Gardening

Zookeeper — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 02:26:31 +0100

Is anybody else already getting seed catalogs? They used to start coming in January and February, but I'm already getting them. I hope to have another raised bed in place by the time I start planting next spring, and I'm going to change up a lot of my beds. I'm going to plant snow peas in the containers where the tomatoes were, and broccoli in my potato containers. Where the potatoes were this year I plan to plant carrots. Herbs will go into the former pea containers. I don't know where I'm going to plant squash, but I've got a couple containers I wasn't using that I can plant tomatoes in. I'm also going to start buying organic seeds, and from companies that sign the safe-seed pledge. I'm not going to throw away the seeds I've got. I can't afford that. But I'm trying to phase in organic. I already grow an organic garden, but I've just been using regular seeds with no thought of where the seeds themselves come from. Any other gardeners already planning?

Re: Gardening

stephensdemise — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 16:56:58 +0100

If I started planning now, nothing else would get done. I actually force myself to waqit and then go out and buy seeds with the rest of my supplies. I will only order something if it's hard to get here. Yeah, so my veggie garden is going to get its annual roation of crops, my perennial gardens will get new plants, and I do annuals to fill in and add color. Since I'm short on cash, I get a lot of my plants from dividing existing plants, swaps, or cuttings/seeds from friends. I've got a touch of spring fever now.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 17:29:26 +0100

Recently I dug out the section of the yard the landlord told me I could use for gardening. I have some leftover seeds in a drawer in the kitchen, and I have visions of many more. I also plan to pick up a few fruit bearing bushes that WalMart sells, because fresh berries would be amazing. The biggest result of my gardening attempt this previous season was a batch of tomatoes that I fried while they were still green. A couple of the others ripened to full redness, and were used in things like chili, so their flavors were mixed in with a lot of others. My avocado is still doing well, and bark is starting to form at the base. This year I'll also be planting bonsais and a venus flytrap or two for indoor purposes. I don't have a seed catalog coming, but I did sign up with a site that offers tips on planting and such for the area where I live. If all goes well this time around I'm going to try and invest in canning supplies and one of those machines that vacuum seals food. Any suggestions on squash? I got my plants to flower, but either it was too late in the season or they weren't getting enough sunlight because the flowers never did anything but break off the vines.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:38:44 +0100

I only get one seed catalog, and that has not arrived yet. I just cleaned my balcony, which is my "garden" today. I've still got some herbs, radishes, kohlrabi, leeks, carrots and even the peppers are still alive. And a butterfly has hidden in one of the empty planters - aww! I need to do some indoor gardening again. I work in a plant nursery, and I can bring in houseplants to sell in the shop, so I plan to propagate some Tradescantias to bring in as soon as the shop reopens in January, get some spider plants in sell-able shape... there are Begonia cuttings to be potted up, and the cane begonia needs to be cut back again, which means I can plant some cuttings as well... but that'll have to wait until I have sold some stuff, because I don't really have room at the moment. And then I have a couple more plants I want to propagate and sell. Although, I never really have room anyway. I don't know what I'll do when it gets really cold and I have to bring another six or seven plants in from the balcony. And then when it's time to start tomatoes indoors. Yikes! And then I've got my eyes on a few more houseplants I want to buy. Anyone seen my sanity? I found a bud on one of my amaryllises today, and since it's not one of my absolute favourites, I'll give it away as a Christmas present to one of my aunts. I've got quite the collection of amaryllises, and I need to downsize it a little. If any others show a bud before Christmas, I'll give them to my other aunts (except for the hot pink one and the 'Lima') - of course, they'll soon be replaced with new ones! And my Grandma will get my spare Christmas cactus. Zoo, if you're going for organic seeds, maybe also try to get non-hybrid varieties. That way you can save your own seed

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 21:59:56 +0100

This year I actually have a balcony, so I'm hoping to grow some basic herbs and fruits (and vegetables maybe?) out there in containers in 2012. I have a little collection of saved seeds from this season, when I was helping out at an organic farm. Winter will be for planning and trying to research what will actually be successful in pots and a shortish growing season.

Re: Gardening

Hepatica — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 22:37:49 +0100

I've turned my back firmly on catalogues for this coming season. I went to great expense buying specially heat-treated & resistant seed from a catalogue who shall remain nameless, but I don't think they 'do' US, so you guys should be safe! lol! At least 1/3 of every crop didn't germinate, sometimes 1/2; of those that did germinate, 1/2 again failed on planting out; my carrots cropped about 3 months late; my potatoes (a range of types) only gave back about the same number of seed potatoes that I'd put in; one crop, planted outside, didn't come up at all! Even plug plants grown on in my solar shed died! I ended up filling up the holes with cheapy cheap seed bought in the local supermarket! And hardly any of the eagerly anticipated gluts happened - I did have a glut of beetroot, which I appreciated, & of runner beans. But I'd seeded about 30 crops, designed to carry me through from spring to winter! Oh yes, & that was the other gripe - the information in the catalogue about sowing, transplanting & harvesting times was different to the information printed on the seed packets, so I ended up with most plants coming up (if they did) in the summer!!!! Anyway. Rant over! Sorry! lol! Last year, I was a bit busy with a new job & various other things, so I just let my veg plot (which is my front garden) go fallow. I started digging it over again for next season just before NaNo started & then - well, there was NaNo...! The last two weeks, I've been volunteering in a school & it's dark when I get home. But now I'm footloose & fancy free again (well, apart from I have to get the house spick & span for Mum coming in two weeks' time! lol!), I'm going to finish the dig over, put down some soil improver & leave it over the winter to sink in. Then I'll get a few veg seeds from my local garden centre, which I trust & used to great effect in my first season, & maybe not be so adventurous or naive this time. :-)

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Fri, 09 Dec 2011 23:20:20 +0100

I find herbs and vegetables much better than fruit. Well, everbearing strawberries are good for balconies, but other fruit, you only get one harvest per year, but have to care for the plant all year. Doesn't really pay off, in my opinion.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 01:22:00 +0100

Along about March, I'll start sifting compost from one of my bins. I have two bins, and I sift compost from one of them every spring. So the compost has two years to "cook." I also plan on looking for heritage seed instead of hybrids. I've found that a lot of the seed companies I've been ordering from these past several years are subsidiaries of Monsanto, a company I don't trust and want to stay away from. I think next spring I'll also go onto freecycle and see if I can get some houseplant cuttings. I only have the one houseplant. I'd like to get more.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 01:39:33 +0100

Well... by fruit I mostly mean tomatoes and bell peppers. Although strawberries sound fantastic.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 11:31:46 +0100

Tomatoes and peppers are definitely a good choice!

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 11:32:29 +0100

It's a shame we're on different continents, or I'd send you some cuttings!

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 12:27:57 +0100

My peach tree only gives fruit one year out of every two, but when it develops fruit, it makes up for it! This year I got some raspberries off my bramble bush, but they dried up and died before they ever really developed. But I love fruit so much that even once a year is good.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 21:21:06 +0100

In a garden, once a year is fine - I'd definitely have fruit trees and berry bushes if I had one. But on a balcony... nah. Damn, this is making me miss my garden. (Although I've hardly needed to buy fruit for months because I got so many apples from my work-neighbour and my grandma (just visited the grandparents yesterday, and came home with another bag of apples, and I'll get more at Christmas)

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sun, 01 Jan 2012 02:01:25 +0100

Seed catalogs are now making their way into my mailbox. I got three yesterday. I think I'm going to restrict my buying to the couple companies that have taken the "Safe Seed Pledge" to not use GMO seeds. Renee's Garden, Seeds of Change, Seed Savers Exchange, and Johnny's are four that I know of that sell non-GMO/organic seeds. I'm going to plant a lot of snow peas in my containers that have held tomatoes and potatoes. That's one of the few legumes that I like, and legumes are nitrogen fixers.

Re: Gardening

Susan Harris — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 02:54:06 +0100

A couple of years ago, I bought a greenhouse. My address must have been put on every seed catalog in the US and Canada. I start getting them before Christmas and they don't stop for months. Guerney Seed sends out a full catalog about every ten days or so. I love Seeds of Change!

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:01:50 +0100

The only gardening catalog I've received is The Cook's Garden. The only guarantee they make is that they're "Pennsylvania Certified Organic". I don't know if they've taken the non-GMO pledge, but I'm excited to order some of the things they offer, like a rainbow variety of carrots, blueberries, strawberries, and raspberries. There's a lot of pretty pictures of different plants they offer, and there's a link at the bottom of each page to find recipes using their plants. In the meantime, though, I plan to start my bonzai and venus flytrap seeds. The kit calls for something called seed stratification in the refrigerator. Once I've cleaned it out and designated a spot for them, they'll go in for the designated amount of time. Also, my avocado plant is dropping leaves. Not at a really fast rate, but enough to make me wonder if this is what it does during the cooler times. Soon I'll put it in a bigger pot and see if that helps.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 16:45:00 +0100

If it's organic, it's non-GMO by definition. I think one of the catalogs I got was Cook's Garden. I'll have to check. I love all the different colored carrots. This year I plan to plant carrots in the patch that held potatoes last year. It's not a raised bed, so they have the entire planet to grow down into. I used to sprout avocado pits, but I never got them to last very long until they died. Don't know why. I'd like to have a venus flytrap, but Colorado's so dry, I don't know if it would last. They like really humid, jungle type environments from what I understand. Pity. Venus flytraps are much cuter than spiders.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 18:14:36 +0100

What I've learned from this kit I bought at the bookstore is that you can create that environment with a warm, sunny window, and a 2-liter bottle. This knowledge probably won't help me grow the flytraps, but I'm happy to try. As for the avocados, I looked for advice on two different websites to get mine to grow. Managed to get two to the point that I could transfer them from far of water to pot of dirt. One went to my mom's, and I don't know how it's done since then. I remember her starting avocados all the time when I was a kid. There's be at least two in the window in the kitchen. But it seemed that they never did very well. They're another warm weather plant, so mine had to be brought indoors when the frost came. Since then it's been strangely mild out. We're expecting to get close to sixty degrees in the next week.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 03 Jan 2012 21:13:41 +0100

Tobaeus, if you grow your flytraps in a bottle, I wouldn't place them in direct sunlight - the inside of a bottle or other closed container will heat up too much, they'll get cooked. I have a mini-terrarium in a big pickle jar, and I love it - it's pretty, and you can't go more low-maintenance - I've never even needed to water it, and I've had it for months at least!

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Wed, 04 Jan 2012 05:37:57 +0100

I am forcing a hyacinth (it's actually planted in a pot, but outside cooling off), and trying to reanimate a South African bulb I've had lying dormant from some months. Petunias that decided to spring up on their own in my tomato pot on the deck have been rescued and brought inside, and now I have three pink blooms. I don't buy pink petunias so I have no idea where they came from. I still have my amazing geraniums blooming inside, plus two peace plants, an enormous aloe, and two kinds of palms. Too much for inside, and I hate watering, but they are soothing to look at. Outside, I have three sets of snowdrops blooming from all the warm weather we've been having. Right now it's frigid outside, but tomorrow it'll start warming up again, so I expect to see more inches of daffodils and hyacinths than are already up. The daffys won't mind the real winter weather that will arrive soon; the hyacinths will.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sat, 07 Jan 2012 19:52:42 +0100

I lost my temper on a couple of houseplants today and chucked them out. If they can't look happy, I don't want to bother with them any more. Of course, three of more than 150 doesn't make much difference... I started a bunch of plants to sell, too. There are even a couple that are ready to take in to work when I go back next week - provided my boss wants them already. Well, he can probably use the spider plants at least. I still need to take cuttings of the cane begonia, and the Ceropegia, and repot one other plant, but then I should be caught up. Then it's time to inventory my seeds and start planning my balcony garden.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 15:52:31 +0100

Showing complete insanity, earlier this week I bought even more hyacinths to force. And some medium height iris, the 20" kind they sell on New York street corners. I put them all into pots outside to cool off, and just in time, as we're having frigid weather and high winds day in and day out. I've got many batches of snowdrops blooming. Even the ones that have been blooming for weeks are still perky. Many catalogs have arrived. I'm ignoring them. Last year I spent under $50 on annuals, seeds, and other plants and am very glad I didn't waste any more cash considering our bizarre summers. First heat and drought, then constant rain. During the drought, the deer attempted to eat anything green, and I do mean anything. Apparently, despite many sentimental paintings of deer going to streams, they mostly get their moisture from plants. Otherwise, they'd surely hang around the stream just behind our land. And they don't.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sat, 14 Jan 2012 22:54:45 +0100

I got my one seed catalogue this week - playing the "I want" game, but I don't think I'll order anything. I've still got more than enough seeds. OK, I might have a use for some of that Asia greens, but I'll have to see if I can get some locally. Hm... just had a thought. If I get this balcony garden blog thing going like I want to, with how-tos and plant reviews and stuff, why not advertise for it on the notice boards at the garden centres? And at the nursery, obviously, although I'm a little leery about letting my customers know that it's me writing that blog. And the little seed-shop in the town centre, maybe.

