If you’re the happy recipient of seed catalogs, you may have noticed the latest trend in planting. Our stack of catalogs includes Burpee, Jung, Shumway’s and a new company to us, Territorial Seed Company out of Oregon. In all of them, grafted plants are highlighted. The proposal is that the best of root systems is coupled with the best of tops (stems, leaves and fruitage) to make for a “super” plant. It’s not a new idea, just -pardon the pun- a growing trend.
Territorial Seed Company even has a “Ketchup ‘n’ Fries” plant. Red Cherry tomatoes are grafted onto rootstock of white potatoes. The oddity began in the United Kingdom and has now spread to the United States where everyone knows the popularity of French fries and ketchup is second only to bacon.
The advertisement for this plant declares that since tomatoes are of the potato family, it is a natural process with no genetically modified anything. Still, it would seem a fragile proposition to ship a hand-grafted plant ready for the garden. An even more improbable notion is that paying $19.95 (plus $11.85 shipping) for one plant will produce anything but the novelty of the idea.
Other vegetables available in the grafted category from all the catalogs are cucumbers, eggplants, melons, tomatoes, double tomatoes (meaning two varieties are on one root stock), peppers and watermelon.
I’ll take my chances with Oreida frozen fries being on sale at the same time Heinz of the 57 varieties ketchup issues a coupon.
While thoughts are on gardening, 2015 was a year of odd weather and odd gardening happenings here at the Moore home, the last and maybe most interesting being planting lettuce seeds in the garden on the 20th of December.
Having never done this late planting and having no one to turn to for advice because no one that we know of ever planted in the ground in December, we were in an adventure, as my late mother would call it. And frankly, she would have been tickled to help me. She loved to try all things when it came to gardening.
So we dedicated the little patch of seeds to the memory of Mom and all things green and wonderful on this earth.
During the last three months of the year we had cold snaps but no hard freeze so the ground was still soft and wet. We were especially inspired to find that our late summer lettuce crop had left some roots behind. There was already the beginning of a bowl of salad.
Weather forecasts called for mild temperatures and rain. If that pattern held on for two to four weeks, the Simpson’s Curled Green lettuce and the Red Salad Bowl variety would surely sprout and grow.
By the last week of December, there had been plenty of rain and balmy air. But on the day after some of the seeds sprouted, sending up micro-thin shoots, the air turned cold. Another two or three days and snow covered the lettuce bed. The end of the first week of January was balmy again during the days with sunshine on the garden patch. By then though the little sprouts had bit the dust. Hindsight revealed that we should have bedded the whole thing down with leaves and mulch to keep the ground warmer or placed the area under a glass panel such as a cold frame.
We’re now anxiously awaiting garden times in the spring. For now, salads will just have to come via plastic bags with due dates.
Contact Connie at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. or Box 61, Medway, OH 45341
