Bright Lights Big Basil

     "Grow your own wonderful fresh cooking and other herbs indoors all year long, and stop paying grocery store prices! Get started with your own indoor herb garden in minutes and have fresh herbs 

within weeks!"

All Photos by Shane VanOosterhout

    

     I lifted the above quote from wheatgrasskits.com, one of the many websites selling indoor herb kits. For their low price of $29.95 you receive 12 different herb seed packets and a growing kit that includes a plastic tray with a lid: "the perfect climate for fast herb growth." 

     The perfect climate...where? Hawaii?  Spain?  The South of France?  Last time I miniaturized myself and crawled under a moisturized plastic dome I thought of Minneapolis on July 20, 2011 when the heat index hit 119 degrees and the dew point spiked 82%.

Full-spectrum light from T5 florescent bulbs.

     Yes, heat and humidity are necessary for seed germination, but so is light--a lot of it, and forget about a bright windowsill because winter's sun in the northern hemisphere is far too feeble. The only way to achieve an adequate growing climate for herbs indoors is to provide an artificial light source.  So, let's talk a little about foot candles, or how the strength of light is measured when it strikes a surface.

     Today, January 28, more than a month past our winter Solstice, at 1:30 in the afternoon, my light meter reads about 1800 foot candles when I touch it directly on the window glass. At six inches away from the glass, the foot candles drop to 1500. 

     Herbs need, at the very minimum, 2,000 foot candles of light, which is still on the far end of wimpy when you consider that the bright summer sun delivers 10,000 foot candles, the same time of year when seasonal herbs are at their peak.

     When I place a light meter on my growing table it reads about 4,400 foot candles, as you can see in the photo below.

    

My dad's old light meter from the 1950's.  Vintage.

     During the first week of January I sowed a handful of herb seeds in four-inch pots. By the way, I've been using the same Basil packet since 2009 and the seeds are still viable. Truth is most garden seeds have a long shelf life if they are kept perfectly dry at room temperature. 

Renee's Seeds are excellent, and the packets are very well-designed.

Baby Basil's first set of true leaves rising above its cotyledon.

  

       Indoor seeds should be started in a soil-less mix (literally contains no soil particles), not potting soil. Potting soil holds too much moisture for tender baby plants with tiny root structures. The (non) soil temperature must be warm--70 degrees, and consistently moist (but not wet) or the seeds will not germinate.  As for those plastic domed mini greenhouses?  Watch out, they quickly become tropical mini rain forests--great for terrariums, terrible for herb seedlings, which are vulnerable to rot. 

Second set of true leaves.

     Once the new plants have their second set of true leaves, transplant them into a high quality potting mix--light, fluffy, with added perlite, and allow the soil to dry between watering. Notice in the photo above that the stems are thick and strong, not spindly or bending over.  Also notice that the distance between the two sets of leaves is compact, not leggy, and the foliage is a lovely, rich green color.  

     In a few weeks from now I'll be making pesto!  

Larger pots can accommodate up to four Basil plants.

Parsley seedlings.

I love Rosemary!

This fine lady is more than a decade old. Her tiny flowers are pure white.

Severe pruning stimulates tender shoots on old wood. 

Shane VanOosterhout is The Passionate Gardener.  

For more garden inspiration, you can follow him on Facebook. 

Reading Green

     In January it's time to delve into plant and garden books. Reading is like organic fertilizer for the brain. You don't even have to follow the label to know how to apply it, just find a nice spot with a full-spectrum lamp, preferably near a window, but not too near that you get a bothersome chill. Also be sure to have something soft for your cat, a square pillow will do, because cats greatly appreciate the reading of a book and feel it is necessary to be part of the action.

Once you are comfortable, begin reading. (photo by Shane V.)

     This time last winter I was busy researching the world of honeybees in preparation for becoming an apiarist. I was utterly preoccupied with thinking about honeybees and how to care for them. This year I have a grand stack of new plant books, all of them gifts. Aren't I lucky to have such perceptive friends and family?
     I started with Richard Horan's Seeds (Harper Perennial). Horan is a lover of American lit, which he also teaches. Bewitched by a vagabond's life of bumming around the U.S. and visiting the homes and birthplaces of famous authors--Mark Twain, Edith Wharton, Jack Kerouac and Henry Miller to name a few, a cotyledon sprouts in his brain. Wouldn't it be cool, man, to collect trees from the estates of great writers? 
     So far, I am a hundred pages into Seeds and enjoying it immensely. In the prologue, Horan indirectly admits he knows little about how to properly cultivate woody plants, which has me wondering what will happen to all that contraband DNA once he gets home and tries to make them sprout. My ex-coworker Mary Frein gave me this book as a going-away gift. I was deeply touched by her thoughtfulness, plus it helped us avoid a teary scene on my last day at the office.
      The Book of Leaves is a new reference from The University of Chicago Press, authored by Allen J. Coombes. I drooled over it at Borders when I was there with my friend Kevin Schalkofski and guess what Santa brought me?  The Book of Leaves is a treasure. Simple, elegant, exceptionally well-designed. I've already spent some quality time with this one and am thrilled to have it in my collection for future enjoyment.
     My sister Stacie gave me the following two books from my Amazon list. Weeds--In Defense of Nature's Most Unloved Plants by Richard Mabey (Harper Collins). How can I not look forward to reading a book with a title like this? Paradoxes are a blast.
     Fifty Plant that Changed the Course of History by Bill Laws (Firefly Books). Since so many history books are about war, politics, or the economy, it's thrilling for me to access the past through subjects that fascinate me. This is an A-Z list. The plants chosen are mostly medicinal or edible, but of course the ornamental (tulip), the industrial (rubber) are included. Each selection is given two pages of text, inset with illustrations and interesting facts.
     Seeing Trees by Nancy Ross Hugo; Photography by Robert Llewellyn (Timber Press). I found out about this book at least six months ago and it's been on my wish list ever since. Thanks, mom. Seeing Trees covers ten trees in detail, and provides additional information on tree traits. I haven't yet read the copy, but the photographs are mind-blowing. Llewellyn devised a special approach to capturing the images by taking multiple shots of the buds, leaves, flowers and shoots and combining them digitally into a single image. The result is deep focus, with crazy wow detail. Now, if only Lasik could do that for my eyeballs.
     Finally, my friend Sue Stauffacher gave me the book Using Native Plants to Restore Community by Nancy Cutbirth and Tom Small. Sue and I are both idealists who fancy that the world can be saved with plants, so naturally we enjoy reading books by like-minded utopians. The authors, married, also teachers of English lit, began an important journey in 1995 to restore the native plant colonies of southwest Michigan. Using Native Plants to Restore Community combines personal observations of nature with advice on what to plant, and inspires the reader to engage in better stewardship of our precious land. Book sales go to the Kalamazoo, Michigan chapter of Wild Ones, a non-profit native plant group.


     Happy reading.


     Next month I will talk a bit about foot candles, little nubbins of wicked wax applied to the toes in the 1800's to keep the feet warm on a cold winter's night. 
     Just kidding! 
     (I will share with you some of the secrets of successful indoor northern hemisphere gardening).