Re: Gardening

rachelthorn — Sun, 15 Jan 2012 17:42:49 +0100

I have never had a garden before but it is something that I want to be able to do this year. Anyone have suggestions for a beginner what is easier to grow? I live in Louisiana. Any websites or blogs that you suggest I look at? I live in a townhouse so I do have a small yard but I would like to grow things inside as well.

Re: Gardening

Hepatica — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 14:07:41 +0100

You need to start by knowing what sort of soil you have. Pick up a handful of it & squeeze it, then open your hand, palm up. If the soil sticks together in a lump, it's clay. If it falls out of your hand like dust, it's sand. If it's in the middle, it's loam. You want loam, ideally. If it's clay or sand, you need to spend the first year digging it over & working in as much organic material as you can - clay, to improve drainage (include some grit) & so it doesn't dry out & crack in summer, & sand, to improve its ability to hold onto water & nutrients. Ideally, you need to dig in extra matter to a depth of at least 3 feet for veg / fruit; about 1 foot will do for flowers / shrubs. I think the word 'yard' means something different in the UK - yards in the UK are concreted / cobbled areas where there is no access to soil. If this is the same, you will need to plant in pots - try to get pots as large as possible & ceramic, so that they're heavy & will cope with winter temperatures. In this case, you won't - of course - have to dig over your soil, but buy it in - if you're buying it, mix equal quantities of top soil & non-peat based compost with lots of water retaining granuals & a bit of grit. Base the pots on pot feet or those little platforms on wheels to keep them off the ground to help stop them getting cold & cracking, & to help stop the slugs from finding them. Then think about light in your garden / allotment / veg plot. Ideally, it's best to have total sun, if possible, but behind some shade (fence / hedge) - allow about 3 feet from a hedge to make sure all the nutrients in the soil are not taken by the hedge. If there are areas of your garden that are shady or in partial shade, you will need to consider the sorts of things that don't mind living beneath tree cover - ferns, tall grasses, etc. Full sun areas are good for flowers & veg / fruit. Think about what sort of flowers / shrubs you like - whether you want ground cover or something taller & the colours of foliage / flowers you like. Also think about what fruit & veg you like to eat. Those are the ones you're more likely to be successful with the first year because you'll know what you're getting & be more conscientious in looking after them. If you're wanting to grow fruit / veg, also think about one or two you can't easily buy in the shops, the sort that you might think of as luxery items, because you'll be motivated to do well with those, too. Note that fruit trees take space & you won't get a harvest the first year. Note also that trees are divided into those that have shallow roots & those that have deep roots - you shouldn't plant a tree with shallow roots near to a house (I think 'near' means within about 25 metres) because there's a chance the roots will interfere with house foundations & water / gas pipes, etc. If you really want a tree with shallow roots near a house, put it in a large ceramic pot - it'll grow to the size of the pot. I have an English Field Maple in a pot & it does very nicely; it just tends to shed its leaves a little sooner than normal trees, that's all. :-) Then get yourself a book or sign up to a good seed catalogue or buy a gardening magazine & work out the seeding, planting out & harvesting times for each plant you've listed. The types of plants / crops you can grow will depend on soil type - how wet the soil is, etc. I have a very good book for fruit & veg - just called 'Allotment' - but, of course, I can't find it just now! However, one of these might be the ticket: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_5_5?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=allotment+gardening+books&sprefix=Allot%2Cstripbooks%2C288 Try to organise it so you can harvest fruit / veg or look at pretty foliage / flowers as many of the months as possible. Then you're into the sowing. If you've gone to a reputable garden centre to buy your plants / seeds, they'll have someone on hand to help with 'how to' questions but, in general (depending on the plant / crop), seeds can be started off, individually, in small pots in a light shed / shelter, potted on once the sprouts are about 3 inches high, hardened off when they're about 6 inches high & planted out when all the frosts have gone. Always water at the base of the plant - leaves get waterlogged & make mould if watered from above (that doesn't seem to happen with rain; don't know why) & try to water with room-temperature water whilst they're sprouting. Above all, enjoy. And experiment. You'll learn by making mistakes. But you'll have fun along the way, so go out there & enjoy. :-)

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Tue, 17 Jan 2012 17:06:39 +0100

If you're in Louisiana you're probably in USDA zones 8a or 8b, so if you are looking at a seed catalog or seed packets in Agway that will give you a quick-and-dirty guide to what can or can't grow in your climate. LSU's agricultural extension Home Gardening page might be a good place to start. Local extensions usually have lots of information not only about what grows well in your region, but also specifics like what diseases/insect pests you'll be dealing with, and you can usually contact them with any questions.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 05:37:28 +0100

Not content with being in full bloom in its own pot, the petunia that grew wild in my tomato pot on the deck has now reseeded itself to the pot next to it on the windowsill. Meanwhile, the summer bulb in the second pot isn't doing anything I can see. It's a pink petunia and I never buy pink petunias. They did grow wild in Brooklyn when I lived there, but this dirt has never seen Brooklyn. Also, the Brooklyn petunias had small blossoms. A sport from some other petunias I bought? Probably.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 12:53:07 +0100

Lily, the varieties that you can buy are usually hybrids, and won't come true from seeds. So it's quite possible that one of the plants you bought had the genes for pink blossoms. It might have the genes for small flowers, too, or that could just be a reaction to less-than-ideal growing conditions - indoors, there'll always be less light than outside, even if it doesn't seem like it to us humans.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 14:53:46 +0100

In the past I've bought some annuals that say "illegal to propagate." Usually something related to a dianthus or a straw flower (if those two are relatives). I never did succeed in breaking the law with them. The petunias that grow wild in Brooklyn are small-flowered, pink, and rather straggly. Not "wave" petunias exactly, but not a compact type. These that reseeded from my recently purchased annuals here have larger blooms and are compact. They're in a southern exposure window that gets a ton of sun at this time of year because the oak trees have no leaves. I just wonder how these hybrids can devolve so fast. I'm familiar with phlox seeds not being true to color; in fact, whenever I can keep the deer from eating them, my pink-lavender phlox take over from any slightly different color. The only surprise was last year when Miss Lingard (pure white) showed up where I never had planted a white phlox. But then again, maybe I did, and it died or seemed to, and last year somehow it revived. I have had some magical reappearances of plants that were supposedly dead. These petunias are all part of the magic I guess.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 19:39:08 +0100

It's a simple law of genetics. I'm not sure how well I can explain it (I'm pretty tired), but hybrids, by definition, have mixed genes. So the plant you bought might have had one gene for pink flowers, and one for blue (or whatever - like I know what flower-colour genes petunias have! ;-) ) No idea if petunias self-pollinate, either, but if they do, the seed that this plant grew from could have ended up with two genes for "pink". ... Or it could have cross-pollinated with another plant, if you had more than one variety. Either way, hybrids will never come true from seeds, that's just what hybrids do. That's why, when I buy vegetable seeds, I try not to buy hybrid seeds any more. I want to be able to save my own seeds. The "illegal to propagate" thing is a different matter - plant varieties can be patented, and then for however many years, you'll need to buy a license to propagate them (there might be exceptions for private use, i.e. if you're not going to make money from it, but I'm not sure. Might be different in different countries, too). It doesn't necessarily mean they're hybrids, though (although they probably are). But a lot of that stuff is propagated by cuttings anyway, not seeds, so it doesn't matter whether they are. Another reason for me to prefer heirloom varieties. The patents on those have long run out (if they ever were patented in the first place), and I'm not breaking any laws by saving seeds myself (not that anyone would care about little Magpie and her couple dozen seeds, as long as I'm not making large amounts of money with them, but still...)

Re: Gardening

Hepatica — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 15:51:51 +0100

I had a catalogue drop through my door a couple of weeks ago - it was from the awful company that I bought from a couple of years ago & vowed never again! But I had a look on Weds evening & it gave me a good idea of what to plant, when. So I made myself a list & took a trip to my local Wilkies on Thurs. They had an offer of 3 for 2 on all veg seeds, so I bought 15 packets & a pack of 3 seed trays, & the whole lot only came to £10 odd. It was great! :-D So now I just have to get the soil ready & organise my shed for the chillis & peppers, & then I can start planting. :-D We have a forecast of snow, though, & it's still pretty cold & frosty most mornings, so I won't start planting yet, but I'm looking forward to getting everything ready. :-)

Re: Gardening

Leonara Declamara — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 17:13:29 +0100

Last night, I planted my first pot of basil of the year! I've got about 8 leaves left on last year's so I figured it's time, since the rest of it has died off. I've loved having fresh basil for cooking. I've also got a monster rosemary bush in the yard, but that's about 15 years old. I didn't plant that one, my dad did. This year, I'm going to try oregano and thyme, too. I've had NO luck with oregano so far. It sprouts, gets going, and then just dies, every time. I've tried thinning, not thinning, repottting, not repotting, different soils, fertilizer, no fertilizer-- I just don't have much luck with it. What are some other good indoor herbs that I can plant? I have plenty of yard space, but a dog who really, really likes to dig, so I don't trust him not to dig up anything I put outside. I do have lots of shady area in the back I could possibly plant in, but that has the trouble of being taken over by voluntary stuff, and zero direct sunlight. Suggestions for that would be awesome.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 18:57:33 +0100

If you planted parsley and sage, you'd have a whole song. :-) I just ordered some organic seeds, vegetables and herbs. I'm switching things around and planting pea pods in the tomato containers and herbs in the former pea containers. I'm still undecided as to whether I'll plant potatoes this year. I've planted them for the last six years, but I never get much of a crop. I get pea to egg sized potatoes, and my Russet bakers look like fingerlings. I also ordered some organic pesticide and some fake wasp nests. If they work then maybe I won't be chased around the yard by divebombing yellow jackets shouting, "Tora, tora, tora!" The bees never bother me, but those wasps are mean. One bed I'm going to give over completely to carrots. And I've decided that everybody is going to get more room this year. Maybe overcrowding was what was diminishing my yields.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 20:27:14 +0100

[quote=Zookeeper] If you planted parsley and sage, you'd have a whole song. :-) [/quote] Damn, and now I have that song stuck in my head! I've been seed shopping today. Nothing I strictly needed, but I did get a couple of things I want to try out. And I found out that one of the garden centres now has a rack dedicated to seeds for balcony gardeners. Can't say I agree with all of their choices, though. Cauliflower? I tried, but for the tiny harvest I got, it took up far too much space.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 22:25:35 +0100

Yeah, cauliflower and broccoli do need their space. Last year, I put six brassica plants into my raised bed instead of nine, and I actually got a small head of cauliflower and a bit of broccoli. This year I'm going to cut it down to four plants and see what happens. Well, now the song's stuck in my head, too.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 09:59:38 +0100

My seeds came today. I didn't expect them to get here this soon. This year I think I'm going to concentrate on herbs, carrots, and peas.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 23:32:13 +0100

We've had such warm temperatures lately that today two crocus were in bloom. We're about a month too early. Batten the hatches. Bad weather is sure to follow.

Re: Gardening

DanieXJ — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 01:50:25 +0100

Hepatica, nope. Yard in the US can mean many things. To some it means the 'front' yard which generally has grass (which we got from y'all over on the other side of the pond) Although, I think there are some cool houses here and there that have flower, or even veggie gardens in their front yards!! Woo to the Xeriscaping!!!! It can also mean the 'side' yard, or the 'back' yard, which generally is where a lot of veggie, flower, herb gardens are planted.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 02:58:59 +0100

When I was growing up, "yard" meant anything on the property that wasn't buildings or concrete. Front yards were in front of the house, back yards in back, side yards to each side. What else would they be called? I'm really seriously thinking of planting edibles in my front yard. It gets sun all day, so it would be the perfect place. I'm a little worried about thieves, though. I still want another fruit tree. I bought an apple tree from Gurney's a couple of years ago. It leafed out the first year, even bloomed, but died that next winter. Most of the fruit plants I got from them died, so I'm not ordering from them any more. That still leaves me with wondering where I can get a sturdy dwarf or semidwarf apple tree. Can't do anything more than just think about gardening right now, though. It's just begun to snow, and that's the beginning of the winter blizzard moving into Colorado. I'll pretty much be stuck in the house (in the cold!) for the next several days, and I'm out of milk.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 05:24:19 +0100

Reminds me of all the dwarf fruit trees my mother bought over the years. They always turned out to be full-size trees instead. It got to be a family joke.

