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market-farming - Re: [Market-farming] Hortonova

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  • From: "Shawnee Flowerfarmer" <farmingflowers AT hotmail.com>
  • To: market-farming AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: Re: [Market-farming] Hortonova
  • Date: Sun, 15 Jul 2007 17:21:33 -0500

Most snapdragons-and many other hardy & half hardy annuals too- will self sow, but the color range will be unreliable if the parent plant is a hybrid.  For the earliest cut flower bouquets which will include tulips etc, I am not picky about color.  I let taller snap dragons-such as Rocket-go to seed after cutting the tallest, first flush of bloom.  (If I want long stemmed snapdragons for cutting, say, all white, I don't pinch them back as seedlings.  That pruning is done when I harvest the first bloom...subsequent, shorter blooms are often cut as an entire piece of the plant, foliage to be part of the bouquet....then the remaining bit is left to regrow, flower-low-and go to seed.)

Most biennials will self sow indefinitely if you don't disturb the planting beds too much.  (I prefer permaculture techniques and many beds are permanently mulched and never tilled after they are built...perfect to get the advantage of the reseeding flowers.)

Annual baby's breath does particularly well grown that way and I usually have a crop for cutting far earlier in the spring....I set out seedlings or reseed for a succession of cuttings.

As insurance for the early crops, I do often sprinkle more hardy annual seed in late February or early March-sometimes on top of snow.  Many of the birds/mammals that share our zone five winters pick through the garden for their share, so I add a bit every season to compensate.  

I find that this is an easy way to have a large quanitity of Bells of Ireland and Buplerum.  I often have rodent damage when I sow these in flats left outside the greenhouse during the winter.  The Hortonova netting, left in place over the winter, then insures an early crop of straight, tall stems when they might otherwise flop in all directions during spring stormy weather.  This gives me time to go chasing the wretched cabbage looper off the broccoli and caulifowers.

Shawnee, zone 5, some of the time, until the feds release the new zone maps this winter.


>
>Could you tell us more about self sowing snapdragons?  Do you pinch them
>back to get longer stems or just let them grow as they are?  Also where
>do you get your seeds from?
>
>Coylie, zone 4
>
> > I have used Hortonova netting for peas the same way...metal stakes
> > every 8-10 feet.  Lots of labor getting it set up every year; last
> > many seasons when taken down and stored under cover.
> >
> > I have also used it horizontally to support cut flowers....at 15 and
> > 30 inches above 4 foot wide planting beds.  I sometimes left it in
> > place over the winter for biennials...sweet william,  canterbury
> > bells,  bells of Ireland, self sowing snapdragons, larkspur etc that
> > get started early when the weather may make it difficult to get into
> > the fields.  This is also labor intensive to install, but the
> > Hortonova works beautifully to keep the flowers from slumping and
> > sagging.  (Some of those labor costs can be recovered during harvest
> > as the netting facilitates faster cutting and dead heading.)  (Those
> > flower beds are well mulched...no machine cultivation for weed
> > control.)
> >
> > Shawnee, zone 5
> >
> >
> >
>
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