of my container tomato plants, so I'm trying an experiment.  The problem is:  a few of them start out great, but when they finally get to the largest container, they get very "leggy" and spindly.  It might be due to insufficient light.  Until very recently, it has been too chilly here to put them outside.  Now that it's hot, it's usually too windy.  [I can't afford any decent tomato cages, and have been too busy to make my own from cut willow saplings.]  My suspicion is that they are growing in height like crazy, trying to "reach" all the available indoor light...even when they are near a window and it's a sunny day.  [I can't afford "grow" lights either.]

Have you ever noticed that no matter how short weeds are cut, they will just keep producing flowers?  That thought prompted my experiment.  Am now taking "cuttings" from the tops of my problem tomatoes.  Each one of those cuttings can be placed in a regular water bottle and they will grow roots from the end & lower sides of the stalk.  After that, each one can be placed in a container with potting soil.  The experiment is:  will the original problem plants now stop growing in height (if I keep cutting off the tops) and instead "flesh out"... eventually producing flowers.  [It isn't time for them to do that yet, they aren't old enough; but when they do, I don't want those flowers on 5 to 6-foot high plants with spindly stalks.:]

Time will tell.  If anyone knows some other cause of "leggy" tomatoes, please let me know.  All I can figure is that it's insufficient light.  Plus, from Botany studies years ago, I know that cutting green plants triggers them to produce flowers at shorter heights.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

Pruning Tomato Plants, Plant Litter, and Green Manure

As your container tomato plants grow, some of the lower leaves most likely will begin to die off.  Prune those... snip off the whole leaf branch near the main plant stalk.  All those dying leaves do is sap resources from the plant.  Keep the removed portions on the soil surface in your container.  Such material will dry up and serve as plant litter...commonly called "mulch".  Mulch helps retain water in the soil.  If you have the time, cut up the removed leaves into smaller pieces and spread those around on the soil surface.  That takes only a minute or so.

Another option is to push the fresh litter under the soil surface...just a bit, and not near the main stalk...to serve as green manure.  Don't bury this material too deeply or near the stalk because when it rots that may affect the plant (including the roots) in a negative way.  Eventually, as humus forms due to friendly bacteria digesting the fresh litter, nutrients will leach down to the roots when you water.  I prefer to leave the litter on top of the soil to dry.  That really helps maintain soil moisture.

We also need to prune tomato plant "suckers", or "sucker branches".  Those are smallish shoots that grow where a branch of leaves meets the main stalk of the entire plant...right in the bottom of that "V" area.  Suckers make your plants much bushier, thus drawing resources/nutrients away from "fruit" formation.  [In Botany, the organ containing plant seeds (or that IS the seed) is usually referred to as a "fruit"...even if it's a vegetable or a nut.:]

Happy Trails, and Be Well

Don't Use Cardboard Roll Inserts With Your Seedlings

This idea of using half a toilet paper center cardboard roll to facilitate both seedling germination and transplant seemed like a useful, clever one.  I saw it on YouTube and gave it a shot...several shots.  In the beginning, it seemed to be working just fine.  By placing the roll in a vertical position in the scooped out hole in the receiving container during a seedling transplant, the process went a little easier.  Later, when watering, the roll appeared to keep the moisture close to the seedling.  All seemed well.  I even recommended the use of the roll in one of my Container Gardening videos here:
https://www.youtube.com/user/ScottHaley12 .  I think it was the "Part 2..." video.

About a month or so later, I began to notice that my tomato plants with the cardboard rolls were beginning to look a bit stunted.  Not all of them were that way, but it was true of the vast majority.  I had lots of plants without the rolls, as well; they were doing much better.  I do like to experiment, but admittedly, this was not a controlled experiment.  In other words, I didn't account for all the possible variables that might result in the stunting of the plants.  The stunting and the cardboard rolls being in the same pots could be nothing but a coincidence.  Nevertheless, I think there's something to this.

Here's what may have happened.  Cardboard contains toxic glue.  There's not a large amount in the center cardboard of a toilet paper roll, but maybe it's enough to affect seedlings.  Water won't dissolve it (release it from the cardboard), but soil microbes will release it when they digest the cardboard.  I'm guessing that's what happened.  My recommendation is:  don't use those rolls.

Happy Trails, & Be Well

A Few Tips on Transplanting

Transplanting is fairly easy because green plants are extremely resilient.  Unless you somehow break the stalk/stem or shred most of the leaves, you won't damage the plant to any significant degree.  Do not  worry about damaging the roots.  That will happen to some degree, but roots in particular regenerate quickly.

The first step in transplanting is to prepare the receiving container.  Make sure it contains a fertile, somewhat loose, well aerated soil.  Do not water the soil prior to the transplant process; do that afterwards.  It's best to not fill the receiving container all the way to the top with soil.  Leave an inch or two of space from the rim down to the soil surface.  Then scoop out a small hole in the center to accommodate the plant & its associated clump of soil.  Leave the scooped out soil in the container (off to the sides of the interior).

If you're transplanting a seedling from a shallow germinating tray, simply scoop out the plant with a spoon or other rounded tool while supporting the plant & attached soil clump as best you can with your other hand.  Place it in the prepared hole in the receiving container, fill in the hole (if necessary) with more soil and gently press the soil around the base of the plant to firm it up.  If you're transplanting a seedling from a small, individual cup instead of a germinating tray, the removal of the plant is even easier.  Place one hand over the top of the cup on the rim, so that the base of the plant stalk is between two of  your fingers.  Then turn the cup upside down while holding it in front of you, and gently squeeze the sides all around with your free hand & tap the bottom of the cup.  The plant and soil should come out...if the soil is not wet.  Then place it in the prepared hole in the receiving container and firm it up a bit.

