Baby its cold outside...

Welcome back to another episode of Lost In The Farmer’s Market where the winter doldrums may have slowed things down but we’re still making progress towards the next big thing. This week we have some interesting news in the form of a winter project that may surprise some of you out there. In agriculture we have two primary camps the Organic/GMO-Free group and the Conventional group and to that end there is a variety of products out there for both. It is not my intention to turn this article into a form of ‘us versus them’ diatribe, but rather to talk about the next logical step in the means to prove that those of us in the non-GMO/Organic crowd can do exactly the same thing as the conventional folks minus the petrochemicals and so on.

So for my winter project I set out to build a cloning system with the objective that it be as effective as a compact model that can be purchased through a commercial source. The two examples I evaluated as the basis for what I built can be found at the following two links.

http://www.wormsway.com/en/SSSC312

http://generalhydroponics.com/site/index.php/products/systems/eco_grower1/

The price increment on these models would be prohibitive for the home grower and since one might typically use a thin solution of plant hormones to encourage root growth well the organic label is then in question. Plant hormones used to promote rooting have to be extracted from a plant chemically, purified then suspended in a solution of some sort, or flat synthesized in a lab somewhere. The powdered rooting hormone found at every garden center is basically a thin rooting hormone held in pure talcum powder, whereas the commercial grade rooting hormones are in liquid suspension. I should mention here that a standard jar of powdered rooting hormone cannot be used with ‘wet’ propagation methods and costs around $6.00 for a small jar with a few ounces of powder that may last a home grower a few years. When you get into the liquid rooting hormones such as Dip ‘n Grow, two ounces can cost up to $15.00, and the procedure for use is very precise. 

To get around this, we at LITFM constructed a Hydro-cloning system from components that one could buy off the shelf at a garden center, supermarket and pet store. As you can see in the below picture our cloner is built out of a 1 gallon plastic food grade container with lid, a 44 Gallon per hour air pump, a coil of flexible air diffuser tubing, 3’ of 3/16^th fish tank airline tubing and, six net pots and six neoprene plugs.  In terms of tools I only needed a small sharp knife and a wax pencil. Estimated construction time was about 30 minutes

All the parts you need, total cost is about $30.00.

The first step was to shape the air diffuser coil in the bottom of the reservoir, you would want it to follow the outer edge, and coil evenly inward to spread the diffusion effect so the water in the reservoir has no stagnant spots. I chose the flexible one because it can take the shape of any container and be adjusted on the fly if needed. A large circular air stone could also do the same job.

It looks like there’s too much air diffuser but the thing wont bubble over so it works.

The next step is to cut the hole in the lid for your airline to go through so you can position it to your liking. I did not completely cut it out initially so while I did step three it wasn’t in the way.

Yes, this food grade container was a leftover from a holiday party…you can guess what was in it.

Using one of the 2” net pots I used the wax pencil to mark where I cut holes in the lid so the net pots could be placed through the lid to dip into the reservoir.

Theoretically the net pots could be any size you want, I chose 2” for space-saving purposes.

As you can see the cutting is done in this case with a small pocket knife, but a razor or exacto knife would work equally well. Just remember to take your time and be safe while doing this.

This was the slow part of the project.

Presto! The perfect seating for the 2” net pots.

Cutting out the holes for the net pots means cutting inside the marked line so the pots sit on top of the lid and do not fall in.

It is compact enough to sit on a dining room table and quietly do its job.

You can see all six net pots seated properly, and next the little flap near the airline is cut and this completes the body of the Hydro-cloning system. This is a simple little system that produces six clones at a time and cannot have its water go stagnant. The container is food-grade so there will be no worry of the plastic leaching anything into the water, and the best part is that even if out in the lab its mosquito proof because of the diffuser.

Um, for note folks this is NOT a Skittles commercial!

The last step was to insert the Neoprene cutting holders, with trimmed cuttings in them and to turn the system on. The air pump buzzes but is barely noticeable the gentle bubble of the diffuser putting tiny air bubbles through the water in the reservoir is more noticeable. I might add at this stage I added a gallon of distilled water (personal preference on this part) and well you can see the final product in the next image.

Yup here’s what it looks like in operation.

The first trial plant is a Heart Leaf Philodendron - Philodendron scandens which by philodendron standards is slower to root in water but far more tolerant of abuse then your regular philodendron. The thing is I know no matter what it will root and having grown and sold this species before the time frame for it.  The plan is to run five trials with the system using an increasingly difficult set of cuttings. You can bet the results will be right here when available.

So there you have it another wintery episode of LITFM. This early post comes on the heels of our second frozen precipitation event of the year which means more delays in production schedule. It sort of figures that I get a LITFM project done on time and it snows which may prevent next week’s topic. Either way check us out next week for more wintery mayhem. Don’t forget the Fayetteville City Market is still going on Saturdays between 9:00am and 1:00pm in downtown Fayetteville on 325 Franklin Street.

Thank you for reading!

December? Stop hiding out there I see you!

Happy Holidays and Seasons greetings!

