San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden presents a wild mushroom presentation by Dennis Sheridan on Saturday, February 11 from 1pm to 2pm. Join local photographer and mycologist Dennis Sheridan for a discussion on commonly seen mushrooms in our area, the role of mushrooms as decomposers, and the beneficial mycorrhizal fungi relationships mushrooms have with plants. Bring your questions and mushrooms for identification. This is a child-(and adult) friendly talk and there will be hands-on mushrooms to admire at the end of the talk, followed by a mushroom walk through the Garden.
Dennis Sheridan is a naturalist and outstanding photographer who has been a friend of the Garden for years. He has given programs on insects in conjunction with the Natural History Museum and has traveled throughout the world, pursuing his passions of nature and photography.
Presentation is $5 for members/$10 non-members. For more information contact Kristina Van Wert at (805) 541-1400 ext 305 or volunteers@slobg.org.
San Luis Obispo Botanical Garden is located on 150 acres in El Chorro Regional Park off Highway One between Morro Bay and San Luis Obispo, at 3450 Dairy Creek Rd. When the master plan is complete, the Garden will be the only garden of its kind in the United States exclusively devoted to the ecosystems and plants of the five mediterranean climate regions of the world. Through its programs and facilities, the Garden fosters an appreciation and understanding of the relationship between people and nature and encourages a sense of stewardship for the natural environment.
summertime is the fun time….
but it’s not as good at bringing harvest to you as fall is….
and I think life is the same… your summertime is the fun time, fall brings the harvest…
but your wintertime will ask you if you planted well, and harvested fully enough to last through winter.
These are some clamshell fossils in sedimentary rock….
They are unusually displayed due to the odd direction of erosion which is exposing the bi-valve instead of the clamshell face…
I found this rock in an old streambed in the California desert…
I was on foot and had to carry it about 6 miles… it only weighs about ten pounds…
but walking through shifting sand, mile after mile, it seemed heavier.
Our front yard
Here it is in our front yard…. behind the comfrey…..
Our front yard
This is not an imported mulch, but is the mowed grasses that grow through our mild wet winters… we mow them in the springtime after they have gone to seed…. since we want the ground shaded and lmulched, we leave the grasses on teh ground where they form a home-grown mulch that we did not have to buy, and we aren’t importing any materials that might contain poisons or weeds I’m not familiar with…. these local grasses I can adjust to…. we’ve worked our operation arund having them, and now they give us free mulch, jsut for cutting them after they seed.
A resort under construction in Malibu contacted us and asked for a few hundred cactus cuttings to be planted around the edges of their property, to cover the new shiny fence. They are working their grounds over using bio-dynamic means… and are trying to procure organic materials where they can. Since Malibu is so close, it seemed a fitting thing to just load them into a van and run them down the coast… that way we can give them even larger-than-usual cuttings…
I was VERY impressed with the history of the ranch the spa is being built on. It was connected to a person well-known to people of the world. It has quite a storied past…. even more is the location of the spa itself… high on top of a hill in the Santa Monica Mountains…. with a great view of the sea….. stunning. There’s not much that could make me want to leave this canyon I call home…. the Santa Monica Mountains and Malibu is a sure thing to attract me.
roof condensation
Cactus have little holes to breath through like most other plants…. they are called stomata. Most plants do their breathing in the daytime when the sun is shining and powering the miracle called photosynthesis.. this is when the plants need to exchange their gasses and exchange their waste Oxygen for the Carbon Dioxide they need…. but cactus don’t want to do that on a hot summer day… they’d lose too much water in the dry heat.. so they have a special way to do these.. they keep the stomata closed in the daytime, ’store’ the waste Oxygen in acid packs near the stomata…. and in the nighttime they will open up and exchange the gasses, losing less internal moisture in the cooler moister night air.
But when you cut a thousand pounds of cactus, and set it into a van overnight… all that released water vapor will fill the van.. and when it gets cold, the moisture near the cold metal will condense…. so in the morning the roof was dripping water… and I had to wipe the interior of the windows to see out.
Double-cuttings for Malibu
Since we didn’t have to worry about shipping costs, we were able to give them extra large cuttings. They were really impressed with the cactus, and very enthusiastic… they asked if I’d be willing to come by and look them over on occasion…. yes….. anything to get me to Malibu! And also… this resort is going to be stunning…. they don’t have construction workers doing the work… they have craftsmen and artisans…. the entire place is going to be a massive work of art… and I like art a lot… let me see the painting when it is finished!
