380 Flower Seed Starting Basics

Show Transcript

380 Flower Seeds TRANSCRIPT

Farmer Fred

Hi, it’s Master Gardener Fred Hoffman, Farmer Fred, and today, I’m joined by America’s Favorite Retired College Horticultural Professor, Debbie Flower. And we will do a deep dive into  practical flower seed starting techniques, such as the critical timing for beginning various flowers and the correct depth for planting those seeds. And, Debbie shares with us her trick for careful watering of newly planted seeds. Also, she has tips for transplanting those young flowering plants into the garden.

It’s episode number 380, Flower Seed Starting Basics.

We’re podcasting from Barking Dog Studios here in the beautiful Abutilon Jungle in Suburban Purgatory. It’s the Garden Basics with Farmer Fred podcast, brought to you today by Dave Wilson Nursery. Let’s go! 

FLOWER SEED STARTING BASICS, Pt. 1

Farmer Fred:

Even though it's the dead of winter, now's the time to be starting a lot of seeds. We've talked about tomato seeds and pepper seeds, edible plants. Well, what about some flowering plants? Just a show for your nose or a show to attract beneficials and pollinators that you can be planting out in spring? But you would start them from seed this time of year. What's the best way to start flowering seeds? How do you take care of them? And for that, we turn to Debbie Flower, America's favorite retired college horticultural professor. And I believe in your years and years and years of college education, as far as teaching goes, you have done this with students on sort of a quasi-commercial basis where part of the curriculum of the class is having a plant sale in the spring of things that you grew in the winter. Did that include flowers?

Debbie Flower:

Yes, it did.

Farmer Fred:

 All right. So what kind of flowers did you work with? And you would be doing this probably with your winter class as opposed to your spring class.

Debbie Flower:

 Well, yeah, but we actually had two plant sales a year. And we so I did a sale with each each group each semester. The spring semester starts in January. So we would hit the ground running with peppers first and then tomatoes. After that, we would start with the flowers.

Farmer Fred:

 And  that would still be like in February or March.

Debbie Flower:

 Yes. OK, so we're still pretty early. we aimed for a plant sale in April. So the seed starting was really a beginning of the semester event. Because it takes weeks, I like to have nine weeks between, let's say, starting the peppers and the sale, and then eight weeks for the tomatoes, and then probably seven or six weeks for the flowers to get them to size to sell them.

Farmer Fred:

 So early March.

Debbie Flower:

 Early March or mid-February. We did zinnias. There are so many flowers and I get to buy the seeds. 

Farmer Fred

Well, lucky you. Yeah.

Debbie Flower:

We had to market them, so we had to pick things that we thought people would like to grow and that would be successful for them. So we did zinnias. One thing about zinnias is you don't want them to get root bound. So you have to either keep moving them up really fast into bigger containers, then they cost more to sell, they use more media, et cetera, and it's more lab time. Take that flat or all those six packs of zinnias and move them up. But there are so many beautiful, different zinnias and they attract beneficial insects. So they were always on my list. Sweet alyssum, which is a low-growing ground cover. It's in the broccoli family, actually.

Farmer Fred:

Tiny seeds.

Debbie Flower:

Tiny seeds, right. And alyssum comes in colors, and some of them are fragrant. Not all the sweet alyssum are fragrant. And they attract beneficials. In fact, they're a wonderful thing to plant below roses because they attract beneficials and help keep some of the insects away from the roses.

Farmer Fred:

 The wine grape growers here in California are using alyssum more and more along their rows of vineyards to attract those same beneficial insects to help control the pests that bother wine grapes.

Debbie Flower:

 You call it the Good Bug Hotel. 

Farmer Fred:

Yeah. Exactly what it is.

Debbie Flower:

 And if you're into growing butterfly attracting plants, we didn't grow butterfly weed, which is something that monarch butterflies need to lay their babies on. But if you were growing that and you're trying to attract monarchs to your butterfly weed, you need to feed that butterfly that flies in. So things like zinnias provide nectar. So you attract the parent and provide a meal for the parent, and then they can go over to your butterfly weed and lay their eggs. Marigolds have many different kinds. The simple ones, meaning that they're a flat flower with only about five petals and a center. They're better for attracting beneficials, but the others are so pretty. We would grow those. Cosmos, which tends to be pink, but they're pink and white and there's some striped ones. They're pretty flowers. Nicotiana, which is actually flowering tobacco.