In both cases above, the final step is to give the soil in the new container a good soaking with water... and then leave it alone.  Perhaps about half the time you do this process, your plant will droop or wilt to one degree or another.  That's due to transplant shock.  Leave it alone...just let it be.  It will recover in anywhere from fifteen minutes to a few hours...almost every single time.  In the rare case when it doesn't spring back, use it for green manure.

Some gardeners like to use a probe/stick/old pen to "tease out" a seedling from a germinating tray or small cup when transplanting.  With that method, almost no associated soil goes along with the transfer of the plant.  I've tried that way, and don't care for it.  It's a lot more work, and I don't think the plants do as well as they do with the two methods described above.

With larger plants, rather than recently-germinated seedlings, simply modify the process as required.  For example, scoop out a bigger hole in the receiving container...and use a larger spoon/tool to scoop out the plant & associated soil clump from the old container.  As I said in a previous post, I believe it takes at least two transplants before a plant reaches its final home container.  That's when you're starting from a seed.  Some gardeners say only one transplant is necessary.  I've tried both ways, and still believe the plants do better with two.

Transplanting is mostly just common sense...it's easy to do, and it works 99.99% of the time.  There's no need to worry about it at all.  Prepare properly, and just do it.  :)

p.s.  It's nice to have a transplanting table outside or in a shed...nothing fancy is required.  No matter how careful you are, there will be times when you'll spill a bunch of soil when transplanting.  It saves time & effort if you don't have to clean it up.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

What is Perlite, and Does it Work?

Take note of an important edit to the post immediately previous to this one.  The edit is at the very beginning of that post.
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Even if you never buy a bag/box/carton of it, you'll see it in many or most bags of potting soil...even in the cheap ones.  It looks similar to bits of white styrofoam, but is totally different.  Styrofoam is a polystyrene synthetic plastic, a petrochemical.  Perlite (not a trade name) is a generic term for a certain group of natural, inorganic, volcanic silicates...they are a unique form of volcanic glass.  [Sand is a silicate, but is different from Perlite.]  After mining, the substance is heated in a manufacturing process and that causes it to expand greatly.  In that form, it can absorb water and later release it slowly.  It's both inert and sterile, and has no known toxicity or fire hazard.  There's no need to go into the chemistry of Perlite in great detail.  All we need to know is:  what are its functions in soil, and does it work properly?

The functions of Perlite in garden soil are as follows---
1.  It contributes to soil aeration by preventing (to some degree) soil compaction.  Every time you water your plants---especially those in containers---the soil compacts a bit.  That forces out the air; and remember, a good soil should be about 25% air.
2.  It helps retain water, and contributes to good drainage.

Does it work properly?  Is it any good?  Now we enter the world of opinion.  :)  I'm not aware of any scientific, controlled experiments that prove either of the propositions in the paragraph above.  There are, however, a ton of opinions on the matter.  Lots of anecdotal "evidence"...which may be right or may be wrong...or right only in some circumstances.

Many gardeners swear by Perlite; they love it.  Many others say it's mostly a useless substance.  Of those, the ones who like it just a tiny bit say that vermiculite is better.  [My observations here are based upon reading many, many online gardening discussions in a wide variety of venues or forums.]  Based on my own limited experience in this area, and on Logic, I thinks it works... and works well.  Take that for whatever you think it's worth.  In any case, I certainly wouldn't spend time picking it out of a bag of potting soil...and most bags have it in them.  As to buying a box of only Perlite and then adding it to my container soil, I would do that but am trying to garden on-the-cheap.

Happy Trails, and Be Well

Home-Made Liquid Organic Fertilizers

IMPORTANT:  Edited 6-2-16, as follows---
In the original post below, I forgot to mention something very important.  Be sure to give your "tea" a good stir at least a couple times per day.  That will keep it aerated.

This can be done with all kinds of organic matter, separately or all together, and in amounts ranging from one gallon to five gallons...or really, almost any amount.  Essentially, what you do is make organic "tea".  For example, take some coffee grounds---or fresh grass clippings, or dead leaves, or flowers, or wood ash, or dead broken up twigs, or fruit peelings, etc.---and place them on an old piece of cloth.  Tie up the corners of the cloth, thus making a "tea" bag of sorts.  Place the bag in your container, fill that with water, and let the whole thing "steep" for about three or four days.  Keep the container outside or in the garage (or shed, if you have one).  Depending upon what type of organic matter you're using and the ambient temperature, and even though three days is a short span of time, there may be a small amount of unpleasant odor produced.  [There's an old adage:  after three days, fish and visitors stink:]

As with a compost bin or pile, never put any meat scraps in your "tea" bag.  They decompose too slowly and attract scavengers & pests in general.  If you cover your "tea" pail (or whatever container you're using), make sure the lid allows for ventilation; otherwise, your organic "tea" is likely to have harmful anaerobic bacteria in it when it's done steeping.  If you're making a large amount of this liquid fertilizer, let's say in a garbage can, then a burlap sack probably is the handiest item for use as a bag.  For container gardening, as opposed to raised bed gardening, I can't imagine that you'd need to make more than five gallons at a time... and probably less than that.

Liquid organic fertilizer is good for "quick fixes".  If your plants look sickly or stressed, apply the liquid to the soil.  Do some research on the symptoms of plant Nitrogen deficiency, Phosphorus deficiency, Potassium deficiency, etc., then you'll know what type of "tea" to make in each circumstance...see the previous post on this Blog.  [The internet is the world's greatest library.]  Or simply do a Search for "what causes _____________ in [e.g.] tomatoes?".

All this may sound as though it's too much trouble, but it really doesn't take much effort or time.  The rewards are worth it.  Plus, it's always a good thing to recycle

Happy Trails, and Be Well