Tobacco is an interesting plant. It has a long history of use in the Americas, where many tribes had varieties adapted to their area and passed down for millenia. Tobacco only takes a few years of pollinating in a new area before it has substantially changed its characteristics. This means that any people taking seeds to a new area, will have what is essentially a new variety better suited to the local area in just a few decades, even less.
tiny tobacco seeds
Tobacco seeds are tiny. Here are some on my finger.
Sow them into decent but very fine soil in a pot.. water it well, and after it has drained, press the soil down to make it very flat… make sure it has settled well, and the excess water drained… so let it sit for an hour or even overnight….
dip your finger into the seed pack and get some seeds on your finger like this… and gentle rub finger and thumb together to drop some fifty seeds into a pot. You can’t space these things.. they’re too small. You don’t want to cover them… just gently press the soil down to make sure they have good soil contact, cover the pot with a clear plastic or glass lid, or a plastic wrap to keep humidity up.
Spray it with a misting hand-sprayer every couple of days. Open the plastic cover to let them breath for a short time a few times daily. You want to keep the soil surface moist, and the humidity inside a bit high by covering it.. but you don’t want it to stay so muggy without relief that molds start to grow. This again brings up the importance of using a good commercial soil and seed starting mix.
tiny tobacco seeds
It can take a week or two to germinate. Keep them a bit moist, let them air-dry daily….
The photo below shows some tobacco seedlings eight days after the seeds were planted….
tobacco seeds sprouting
This is the surface of a three by three by three inch pot. the plants will spend a couple of weeks in here before being separated into individual pots to grow another few weeks outdoors in carefully controlled conditions before being transplanted into the garden. For the first six weeks they need to be coddled….. they are not hard to keep up… but they do have to be given a certain amount of moisture, humidity,soft sunlight… at this stage, growing them for weeks in a tiny pot that takes only nine square inches makes it easy to give them attention. In a few weeks, they wil be planted into quart size planting pots…. that will take more space… so they’ll go outside at that time to rest under the oak trees on a table.. up off the ground.. in a light shade that will give them light and allow them to grow, but keep them from roasting in the sun while in pots.
close-up of tobacco seeds sprouting
Here is an extreme close-up of sprouting tobacco seeds.
Notice the white cushiony things… they are perlite used to make a soil mix more open, aerated and well draining.
The surface of the soil is wet with moisture… we’d just sprayed this soil.. but you can see how the film of water is adhered to the soil by capillary action.
Examine the tiny seeds with sprouts exposed… they are sitting on the soil, not in it.. they need light to germinate… so keep them under a light source. A heating mat will help them germinate better due to higher soil temps.The photos above were taken eight days after sowing the seeds.
We got the seeds from seedman.com and found them to be very prompt, selling what they advertise, and with high germination rates. They also have a large selection of medicinal herb seeds..
Lettuce is one of the best home crops for the family garden. Lettuce can be hard to get fresh at times, and the price may be high, but lettuce can be grown in many conditions. Even unprotected it can take cold down to the low thirties. It can grow well in cool temperatures, even in snow conditions if in cold frames.
The best way to get them started is indoors.. this will allow you to get them off to a good start. It will help keep the seeds warmer to sprout quickly… a set of lights can be kept on them until they have been up for a couple of days, at that time I take them outdoors daily, to sit in the sunshine or breezy conditions. The idea here is to give them some sunshine so they will grow quickly… but when it’s dark or cold outside, have them under lights indoors so they will grow quickly and be strong.
Start with quality seeds, and don’t store them more than a couple of years…. once germination gets spotty as they age, it becomes sad to see just a few weak plants…. a healthy seedling needs to set out a root quickly and be able to help the leaves spread, taking in nutrients and converting them to energy. A healthy strong root is a good beginning to a healthy strong plant that will grow quickly rewarding you greatly for your time in growing them.
Use a good high-quality potting or seedling mix. I use our own home made compost made from cactus. I’ve not found anything that grows seedlings like it will… but it has weed seeds in it…. the scientists would say to sterilize it to kill pathogens and weeds.. yet I think that would also kill the good critters in the soil that make our soil so healthy….. so I start with the knowing that I WILL have weeds… so I encourage you.. most folks are better off paying a bit for a bag of seedling mix…
I like to start with a single small pot. This allows me to use the least amount of space under the lights… for the first week or so, they will take hardly any space.. . fill the pot to near the rim and press it down, add water, letting the entire soil-mix get a good amount of water. When it is fairly well saturated, let it drain for a time, then press the mix down with your fingers.. firming it to remove all air pockets. Then I take the seeds and sprinkle 25 or 50 of them over the surface of the soil. I use a mix from Johnny’s Selected seeds that is a mix of four varieties of leaf lettuces. I then sprinkle a tiny bit of the soil mix over the top of the seeds.. you barely want any soil….. 1/4 inch or so… and it must like all the rest be nicely screened. Then cover the pot with plastic wrap or a saucer and set it in a warm spot for a few days. The photo below was taken eight days after the lettuce seeds were placed into the small square pot. Once they start getting their first true leaves, it is time to ‘prick’ them out and put them into individual containers. You can see there are green and red lettuces in the mix.. and two nettle seedlings among the lettuces, those came from the compost.