Farmer Fred:

Yeah, but it has a wonderful aroma.

Debbie Flower:

 It does. And often it's at night. And I love the white ones that bloom at night. So when you're sitting on your summer patio at night, you can see those white flowers in the dark and experience the great fragrance. And annual salvias are always good. Sometimes I try to grow a garden or have flowers so that on July 4th, I can have a red, white and blue bouquet. 

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah. There you go.

Debbie Flower:

It's just sort of a nerdy thing to do. And red salvia works well on that. So does a red zinnia. 

Farmer Fred:

 Among some other aromatic flowers that you can grow from seed includes sweet peas, garden phlox, moonflower, the tuberose.

Debbie Flower:

That would be a bulb.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah. And dianthus. And these are all shows for the nose that you might enjoy planting. Of the ones that you started in your class, did they have different requirements to get them to germinate? What was the easiest? Which was the hardest?

Debbie Flower:

 They were all pretty easy. Having done this for so many years, one of the most interesting things to me was that all seeds, regardless to where they are native, whether it's a cold place or a dry place or a wet place or a hot place, they all need about the same thing to germinate. and that's about room temperature media and not too much water but enough water. And some need light. Those are typically often the very small seeds  and the students hated that. “Oh i got the one that needs light.” Don't panic you just moisten your media, put it in your container, tap it down. We always took the the container and hit it on the potting bench. You didn't push it with your fingers; you don't want to get all the air out of the media. You just want to settle it so there are no big holes in that media that you're starting to put seed into. Then there were those seeds that need to be placed on the surface. That was the hardest part. You need to learn how to fold the seed packet and tap them out. Once i had a student tell me how he poured the seeds out into like a little dish and then he had a another dish of water and a chopstick.  And you dip the chopstick in the water and then touch the seeds and you'd get one seed in that drop of water and then drop it onto the container of media.

Farmer Fred:

] Yeah, you wouldn't want to stick that chopstick, though, into the soil.

Debbie Flower:

 No, no, no. And most of these seeds are pretty small. And so the depth you plant seeds is two to three times the narrowest height of the seed. So if you take a flat seed…  what's a seed people would know? A garden bean, a black bean. If you measure it from one end to the other, it is maybe a half an inch. You measure it, you lay it on a table flat, and that other side, that other measurements can be much smaller. It's going to be maybe a quarter of an inch. And so, if you were to plant a seed like that, you would plant it only about a half an inch deep because the seed from on the flat side,  is only about a quarter of an inch.

Farmer Fred:

 If you were planting sweet peas, for example, though, would you soak the seeds?

Debbie Flower:

 Yes. Sometimes seeds need to be soaked before they're planted to get them to germinate or they need to be scratched open before they germinate. And that information is on many seed packets. It is not on all.

Farmer Fred:

And usually if it's not on the seed packet, you have to take a picture of the QR code that might be on the back.

Debbie Flower:

Get the information that way.

Farmer Fred:

Or go to the website of the catalog where you got the seed from or the name of the company or the URL that's on the seed packet. And hopefully they have more information online. That's a good rule of thumb - when picking out  flower seeds to purchase, make sure there are instructions on the label.

Debbie Flower:

And after making the mistake a couple of times, I realized for students, I needed seed packets with the information on it.  And there are some companies, like the one you showed me  that produces in Missouri, they don't have enough information. And so, it wasn't to my benefit as their instructor to buy from them.

Farmer Fred:

So, when you bought seed, you'd probably go to a nursery or a big box store,  go to the seed rack and find the ones with the most information.

Debbie Flower:

 Right. And then I knew those brands I could reliably order from if I were doing it on the internet.

Farmer Fred:

 Some brands are better than others when it comes to that.

Debbie Flower:

Yes.

Farmer Fred:

And generally, if you are a seeds person and you are selling to stores, you are going to probably have very complete information, hopefully, on that seed package. Whereas if you buy mail order seeds, there's no guarantee that there's going to be any information on the packet other than the name of the plant.

Debbie Flower:

Right. And there are some specialty nurseries that don't have,  as you get more sophisticated in your ability to start seeds and you start hunting down weird things from different places, you better also know how to research to find out how to start them. 

Farmer Fred:

Of course, the internet can help out a lot.

Debbie Flower:

 Yeah. It's a wonderful thing.

Farmer Fred:

 Isn't it? Yeah. So there's always that.

Debbie Flower:

 Right.

