Newspaper breeding pots

Because the seeds - or by now little plants - are growing very fast in our breeding box, the roots become strangled. It makes it difficult to separate the seedlings at the time of planting them in the garden. If you are early enough, it is possible to put each plant separately in another little pot to grow bigger without overgrowing the others. We found an easy, fun and sustainable trick for this last step: folding your own pots! 
Firstly, it is a way of recycling old newspapers and secondly, you can put the seedling together with its pot in the ground to prevent damaging its frail roots. There is one negative side: the paper does not last long; it does not stand the abundance of water the plants need.

On this site you can find a step-by-step description and a video that will teach you how to fold these little pots. We also find it a useful little bin for green kitchen waste. For this one you have to make it bigger, though. Take a large piece of newspaper (no tabloid), or place three news paper pages on each other and fold it just once instead of thrice (in the beginning). After watching the video two or three times you will be able to fold the pots yourself!

An introduction to plant botany Part 2

The binomial system

In the previous post we saw that every species has it's own unique name. These names are in Latin because (a dead language) so they won't change overtime due to changes in the language. Local names for plants may also differ between places, or the same name may be used for several different plants. Because nobody actively uses Latin anymore, these names are more or less guaranteed to remain the same.

 Fig 1. C.Linnaeus. 

Linnaeus introduced the binomial system, in which the first part of the name identifies the genus and the second part identifies the species within that genus. For humans it´s:  

genus                   species

Homo                   sapiens

The genus of maple trees is Acer. This genus has a lot of species, including:
Acer saccharum = Sugar maple
Acer rubrum = Black maple
Acer pseudoplatanus = Sycamore maple

Divisions in the plant kingdom

The plant kingdom consists of several divisions, the most “simple” plants are in the moss (Bryophyta), hornwort (Anthocerotophyta) and liverwort (Marchantiophyta) divisions. The plants in these divisions are all non-vascular plants, they lack veins and vessels that move water and nutrients internally. All the plants in this division use spores to reproduce.  

In the clubmosses (Lycopodiophyta) and ferns and horsetails (Pteridophyta) divisions we find plants that are still spore producing plants but do have an vascular system.

Plants in the conifer (Pinophyta), cycad (Cycadophyta), gentum(Gnetophyta) and gingko (Ginkgophyta) divisions use seeds instead of spores for reproduction. The plants in these divisions are called “naked-seed plants”. They are called this way because the egg cells need to be exposed to the air and need pollen to land directly on the surface for fertilization.

Plants that have stamens, pistils and produce seeds that mature in an enclosed ovary, are in the last division of the plant kingdom: that of the flowering plants (Magnoliophyta). Another name for this division you might run into is Angiospermae. This division contains the most plants of all, around 250.000 species. We’ll cover flower characteristics in the next plant botany part.

Mail from the Andes

Packages from the postman are always exciting, but this one was even more special, even though it was a little smaller and lighter than we expected.

You have propably no idea what it is; it is not a very common crop in regions outside Peru and Bolivia. It is called yacón, or Bolivian sunroot or Peruvian ground apple, but its official name is Polymnia sonchifolia. It is a relative of topinambours and sunflowers, and will therefore also grow into a lengthy plant with yellow flowers. The leafs contain inulin, which can serve to replace sugar and fat.
Actually, the reason why we ordered this plant is situated underground. Yacón is grown for its sweet juicy roots. They are crispy and have an interesting flavour somewhere between pear and melon. The only bad thing is that we have to wait until the end of the year to try this one out for ourselves!


P.s. if you would like some yacón roots for your garden as well, e-mail us, so we can send you the order information. It is only possible for Belgium and Dutch addresses though. Or you can also wait until our harvest is ready.

Create your garden army

As we saw in our blog about ladybugs, insects are indispensable in gardens. Here is another powerful insect: earwigs. Even though they give me the creeps, they are perfect to defend your apples, pears and other fruits from nasty pests. Earwigs feed on plant lice, larvae and even caterpillars. Here is an easy creation to attract earwigs in fruit trees and other places where you need them the most (which is in my case, faaar away from the places I like to sit).

The only stuff you need is an old pot, rope, scissors and straw. Earwigs adore being hidden in very tiny places. There is even a word for it: thigmotropism. 
Now take a hand of straw; bind it once with the rope and tie the ends together on top. Safe a piece of rope to be able to hang your earwig-hiding-place. Then put the end of the cord through the hole on the bottom of the pot and you are ready to hang it in a fruit tree! 

Make sure to tie it on a solid branch, the first one you encounter from the bottom up. And... done!