Re: Gardening

Hepatica — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 09:04:09 +0100

Thanks Danie & Zoo, That's interesting & useful information - I'm going to file it away for writing. :-D I remember learning at uni how the English words used by the new US people were updated for those who remained on the coast by newly incoming boats, but not for the people who moved into the interior of the country, which is why those living in the middle have a different style of English - which is nearer the English of the time - than those nearer the coast. It's all interesting stuff. :-) To me, anyway, &, from what I understand, most of the UK, "yard" means a concreted / hardcore / cobbled area to the back of a building, often the sort in front of stables or, typically with Victorian built terraced houses in the north, a small area leading to a coal house or an old outside loo. Those houses often have a raised area for planting to the side of the yard. "Garden" refers to any area around a house where plants are, either in pots or in beds with lawn, etc. Gardens can be completely covered over with hardcore / stone / gravel - not usually concrete - for "easy gardening" & still be called gardens. "Patios" (stone / wooden slatted areas) are often a feature, too, either in one area or all over a garden. Have to go to school now, but I'll look up more about this when I come home & see if I can find any other references.

Re: Gardening

Hepatica — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 18:06:27 +0100

Yep, when I look up yard it's split into 'enclosure' (& includes 'garden' in that context) & 'open space' (which doesn't include 'garden'), but 'garden' doesn't include 'yard.' I find it really interesting how common words mean completely different things in different countries that speak the same language. :-) Maybe I'm a bit sad, though! lol!

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 21:48:56 +0100

I remember being perplexed by the 'yard' as a kid reading about Sherlock Holmes and Scotland Yard. Of course the UK police needed help solving crimes, I reasoned, if they're just hanging around in some big yard all day pulling dandelions. Called up my mother last night to see what I could get out of her basement seed bank. For the balcony, I think I'll try flowers around the railings: California poppy, hens and chicks (ok not a flower, but classified like one in my head), and morning glory seeds taken from a lovely hybrid found on an overgrown abandoned lot last year (I'm hoping it'll come partially true to type). Native grasses in the 'irregular' containers which probably aren't safe for edibles. Edibles including 2 varieties of tomatoes (both cherries), compact cucumber, radishes, lettuces, and herbs. Milkweed and dill to bring in insects. If I end up leasing a public plot, I'll probably end up doing squash only--for practice, playing around with genetics, and because people are probably unlikeliest to steal zucchini of all things. As for the thieving, Zoo, you know your neighborhood best, but we (mom and I) have only had trouble in the public plots. I've never found evidence of people trespassing on our private land to steal, though overhanging fruit trees are seen as fair game by sidewalk passers-by. Much more common is people letting their dogs wander onto your property and do their business in the garden, and not bothering to clean it up!

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Fri, 03 Feb 2012 23:25:11 +0100

I live in a middle-class residential neighborhood, but I've had trouble with some neighbors across the cul-de-sac. I know they've stolen my mail, and they've parked their cars on my sidewalk and across my driveway so no one can get in or out. They have no respect for anyone else, and they're only nice if they think they can get something from you for free. They wouldn't be above stealing food from me if they thought they could get away with it. So planting something obvious like tomatoes or fruit bushes would probably be out of the question. I'd have to grow weird stuff or stuff that doesn't look obviously foodlike. Hardscape garlic, edible flowers, lettuce that just looks like foliage, or herbs might be good candidates. I might be able to grow a container blueberry bush on my front porch, especially if I hid it behind the morning glories. Blizzard is still underway. We've got at least a foot of snow so far, and the storm isn't anywhere close to ending.

Re: Gardening

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Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 10:27:14 +0100

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Re: Gardening

DanieXJ — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 21:58:45 +0100

I believe the word you're looking for is Nerd.... which, I've never seen as a bad thing, being one myself. There are many types of nerds, writing, technical, computer, engineering, book nerds, gardening nerds, and even linguistic nerds... :) And yeah, depending on the neighborhood a lot of yards do have fences around them too. Front yards, so the little ones (or dogs/pets) don't run out into the street after their balls and get run over.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 14:39:25 +0100

The shivering rhododendrons with their tightly furled leaves tell the tale of how frigid it is this morning. The high winds make the temp outside effectively 6 degrees. Yet I have a batch of daffodils fully articulated, waiting for the proper amount of sunshine and heat to bloom. I've always understood they were sun-sensitive rather than heat-sensitive, but these are right outside the kitchen exhaust fan and I think the warm winter and the intermittent heat from the fan has pulled them up early. Although obviously, they won't be blooming today.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 16:31:38 +0100

I picked up a "lucky" bamboo yesterday, and it now graces a corner in my kitchen where nothing else seemed to fit. In other news, I should be putting in my gardening order later today, and then eagerly awaiting the delivery so I can start figuring out how to fit it all in the two small patches of land I'm allowed to use, or where to situate all the pots for everything that wont' go in the ground. This also means my avocado will get a bigger pot, and can continue to grow instead of shed leaves. And then, I can find a tutorial video to show me what the instructions mean for my venus flytrap. Is the bag supposed to be open when I put it in water? Closed? Why not just put water in it and see what happens? Even though it wasn't an expensive kit, I don't want to mess this up. So googling shall be my friend yet again.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:09:07 +0100

My magazines are showing spring plants and I've started watching the garden shows on PBS, but while the TV is showing me daffodils and grape hyacinth, the window is only showing me snow, bare branches, and the little balls hanging off the sycamore tree just beyond the balcony. With a couple of notable exceptions the indoor plants are all looking very sad, so I may have to rip out a couple of them this year--but maybe they will bounce back when they actually get sun again? Apparently we moved back a whole zone on the new USDA hardiness map, which is a little disturbing -- zone 6 now. The other thing that I got this week besides the new map was the farm report from the organic farm I was volunteering on (it's student-run, so the students have to write up a report showing what they learned/how crops performed/how sales went). It was a nice trip down memory lane 2011 and an interesting preview for 2012. I missed the big pawpaw harvest last year and looking at the pictures makes me all excited for next fall. As far as agriculture, things are still quiet, although one of the maple sugarers is inviting anyone out to the sugarbush all February who wants to help & learn how-tos of production. If I only had a car. :(

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Sun, 12 Feb 2012 23:48:43 +0100

Okay, the seed order has been pushed back because funds ran out faster than we thought they would. No matter. I'll just be ordering these other plants a little at a time, and in the meantime, I have the seeds from last year to work with. But that won't stop me from getting my bonsais and my venus flytrap ready. Tomorrow after I make my repair calls, I'll see about getting those seeds ready for sprouting.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 02:56:16 +0100

I've decided that I can put a couple containers of snow pea pods on my front porch. They'll get full sun for about five hours in summer. I hope that'll be enough. I have some metal scrollwork on the front porch, and the vines can crawl up that. They won't look significantly different from ornamental sweet peas. We still have a foot of snow on the ground and the temps are Arctic, way below average. It feels more like another Ice Age than global warming. We're a desert area, though, so we need the snowpack.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:38:50 +0100

It warmed up slightly today, into the upper 30s, so I went out and did errands. I had enough to pay my mortgage for this month, but I'm tapped out. I don't know how I'm going to pay my utilities this month, much less food. (Praying here for a financial miracle.) I faxed the consent form I was supposed to and e-mailed them my resume and writing sample. All I can do on that job now is just wait. I haven't heard anything back on the job I applied to last week. More waiting. Snow's still a foot deep in the back yard. I waded out to the compost bin to dump some things in. There were little kitty paw prints on my back porch, so I left some kibble out. And to keep this on topic (sorry, mind wandered), my tulips in front are coming up. Green spears are about three inches above the ground. And the buds on some of the trees are looking fat. Spring is going to happen eventually! We're not going into an Ice Age! I just hope I can keep the lights on and the heaters running until that happens.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Mon, 13 Feb 2012 22:51:15 +0100

Good luck on the job, Zoo! I think I finally saw some sprouts on the sweet potato I planted (they're tiny, so I'm not quite sure). And I'm ridiculously excited because we got three varieties of ornamental sweet potatoes at work this year - I always wanted that variegated one! And I finally sowed some cress. The next morning, I could smell cress in the entire apartment - the same thing happens when we sow chives at work, but that smell is much stronger (of course, there are a couple hundred pots) and more unpleasant.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 14:48:05 +0100

More on yards. Yards can be paved over spaces, but most areas with freestanding homes have zoning that forbids paving over the entire front yard. Don't know about the back yard, which is usually considered one's private business. With very small back yards, some people put in pavers or concrete and eliminate any grass, but most people keep a section of lawn. We once lived in an apartment where the landlord had paved over his front yard (which was small and fenced) with concrete he had died green. Very urban thing to do, and ugly as sin. When I did a door-to-door summer job in the suburbs during college, I noticed a curious thing. The yards of the lower middle class, the people who didn't have much but finally owned a small house, had chain link fences in front and back. (Also, large, vicious dogs.) The houses of the more comfortable middle class had no front fences, and only had a back fence if there was a dog to keep in and the yards were small enough that a fence was economically possible. The houses of the truly wealthy had solid fences front and back, and gates, because they could afford them and they knew people wanted to get in and mess with their stuff (I believe). In the U.S., townhouses in suburbs have tended to have very tiny front yard green spaces, what we often call a postage stamp yard, just enough for a few annuals or a couple of small bushes and maybe a little grass. They usually have fenced back yards and are originally sold with the fences provided by the builders. There also are what are called garage townhouses, which tend to have no front yard, maybe only a doorstep next to the garage, and that's the entire front of the house. Don't know if they have fenced back yards but suspect they do. Some were built nearby recently, so I could go check one day. People build those to "sweat the land" and get the most return for their construction investment. There also used to be another phenomenon in upper middle suburban neighborhoods, and that was a sense that the homeowners also owned the street. If someone was seen walking on the street who visually "did not belong," in an upper middle neighborhood, someone called the cops. Some of our door-to-door crew (we weren't selling anything, BTW) got stopped and questioned by the police even though they were white middle-class college students who theoretically would blend into such a neighborhood. This was before the country's great love affair with jogging and now with walking in suburbs, and it often was racist, so I don't know if the practice still occurs.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 17:14:53 +0100

"There is nothing hopeful of spring but a few meagre signs, and the tradition that spring has always come heretofore."--Rowland E. Robinson, In New England Fields and Woods

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:02:56 +0100

[quote=Hopeful lily] Reminds me of all the dwarf fruit trees my mother bought over the years. They always turned out to be full-size trees instead. It got to be a family joke. [/quote] Yeah, unless it specifically says "extra dwarf" or something like that, it's basically a full-sized tree.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:09:19 +0100

My first big project of the year is putting in a hummingbird/butterfly garden in the front to replace the dismal rose bushes and pointless lawn strip on the street front. Thanks to already having a bunch of plants and materials on site, it looks like I should be able to pull off the whole project, including a small retaining wall, for less than $50. The bad news is, I've spent all week knocked back with a chest cold and haven't gotten a single thing done since I phoned in the utilities locate. I'm gonna be putting in some long hours on this thing next week... and I'll need to be done in time to get the peas into the veggie garden and start building a new compost bin (our black barrel finally broke and a rat moved in... I've been meaning to go over to a three-box system for a while, anyway). Then, of course, I need to find some space to transplant our marionberries, get a soil test so I can try to salvage the front lawn, and finish the habitat restoration in the backyard. It's going to be a busy year...