Farmer Fred:

 Well, let me reword the question, though. Of the seeds that you started for class, which ones came up first? Which ones came up last?

Debbie Flower:

The ones we had the most trouble with, I don't know that I can answer that specifically. The ones we had the most trouble with were the drought tolerant natives. And I think it's because the conditions in which seeds germinate are very different from where a drought tolerant native grows. However, a drought tolerant native needs water and temperature, but they were much harder.

Farmer Fred:

 Natives.

Debbie Flower:

 The easy ones, zinnias for sure, marigolds are easy, alyssums, cosmos, nicotiana, salvia, they're all very easy ones to grow.

Farmer Fred:

 And for all of these, mostly they would be growing in the container for six weeks before being transplanted outside?

Debbie Flower:

Right, but we would move them up to bigger containers as the plants grew bigger. How big?  I tried to not get into gallons.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah, that's a lot of media.

Debbie Flower:

 It is. I tried to start in six packs, typically jumbo packs, and then move them to four inch.

Farmer Fred:

In your description there, you talked about media. So which media are you talking about? Is it one on an enemies list somewhere?

Debbie Flower:

 We make container media. And we actually used basically container media to start everything. And that was peat moss or coir, perlite and vermiculite. And it did have fertilizer in it at that stage. And there were a few things, and I can't remember what they were, along the way that didn't come up. And I wondered if it was that the fertilizer can hurt baby roots. If it was the fertilizer that hurt the roots, it could have been a number of things. Too much water, not enough water. 

Farmer Fred:

That's a good point to bring up, too, is that you don't want to love your seedlings to death. (sound of barking dogs) We'll wait for the dogs. Welcome to Barking Dog Studios. Thank you very much.

Farmer Fred:

 The fertilizer that comes in a lot of seed starting mixes, if there is fertilizer in it, it's very, very small amounts.  Whereas I would choose a seed starting mix, a commercial seed starting mix, that definitely didn't have any fertilizer.

Debbie Flower:

 Right. Seeds don't need fertilizer to germinate. They've got all the food they need inside of the seed. That's part of the seed. They got a baby plant. They got the fertilizer and they got the protective coat. All they need is the right conditions to grow. Fertilizer isn't needed until the plant is up out of the media and starts growing.

Farmer Fred:

 To what point? Up to past the cotyledon - the first leaf stage - or the true leaf stage? When do you begin to fertilize?

Debbie Flower:

Well, at school, they had it when the seeds were planted because we didn't make a separate seed starting mix. At home, I wait until the first true leaves.

Farmer Fred:

Okay. And then what are you fertilizing with?

Debbie Flower:

 It depends. If it's something that's really big and fast growing, then i will use a time release. But  i will use it at a dose below what is recommended on the label because you can always add fertilizer, but you can't take it back. If it's something that is a more frail plant, it grows more slowly; in that case, i will use a fish emulsion.

Farmer Fred:

 Fish emulsion is a very weak concoction of nitrogen phosphorus and potassium usually it's like a 2-1-1 or a 4-1-1.

Debbie Flower:

 Low analysis, right.

Farmer Fred:

 And that helps ensure that you won't burn that plant.

Debbie Flower:

Right. And I don't use time release once I put it in the ground. I go to the organics, the fish emulsion, et cetera.

Farmer Fred:

 I thought you once said that you do use the time release fertilizer for container plants.

Debbie Flower:

For container plants, I do, yes.  They have limited ability to go distances to find food for their roots. So, I do use it in containers, yes.

Farmer Fred:

You're applying that weekly, weakly?

Debbie Flower:

No. The time-release fertilizer will say it's good for, let's say, three months. Some of them are three months, some of them are four months, some of them are six months. And that is based on... an even temperature of about 70 degrees. Well, no place has an even temperature, maybe Hawaii, of about 70 degrees. If it's warmer, then the fertilizer breaks down faster. If it's colder, then the fertilizer breaks down much more slowly. So I will use maybe half the dose, maybe two-thirds of what is recommended on the label. And then note when I do it and watch the temperatures.

Farmer Fred:

 Is that based on planting in soil or in a container?

Debbie Flower:

 It's container media. It's the only place I use it.

Farmer Fred:

 All right. And because you need to water that container more often, because it tends to dry out more often, will that fertilizer, those pellets, get washed down out of the root zone?

