What else can I pasteurize?

The thing is, there is no point pasteurizing your soil if you're going to touch it with the same germy tools you use in the contaminated soil. So then, you're supposed to pasteurize / sterilize everything that will come into contact with the soil. And me without an autoclave...

Ok, I boiled some forks and spoons, which I will be using to scoop the soil into the pots and cultivate it. I didn't boil the containers themselves, which are 4" geranium starter pots. Being made of plastic, I don't think they'd take kindly to boiling. I did wash them with dish soap, as I don't have bleach on hand just now. These pots have never been used anyway, so there is no reason they should have seed-eating vermin in them yet.

You know what else might be carrying vermin though? The seeds. What if there is vermin on the seeds? I guess the baobab seeds are safe since I boil them before seeding anyway, but what about the kwyjibo seeds?

Ha. If you thought gardening was a sound, relaxing pastime, you've come to the wrong blog.

How to pasteurize soil

Actually, I have no idea, in that I'm quite sure I'm not in the process of succeeding. But in theory, here is how you either pasteurize or sterilize soil, depending who you ask.

Moisten soil, to the moisture content you want for planting. Put soil in an oven-safe dish, no more than four inches deep (the soil, not the dish). Cover tightly. Stick a meat thermometer into the soil. Then, heat the soil until the internal temperature reaches 180 F, and maintain this temperature for 30 minutes. Done.

First caveat: allegedly, this process produces a foul odour. Second caveat: allegedly, if you cook your soil to 200 F, it will produce toxic chemicals that will kill your plants.

Ok. Whatever. I wasn't gonna try it, but I'm getting more and more seeds that are expensive (as seeds go) and hard to germinate, and which therefore spend a long time in the ground getting eaten by the fungi. Usually I just pour boiling water on the soil, on the theory that more heat for a shorter time works for milk, and what's good for milk has got to be good for soil. Nonetheless, I decided that perhaps I should try the real deal. Except I don't have a meat thermometer, nor did I feel like buying one, so I thought, "meh."

Ok. I wet the soil, put it in the dish, covered with foil, preheated oven to 180 F. Except the markings start at 200 F, so that was a best guess anyway. And then I suddenly remembered that the last time I used this oven, being in 2009, it didn't work right and took hours to bake anything, and I had to turn it way up. Hmmmmm... Then I remembered that allegedly it was repaired in 2010, but I haven't baked since, so I have no idea whether it's really fixed.

Hmmmmmm...

I used to bake and cook, you know. Before I became a bitter old spinster. But anyway.

After the soil had been in the oven 15 minutes, I decided it mustn't be working, because there was no foul odour. But then I noticed corrosive fumes, which however were not previously mentioned, and might be caused, possibly, by the oven being dirty, or maybe there are cobwebs in there or whatever. In any case, I figured that corrosive fumes were just as good as foul odours. I opened the window, which was stupid since I only just yesterday got the landlord to put the heat up, after the temperature in my apartment had reached down to 62 F. Then I went to walk the dog, leaving the oven on, the window open, and some scented candles burning, none of which are safe practices. Oh well. My Field Level Risk Assessment tells me this was a low-priority hazard.

Returning from my walk 45 minutes later, I detected more corrosive fumes, but still no foul odour. I opened the oven, still no foul odour. Hmmmm...

At first I decided to leave well enough alone, until I remembered that soil most definitely produces a characteristic smell when you pour boiling water on it, and therefore if it wasn't smelling, it really mustn't be hot enough. Stupid oven... And stupid me for being too lazy to get that meat thermometer.

So, at the time of writing, the soil is still in the oven, now cranked to 250 F, the window still open, and still no foul odour detected. Sigh... I'd really like to go to bed, you know.

Now you might be thinking that the question is not so much "how" as "why" I'm pasteurizing soil. Simple. As you recall, some seeds rot instead of growing. This is due to vermin in the soil such as larvae, fungi, molds, bacteria, and who knows what else. Also, all my soil is riddled with zombie seeds. Pasteurizing is supposed to get rid of just about every living thing in the soil, so your seeds don't get eaten.

Wait and see, I guess. Or keep calm and carry on. Or something.

A tip on filling planters

I hope no one is actually taking advice from me, because I don't really know what I'm doing, but I'll tell you something about filling planters. If you just fill the pot to the top and soak it like it says on the bag of potting soil, it will have air gaps and will settle afterwards, leaving roots exposed.

What you want to do is work in layers. Four to six inches, pack down with your hand until it won't pack any more, then soak with water. See if any part of the soil sinks after the water recedes. If so, it needs more packing. If not, do another layer, and so on.

