Growing food in the Mountains

[Watch Ryder]

Growing food in the mountains where the growing season is ultra-short is difficult, but not impossible.

Stuff like lettuce, raddish, spinnach is easy. Bit longer with carrots though.

Best to have a greenhouse too, the tricky thing is the higher you go, the more the snowfall, meaning you'd better protect that delicate glass / plastic from the crushing weight of it.

[Absolutely!]

As a gardener I have a few tips to add in here:

1. mix seed for things like carrots with about 2 cups of sand or fine seed raising mix in a bowl before spreading. This way you get an even spread. water your soil BEFORE sprinkling the mixed seed evenly over the top, and then press down relatively firmly. Spray with a misting bottle to moisten. Do not water again until you see sprouts, unless it starts to dry out. If it starts to dry out spray with your mister bottle.

2. If you need to water again and you only have a bottle? Pour the water into a spoon hovering over the soil, or put holes in the lid of the bottle. Anything to stop that deluge crashing into the seeds. Do not pour water straight. it will disarrange the seed badly.

3. When planting carrots, ensure what you are planting into is deeper than the ensuing carrot by at least 2 times. That container he is using is only about 6 inches of soil so unless Mike is planting french dwarfs his carrots will be badly stunted and he just won't get a result. In fact even french dwarfs need a better environment than that. Not only does the container need to contain an actual carrot of maybe 8", but it needs to contain the feeder roots which come off that tuber, and do the actual work.

4. The soil he is sowing seed into is desperately dry and will create pockets of hydrophobia which simply will never moisten. He needed to ensure that soil was thoroughly moistened before he planted. Three slops with a bottle won't make the tiniest bit of difference.

5. Can you put in there why Mike covered everything with the straw? I heard the narrator asking if it was to deter the birds, or what. Then mike spoke but the music was too loud. It is a good idea for heat stopping or moisture loss. But not too much or no germination.

as a critique, I have to wonder at people who clearly don't know how to do things making videos for other people who don't know how to do things. I think it perpetuates ignorance and confusion. It's best to make a video of someone who does know how to do it, so that people watching can learn how to do things well, rather than badly. I will be intrigued to see if any of those seeds come up. I'm betting they won't.

[Mayaca]

As a gardener I have a few tips to add in here:

as a critique, I have to wonder at people who don't know how to do things making videos for other people who don't know how to do things.

Love this.

You know Abs, I don't always agree with you, but I always know where you stand and I love that about you.

This time you nailed it perfectly.

[Watch Ryder]

Thanks for the critique, I'll try and relay that to Mike and see what he says...

I like what you wrote.

About the sand and seeds being mixed though... how does that help exactly?

[Absolutely!]

Love this.

You know Abs, I don't always agree with you, but I always know where you stand and I love that about you.

This time you nailed it perfectly.

If everybody told the simple truth all the time the world would be saved a lot of pain.

I admire this person's attempts and interest and enthusiasm. it's very hard when you are young to learn rather than teach. You want to share. It's an act of generosity and caring. Every instinct is to give, not take.

But it is dangerous. And young people with their enthusiasm sometimes lack a sense of responsibility for the consequences of what they teach. They don't always fully investigate if they're right or not.

I suffer from enthusiasm myself. It's a terrible disorder.

[Absolutely!]

Thanks for the critique, I'll try and relay that to Mike and see what he says...

I like what you wrote.

About the sand and seeds being mixed though... how does that help exactly?

Some seeds are tiny and some seeds are big. There are 2 ways to sow seed, individually in a determined pattern for big seeds, or 'broadcast' style for the tiny seeds.

When you broadcast it can be very difficult to avoid getting a giant clump of thirty seeds in one tiny 1/4" space and then nothing all over somewhere else. this is what this guy had. He mainly spread the seeds in a kind of new moon shape to the left and ran out before doing the main part of the pot.

When you mix the seed in with sand, you have now much more bulk. When you put a sprinkle somewhere, you have automatically thinned the seeds out, and will automatically disperse them further.

You won't run out. The more sand you put in there, the better you disperse the seed. And the better you disperse the seed, the less thinning you will have to do in a few weeks, and the more carrots you will get to keep to grow to maturity.

[Absolutely!]