Debbie Flower:

The pellets themselves don't, but when the pellets break down and release the fertilizer inside, that does wash down through the root zone. But it also goes out the bottom. I don't have these in a flat that holds water. The water flows out the bottom. So, any excess fertilizer is washing out. And then you watch for deficiencies. They're not growing fast enough. They're yellow, that kind of thing, and fertilize accordingly.

Farmer Fred:

 I think among a lot of gardeners, when they see a suffering plant, the first thing they say is, “oh, it needs water”.

Debbie Flower:

 Oops.

Farmer Fred:

If it's in a container, you better check drainage. 

Debbie Flower:

 Check drainage. Stick your finger in there, even if it's in the ground. Stick your finger in there or use a moisture meter. But you have to know how a moisture meter works and check before you start applying water.

Farmer Fred:

But let's talk about direct sowing the flower seeds. And I think that's what most people will do. And you would do that, I would think, well after the last frost.

Debbie Flower:

Well, yes. Most of these want warmer temperatures. So you're going to wait probably till...

Farmer Fred:

 Mother's Day.

Debbie Flower:

 Yeah. When we'd be putting your tomatoes in the ground, whenever that is where you are. That's when you can start the direct seed. Zinnias do very well that way. Sunflowers, I only like to do direct. I've tried them in containers and they just poop out when you put them in the ground. Direct seed. Tithonia, which is a sunflower-ish plant and grows quite large. Sweet peas do well, direct seeded. Foxglove, I used to grow when I lived in a different climate and loved it. That's a biennial.

Farmer Fred:

 And you better define that.

Debbie Flower:

 Right. An annual completes its life cycle in one year. And it's typically just part of that year, one growing season. And  annual means yearly. And to complete its life cycle means It starts from seed, it grows up, flowers, fruits, produces seed, ripens seed, and then it dies. It has to die for the life cycle to be over. So, annuals are only good for one growing season, one summer, one winter, one spring, but they produce the most flowers for the size of the plant that they are. They just bloom their little hearts out because their job in the world is to produce seed, to replace themselves. So, they just keep making flowers and making seed. Perennials are persistent. They last more than one year. They can last 10 years. They can last 20 years if conditions are good.

Farmer Fred:

 I believe the official definition states sort of contractually that perennials last more than one year.

Debbie Flower:

Yes, that is true. More than one year. But they can last quite a long time. And so they start from seed one year, grow up, flower, produce fruit and seed. and then stop. Some of them die to the ground. Those are herbaceous perennials. You don't see them, but they'll reappear the next year. Others just sit around without flowers on them for a while. And then when the season comes around again for good growing, they'll grow and flower and fruit and produce seed again. That's a perennial, it’s persistent. And then there are biennials. Bi means two, and annual refers to year. And those are plants that complete their life cycle in two years. Foxglove is one. Hollyhocks typically are biennials, classically they are biennials. There's been a lot of breeding in both plants to push them out to be annuals, because annuals are more satisfying to people, right? They're going to get flowers that first year. They don't have to wait for the second year. 

Farmer Fred:

 Parsley in the vegetable garden is a biennial. It's one of my favorites. I'm even reluctant to yank out parsley in its second year because it produces flowers. I think that's one of the signs of a biennial is that in year number two, if you're growing it for the leaves, in the case of parsley, they may get a little bitter in Year 2. But the flower display is fabulous and it's attracting all sorts of beneficial insects.

Debbie Flower:

 Right. And occasionally, I haven't had it happen lately in my yard, but occasionally I'll get baby plants to come from that. 

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah. Seeds that have fallen to the ground and germinated.

Debbie Flower:

 Yes.  It's probably because I'm messing too much with my soil that I don't get them. I haven't gotten them lately. But yeah. So a biennial grows from seed and produces a plant the first year, that is just leaves. And it often doesn't look like the final plant. In the second year, it continues to grow. But then in the second year, as you said, it flowers and produces seed.

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Farmer Fred

Let’s continue talking flower seed starting basics with Debbie Flower. Let’s tackle the question, just how the heck do you plant a wildflower garden?

FLOWER SEED STARTING BASICS, Pt. 2

Farmer Fred:

One very popular flower to plant is not really a single one. It's usually a mix, a wildflower mix. And a wildflower mix is a little special in that, you are going to direct sow it into the garden at the right time of year for it to either germinate or wait until the rain becomes more consistent, which may not be until November or later and last through February or so.

Debbie Flower:

 Right.