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:02:44 +0100

Did some research on those garage townhouses. No front yard, but a tiny space large enough for one bush. Back yards exist but not fenced; each townhouse has a deck (a wooden porch with no roof usually accessed by the dining room or kitchen, large enough for at least a dozen people). We're having high winds again, but I did manage to spray most of my plants yesterday to keep the deer and bunnies away. I've got about 30 crocus blooming, mostly yellow. The snow drops are still doing fine. Some groups of Jetfire daffodils look promising, but it can take weeks for the bud portion to bend over and finally open, so we're still assuming March for those.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 19:49:37 +0100

I went out to dump my compost crock into the bin today. The buds on my peach tree and my lilacs are getting fat. The irises and hen 'n' chickens are greening up, and I have some crocuses in front popping up. I may have some crocuses in back, but the snow's still too deep to tell. It's still a foot deep in places. I should be starting my indoor seeds, but with the house so cold, it wouldn't be much better than putting them outside. I don't think they'd germinate in the cold air inside. When I plant them outside, I'll put hot caps over them.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 21 Feb 2012 20:57:44 +0100

I'm itching to clean up the balcony and start some seeds. If I keep up my daily "one hour of useful stuff" after work, I should be able to start before the week is over. I'll have to see if the potting mix has thawed yet so that I can dump it out and replace it. I did finally buy a bag of potting mix last week, and I'll buy a couple more when we get the new delivery (which should be tomorrow). I'm looking forwards to growing my own lettuce again. I haven't eaten a decent salad in months, because all the store-bought lettuce tastes of absolutely nothing, and the endive I bought last week had so many brown spots that I threw out three quarters of it. Frustrating. And I finally bought some orchid fertilizer this week. The poor things were starving.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:22:15 +0100

This wasn't exactly gardening. I took my chain saw out to the back property line and topped dozens of oak saplings, so the birds won't nest in them before I get around to cutting everything to the ground. I really need a bush hog, but they cost a fantastic amount of money--I've bought cars for less. Maybe I can find somebody to do the bush hogging for me, and keep these would-be trees at bay. We could just let the woods do what it wants, but prefer open space under the tree canopy, not a tangle of thorny bushes and small trees. It's funny, though, because in one spot we are growing bamboo, the ultimate tangle. Today was warm but the high wind reduced the potential charm of 60 degrees in February. About fifty yellow crocus were in bloom, and a single tiny purple one. I never buy white crocus. What's the point when I'm usually tired of seeing white? This winter, we've had no serious snow at all. We still have a few weeks when it's possible, but then the most we'll get is an ice storm.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Thu, 23 Feb 2012 04:37:33 +0100

Today I finally got around to soaking the seeds for my bonsais and my flytrap. Tomorrow I transfer the bonsai seeds to wet paper towels for their three week wait in the fridge. Then they can be planted and join the fun that my avocado and lucky bamboo are having as indoor plants. Hoping to get some vegetable seeds soon so that I can have a variety of plants growing. Even if it's not my wish list, I can fill that out later as funds allow.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Fri, 24 Feb 2012 02:40:10 +0100

I counted 96 crocus blooming, 227 snowdrops, and 8 tiny maroon iris. Very warm day and the early daffodils are looking eager to bloom. A batch of blue-gray tiny iris have popped up and will be open tomorrow. Meanwhile on my kitchen windowsill, a second petunia has come up from seed, bigger and badder than the first. It's about to bloom. Will it also be pink?

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 02:47:02 +0100

Spring flowers are springing up here. I have more crocus coming up, joined by some daffodils and tulips. And some of the iris are poking up little green leaves, although I think I lost a couple more over the winter.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sun, 26 Feb 2012 20:00:47 +0100

Cleaned up my potting bench today, used the old potting mix to plant a few old bulbs that were still lying around in the cellar and had sprouted there (I was going to use them for guerilla gardening, but never got around to it). If they still grow/bloom, that's nice, if they don't, it's fine too. Then I sowed the first two tomato varieties (yellow and white currant tomatoes) and some peppers - I don't really think the seed is still viable, so I just dumped the entire bag into a pot - if anything comes up, great, if not, I'll buy plants at work again. And my sweet potato is really sprouting. I have to stop pulling it out of the pot to check how much the sprouts have grown! Now, I have two bundles of seed packets on my table, waiting for me to decide what to plant and where.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 27 Feb 2012 06:51:26 +0100

It looks like I'm planting fingerling potatoes this year. I bought a bag of fingerlings, but they were getting green sitting on the counter, so I put them in the pantry. They've sprouted. More than sprouted, the stems are several inches high. I might put them in containers, then put the containers out when it gets warm enough.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 02:28:54 +0100

Our first batch of daffodils bloomed today, a full two weeks earlier than any bulbs usually open. Meanwhile, a very tall and very dead tree fell during the high winds, breaking into several large chunks. When we were in DC yesterday, we found representatives of nearly every early spring bulb in bloom, including hellebores, a relatively unpopular and rare bloomer that suggests these were all commercial plantings. But commercial plantings with imagination. There also were several fruit trees in bloom, a deep pink. Not Japanese cherries, and too early to be double cherries. Perhaps crabapples?

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 05:50:19 +0100

I went to an interesting horticulture seminar today on breeding autotetraploid nematode-resistant grape rootstocks and among other things, it confirmed my desire to try breeding my own plants. They have so many fantastic experimental strains, like one that has superior resistance plus produces around 9(!) fruit clusters per shoot, but he says they threw it out because the nurseries can't propagate it with hardwood cuttings (because it puts out green growth and not woody growth). What I like in a plant or fruit (e.g. taste) is so often at odds with what the industry wants it may pay to play around! There aren't any daffodils or other spring plants around the condo--all the maintenance company keeps going are bushes and shrubs that require minimal maintenance. Maybe I can sneak a few in next year. For now, all I've done was try to prune a few of my houseplants which were looking a little sad. I suck at pruning, so it will save them or kill them, time will tell.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 07:20:52 +0100

I always keep the bulbs if I buy any potted spring flowers and use those fror some "guerilla gardening". OK, I didn't last autumn, because I was too layzy, so those bulbs went back onto the balcony now. I finally made a rough plan for my balcony garden during breakfast yesterday, and after work, planted the window boxes (violas and baby leaf lettuce+asian greens seeds) and sowed radishes in two bowls that already have some crocuses and tulips in them. I have some more greens to plant today, and then peas. And I have a plant/seed trade going on with someone in the UK, so I should get all sorts of neat things soon. And of course, once I was done with my plan, I found one more planter I'd forgotten about. What to do with it? Should I try potatoes?

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 21:10:21 +0100

Planted two railing planters today (more violas, turnips, carrots and arugula) and put them back on the railing. But I can't plant peas yet, I'm out of potting mix and have to wait until I can have the car to buy more. And that extra pot will get more beans and melons - I have too many varieties of those! I can always try potatoes next year.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:06:43 +0100

I hurt my back a week ago and it looks like I'm going to completely miss the window for transplanting shrubs. Bah. At this rate I probably won't even get peas in the ground in time. So much I need/want to do and it's all on hold...

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Tue, 28 Feb 2012 23:09:45 +0100

Yum. I love homegrown taters. The two tricks I've learned are 1) give them a LOT of nice, fluffy dirt to grow in; and 2) water them daily until the berries start to form, then back off to a couple times a week. Between that and keeping them out of the rain (so the tops don't get blight), they're pretty foolproof--and delicious. And no scary chemicals.

Re: Gardening

Chai Maya — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 21:57:01 +0100

I haven't done any gardening on my own before - although my mom is a big fan of it, and I helped her out as a kid before we moved to Missouri and our garden was overrun with spiders. BLEECCCHHHHHHHHH But now, at nearly 17, I'm starting to get interested in it. Mostly I want to grow a dyeing garden (sounds so poetic and morbid, right?) for the products of my spinning wheel, but I'd also like to be able to feed myself. I like being independent "in case of zombie apocalypse," as I put it. ;D

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 22:34:27 +0100

A dyeing garden sounds fun! That's one of the things I want to try if when I have a garden again. My best friend and I always make plans for what we'd do if civilistation suddenly collapsed, not necessarily zombie-related. Like arm ourselves with my axe and whatever else we can find and go plunder a DIY store for everything we might need, and move out into the country. As my friend told me recently, "I talked it over with my boyfriend, and he agrees, if a war breaks out we'll come pick you up. Then we'll go out into the countryside, look for a nice house, kill the owners and move in." Must be a writer thing, this casual talking about killing people... I don't know anyone else who does it.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Wed, 29 Feb 2012 23:50:28 +0100

Halla, I'm sorry to hear about your back. I'm getting to the age where back, neck, hips, and other various joints complain more often than not. I actually got out and did some things in the yard. I scraped the dead leaves off the spring flowers and fertilized them. I have more tulips, daffodils, and crocuses coming up. It looks like my day lilies and some more of my iris died over the winter, unless they surprise me later. Mint is beginning to come up in a corner of my yard. In a couple weeks, I might have fresh mint for tea. The wind storm knocked a lot of branches off the trees. When the trees begin to leaf out, I'll be able to tell the dead branches still on the trees from the ones that were merely dormant, so I can get started on pruning. Some aspects of yardwork I absolutely hate, but I still like to get out into the yard and putter and look at green things. I saw two spiders outside today. Ick. That reminds me. I have to put the yellow jacket traps and the fake yellow jacket hives out soon.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Thu, 01 Mar 2012 19:03:24 +0100

I found another pot when I started tidying up on the balcony today! This messes up my planning again! I'm getting more potting mix tomorrow, so I'll finally be able to plant my peas.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Fri, 02 Mar 2012 00:59:11 +0100

I found some blue anemone blanda blooming outside the kitchen, plus a deep blue little iris. Elsewhere I have one scilla and three full-size daffodils open. The big excitement is that the land across our quiet country road, which has lain fallow except for haying, has been leased to a local farmer and will be under cultivation. It was fertilized (by huge truck) before the rain, and today two men used chain saws and a Cat front loader and a BobCat to cut down the few trees that had been left in the field. Using those machines, they then carried each entire tree to the edge of the woods. Presumably, tomorrow they'll come back and yank out the stumps. I wonder if the owner's wife, who wanted those trees saved, even knows what her husband has allowed. There were several handsome tulip poplars, and the remains of some orchard trees, all apples. No more. I'm betting this couple never builds a house here. We're lucky the economy does not dictate building houses on this land.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 03:36:44 +0100

They have redone the hardiness zone maps. A link to the new map can be found at http://www.planthardiness.ars.usda.gov.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 03:38:21 +0100

Hit Submit too soon. I was going to say that my zone here in Colorado hasn't changed, but my hometown in Illinois has advanced one zone. It's now about 10 miles into a warmer zone.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 08:00:14 +0100

Yeah, I heard about that. Apparently where I live (Portland, OR) has just barely been squeezed into Zone 8--though, with the winters we've been having the past few years, I'm not chancing it.

Re: Gardening

Chai Maya — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:51:43 +0100

Sounds great, let me know how it goes if you do the dyeing garden :D I don't know a lot about the processes used to turn them into dyes! Same here. It doesn't actually mean zombies for me; it's just a catch all term. DIY stores sound like a really good idea lol! As for casual talk about killing people: I was sitting with my spinning wheel one evening, watching old Dick Van Dyke Show reruns with my mother. (This wheel was a Christmas present and we had to put it together ourselves, including using wood stain to get it the color I wanted.) Anyway, I was thinking about how sharp a wooden edge on the wheel would have to be to cut my finger on it ... I asked my mom how many gallons of blood she thought it would take to stain the entire spinning wheel properly. Poor woman. I think she worries about me. ;)

Re: Gardening

Chai Maya — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 20:52:15 +0100

For the record: it was a PURELY hypothetical question. I have a morbid mind, and watch way too much Vampire Diaries.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sun, 04 Mar 2012 21:22:24 +0100

Well, it'll be a while yet until I can have a dyeing garden - right now, I only have a tiny balcony garden, and not much hope of being able to afford somewhere with a real garden any time soon (but it has to happen one day, it just has to.) Spinning is something I'd like to learn too. It's actually on the list of necessary skills for the sudden collapse of civilisation. Gotta steal a couple of sheep somewhere too. Talking about spinning in German is always quite funny, because "spinnen" can also mean "to be/act crazy". That I'm already very good at!

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:02:26 +0100

I know how to spin, but only on a drop spindle, not a wheel. I've always been interested in "primitive arts," and I think there's a website somewhere dedicated to it. I know that dyeing with onion skins will turn cloth orange, but that's the only natural dye I can remember, except for madder, which dyes red. Okay, how do you get from Dick Van Dyke shows to gallons of blood?