For what it's worth, in an environment where you really don't have much water, the best way to organise your sowing is this:

1. get an old icecream container or similar and fill it full of finer dirt or seed raising mix. Moisten well and firm down.

2. Get a pair of tweezers out, and pick up individual seeds, sowing them at about 1 1/2 inch centres in a grid pattern across the container.

3. Gently cover with the correct amount of soil (usually the same 'depth' as the length of the seed itself but the packet will give you a depth.)

4. Spray mist with a bottle.

5. After germination, 'prick out'. This involves taking a teaspoon and digging out your baby plant with as much of its roots as you can manage, and then planting it out. Some places put it into a bigger container but that's just work. For me I let the first couple of natural leaves arrive (not just the cotyledons) and then dig it out and put in the garden. carrots have to be done quick, because they're a rooting plant. lettuces you can leave till they have much more root.

This means you are not watering an entire garden bed while things germinate. You can control climate, control light, easily and without fuss, for the first four weeks of your plant's life. You can start it earlier, and you save a lot of water this way. You think it is fuss to place with tweezers tiny little seeds? it takes five minutes. It is really not much fuss at all. Just fiddly.

You save an incredible amount of seeds, too, because there is no thinning and each seed gets a reasonable shot at life. Also some seed won't geerminate, and when you plot out into your garden at 14cm centres or whatever you do; you will only put those carrots that survived the germination. You get better cover on the ground (better moisture retention of the soil because leaves above the soil shade it evenlly) and more carrot all round.

And one packet lasts you all year.

[gamgee]

For what it's worth, in an environment where you really don't have much water, the best way to organise your sowing is this:

1. get an old icecream container or similar and fill it full of finer dirt or seed raising mix. Moisten well and firm down.

2. Get a pair of tweezers out, and pick up individual seeds, sowing them at about 1 1/2 inch centres in a grid pattern across the container.

3. Gently cover with the correct amount of soil (usually the same 'depth' as the length of the seed itself but the packet will give you a depth.)

4. Spray mist with a bottle.

5. After germination, 'prick out'. This involves taking a teaspoon and digging out your baby plant with as much of its roots as you can manage, and then planting it out. Some places put it into a bigger container but that's just work. For me I let the first couple of natural leaves arrive (not just the cotyledons) and then dig it out and put in the garden. carrots have to be done quick, because they're a rooting plant. lettuces you can leave till they have much more root.

This means you are not watering an entire garden bed while things germinate. You can control climate, control light, easily and without fuss, for the first four weeks of your plant's life. You can start it earlier, and you save a lot of water this way. You think it is fuss to place with tweezers tiny little seeds? it takes five minutes. It is really not much fuss at all. Just fiddly.

You save an incredible amount of seeds, too, because there is no thinning and each seed gets a reasonable shot at life. Also some seed won't geerminate, and when you plot out into your garden at 14cm centres or whatever you do; you will only put those carrots that survived the germination. You get better cover on the ground (better moisture retention of the soil because leaves above the soil shade it evenlly) and more carrot all round.

And one packet lasts you all year.

Good advice. Also, I enjoy that you alternate between inches and centimeters.
It's very cosmopolitan.

[Smudge]

@Absolutely have you considered a yt channel, blog or just starting random informational threads here?

[Absolutely!]

Good advice. Also, I enjoy that you alternate between inches and centimeters.
It's very cosmopolitan.

I am a changeover baby born on the cusp of imperial to metric in New Zealand. i couldn't tell you the inch value of 15cms any more than I could tell you the cm value of 1/4 inch. I cook recipes containing 4 oz butter, 4 oz flour, and 250g raisins.

@Absolutely have you considered a yt channel, blog or just starting random informational threads here?

No I have no land. When I get this next house (If I get this next house) it has a back yard with nothing there, I will turn it into garden and take some photos maybe.

[arrowNZ]

Wow good posts Abs. I always have a bad time sewing carrot seeds and usually end up with alot of clumps of 20 carrots cramed together with very few in between.
Mind you this year I had a total loss as none of the seeds germinated
I might have to get you in in an advisory roll to show me where I stuffed up.
Tomatoes and lettuces though I have way more than I wanted.

[HeavyHauler]

Wow, I learned a lot Abs; way better than my way of planting carrots.

Thank you!