Farmer Fred:

 And even though it's still a little cold outside, it's not freezing. But that gives the plant a better chance to germinate.

Debbie Flower:

Yeah. Whenever we direct seed, we want to prepare the soil, roughing it up. You don't want to plant on a hard, flat soil. The seeds will just roll away.

Farmer Fred:

 Pull the weeds out.

Debbie Flower:

 Pull the weeds out, right. Roughing up the soil, maybe add amendments. I'm not a big fan of that. And then plant the seeds and then cover them over. And then you have to make sure they stay moist until you know that they're established. And spacing is critical in direct seeding. That's the hardest thing for me with a mix. It's a mix of plants of different sizes. And some will germinate before others. You typically want the tall ones in the back and the short ones in the front, and you want them spaced enough that they can become a mature plant. And when people say, well, how much is that? And seed packets often don't tell you how wide a plant will get. They tell you how tall. And if they don't tell you how wide, then assume it'll get just as wide as it's going to get tall.

Farmer Fred:

  Now you have to explain to people why you're not a big fan of soil amendments in starting a new garden like that.

Debbie Flower:

 Well, the roots of a plant go, typical for a tree anyway, is two to three times away in distance, away from the trunk as the plant is tall. So, that means if you have a 10-foot tall tree or shrub, the roots in all directions will go 20 to 30 feet away from the plant.

Farmer Fred:

[20:57] Is that true with annuals too?

Debbie Flower:

 No. Annuals, they do spread, but not as far as with a tree. But they do spread. And so, if you're going to amend, you have to amend the whole root area.

Farmer Fred:

 We should point out too, for annual spreading, if it was planted correctly, they'll spread. If you take a cramped annual out of its little six pack and it's just a mass of roots and you don't try to separate those roots out and just plunk it into the soil, you just might have a stunted plant.

Debbie Flower:

 Right. 

Farmer Fred:

So how do you free up roots?

Debbie Flower:

I cut them. 

Farmer Fred

You cut them. 

Debbie Flower:

I cut them.

Farmer Fred:

 But through the side.

Debbie Flower:

I cut down the sides. If it's just like out of a jumbo pack, a really little, that's what, like an inch and a half, two inch. I'll just cut it in half with my pruning shears or a pair of scissors right across the bottom and maybe about halfway up the depth of the media.  Because it's so small.

Farmer Fred:

 You don’t run  your fingernails through the sides?

Debbie Flower:

I don't like to pull because it's like pulling your hair.  It goes all the way to the attachment to the plant. I would rather cut, get a clean cut. The plant has a better ability to close that wound that you make with a clean cut than it does one that's ragged from pulling. And you'll get new roots growing from behind the cut.

Farmer Fred:

 Then how do you get any satisfaction of dirt under your fingernails?

Debbie Flower:

 Oh, it's all dirty process.

Farmer Fred:

All right. So planting flower seeds, it's pretty simple. They shouldn't be planted until after the alleged last frost. Ensure your planting location gets the right amount of sunlight for the seeds. That information should be on a seed packet.

Debbie Flower:

 Should be on the packet.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah. Part shade is...

Debbie Flower:

 Six to eight hours of dappled sun.

Farmer Fred:

 Dappled sun. Okay. Full sun is eight or more hours.

Debbie Flower:

Of direct sun. Six to eight hours of direct sun. 

Farmer Fred:

Shade is shade. Or does shade include a couple hours of sun?

Debbie Flower:

Well, there's shade and there's deep shade. So it gets complicated.

Farmer Fred:

Yeah. Thank you for that.  So hopefully that information is on the packet. Usually if it's a wildflower mix, those require full sun. I think they do try, if they make a wildflower mix, it'll say if it's for sun or shade.

Debbie Flower:

 Yes, right. And one good thing to do if you're planting a wildflower mix is to put some seeds in a container where you can tend it and watch them grow. Because weed seeds are going to come up in that wildflower mix. And you want to know which one is the weed and which one is the desirable wildflower. And so if you start some in a container and use sterile media, there should not be any weeds in there. 

Farmer Fred:

“Should not” It's the operative phrase.

Debbie Flower:

 Yeah, right. You can compare what's in your container to what's outside and hopefully figure out which are the weeds and pull them out.

Farmer Fred:

 That is a good tip. How about, when planting a large wildflower garden, make it a two-year process.?You buy two packets or two pounds of, or not two pounds.