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:06:29 +0100

I really would like to pick up some plants and flowers when I go to Home Depot, but I just can't afford it. I'm trying to decide whether I can even afford bird seed. I was outside on the back porch today, and a whole flock of little birds flew over and landed on and around the porch. They were probably waiting for me to supply some more bird seed. It was warm today, so I got outside and got some things done. I did a little raking, and I cleared off some of the back porch. I want space to put my back screen door down so I can replace the screen that Mittens dug a hole through.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 03:25:44 +0100

Black walnut's got to be one too; my hands are black for weeks after hulling them.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 04:57:58 +0100

Cheap bird seed: grow wild black-eyed susans. They produce lots of seeds the birds just love, and the plants don't need any special care. I dug mine up from a vacant lot. I don't think birds particularly like the cultivated version, rudbeckia; it seems to cast hundreds of seeds that turn into plants every year. I have ripped them out and ripped them out. My entire back garden would be rudbeckia and phlox if I wasn't ruthless. We went looking at seeds and summer bulbs and plants today, but I resisted except for a few small iris and some freesia bulbs. The iris at least I am confident will thrive. I haven't had much luck with freesias previously. We were tempted by elephant ears, which are always in the stores at this time of year even though it is way too early to plant them. I am kind of hoping that one of the elephant ears I left in the ground may come back this spring. It's in a sheltered spot and I mulched it very heavily. Except for two bouts of extreme cold, we've had a very warm and snowless winter. The strange thing is, the new hardiness zone map shows that the cold line has moved east up in Massachusetts where we used to live. The dividing line went straight through Framingham before; now it looks like it's over east in Newton or even Wellesley.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Mon, 05 Mar 2012 07:12:26 +0100

I've been playing the plant-shuffling game again yesterday, trying to magically create more windowsill-space by moving houseplants around. I actually ended up chucking a few who were not doing well for me, and moved a few away from the windows, so I actually have a bit of free space now. It won't be enough once I have to sow more than just tomatoes, but I hope I'll be able to move some plants outside by then, at least during the day. Speaking of tomatoes, five seedlings are up, and I just love watching them grow - every time I check, there's another one! And outside, the radishes and asian greens are sprouting. It was a little colder tonight than I expected, and the surface of the planters was frozen, but I hope that they (the seeds and seedlings) don't mind that. I might cover them before I go to bed tonight, just in case.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 15:54:01 +0100

Had an odd moment this morning. I found out the carrots I planted last summer that didn't really do much are *still* growing. Maybe it had something to do with our super-mild winter, or the dead leaves piled up on the top soil. But before winter started and I had given up, they were just feathery plants with scraggly roots. I dug a little around one today and found a tiny carrot and got kind of excited over it.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Wed, 07 Mar 2012 19:29:30 +0100

Toby, carrots can take a lot of cold - I had mine out in a railing planter all winter, and we went down to -15°C (5°F), which is pretty cold for here, but the carrots were fine. I finally harvested and ate them last week. I've planted another railing planter this week (chives, parsley and some more violas), and now I'm worrying how to fit everything else I need into the remaining planters! And feeling grumpy because most of my herbs seem to have died over the winter. I don't think it was too cold, really, but too wet - those planters were/are soaked, I need to remember to move them out of the rain next winter! But at least the variegated lavender seems to have survived (oh, I hope I'm not jinxing it by saying that!) - that one would have been very difficult to impossible to replace. And - woo-hoo, my town is apparently the first in Austria to have community gardens. I won't try to get a plot this year, though, I'll have my hands full with my balcony garden (and I don't really want to move any of my balcony plants to a plot, not now that I've just started my German balcony gardening blog. I need to grow lots of stuff and write about how it does!) Still, it's cool that the community gardens will stay - they were part of an art project or something last year, so I wasn't sure they'd still be here this year.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Thu, 08 Mar 2012 03:23:54 +0100

Very beautiful day today, although windy. I planted all my random late fall and new Dutch iris bulbs, and moved some leaves off a few hardy plants, and fertilized a few daffodils. Doesn't seem like a lot but it took several hours, and I kept having to remove layers of clothing because I was too warm. But no bugs. Yay. Also, I broke another "unbreakable" Fiskars brand trowel on my unspeakable rock that masquerades as soil. Despite the big promises, the trowel is merely a plastic. Rock wins every time.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Fri, 09 Mar 2012 23:07:36 +0100

So today I've ordered my ruby corn, picked up tomato seeds and soil and starter pots for my veggies, and repotted my avocado. I think it looks happier in its new home. Once the corn gets here, I'll start filling up the little pots with dirt and seeds in preparation for the warmer times that are sure to be coming. Next week I'll be planting my bonsais and venus flytrap(s), so things are getting exciting here.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 19:45:35 +0100

According to an article on the online local news site, it's time to plant peas, carrots, lettuce, and parsley. I dunno. I've never planted anything this early. I usually wait until the second week of April. Maybe I'll plant some peas and see how they do. I was out raking the back yard today. I don't know why people think that yardwork isn't exercise! Or maybe I'm just way out of shape. I think I can probably start sifting the compost bin any time now. One of my bleeding hearts is coming up. I also ought to put the yellow jacket traps and the fake hives up before the yellow jackets descend like the six-legged hoodlums that they are.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 20:46:07 +0100

I've already planted my peas (except for the one variety I'm still waiting for - oh, I hope they haven't got lost in the mail!), parsley, carrots, radishes and turnips, and today I prepared the planters for the lettuce - I'm planning to buy plants tomorrow, I hope the looseleaf lettuce is finally big enough! I've just gone through some of the newspapers that have piled up during the last week, and felt pretty irritated at one article. It was about several studies/animal experiments to prove GMOs are harmless. Supposedly the experiments showed "no significant effects" on the animals' health. Umm... it might just be me, but "no significant effects" isn't the same to me as "no effects". Not that it matters much to me either way - for now, GMOs are still illegal in Austria, and if it comes to it I will do whatever I can so it stays that way. And even if they weren't, there's no way I'd buy GMO seeds. Not so much because I don't trust the plants, but for the same reason as why I'm cutting back on hybrid seeds - because I don't want to be at the mercy of seed companies, I want to be able to save my own seed and trade seeds and not worry about patents and stuff.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:26:07 +0100

But there's no such thing as "no effect" in a scientific study. There's only statistical significance--either they reject the null hypothesis or they fail to reject the null hypothesis, which "no significant effects" is an attempt at expressing to non-stats people. And everything you take into your body from food to pharmaceuticals that has an effect on you has side effects, that's physiology. Some are noticeable, some non-noticeable or benign, but "absolutely no side effects!" is basically a guarantee of a scam. News outlets are also notoriously bad reporters; you have to read the studies--but if you have the authors' names and their affiliations I can probably get the articles for you. I rounded up some spinach, herb, and radish seed packs and empty pots, but am at a loss where to get dirt to fill them. All the dirt here is on private property... talk about a first world problem. >.<

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Sun, 11 Mar 2012 23:41:45 +0100

I'm waiting until my ruby corn comes in before I start my seeds. Then it'll be some spring tilling and waiting for the seedlings to be big enough to take outside and plant. I'm excited to try and get the tomatoes and cucumbers to fruit better than they did last year. From those two I can (attempt to) make so many things I use around the house on a regular basis. And in the long run it will cut down on my grocery bill, making room for more exotic things I can't grow for myself.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 00:27:53 +0100

I've mentioned it before, but I'll do so again. Read Seeds of Deception by Jeffrey M. Smith. That book is what got me "scared straight," so to speak. I switched to an organic diet last year, and I'm buying organic seeds from now on. In one test, what Monsanto considered to be "no significant effects" means that only 5 of the test rats (out of 20 or 30, I believe) became ill from eating GMO food (intestinal lesions among other things), and only another 5 died and that was after the test was ended, anyway. Those effects were pretty significant to the rats! Very few safety tests have been done, and the conclusions from a lot of the tests that were done were suppressed and not made public. It was Monsanto, the GMO seed manufacturer, who said that GMO seeds were essentially the same as regular seeds, so they wouldn't need to do any safety tests. And the FDA (liberally stocked with ex-Monsanto employees) basically just said, "Um, okay." And that was it. GMOs scare me even more than greenhouse emissions. Off the soapbox again, except for one thing not really related to gardening. There's a health club chain somewhere that has hooked up their exercise bikes, elipticals, etc. to their power grid. The more people bicycle, the more they feed the energy grid, the less fossil fuel the club needs, and the fewer CO2 emissions they generate. Cool! I've long thought that would be a good idea for house exercycles as a way to reduce one's energy bill. Sign me up. I need to get more exercise, anyway. Back to gardening. I did a lot of raking, started sifting a compost bin, broke some more debris into firewood, and picked up a lot of downed branches in the yard. Then I looked around, and it really didn't look like I'd done much. I've decided to take two pretty containers that I was using for tomatoes, put them on my front porch, and plant peas in them.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 01:06:40 +0100

I remember that study. The tomatoes, right? Two of the FDA scientific branches said "Um, this is weird, we need to look at this" and the political agency hierarchy was like "NOPE nothing to see here." I don't trust Monsanto as far as I can throw them, or any of their products, but I also don't believe that because of them the whole concept of GMOs should be discarded or banned. GMOs have huge potential to make agriculture much, much better, safer, and more productive. The current crop of seeds have big problems, which could have been addressed (and maybe even solved!) if Monsanto & the like had been willing to admit there was a problem in the first place, which of course they didn't and won't. It's just sad they gave the technology such a big black eye it's doubtful it will ever recover. The bike thing is cool, I always wondered if it'd be possible to retrofit something into the house for that. Even just powering some little light bulb somewhere would help the bill and also be a motivation for more exercise!

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 01:16:30 +0100

I was enthusiastic, too, about GMOs at first. But I did assume that they would be rigorously tested under very strict protocols and wouldn't be let out of the box until and unless it could be proved that there was no danger. Not so. Not even close. What we've got sounds like Michael Crichton and Stephen King collaborated on a horror novel. Only this scares me more than any horror novel or movie I've ever experienced. And I'm hardly a Luddite. My degree's in chemistry.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 01:54:43 +0100

I pulled leaves off the garden outside the kitchen today, but left enough to protect them when winter inevitably tries to take a last bite out of everything. It was nice working there because the crocuses were at their height. Tomorrow the temp is heading into the seventies and that will do them in. Hundreds of Tete-a-tete daffodils are blooming next to our paths in the woods. I've got Jetfire near the house, and they're all open. At least half a dozen Dutch Master ("improved King Alfred," so they say) are randomly in bloom in various spots. And one Ice Follies. All the hyacinths are planted near the house, and several hyacinths are halfway in bloom, plus a few blue anemone blanda and some vivid blue scillas. When I planted some of the mid-height iris bulbs I'd just bought at Walmart, I was surprised to discover every bag contained two extra bulbs. All in good condition, too. Unusual colors, mostly brown mixtures. The rest of the pleasant day was spent practically standing on my head, using my battery chain saw to cut sapling stumps to ground level. This year we're finally close to finishing the removal of the impenetrable sapling mess that grew up around felled trees the loggers/previous owners left in situ, which was a far bigger mess whose cleanup took every winter for seven years. When we at last finished the big stuff, a hundred or more saplings were left, making that corner of the property impossible to walk through. Now, not so. At the bottom of the swale there's a huge fallen pine we use as a natural seat. Fun to sit there and have a view of the lay of the land instead of endless little trees of no particular distinction. There are still plenty of trees, of course, the original source of the acorns.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 02:02:42 +0100

I'd like to see it be closer to the pharmaceutical clinical trial procedures. To play devil's advocate for a minute though, hardly any foods we've eaten historically have been tested in any way, and almost all plants we eat produce insecticidal compounds to discourage herbivory. Bruce Ames pointed out that a huge number of common foods don't pass the industry-standard Ames test and other rodent carcinogenicity tests [links straight to PDF]. I'd be very curious to see what the results are for standard food components, especially something like the low-level glycoalkaloids in potato skins, which have already been linked to intestinal inflammation in humans and are lethally toxic in wild potatoes. Plants just don't want us to eat them. Hey me too! That and bio. So much for those so-called "practical" "in-demand" degrees, right?