Today’s episode marks the first of the four holiday episodes that LITFM does every year and today’s topic covers a sort of holiday success update. The other three episodes will cover holiday related garden stuff and the yearend wind down on the 28^th will publish the SKYE test garden results of the year. But first I have to mention that as of this writing, we have had about 0.2” of precipitation this week, which comes on the heels of almost two inches last week. The warm weather is the result of a front which has brought a nice thaw and of course moisture. There is no doubt it will not remain but it is nice while it lasts it also gives a brief respite to shoe in whatever remaining plants you need to get in the garden or pot up. I took advantage of the weather as you can see below.

The sticks in the pots are 14” sticks cut out of one of the crape myrtles on the property. I call those ‘dummy sticks’ because the only purpose they serve is to keep the plastic tarps I put over the plants from pushing the plants in posts down with their weight.  The chicken-wire covers are there to prevent the squirrels from digging up the freshly potted plants. That said a bevy of potting up occurred this week because of the warm temperatures and those black pots to the rear are the result of that each pot is about a three-gallon nursery pot planted up with some of the cold-season stuff I just could not get out sooner. That said here a few pictures of the new plants so you get what I mean.

This is a close up of Dinosaur Kale which demonstrates what makes it so unique against plain old kale.

This little guy is a Daikon Radish, the same one the squirrels ripped out of its original pot and left to die on the planting bench. It recovered indoors in a humidity chamber and has tripled in size and finally is now outside in a 3-gallon pot for growing on.

The plant above is a Napa-Type cabbage, which as some of you who hit up the booth early in fall might know is a easier to grow alternative to Bok Choi.

That said at the end of September I began preparing to keep several high-performing heirlooms alive by varied means If volunteer plant were present they were cleaned of their soil and gently moved to new pots with fresh soil (Siam basil and Mexico midget tomato) or cuttings were taken (paul robeson tomato, underground railroad tomato, Pesto Basil and Red Rubin basil). The first group is seen below with the successful results. the little square pot below the leaves of the Tomato contains a Genovese basil seedling that volunteered between the cracks of stonework and unlike the others was transplanted with it's native soil intact.

Left to Right: Siam Basil, Mexico Midget Tomato Both plants are from volunteer seedlings recovered back in October, both just got repotted. The genetic purity of the Tomato is at question as the parent was grown beside Reisotomate, Paul Robeson, Underground railroad and within thirty feet of at least five other varieties.

Below are two mason jars with tomato and basil cuttings in each. The dark foliage in the jar on the left is a Red Rubin heirloom basil cutting. Both jars were kept indoors, and in front of a bright window with no direct sunlight.

The above two mason jars have several cuttings of both Paul Robeson and Underground railroad Tomatoes for the express purpose of cloning the vigorous parents to get a head start on the tomato season next year.

Below is some of the results, you can see the tomatoes had begun forming roots at a stem node near the water's surface. In a few weeks these cuttings can be potted up and kept on the deck in preparation for next year shaving weeks of start up time of the tomato season. The fact that these cuttings are essentially clones of the original also factors out any foreign pollen altering the quality of the fruit that will be born by these plants later.

As you can see stem cuttings of tomatoes if kept at constant temperature and provided plain water with bright indirect light will root in water. This allows for the maintenance of genetic purity in keeping heirlooms intact without relying on potentially variable seed stock.

With that said I'll post an update when it's available of what these plants are like once potted and the same goes for the as yet un-potted basils. With any luck this is a good way to keep plant varieties GMO-proofed.

As you may know we are still holding down the fort at the Fayetteville City/Farmer’s market. Cold temperatures and other factors have done little to force me from manning the booth so you can come on down and see what we’ve got for sale. The market is on Saturday between the hours of 9:00am and 1:00 pm and is located at the Fayetteville Transportation Museum. The physical address of the museum is 325 Franklin Street in downtown Fayetteville. The forecast for Saturday does call for some rain, which means I won’t have much in the way of paperwork on the table however the following will definitely be available.

Southward Skies: A northern guide to southern Gardening

This is the second edition of my book, which was published using data compiled from several years of test garden operations. It’s written to aid gardeners of all skill levels in successful garden methods that are targeted for the south east but had proven to be a valued resource for gardens across the weather coast. It’s certainly a good gift for that gardener you know or for yourself if you’d like to have a reliable field guide. The book costs $25.00 and we do take checks for this item, you can even have it signed.

Fresh Cut Herbs

Bundles of Fresh Rosemary, short stem

Bundles of Fresh Rosemary, Long Stem

Bagged Fresh Rosemary No stems

Plants

4x Spineless Prickly Pear

6x Morris-Heading Cabbage Collards

3x Georgia Collards

1x Stonehead Cabbage

2x Savoy Cabbage

This concludes the first December Episode of Lost in the Farmer’s Market, Next week we will be tackling a Family of plants that are quite significant this time of year the Euphorbia family. That’s right we’re going to cover the assorted forms of the family that Poinsettias made famous! So check back next year and make sure you’re sitting down, the biology lesson is going to be off the charts.  As always, Keep ‘em Growing!