Debbie Flower:

 They sell them that way. 

Farmer Fred:

 Okay, out of that two-pound bag, take a small sample the first year and plant a scattering of it in that container and monitor it for the year to see what comes up. And that way you can identify, have an idea of which are the weeds and which are the flowers and how much space they'll need. And then in year two, if you've got that acre you want to fill with wildflowers, well, then now you have an idea of what's what as they come up.

Debbie Flower:

 I just do it at the same time. The only times I've done it, I just did it at the same time. So, the container and the outdoor planting at the same time. Because you can watch the seedlings. Seedlings don't always look like the plant. So, you can watch the seedlings in the pot and then go out and look at what's in the ground when it comes up.

Farmer Fred:

And you can also see which pests come by.

Debbie Flower:

 Yes.

Farmer Fred:

 If that happens as well. All right. So, full sun, part shade, full shade. You've prepared your soil. Did you break up the soil? Did you mix it in compost? Debbie wouldn't. But you could if you wanted to. Right. But not more than what, 20%?

Debbie Flower:

Right. Go much wider if you're going to do it and in all directions than where the seeds are going to go.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah, exactly.  The root area of that plant is going to take up a much larger space than that plant is going to take up. 

Debbie Flower:

And if you're doing a raised bed, then you just do the whole raised bed.  I have no objection to that.

Farmer Fred:

Watering has to be consistent. Yes. Especially for wildflowers. Of course, anything in containers for that matter. Sometimes a seed packet will tell you how far apart and how deep to plant the seeds. Sometimes it won't. Sow seeds densely only if you plan to thin the seedlings later.

Debbie Flower:

And then thin with the scissors.

Farmer Fred:

 Right, with the scissors. Yeah, you don't want to pull them out of the ground because you might disturb the roots of the plant you want to keep. Here's something we didn't talk about in any of the things that we've talked about with seeds. And it's important because it gives you a chance to talk about the DRAMM 1000. It is how you water a seed bed. That newly planted seed bed where the seed is invisible. The plant is invisible, but it's there and you need to keep it moist. How do you keep it moist without moving those seeds around?

Debbie Flower:

Well, I always cover my seeds with vermiculite. And even when I've planted it outside in the ground, at first, when you first plant them in the field, the vermiculite will shine and you can see where you've put the seeds. So you have to be able to identify where they are. And then I'll use a hose with a DRAMM. DRAMM is a brand, D-R-A-M-M. A rose is what it's called on the end of the wand and it has very fine holes in it

Farmer Fred:

  i think they actually call it a water breaker.

Debbie Flower:

Yeah i guess that is. but on a watering can it's a it's a rose.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah rose yeah okay and on.

Debbie Flower:

 The end of a hose it's a water breaker.

Farmer Fred:

 But the key is the fact i mean the the Dramm 400 does a good job too. Now we sound like we're pushing cars or something. But the DRAMM 400 has a lot of holes, too.  And describe your tip for how to water that seed bed with that.

Debbie Flower:

 We turn it upside down. This came from teaching students how to water seeds that they planted into six packs without causing the whole thing, all the media and the seeds to come out of the six pack and land on the greenhouse floor. so we want to take the wand that's on the end of the hose and have a breaker that has tiny holes and Dramm makes one with a thousand tiny holes in what is it about two inches Oh, yeah.

Farmer Fred:

About two and a half inches, I think.

Debbie Flower:

 Yeah. And I had them turn the water on and then turn the nozzle up. So it sprang in the air as if it were rain and then go back and forth over the six pack. It's totally different than how I would water an established plant, but it got water into the container without most of the seeds flying out of the container.

Farmer Fred:

And if you're thinking of using one of those multi-headed nozzles that has a shower setting. The shower setting on most of those nozzles, it sends out a very sharp stream of water. It's not a gentle stream of water. It's way too sharp. Whereas with the DRAMM 1000, and I guess if there's another manufacturer with a thousand hole water breaker head, it too would produce that very soft flow. Which is what you're looking for.

Debbie Flower:

It's what we're looking for. Right. The other thing we had available to us was a fog water breaker, but it took so long.

Farmer Fred:

 Because it's a mist. 

Debbie Flower:

 It's a mist. And I have 30 students who need to water, you know, six, six packs each. And it didn't work. If you're really patient, the fog would work too.

Farmer Fred:

 Wow. I just found a water nozzle here with 2000 holes.

