When I don’t have a choice or if conditions are too harsh, I transplant seedlings; otherwise, I think direct seeding is the way to go.
When you plant a seed directly in the ground and let it establish in place, you gain some serious advantages over plants started in flats or pots. This particularly true when you’re talking about trees.
As Allen’s dad’s experiment proved, seeding in place doesn’t have to be tough. You just pick a good spot, plant, water if you remember… and mow around it.
Check out this carob tree seedling I pulled out of a container on my windowsill:
Direct seeding would have given this carob tree better success
This little seedling is only a couple weeks old. Look at that amazing taproot! (I didn’t even get a picture of the most impressive root in the batch – one of them was easily 16″ long.)
When you put a little tree like this in a pot (like I’m going to do with this one), the taproot gets lost or tangled around in a circle. Some trees can grow new ones when they’re transplanted – some can’t.
Imagine if I’d planted this carob seed directly in the ground. It would already have its main root a foot deep – even though the plant itself is only about 3″ tall. I bet it’s already big enough to handle low rainfall.
I’m not sure if carobs will survive the cold of North Florida, since there’s limited data on them available – but I’m going to try anyhow. I have ten seeds of which I’ve planted five thus far. Four germinated (after scarification and 24 hours’ soaking it took about 10 days for them to come up) and one was a dud. I’m potting up the first four to let them get good and big before I put them out in the yard – but I think I’ll put the remaining five directly in the ground and see what happens.
Since we can’t grow chocolate here… I’m hoping for carob instead.
Carob aside – direct seeding is usually the way to go, whether it be in your garden or in your food forest.
You can have greener thumbs by this weekend!
5 comments
I have seen it growing up to 20' tall and bearing large amounts of pods in Modesto California.
Where did you see these trees in Modesto?
I doubt Anonymous will see your comment, but that would be great if you could nail down where the trees are.
I was trying to find a place in Florida where I can buy Carob trees and I did not find any via internet.
I believe they’ll grow here (I kept some alive in pots for a few years before selling them to a friend), but you’ll probably have to grow them from seed. You can get carob seeds here: http://rover.ebay.com/rover/1/711-53200-19255-0/1?ff3=4&pub=5575220617&toolid=10001&campid=5337951904&customid=&mpre=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.ebay.com%2Fsch%2Fi.html%3F_from%3DR40%26_trksid%3Dp2050601.m570.l1313.TR12.TRC2.A0.H0.Xcarob%2Bseeds.TRS0%26_nkw%3Dcarob%2Bseeds%26_sacat%3D0
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