It's also good to have a reserve of soil handy, in case settling happens anyway. If there are a lot of gaps, the soil will keep settling after each watering, and you'll have to keep topping it up until it stops moving.

How to water plants

In the last five days I've put almost 136 L of water into my garden, not counting the lawn. Now I think I should be able to water less for a while, because most of the planters are saturated. The morning glories and pumpkins are always thirsty, because their planters are too small to have any reserve, but the others can hold water for some time.

This is where I get my information on watering:

"You need to allow water to soak deep into the soil, to encourage roots to grow deeper. Shallow watering makes for shallow roots, and when the soil surface dries out, the roots do too. Soil always dries at the surface first, so plants with deep roots need watering less often... More water less often is better than less water more often."

Lois Hole, Lois Hole's Perennial Favorites, p.44.

You people don't know Lois Hole, but she was the Lieutenant-Governor of Alberta for a while and a fantastic gardener. She and her husband and sons ran one of the largest garden centres in Alberta and she wrote lots of books and newspaper columns. So if she says so, she probably knows what she's talking.

It's pretty obvious anyway. Roots go looking for water. If there is some deep in the ground, they go deep. Deep roots hold to the ground better and have access to more water. You don't even have to get told to see that it's obvious.

However, that's for in-ground gardens. Planters lose moisture from the top and bottom, and if you use clay pots, through the pot as well. So I've been phasing out the regular old planters with a hole in the bottom, and buying only the new style with a false bottom that catches the excess water without giving it a huge surface area to sit in the sun and evaporate. Only planters 0 through 3 are the old style, all the rest have false bottoms. But even so, the soil isn't necessarily saturated just because there is water in the bottom of the pot. Most of my planters reabsorb the excess water very quickly, because they use up the water that's in the soil. When they stop absorbing, they're saturated.

Thus, the maydays and geraniums are not getting watered every day, because they're not using up their water. Even though they're sitting in full sun in a heat wave, the surface of the soil is still moist, so I know they have reserves. The morning glories and pumpkins are getting watered several times a day because the planters aren't big enough to keep any reserves and they keep sucking up the water endlessly. I've never got to a point with them where they wouldn't take any more water.

The one thing that gives me pause is my lemons. Last time I repotted them, they had tiny shallow little roots, so clearly they need more water, but on the other hand, they never want any, and as a species they actually don't like a lot of water. So they rarely get any water, because they're not asking for any, and then they end up having root problems. However, as long as they're still alive, there's hope.

Full sun, part sun, part shade, full shade

I've always rather wondered what that means, so I finally googled it.

Full sun: six hours of direct sunlight a day, or more.

Part sun, part shade: three to six hours of direct sunlight a day. The two terms are more or less equivalent.

Full shade: less than three hours of direct sunlight a day.

Well, that was easy. Now I just need to sit on my balcony all day and chart the progress of the shade. Fun times!

One more gardening tip (reprint from my other blog)

Very important tip that I forgot: if you're having trouble with your garden, grow annuals.

"Annuals", as the name entails, go through their whole lifecycle in one year. So you go from seed in the spring to flowers in the summer to seed production in the fall. If you let the seeds fall where they may, they can grow again in the same spot the next year and give the illusion of the same plant coming up again and again. That's what happens with Insanity Plant. Morning glories are annuals, so Insanity Plant isn't the same plant I seeded in 2009, or the same one I had in 2010. It's a new plant every year, descended from the one the year before. (In fact it's not "a" plant but a large number of separate vines all tangled together, but they're like Borg, really.)

Perennials, on the other hand, live more than two years. Trees, for example, are perennials. So this poses several gardening challenges. First of all many perennials don't bloom the first year; in fact many of them are supposed to be seeded in the fall, not in the spring. So you don't get the satisfaction of having something to show for your efforts. Second, if they die, you're a lot more invested in them. An annual is an annual; you knew it was gonna die by the end of summer anyway, so what does it matter if it dies? But a perennial can outlive you. Some peonies can live more than a hundred years. There are trees 5000 years old. So if your perennial dies, it wasn't supposed to, which means you screwed up, which makes you sad and demoralized.

