Crazy Plant Lady AND obscure book collector. Those are names that I have been called and really, I’m okay with that—because I do LIVE up to those names. So, I have a story to share that combines these two self-inflicted titles.
In early summer of 2023, I noticed some my tomato plants dying, a lush pumpkin plant with lots of flowers and my fourth blackberry bush was looking very peaked. The berries on the bush were mutants— not fully formed and odd shaped. The three other bushes were producing berries and growing beautifully. (or so I thought, insert scary music here)
The tomatoes were interesting to me because I was trying Electroculture with copper wire on the plants (this will most likely be another post, can’t get side tracked). Two tomatoes—which were the exact breed, grown the same way— were cared for in the exact same way, except for a copper wire I had wrapped around the cage and placed the end of the wire into the ground. At first the tomatoes WITHOUT the wires were dying, and died fast! The others followed, but they lasted a lot longer.
My husband and I puzzled over the mutant blackberry bush. And I was crushed that my large slicing tomatoes were dying— chalking it up to “gardening” adventures/mysteries. And the pumpkin plant had lots of flowers and no pumpkins.
Enter from stage left: an obscure book. I wish I could tell you how I found this book, but I can’t. I can tell you for sure that it was a rabbit hole from something else I was researching. The book you ask, Health and Light: The Extraordinary Study that Shows How Light Affects Your Health and Emotional Well Being by John N. Ott.
The cliff note version of the book: how a hobby photographer accidentally stumbles upon the importance of the spectrum of light—on plants, animals and humans. This book tells of his experience using different light bulbs as he created his time-lapsed photography (Ott is actually called the father of time-lapse photography, again I am getting side tracked). Ott actually created an intro to a Disney film series called The Secret of Life.
In a chapter of the book, he describes the growing of the pumpkin for the Disney project.
Are you on the edge of your seat, wondering how I’m going to tie all of this together?
Well, let’s continue… Ott through trial and error figured out the color/spectrum of his grow lights effected which kind of flowers his pumpkin plant produced. The light he used unbeknownst to him was causing ALL male flowers on his plant. Here comes the CRAZY PLANT LADY part, are you ready? I threw down my book and ran outside to my pumpkin plant— and I’ll be damned: ALL MALE FLOWERS!!
That night I stepped outside to walk the dogs and noticed my next door neighbor’s flood light BEAMING ON MY GARDEN. The light sensor was broken and my garden was being soaked in this light every night. This had been going on for weeks! Guess where the light fall off was the most: my slicing tomatoes and that fourth blackberry bush. The pumpkin plant got a dusting of the light!
Now, I ask you what would you say to the neighbor?? I decided to forgo the long version which I have shared with you and go with: my plants need a nighttime.
The CRAZY PLANT LADY. I am sure they toasted a beer or two to me that night. However, they couldn’t figure out how to turn the light off. So they turned the lights toward their own house, which significantly cut the light pollution. And would you believe a few days after I got a FEMALE flower on the pumpkin plant. But alas, it was too late in the season for any pumpkins.
I’m praying for the blackberry bush to come back. And just the other day, THE CRAZY PLANT LADY offered to buy the neighbor a new light. That very day the light was fixed and now works as a sensor light should.
I tell this tale in hopes that others think about the spectrum of light you and your plants receive. The book goes into the human health implications as well. It is a hard book to find and can be very costly in some cases. Here is a video that I found that is a summation of the book.
Here’s to a beautiful garden in 2024 and more healthy light for you and me!