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 05:26:10 +0100

Re food as poison, or rather, food as empty calories, I recently saw an article discussing a study (studies?) of the food values in ordinary, non-processed fruits and vegetables. It compared circa 1950 to now, and cited fewer vitamins and minerals, I believe. Agribusiness presumably is to blame. This was interesting to me because it wasn't just a rant against fast food or processed foods. I don't think they compared today's locally grown produce or certified organic produce, though. I believe I encountered that article in the NY Times but I couldn't swear to it. I did not know there were such things as wild potatoes., but I do know that the green stuff on your ordinary potato from the grocery store should not be eaten.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Mon, 12 Mar 2012 16:13:01 +0100

Yeah, no one breeds for taste or nutrients. Producing fruits and vegetables on a large scale for worldwide shipping means they breed for storage longevity, ease of propagation, disease resistance, or food that looks and smells ripe when it isn't. And i's so hard to get high production levels with many of the older, better-tasting varieties. My area is/was a huge apple producer, and many of the orchards still have old heirloom trees. The apples often taste great, but they require much more work to keep safe from disease than the modern varieties, and sell very poorly because they're usually speckled or mottled and don't have that unblemished apple shine. The orchardists keep the trees around for hard cider if they keep them at all because that's the only way they can sell the fruit. Talked to one of the condo board members today about getting a little space in the condo victory garden. I must not have been the only one, since I just got an email they are expanding it this season, but of course the new people are going to share the cost of having the work done. They haven't said what that number would be yet.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 01:21:40 +0100

Too many vegetables and fruits are bred to look pretty and to stay looking pretty for as long as possible. Taste and nutrition are optional, if they're considered at all. I worked outdoors for most of the afternoon, but it doesn't look like I've got a lot done. I did a lot of raking and cut some kindling and firewood. I also prepared one pot for peas. And I saw my first robin today! So I guess it's officially spring.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 03:35:48 +0100

I got my bonsais planted today. Now let's hope that spending a little extra time in the fridge didn't hurt them. We'll know pretty soon, though. They're sunning on the back porch while the weather's still warm-ish. If it was cold, I would have had to figure a safe way to get them sun and protect them from the toddler.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:47:54 +0100

I guess you have a point there, JK. But, little chance that I'll get to read the studies - there've been several letters to the editor this week complaining that the article didn't even cite its sources. (But then, Austria is notoriously anti-GMO, so there probably would have complaining letters anyway!) As a horticulturist, I can't help say, "but ordinary garden dirt is absolutely not good for growing in pots!" OK, I've done it myself, before vocational school and apprenticeship taught me differently, but looking back, those plants really didn't do well.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 19:52:28 +0100

We hat Ice Follies as cutflowers at the apprenticeship place - I always loved them, and would have taken some of the bulbs home to plant in the garden, but that was just when my parents divorced, sold the house and I no longer had a garden. And at my current workplace, we only grow some boring yellow ones.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:02:44 +0100

I remember a few years back, there was an article in a newspaper saying they'd bred a new variety of potato that had however many percent less calories (a pretty high number, but it's been too long to remember exactly) - acting like it was such a big accomplishment because it would help people who want to lose weight, but not eat less. And I just sat there thinking, "What the fluttering flamingo - there are plenty of people _starving_ in the world, and you want to waste growing space on _that_? And you're _proud_ of it?" (Well, except that I didn't say "fluttering flamingo" yet at that time.) I mean, I can imagine that losing weight is hard (never had to do it, myself), but seriously? Seriously?! And about plants not wanting us to eat them (I just accidentally wrote, "not wanting to eat us"!): One garden blogger I follow can no longer eat potatoes, tomatoes, peppers, eggplants after getting solanine poisoning last year, which you usually get from eating unripe tomatoes or potatoes gone green. She didn't do either - just spent a lot of time crawling around/working among her tomato plants with bare arms and legs, and absorbed the solanine through her skin. Pretty crazy, and it must be pretty depressing, too - I'd be a very sad Magpie without tomatoes, eggplants or potatoes!

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 20:38:30 +0100

I got some seeds and oca tubers from the UK yesterday from a plant/seed trade. I still need to wait for warmer weather to send my part, since I'm sending live houseplants. My trade partner ordered the seeds from a grower in the UK, and the notes included with the seeds made me wonder... I'd read this before, but had forgotten about it again, that the EU apparently only allows certain varieties to be sold to "the public". This company simply makes all customers members of a "club", so they're not the "public"... I've also seen one online shop with a disclaimer that said something like, "the EU does not allow this variety to be sold as a food plant... I guess you can feed it to your pets, though." So silly! In any case, it makes me wonder how Austrian seed savers handle that ... I think you have to become a member to order seeds from the Arche Noah (a big seed saving organisation), so that's probably why. And Reinsaat? They're an organic seed company, and I've seen their seeds in stores... do they only grow "approved" varieties, then? In any case, I filled another planter today and sowed the yellow snap peas I got. I think I'm going to add some kohlrabi to the pea planters as well - should be big enough to harvest before the cucurbits go in. I don't use my old organic gardening book that much any more, partly because I don't need it that much any more, and partly because I've memorized much of it already, but I still look at that companion planting table quite often! Maybe I should copy it and keep it in some place closer to the couch so I don't always have to go get the book... nah, I like looking at that book, seeing all the things I underlined as a teenager, remembering all the plants I've grown and wished for and the places I've gardened...

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:03:55 +0100

[quote=Magpie Ilya]As a horticulturist, I can't help say, "but ordinary garden dirt is absolutely not good for growing in pots!" [/quote] I believe you but with money being tight, I just can't wrap my head around the idea of paying for dirt. (OK, so the bagged stuff isn't 'dirt' really, but still.) Dirt! I mean... when it's right outside, everywhere! I probably will have to in the end, though, whenever I can convince someone with a car to drive me to Agway.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:07:43 +0100

Another good step towards losing weight would be to include other vegetables besides potatoes in one's diet ;) no new cultivars necessary.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:24:32 +0100

Well, if you can get your hands on any free dirt at all, you could mix it with bagged potting mix - that way, you'd still be able to save some money. The issue with using garden dirt is that it becomes very compacted in pots, while ideally, it should have about 25% air in it, and with mixing in some actual potting soil, you'd loosen it up at least a little. There are a lot of other "additives" that have the same effect, but to be honest, I don't know which of them are easily available/what they would cost/how easy they would be to transport. What I think I'm going to do next year is buy a couple blocks of coco peat and mix that with the old potting mix in my pots to add a bit more air, instead of replacing about half of the potting mix as I'm doing now. Coco peat would be easy to transport, if you can get it anywhere, but you'll need more fertilizer, as it has no nutrients at all. And I think mixing it with dirt would work well enough... but of course, the problem of getting either of them still remains!

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 22:47:58 +0100

And I'd babble on even more about this subject if I didn't keep running into the problem of not knowing the right words in English - an annoying problem with my school/work knowledge!

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:20:40 +0100

In Colorado, at least in my yard, the dirt is basically sand. (We were an ancient sea bed at one time.) I use commercial dirt in raised beds. But I make my own compost and use that liberally, too. Old leaves, cut grass, and kitchen waste makes pretty good dirt. I've even been putting old cotton clothing in. My grandmother would use garden dirt in her pots, and her plants did fantastically. But the rich loam of the Midwest is nothing like Colorado sand, and my grandmother had a wonderful green thumb. Sticks would bloom for her. She was that good. I wish she'd handed that skill down to me.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:22:23 +0100

Speaking of GMOs, the latest Prevention has an article about it. Yay! The word is getting out. Beautiful day today. Up to 73. I just hope my peach tree doesn't get tricked into blooming early. A late freeze will kill the blossoms, and no peaches again this year.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:48:31 +0100

The garden "dirt" in this case is heavy clay soil if that makes a difference. I might be able to get access to unlimited compost but haven't sought out the permissions yet. As far as the clay soil, it seems like it sucks up any and all air spaces into muddy goo, but I suppose the area farms must manage somehow.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Tue, 13 Mar 2012 23:57:43 +0100

Meant to add that the farm I helped out at had to wait to till until the soil was completely dry (which is like, end of May) and nothing direct-seeded would ever grow, but I don't know any ways to fix it up for potted plants.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 01:25:45 +0100

Did another stint of raking and breaking debris into kindling and firewood. My roses have begun to leaf out. So has my raspberry plant. And it looks like at least a couple of lilac bushes will leaf out in the next week.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Wed, 14 Mar 2012 07:06:05 +0100

In the ground, you have a lot more organisms that loosen up the soil, worms and bacteria and stuff, which doesn't work so well in pots. And rain usually compact the soil as much as the sudden "flood" from a watering can or hose. Although a heavy rain on an open field withclay soil can also be a problem (and non-organic farming often doesn't care much about soil organisms.)

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 02:04:25 +0100

The lilacs are leafing out. Lots of crocuses blooming. I'm continuing to rake, bag, cut kindling, and sift compost. It's just never ending. But I haven't seen a single bee yet. Usually I see them crawling into my crocuses and buzzing around my pussy willow tree, but I haven't seen one yet. I'm also working on my raised beds and my containers, getting them ready to plant seeds into. I'm not going to plant yet, though. We're having a cold snap and hard freeze in a couple days. I'm at least going to wait until after that passes.

Re: Gardening

Chai Maya — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:07:41 +0100

The Dick Van Dyke Show didn't have a lot to do with it; I just spin mostly in the evenings, while watching 'oldies but goodies' on Netflix. The gallons of blood thing was more to do with the idea of a spinning wheel drawing blood, as in the case of Rapunzel. I was just following the daydream equivalent of a plot bunny. :)

Re: Gardening

Chai Maya — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:10:22 +0100

I think I'm going to go find that list of necessary skills! I'm really interested in primitive technology - I mean, if you don't know the old fashion basics, you're basically screwed if the power companies go on strike. Any number of things could happen. It's just common sense to me - and it's fun! I love Renaissance Festival so much, I went three weekends last summer - and volunteered there once, for the free admission. It was unforgettable.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:26:06 +0100

Finally got my flytraps planted (I think. They're tiny seeds, and hard to see once you try to press them into the peat.) We'll see if anything comes from them in the next several weeks. If not, I'll order some seeds and try again. My corn should arrive this coming week, and then I can get busy planting seeds. As for today, I need to get out there and loosen up the soil again, just to be sure it's ready.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:37:57 +0100

It's not an actual list (that I know of) - just my and my friend's personal list that we've never written down. Volunteering at a Renaissance Festival sounds fun - I didn't get to a single one of the many medieval festivals last year, myself, and I'm too shy to actually join a group. But at least I do have a costume so I can get in cheaper, and I go to medieval dance (which has nothing to do with gardening or surviving the apocalypse, but it's fun. And hey, if there ever are no more computers, TV etc, we're going to need something fun to do as well! There just had better be enough survivors for a proper chapelloise.;-) )

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sun, 18 Mar 2012 20:45:27 +0100

I haven't done any actual work for a couple of days, just watched things grow - all my seeds are coming up, which makes me very happy. Even spotted the first couple of carrots already, and of course radishes, which are always among the first to germinate, various asian greens, turnips, arugula, peas... I'm probably forgetting something. Oh, and looseleaf lettuce and kohlrabi are planted, too. And plenty of pretty violas. Indoors, the older tomato seeds I'd almost given up on are finally germinating. I even put the seedlings outside during the day this weekend because it was so warm - and I think they'll enjoy some extra sunshine! Tomorrow, I'll have to remember to call some friends to find someone to water my seedlings next weekend - my cousin is getting married, and I'll probably have to leave right after work on Friday, and won't come home until late on Sunday. If it's as sunny as it was these last few days, they won't make it without someone watering them.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 02:07:31 +0100

It's nice weather here, and I'm chipping away at a few projects--mostly cleaning up all the tree branches from the last big blow that roared through. I've been sick or hurt most of the year so far so I'm way behind schedule on gardening projects (I'm almost certain the bare-root shrubs I ordered in February are dead, for instance), so I have a lot of catching up to do. The good news is, the garlic looks great, the bees are returning for the year, and I found an over-wintered potato while sowing snow peas.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 10:26:18 +0100

Too windy this weekend to get any outside work done. I actually tried bagging some leaves Saturday and gave up when I found myself cussing at the leaf bag, the leaves, and the wind. And the next 2-3 days will be too cold to do much, so I guess it's indoor chores for a while. Still no bees, although my pussy willow tree is blooming. They usually can't get enough of the pussy willows.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Tue, 20 Mar 2012 21:20:05 +0100

Got everything but my carrots all planted in one go. They'll go in the ground when I take my seedlings outside for a proper planting. Feeling very productive now.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 03:01:05 +0100

I managed one major bit of yardwork today. There's been a big dead limb on my back porch roof for a couple of years. It finally occurred to me to take my peach picker, which has a very long handle, and snag the limb and drag it off my roof. Now I have to chop it up into kindling, but hey, at least it's off my roof. My Old-Fashioned lilac has formed flower buds already. So has my peach. My pussy willow tree has blossomed. Last year, when it did, there were hundreds of bees buzzing around the tree. It sounded like the electrical hum of a transformer. But this year I haven't seen a single bee. This worries me. I'm afraid the local bee coloney may have become a victim of CCD. And how will my zucchini get pollinated? I also did some more leaf bagging and kindling snapping today.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 19:52:56 +0100