And third, you have to find a way to winter your perennials. If you live somewhere that doesn't freeze in winter, it's probably easy. Anywhere else, either you can plant perennials that are hardy in your climate, or you're gonna have issues. I'm in hardiness zone 0a, which means not a lot of anything can survive the winter up here. Not only that, perennials that are hardy in the ground are not hardy in containers on a seventh-floor balcony. That's part of why my Jungle never succeeds, actually. A lot of what I throw in there at random is perennials, and I've never bothered wintering it properly. This year, because I've planted many perennials on purpose, I'm hatching a plan to see them through the winter. I have no idea if it will work, but I'll try. All my other perennials are gonna be inside, meaning pansies, oriental lily, English daisies, and all the trees. The lemon trees are never going to winter outside, obviously, but the chokecherries will if I can make the Jungle survive this winter.

Now the thing is though, plants need to be dormant in winter. So normally if you have perennials in containers, you put them in your garage, where it's most dark and cool, and they sleep until spring. Since I don't have a garage, I have to find a way to make my perennials hibernate at room temperature. Hmmmm... Well I know the lemons do it, because they work off the hours of daylight, but I have no idea how everyone else will behave. The plan so far is to move things into my hallway as they go dormant. Then they'll be at least out of the sunlight - and in my feng shui again, but oh well. We'll call them "decor" and not "clutter" and pretend they're energizing my relationship luck.

So all this to say, if you have any gardening troubles, stick with annuals, then at least you won't have to deal with the winter issues.

Gardening tips (reprint from my other blog)

Reader comment: "I have a brown thumb."

You know what? So did I. Nothing I planted before 2009 grew. I can't even grow mold. When I had an aquarium, there was a parasitic plant I liked that most people hate, so I would get some from the pet store and put it in my tank, and it would die. Though I've always been quite good with lawns, I must say. Particularly since even dandelions don't want to grow in my yard.

And yet, it's now working for me. So in case anyone is looking to me as a gardening guru, I thought I'd share what I think might be the secrets to such success as I have now.

First of all, containers. It's way easier to garden in containers than in-ground gardens, because potting soil is healthier, and you have complete control over the conditions. I particularly like containers with a false bottom, that way they drain into themselves and don't need a saucer. So you fill the container with potting soil, pack it down, and then saturate it with water until it drains out the bottom. Then you fluff the surface with a fork, and away you go.

Second, seeds. Like I keep saying, they're much cheaper than bulbs or nursery plants. When you get 50 seeds for $3, you can afford to let 49 of them die, really. And it's a lot less demoralizing to plant 50 seeds and have 2 survive, than to plant one nursery plant and watch it die a slow and painful death. Seeds are tiny and they die quietly under the dirt where no one cares, and if you have a success rate of 4%, that's more than enough, whereas with nursery plants, you need almost 100% success to feel happy.

Third, I plant wildflowers. Because they're essentially weeds. My theory is, the difference between a weed and a flower is that a weed is something that grows when you don't want it to, whereas a flower is something that refuses to grow when you want it to. And the difference between wildflowers and weeds is, a wildflower grows in the wild, whereas a weed grows in your garden. So if you plant weeds and call them flowers instead, all of a sudden you're a great gardener. So that's what I did. The first year, I planted morning glories, cornflowers, and a "wildflower mix". All these are weeds, so they were easy to grow. In additon, the wildflower mix was awesome because I had no idea what was in it, so I couldn't very well be disappointed, and by making a note of what came up that I liked, I had an instant list of pretty flowers that I knew would grow under the conditions I provide.

And fourth, don't negotiate with your plants. For the longest time, I tried to follow all the crazy instructions, and nothing worked. Then one day I thought "I'm done letting you bully me, you plants. I throw you in the dirt, you either turn into a flower or die. See if I care." So I threw them in the dirt. Some died. The ones who are happy with the way things are done at my house lived. Then I planted more of the same, because I knew they'd grow at my house. And I think that's really the key to success. All plants have some ideas of how much light, water, sand, fertilizer, blah blah blah, whatever they want. I don't want to listen to their demands. But if I only grow plants that want the exact conditions I provide, then they'll thrive without any effort on my part. Fiendishly simple, isn't it?

So my advice is, if you have a brown thumb and still want to garden, get a big container, fill it with good quality potting soil, sow a mix of wildflower seeds, put it in a sunny spot, and leave it alone. Most wildflowers don't like a lot of water, so what I do is, I shake the container. Soil is light; water is heavy. So if the container feels heavy, it's still wet. If it feels light, it needs water. Or if the plants are drooping, it needs water. I use a nice all-purpose water-soluble fertilizer which I add to the water every time I water. And that's about it. Then once your first wildflowers grow, you'll know exactly what your garden is suitable for, and you can buy plants that will work for you.

More gardening tips

How to tell weeds apart from valuable plants: grab stem and pull up. If it comes out of the ground easily, it's a valuable plant.