Debbie Flower:

 Wow. I didn't know about that one.

Farmer Fred:

 Yeah. I'm not sure it wouldn't be very, oh, I see. It comes with a filter. I was going to say, I bet that would jam up like crazy. Right.

Debbie Flower:

 Filter would be required.

Farmer Fred:

 Really, if you grow plants from seed, and especially if you direct seed, and that could be for anything you grow it, not just flowers, but vegetables as well, is you want that water breaker nozzle for the end of your hose.

Debbie Flower:

 Right. If it hits too hard, your seeds will go flying up in the air and land somewhere else.

Farmer Fred:

And if it rains, they will do that too.

Debbie Flower:

Yes, which is why I put the vermiculite on top. Seeds get buried. Most seeds get buried, not all. Yeah. But I still put the vermiculite on top as protection.

Farmer Fred:

 Would you put a row cover over it?

Debbie Flower:

 I've never done that. Well, I've done it. Not really a row cover. I've used newspaper. .

Farmer Fred:

 Oh, your newspaper hats.

Debbie Flower:

Well, no, this was just laying flat newspaper. Okay. When I'm planting in a particularly hot and dry time of the year, it's not really ideal for starting seeds, but I need something to hold, to cut the solar impact. So, stop the sun and to hold moisture. And wet newspaper will do that.

Farmer Fred:

 Now explain to people what a newspaper is.

Debbie Flower:

 I still get one. Only on Sunday, though.

Farmer Fred:

 So, there you go. It's amazing what you can grow when it comes to flowers from seed and they'll all do well. And you have your list of the ones that do best. You had zinnias and marigolds. And what else there on your list?

Debbie Flower:

Tithonia, Alyssum, direct seeding sunflowers, Cosmos, Nicotiana for fragrance. I didn't mention Scarlet Runner beans. They are inedible, but they are a very vigorous vine and they are non-toxic. I found this out when my son was in a daycare in Nevada and the playground was gravel and it faced due west of a brick building and it was surrounded by a parking lot and a cyclone fence. It was brutal. And so I asked if I could plant something on the fence. And of course, I'm doing this for all the kids in the daycare. And I don't want anyone to eat anything or touch it and have a problem. So I did lots of research. And scarlet runner beans are totally non-toxic. The leaves, the pods, the beans themselves. And they're pretty. The pods are pretty. The beans are pretty. And the flowers are red. And the kids just loved it. And so do hummingbirds. So, I planted it all around the playground, between the playground and the parking lot on the cyclone fence. And beans are tricky. The soil needs to be very warm. It took several plantings before it took off. But once it did, it was a hit.

Farmer Fred:

 Did you have to soak those seeds first?

Debbie Flower:

 I didn't soak the seeds, no. But I had to go there daily and water them.

Farmer Fred:

 I bet you did. All right, then. Flower seeds. If you've never grown it from seed, again, just like tomatoes or peppers, you're going to find varieties that you've never heard of before, some spectacular varieties. Zinnias. I mean, zinnias is an easy flower to grow, but the varieties carried at a nursery are very limited, whereas in a catalog, I mean, you're staring at it.

Debbie Flower:

 Pages and pages and pages. Yeah, those are beautiful.

Farmer Fred:

 Those are a couple of zinnias sitting right there on the windowsill there from my cut flower garden. Those are the Zowie Yellow Flame Zinnia.

Debbie Flower:

They are gorgeous.

Farmer Fred:

 And you're not going to find those at a nursery. You're going to have to grow those from seed, but it's worth it. It's a long season of brilliant red and yellow color.

Debbie Flower:

 Right.

Farmer Fred:

 If you like zinnias. There. Have we satisfied people's seed planting needs?

Debbie Flower:

 I hope they'll ask questions if we haven't.

Farmer Fred:

 Yes, exactly. Thank you very much for that. Debbie Flower, thanks so much.

Debbie Flower:

You're welcome, Fred.

Farmer Fred:

 Now I'm thinking this chair is going to be always squeaking.

Debbie Flower:

It's like my shoes.

WANT TO LEAVE US A QUESTiON?

Farmer Fred

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Farmer Fred

Garden Basics with Farmer Fred comes out every Friday and it's brought to you by Dave Wilson Nursery. Garden Basics is available wherever podcasts are handed out. For more information about the podcast, as well as an accurate transcript of the podcast, visit our website, gardenbasics.net. And thank you so much for listening and your support.