Squash bees and bumblebees are pretty effective pollinators of squash--hopefully they'll find your zucchini if the honeybees are MIA.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:06:54 +0100

I haven't seen any bees yet, either. Bumblebees and butterflies, yes, but not a single honey bee. Yesterday, I was half-listening to a radio report about pumpkin farmers in Styria actually starting to breed bumblebees as pollinators. Can't say I was really paying attention, though.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 20:34:45 +0100

In the eastern US people actually have been using managed alternative pollinators for awhile--bumblebees, mason bees, and alfalfa leafcutters. I've heard of a couple beekeepers managing alkali bees (sweat bees) and shaggy fuzzfoot bees, but those people are probably a little crazy. The way I understand it the bumblebees are a much more efficient pollinator on a per-bee basis for certain plants, but only with honey bees can you get the sheer force of numbers required to guarantee maximum yield for a large crop area.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Thu, 22 Mar 2012 21:43:15 +0100

The one thing I can remember (which, I guess, means I was in the kitchen just then, and not on the computer), is that bumblebees are also more reliable pollinators when the weather is bad. Because they don't make honey that keeps well, as honeybees do, they have to go out to find food even when it is cooler or wet. And - but I knew that before, probably from my seedsaving handbook - because they don't sting as much as honeybees, and live in smaller groups, they also make good pollinators to live inside polytunnels and such.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 13:23:03 +0100

I encountered several nice big bumblebees yesterday while I was exhausting myself removing leaves from one of my gardens. We used to have a guard bee just outside the back door at one of our homes. It (and its successors) never did anything, but its size did alarm some visitors. When the fruit trees are in bloom here, you can stand under one and the buzz from the honeybees is intense. Yet, except for the peaches and the sloes, we get no fruit. An occasional pear. No apples. Once the stock gets too old, I guess, it simply does not produce. I removed a ton of leaves, it felt like. It took hours and hours, since the flowers are up and I was trying not to break them as I picked the leaves out. Still have to get all the leaves out of the yucca. It hasn't been blooming and possibly not enough sun and heat on its lower part may be the cause. Too bad we planted it in the leaf bowl, but it's the sunniest spot available.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 14:00:29 +0100

I finally started some planting. I planted one container with Snowflake snow peas, and I'm also getting my raised beds ready. Still no bees. My peach tree has begun to bloom. I hope it hasn't jumped the gun. But not a single bee. Not a honey bee, bumble bee, sweat bee, leaf cutter bee, or mason bee. Not even any yellow jackets or paper wasps, although I don't miss them much. Between the blizzards and the wind storms, I have a lot of downed branches to take care of. I also have a lot of dead branches still on the trees.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 15:51:14 +0100

A lot of the old stocks of apples are also disease-prone. My parents have a very old crabapple in their yard which used to put out malformed little fruit every year when I was little, but over the years the bark and branches have become scarred and gnarled despite being coddled as much as it can be. It flowers but hasn't fruited in over 15 years now. I solved my dirt problem by bartering a trip to Agway with a local who was happy to take my 30c./gallon supermarket gas discount in return. While there, I picked up a few more seeds--leaf lettuces (the lettuce at the store is so expensive I haven't had any in months), beets, and 'Dragon Carrots' which just looked too cool not to try. Lettuce, spinach, and radishes are going in now, and I'll have to wait for the root vegetables til late April--and buy some bigger pots. My head was spinning with information after coming from the greenhouses, but I think I'm going to stick to the basics of learning how to get something planted, rooted, and growing in a pot before worrying about esoteric things like cold treatments and measuring photosynthetic active radiation.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:10:06 +0100

Is it just one apple tree/just one variety? If so, it might be that it needs another variety for pollination. Or it could be the age of the tree, of course. *shrug*

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Fri, 23 Mar 2012 19:20:48 +0100

I finally figured out a wedding present for my cousin - about time, too, the wedding is tomorrow! I was going to "share" my mother's present, and this morning, I called her to ask if she thought I should bring them some flowers from work. One thing led to another, and we decided I'd make them a little veggie planter for their balcony. I was just thinking of a little 30 by 20 cm terracotta planter, but once I got to work, I thought of far too many things I wanted to put in, and hoped I would be able to find a different, bigger but not too heavy pot (I didn't want to use a plastic one. But then my boss arrived with a van load of old veggie boxes for our customers to put their purchases in (since they've been throwing hissy fits about having to pay a few cents for a new cardboard box), and then it struck me - I could just plant the veggies and herbs into one of those wooden boxes! So I bought everything I'd been thinking about - chives, parsley, arugula, looseleaf lettuce, chard, a strawberry plant and a viola for a spot of colour and edible flowers, lined the box with an empty potting mix bag and created a cute little garden in it. My mother will be contributing a boot tray for a saucer, which is pretty much the perfect size.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 15:45:50 +0100

Here's something Big, Fun, and Scary all in one. While I was outside this morning spreading crabgrass preventer (an early spring ritual that usually does no good anyway), I encountered a handsome adult box turtle. It's March 24. Turtles in this region usually come out around Memorial Day, which used to be May 30th, but now is whatever end-of-May weekend with a Monday holiday, sometimes as early as the 25th. By any reckoning, though, this turtle is TWO months early. And they say global warming isn't happening. I'll be happy to call this a freak occurrence--unless it happens again next March. We had 86 degrees yesterday, which doubtless encouraged the turtle to come out, but it's going down into the 40s at night next week. I'm still waiting for the classic end-of-March ice storm this region usually suffers.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sat, 24 Mar 2012 23:55:51 +0100

I saw my first bee! It was definitely a bee, and it was hanging out in my pussy willow tree. Now hopefully it'll go tell all its friends. I also planted some spinach and lettuce. Usually I'm doing this in the middle of April, but it's so warm I'm worried it might already be too warm for my spring vegetables. Yeah, and global warming is just a conspiracy concocted by scientists to get more grant money. Mm-hm.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Sun, 25 Mar 2012 20:11:00 +0200

The red-tailed bumblebees showed up right on schedule a couple of weeks ago, and now the honeybees are back, too. I expect to see my first mason bee any day now. My radishes and peas are sprouting, and I'm about to put in some spinach and lettuce. I even have a few carrots sprouting from last year's seed, surprisingly enough. But I'm mostly living on last year's crops; I have kale, Swiss chard, and sprouting broccoli coming out my ears. The best news, though, is that my two bare-root shrubs are miraculously still alive almost two months after I bought them, despite the fact that I still haven't planted them. The spirea is even starting to leaf out, though I'm not sure what the delay is going to do with the flowering currant--all its relatives are already leafed out and blooming. I'm feeling a lot better about being way behind schedule on the butterfly garden; I still haven't even gotten the retaining wall in yet.

Re: Gardening

Chai Maya — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 14:54:19 +0200

Ah well, I suppose I'll write my own list then. Thanks anyway! :) That's so cool that you have a costume for renfest! My best friend and I were talking about going in costume this year. We did it last year but the costumes were last minute - he had a staff and a cape (over a graphic tee) and I had a long skirt and tacky jewelry (supposed to pass for a gypsy). We were wanting to do something a little more realistic and elaborate, and possibly matching - pirates, lord and lady, etc. Do you have any advice for where to find that sort of stuff (outside ren fest, because that would defeat the point), preferably without killing the pocket book? I can sew, too, so maybe that would help ... No big deal if you aren't sure, I was just wondering. :) thanks!

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Mon, 26 Mar 2012 19:16:08 +0200

My dress is very, very simple - guess I'd just be a peasant (close enough to what I am in real life, hehe). Hah - I even found the pattern/instructions I used: http://www.virtue.to/articles/tunic_worksheet.html. One of the very first things I sewed voluntarily, outside of needlework class at secondary school (the first was a cloak). I'm still too lazy to make something more elaborate.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 04:58:56 +0200

We're having some freaky weather. My RSS feeds this morning when I got on the computer were filled with farm reports--all last week was high 70s weather, then it crashed down at night to 18-25 degrees for 5+ hours. They won't know the extent of the damage for another couple of weeks but with certain trees 4 weeks ahead in their blooming schedule it's a possible 90% loss of the plum crop and comparable for cherries, though fortunately it seems the apples and grapes weren't quite so far along. Which is good for me, too, because if we lose the apples, I'm out of two jobs--pollinator monitoring in the spring and (maybe) hard cider production in the fall. The potted plants were easy enough to bring inside, fortunately. I picked up a few more empty cast-off pots though few of them are the right shape for what I want to plant in them. My mother sent a package containing lots of herb seeds and also a tiny little kumquat tree! I've never had a citrus tree before; I'm afraid I'm going to kill it before it ever fruits.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 12:03:32 +0200

The *&^#$% squirrels dug up the snow peas I planted last week. I reburied the one pea I found, but I have my doubts that I'll get anything out of that pot. I planted another pot of peas, a row of lettuce, and a row of carrots. At least the lettuce and spinach are in a raised bed with a cover over it. That'll keep out critters and larger insects at least. Still only that one bee. I have both the pussy willow tree and the peach tree blooming, along with a couple dozen crocuses. You'd think the place would be buzzing with pollinators. Four of my lilacs will bloom this year, but another one looks dead. The buds started to fatten up, then they stopped and dried up. No idea why.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Wed, 28 Mar 2012 14:31:40 +0200

We've had two cold nights in a row and I am wondering if they could save the peach crop or the apples. Major deal around here. Our lilac shows no sign of blooming this year, despite all the manure we gave it last year. Turned out it was a white lilac anyway, so I am not sure I care. It's tall and healthy, and perhaps some day will justify its existence with extravagant flowering. But I am not holding my breath. Some frost damage has occurred, but I don't think that's why it did not bloom. On the other hand, the kerria is blooming lavishly.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Thu, 29 Mar 2012 20:03:49 +0200

Wheee, first harvest! I had to thin my asian greens, so they went right into the first decent salad of the year. Yum! I have another planter to thin, so I'll have another salad this weekend. And the balcony garden is taking shape - I planted another railing planter today (only one left now, I don't yet know what I'll put in it), and moved around the bigger planters so they're mostly in the right place. I only need one more big terracotta pot so I can stack them as I'm planning to do - my mother says she might have one the right size, so I'll check that first, even though I'm pretty sure her pots are all smaller. Most of the planters are standing on wooden boxes now to get them up out of the shade of the railing, and I've started bringing up the bamboo canes to build trellises - the peas are growing quite quickly. And I found quite a few pots in the cellar. Well, I knew I had them, but they're bigger than I remembered. Which solves the question of where I'm going to grow my oca and morning glories, except that I don't know where I'm actually going to put all those pots! I really want to make something like this out of those pots, but I don't quite know where to put it... Well, I know where, but there I'll end up either with one pot that so far down between other pots, the wall and the railing that I won't be able to grow anything in it, or with a box collapsing under the weight. I wish I could still get the kind of sturdy boxes my parents had on their balcony when I was a little kid.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Sun, 01 Apr 2012 17:11:34 +0200

Planted Swiss chard today (I got free plants from work, because we had too many, yay!), and some more herbs (thyme, lemon thyme, rosemary and lemon balm), and got the bamboo canes back up from the cellar to build trellises for the peas. The 'Blauwschokker' ones are already looking for something to hold on to. I also lost my patience with the non-hardy sages and put them outside, because I was sick of their aphids. If I don't see them every morning and evening when I open the bedroom window, I can pretend they don't have aphids, right? The jasmine went out, too. Stupid thing didn't bloom, so either it will start blooming now, or I'll leave it outside to die next winter. And the lantana is full of spider mites. Gah. That means another round of spraying (which I should be doing anyway, but I just don't want to!). But I won't do that tonight. It would be much easier to do during the weekend, but I really have done enough today (and I still need to water the living room). At least I can take a couple of houseplants in to work tomorrow to sell. I really need to get rid of a few before I lose my mind.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 01:02:31 +0200

I'm finally starting on the retaining wall around my butterfly garden, almost two months late; the good news is my veggie garden is right on schedule. I should have lettuce, carrots, radishes, and spinach in by the weekend once I've harvested and frozen the rest of the kale and gotten the bed clear. Meanwhile, my garlic is coming along nicely and the favas made a great winter pulse. I still need to repair or replace my compost bin, though.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 05:14:08 +0200

So far, I have deadheaded 1,100 daffodils. This year I'm not bothering with the tete-a-tetes; they don't seem to come up to seed anyway. Jetfire, my other small early daffodil, does have a pronounced seed head so it's getting clipped. I don't count the hyacinths. I'm not touching the snowdrops. A few miles from here (and granted, on the other side of the ridge, so it may have different dirt), there's a yard with heavily naturalized snowdrops. If seeds can do it, I'd like to help the process. I keep adding more bright plastic Easter eggs to my trees and bushes. It's totally tacky but I love the pops of color. Yard decor is the last bastion of individuality left in our homes.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Fri, 06 Apr 2012 10:30:01 +0200

My spinach sprouts are coming up. Nothing from the lettuce, peas, or carrots, though. Today I planted some sage, thyme, broccoli, and morning glories. My lilacs are about to bloom. An entire month early. We had a cold snap, and I was worried that it killed my peach blossoms, but I think they may have survived.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Thu, 12 Apr 2012 21:18:03 +0200

I have spent a lot of my outdoor time sifting compost, snapping kindling, and sawing dead limbs off of branches. Very hard work. My back has been killing me. More lettuce is popping up. I've got two pots of peas sprouting, and two broccoli sprouts are up. Still nothing from the carrots. Last year, the carrot patch held potatoes, and I apparently missed one, because now I've got a potato plant sprouting there. Don't know why the carrots aren't coming up. One of the packages was brand new. I only bought it a month or so ago. My peach blossoms survived, and tiny peaches are forming. We're going to have another freeze in a couple of days, so I hope they'll survive that.