These seeds started sprouting and exposed themselves above the seed mix four days after being seeded. These first few photos are the seedlings 8 days after sowing… they now have their first true leaves…. but they are too close together to grow for long in this small pot. They cannot ever grow to maturity, and are prone to disease at this close of a spacing.. so we now need to transplant them into planting packs that will have individual planting cells.. this will make perfect spacing in the garden easy. The tray to the left has the new cells that the plants will be placed into. It is filled with the same compost we used in the planting block… our own screened compost.
8 days since-seeding lettuces, ready for transplant into new cells
To get the seedlings out, you invert the pot into your hand sliding the cube of soil out, and then you gently split it into two pieces.. lay one half aside and work on the one for now… never let the sunlight hit the roots if you can help it. Also, minimize root exposure to the open air.. the more air and sun they get, the more they can become injured. Never hold the stem of the plant nor the leaf stems. Hold the plants by a leaf.. this is a good handle, and your fingers will be able to more easily grip it without damaging it. While holding a leaf you can pry the soil from the roots.. and gently remove a plant from the cube of soil.
lettuce seedlings being separated for transplant
The photo below show a lettuce seedling being dropped into a hole drilled into a transplant cell using a pen. Let the root go in.. you will have to shake the plants sometimes…. maybe even push soil down pushing the roots down gently as you lower it. This photos shows how hard the healthy seed has worked to make a huge root… don’t hurt it. Firm the soil around the seedlings after you press them in.. and then water from below, just to make sure it’s all moist.
setting lettuce seedlings into individual growing cells
The photos below shows our light set-up. we’ve used the same tubes and fixtures for almost 20 years. They cost about $10 a set when we got them….. we had to replace a light bulb for the first time this year. We only use them for a few months in the winter/spring, and occasionally for a few weeks in the early fall (lettuce doesn’t like high heat for germination,so it works easier in the summer to germinate it indoors so it’s cooler.) From the time they germinated they were taken outdoors to sit int he sun every day… so they’ve been getting about 6 hours of good sunshine.. so this 18 hours of relatively weak light is adequate to make very good conditions.
lettuce seedlings under lights at night, outdoors in the daytime
Here’s a sample of one of the soil tests we’ve had done on our soil. It’s from years ago, but is a good one as it has the notes I put in while determining what to do to improve the soil health for plants.
The notes give what is considered the ‘optimum’ results you would want… so in some cases we’re spot-on.. in some we’re low or high either good or bad. One great things about a test like this is it lets you know where you need to pay attention to help the soil along, and where you don’t need to improve it any. For instance, we are high or very high in Phosphorus and Potassium… so we DO NOT need to add any materials to increase those nutrients. We are overly high in Magnesium, and a bit low in calcium.. both of which point to a serpentine soil. We’re low in sodium which is very good. We want to be below 100 ppm.. we’re at 58.
In essence, all we need do is to renew the soil regularly by tilling in the grasses, or just mowing them, but never letting the soil stay bare and open to the sky.
Geri Miller is a Master Gardener in the Los Angeles area. She installs and helps people with their home gardens, and visits schools and restaurants to install gardens. She started a group called HomeGrown Edible Landscapes. She also has a monthly online newsletter with great links to various gardening information. This is her monthly message for march 2011… it deals with maintaining and increasing soil health through composting and mulching. VERY MUCH worth subscribing to, (note one of the articles on composting was written by us).
We have occasional requests for unrooted cuttings from folks wanting to plant a ‘living fence’. Such a fence is usually a thorny or thick hedge intended to serve much as a conventional fence but created entirely from living plants.
Cactus is well suited for this use…. there are many species of cactus that have a cylindrical appearance and spines.. others growth a thick hedge of spiny leaves that reach high and wide. We don’t sell too many really spiny cactus… most of our cactus is selected to be fairly low spine. Still some of our Opuntia cactus could be placed two feet apart from one another in a line… that mass of leaves alone would serve as quite a fence.