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 21:53:31 +0200

I finally got the energy and ambition to get my seedlings outside! Yay! Now it's up to nature to be kind and not Missouri weather them to death. There's enough out there that something should make it through to harvest. And I've got to hope I remember to get out every day and make sure the plants are all watered. But the longest part of it is over, and one more thing off my list.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Tue, 17 Apr 2012 23:02:18 +0200

I did some planting today. Some of it was reseeding what's refusing to come up. Some of it is planting new stuff. The only things growing in my carrot patch are a couple of volunteer potato plants. I planted another row of carrots, anyway. I also planted some broccoli and Brussels sprouts and more spinach and lettuce. My thyme is coming up, but not the sage.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Wed, 18 Apr 2012 14:24:21 +0200

I installed the doomed sod yesterday. Today, mirabile dictu, it is raining gently with more forecast. Perfect. Maybe some of the grass will live for a while. The purpose really is to cut down the dust mowing generates, so even sickly grass is better than no grass at all. Left to plant are a handful of glads and a couple dozen callas that wintered in my garage. I think I have a piece or two of a canna, but they may not be alive. The next project is to take all my indoor plants and bring them outside and tuck them in some dirt, including the petunias and bachelor's buttons that grew from seed. I'm fairly amazed that I have an orange cosmos plant nearly two feet tall in my kitchen and it has come up to bloom. That's more success than I had outside with cosmos last year. It's an easy plant to grow, but not in a drought.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 01:41:51 +0200

Planted some cauliflower, rosemary, and catnip today. And lo and behold, a couple carrot sprouts are coming up. There's still plenty of stuff to do, and I have some daylight left. I'm trying to decide whether I should go boldly forth again or if I should just do indoor stuff. The yellow jackets are out. It's time to put the fake nests up.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:30:13 +0200

I am up to 2,800 daffodils deadheaded. Maybe 200 to go. The deer nipped a couple of tulips I hadn't sprayed, darn them. Three flower buds now on my indoor cosmos, and it's truly two feet tall. Ridiculous.

Re: Gardening

Zookeeper — Sat, 21 Apr 2012 05:31:43 +0200

I have some spinach and lettuce putting forth true leaves. Another pot of peas is sprouting. And there are definitely sprouts in my carrot patch. I also have a couple of iris buds coming up.

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:14:56 +0200

The weather has been driving me crazy and confounding all attempts to get anything done. I amassed a few more pots last week and transplanted my frost-hardy stuff--chives, scallions, some herbs--to add to the lettuce and radishes already slowly growing in balcony pots. The less sensitive houseplants were also outside, enjoying the 80-degree weather--and then yesterday I woke up to 6" of snow, little mounds of snow where the plants were the night before! After being brushed off and brought inside they seem recovered; I think the snow actually insulated them from the temperatures in the 20s, and protected them from the little pellets of hail this morning. The rest of the pots are allocated and just waiting until danger of frost is past, which is another month or so. Normally I'd risk planting them early, but not this time. In the house I have two varieties of tomato, strawberries, and pepper planted but waiting. On queue are beets, carrots, flowers, dill, and milkweed. My seasonal work involves monitoring the state's apple bloom and we have been driving like crazy around the state checking on the orchards. This snow came right into full bloom for the early varieties. We have been going crazy over the fluctuations in the weather and the season has been one long heart attack for the growers; the current estimates are 15-20% loss of the apple crop, 80-90% loss for plums and peaches and similar for sweet cherries. I would like to have a small apple orchard of my own someday, so I suppose if nothing else, this is a good year to learn how to deal with the possibility of disaster at every turn.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Wed, 25 Apr 2012 05:46:14 +0200

The peach and apple trees bloomed so early here (also a big orchard area) that perhaps they are past the worst of their vulnerability. Although I did see some mobile heating trucks a couple of times in recent weeks, I don't know if they were out again last night and will be tonight. I didn't see them on my way into town, which goes past a couple of orchards. We dodged the snow that was forecast, at least, but the rain would have provided some insulation. Today, with family help, I deadheaded 545 daffodils, bringing us to 3,345 for the season. There still are a few more blooming, and I've left many dozens of tete-a-tetes alone since they do not appear to produce seeds. But it's a losing battle. We have planted many more thousands of daffodils, and each year we get fewer and fewer blooms despite heavy fertilizing. The oak trees simply steal it all.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 04:39:37 +0200

Planted out the amazing orange cosmos and the bachelor's buttons I've been growing from seed, plus those wild petunias that grew in the winter. Sprayed them extensively with garlic-egg, and tied them up, since they're weak from leaning against the kitchen window. Fingers crossed nothing eats them. Now all I need to do is figure out how to keep the other houseplants alive while we're gone. It's still a bit cool to put them outside. Palms and geraniums like heat. Arrgh. Why do I even have houseplants?

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Fri, 27 Apr 2012 15:13:41 +0200

It's supposed to rain all day today, and I hope it does. My garden needs the water. Seeds aren't doing so well outside. If the trend continues, I'll end up with a few carrots, some bell peppers, and red corn and that's it. C'mon, nature!

Re: Gardening

42n8 Me — Sun, 29 Apr 2012 22:59:06 +0200

This must be my lucky year: My orchid is blooming for the first time since I received it as a gift 6 years ago! The last of my lilacs are spent. Now the columbine, gazanea, and lavender are bright with color. I always think about planting seeds for summer edibles, but never do. I have a lemon and a guava tree though - if I can keep the birds from pecking away all my guavas, maybe I'll harvest more than 2 this year. :-) Last winter I discovered fuyu persimmons. Maybe now is a good time to get a tree, so I can produce my own.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Tue, 01 May 2012 06:13:43 +0200

The butterfly garden is done except for the retaining wall. It feels really good to be able to say that... of course, it doesn't look like much yet, not until everything has grown in. I also got the next batch of veggies in--carrots, beets, swiss chard, more lettuce, more radishes, parsley. Unfortunately, my new job is going to take me away from home all summer, so I'll need to find someone to water and harvest stuff until I get back at the end of August. I'll need to fix or replace the compost bin by then, too, and build up the planter for the raspberries--they're looking kind of sad in their pots. So many projects, so little time! @ 42n8me: Try flash tape for scaring away birds.

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:13:20 +0200

I had a great day at the Arche Noah plant market today - the Arche Noah ("Noah's Ark") is the Austrian seed saving organisation, and every year on May 1st, they have a big market at their "headquarters" in a little Lower Austrian village. I managed to pull myself together and only buy the one tomato plant I needed, and no herbs, but then there's the "trading market", where members can sell/trade whatever they have too much of - ranging from veggies, berry bushes, flowers to wild plants/weeds (yes, apparently people buy these...), water plants, house plants... oops. Ended up coming home with six houseplants, some of which I have absolutely no ID for, so no way to look up care information. Well, going to post pictures on my blog, and hope someone knows what it is...

Re: Gardening

Magpie Ilya — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:14:11 +0200

Gah! I want an edit button! Only "the" was supposed to be in italics!

Re: Gardening

Tobaeus — Mon, 07 May 2012 00:18:20 +0200

I'm riding a wave of "garden glee" today. I went out to weed the larger patch and found twice as many squash plants as I had hoped for, four extra corn plants (that I didn't accidentally kill on trying to move), and the tomatoes and carrots and cauliflower seem to be coming up after I had given up on them. That, and some of my pepper plants are doing really well. It's going to be exciting to see what can be harvested this fall!

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Thu, 10 May 2012 06:20:34 +0200

We don't know why a big patch of bearded iris did not bloom at all this year. Lack of sunlight? Oak roots stealing all the nutrients? The wrong fertilizer? What? It's very disappointing. In other garden parts the iris are in great shape.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Mon, 14 May 2012 05:44:33 +0200

Probably lack of sunlight. I've got iris growing in my (very shady) backyard and it produces abundant foliage every year but never blooms. I'm going to transplant it to a new site next spring, I think, and see what happens.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Tue, 15 May 2012 21:12:06 +0200

I've been saying it for years: dirt is good for you.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Thu, 17 May 2012 16:00:08 +0200

I weeded a little yesterday in my rock garden. A totally thankless task. Probably useless except to burn calories, because unless I got all the roots, all those weeds will be right back. I can't spray poison because they're thoroughly intermingled with flowers, darn it. Within the hour I shall go mow, which is slightly less frustrating. Yes, I have to keep doing it every week, but at least from a distance, green weeds in the lawn look the same as grass. I've tried to eliminate the plantain in the drain field many times, with very little success. That stuff is strong. So I mow it. Zoo, I miss your garden reports.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Fri, 18 May 2012 05:47:35 +0200

I've long since given up on getting any of the peaches from my best peach tree. Just as well. As I was mowing I saw that most of them, poor little green rock-hard things, were on the ground. Wind? Squirrels? Who knows? Gardening here is a losing fight against overwhelming odds. This morning I discovered a deer had decided to bite into my spray bottle containing garlic and egg. How did I discover this? I started spraying, and then realized the liquid had leaked out all over my jeans. The deer eat everything in sight, even the caps of gasoline cans. Yummy yellow plastic. And now, yummy white plastic. Where will it end? Will they start eating the deck itself next? Yummy redwood stain...

Re: Gardening

J.Kievsky — Sun, 20 May 2012 00:26:31 +0200

The advantage of the balcony garden is not having to worry about the horrid deer (we also have a huge surplus population) and any rodents too fat to climb down off the roof or up the drainpipes. So far, all I've seen are chipmunks. Everything is finally planted! Yay! There was a hard frost a couple of nights ago but I am making the completely unfounded assumption it'll prove to be the last one. That brings the summer plant list to: zucchini, tomatoes, scallions, various herbs, chives, morning glory, spinach, lettuce, radishes, beets, chard, California poppy, and sweet pea. I planted carrots, too, but haven't seen any evidence of anything having sprouted though it's been nearly two weeks now. The attempt at strawberries (from a kit) seems to be a total failure--maybe I kept it too long, or it got exposed to cold when it was shipped to me, but the roots never put out any new growth. The flowers have sprouted, but are nowhere near bloom. Those few I'm trying to get to climb up strings are displeased with the direction I want them to grow in, and keep turning away. Despite the fact that the only things blooming are the chives, there are bees everywhere--Xylocopa (carpenter bees) patrolling up and down the railings and Halictids (green bees) buzzing around the succulents, possibly looking for a place to nest. Today was the very first "harvest," 1.2 oz. of salad greens.

Re: Gardening

Hopeful lily — Sun, 20 May 2012 20:25:18 +0200

I would like some chives. I had them before and they bloom prettily and also are utilitarian. I've got several varieties of flowering onions in the garden, but voles do eat the bulbs so I limit myself to the smaller and less expensive ones. I wonder if they'd eat the chives? I've come to the conclusion that I've got to have more of the tall oak trees trees removed. I don't have enough sunlight near the house to successfully garden. This may not go over well with my spouse.

Re: Gardening

The_Halla — Tue, 22 May 2012 20:41:17 +0200

It's finally gotten warm enough to put my tomato starts and seed potatoes out, but it's also raining like crazy. Everything is sprouting enthusiastically, though, and a whole bunch of perennials are in bloom right now. I even got buzzed by a hummingbird a few days back while harvesting lettuce.