winter gloves and garden loves

It was nearly 80 degrees on Friday, so I rushed out to get some of my seedlings in the ground.  They can tolerate a little bit of cold, but in spring, I can't.  I adore winter until early March, and then I can only think about warmth.  Todd laughed at me yesterday in my thick winter coat, wool hat and gloves, but that 45 degrees feels like 45 below after I'm winter-finished.

I wasn't the only one who was appreciating the warmer weather.  This garter snake was enjoying the sun, too.

While I was working in the garden, he slid in and out from beneath the brown paper strip I was using for weed suppression, finally settling into a coil at the edge of the bed.

Although I had to be careful not to put my hand on him while I was digging holes nearby, I'm not afraid of garter snakes and am glad that he's going to be working near my garden this spring!

I had to walk carefully when I was moving my trays of seedlings, because we have a resident Fowler's Toad.

Sometimes he's in the gravel by the barn, and sometimes he's barely visible, snuggled into a tuft of grass nearby.  They've got a great call that's been called sheep-like by some.

I'm glad to have these 2 natural sources of pest control nearby!

We've got a few crayfish towers (or, as we called them when I was growing up, crawdad holes) in the yard.

Although the dried towers can cause trouble for lawn mowers, having crayfish around is also beneficial!  They help to move nutrients and oxygen deep into the ground...help with water runoff...and abandoned holes provide a protective place for other little creatures.  I like thinking about their little feelers quivering out of the tower's top at night as they climb to the surface to forage for food. These towers can be flattened for mowing.  No worries, the crayfish will just build it up again.  :)  

The warm weather brought out the ground bees, too.  They swarmed everywhere, exploring and mating.  They, too, are completely harmless.  Males can't sting and females almost never do, and they're wonderful pollinators!  

Our other resident farm worker, Claudia, was out in the sunshine with me.  We've noticed that as she's becoming more...Rubenesque...by our heavy feeding, she's brought in a lot less voles.   :)

I got these seedings in the ground just in time...the roots are fine now, but on the verge of being a little too thick on the bottom (i.e. root bound).  

I've got close to 110 plants (Bachelor Buttons, Cress, and Snapdragons) planted in the first row, and I'm not done yet!  They are remarkably hardy.  With our weather fluctuations, the trays have sat outside in chilly temperatures, rain, and wind.  Still, I covered the row last night, with temperatures at or just below freezing in the forecast.  I'm gnashing my teeth, too, looking ahead to the midweek - dipping down to 24 one night!  That means cover for EVERYTHING, which is a huge pain.  But, as Todd joked yesterday as I was grumbling and strapping on my winter gear to move the seedlings yet again, "You chose this life."  

Yeah, yeah!  The work is made easier by all of the little garden companions and others, like this Brown Thrasher singing lustily in a nearby tree while I planted.

Easier, too, when I have a front row seat for spring progress.  I love seeing the apple tree budding out!

My back perennial garden, too, is putting on color.  Eeek, I've got to thin some of this out in the next couple of weeks!

With spring mornings like this, I don't even mind going out in the early chill to turn on the plant grow lights in the barn.

Here's hoping (unlikely as it might be) that this week's deep frost is our last.  I'm ready to make some real progress outside.

Have a great week!

the beat goes on

So say famed philosophers S. Bono and Cher, and it seems to be true.  The season is advancing, days are getting warmer, and things are greening up.  We're seeing more living things...after a quiet winter, mice are infiltrating the barn, looking for a comfortable spot to make a nest.

Todd was moving some large rocks and uncovered this salamander, the first that I'd ever seen here!  I carefully carried him to a safer place.

Spring peepers are singing both day and night.  This little guy was giving a great solo performance by our front door!

More delights in the established garden.  The mystery daffodils - one set, anyway - have revealed themselves to be tiny, delicate flowers that are perfect for bud vases.

New growth is continually popping out at the base of my perennials.

Love the color on this perennial geranium!

Of course, I'm very busy with my growing seedlings, nearly to the exclusion of all other things.  I wish I wasn't so single-minded with my focus.  I've joked that I'm a "serial monogamist" with my hobbies, throwing myself into one at a time, but always cycling back through the others eventually.  

Executive decision made:  these guys are being hardened off this week (left outside for long intervals to get used to the environment) and will go in the ground before April 1st.  Snapdragons, stock, honeywort, calendula, and "missing tag" things - something that's becoming more frequent.

I checked my winter sow containers and decided that bachelor buttons and clarkia were ready to go in the ground.

Shovel on compost, work into the soil, lay down thick brown paper as a weed preventative, cut big Xs for the seedlings, plant seedlings, cover area with mulch, water...phew.  It's hard work, and I ache all over today, but it's nice to have things actively in the ground and growing!

More peeking into winter sow containers showed that some seeds were sown way, way too thickly...in particular my poppies and my nicotiana.

I should just leave them alone, let them grow, and fish out a couple of big, healthy seedlings in a month.  But that's not my style.  This obsessive poppy fan couldn't let a single seedling wither due to overcrowding, so I pricked them all out into separate cells.  

Ninety poppies.  Ninety!  Where am I going to put ninety poppies?!?  If they survive, that is.  Tiny seedlings don't like having roots disturbed.  Possibly, this relocation will kill every single one.  But I had to take the chance.  It was a sunny Sunday afternoon, birds singing cheerfully and Claudia rubbing against my ankles.  I consider it a pleasant hour well-spent.  

I've also spent time with my ailing plants, like this nasturtium, which got singed in the heat within its plastic container.  Will it survive?  Maybe, but I have to give it a chance to recover.

If it does thrive, these will be gracing my bud vases all summer long...so I had to try!

photo courtesy of Baker Creek

I made every possible mistake with my dahlia tubers this fall.  I put them away while still a bit moist, so many grew mold.  Most shriveled.  I left them in our freezing cold garage instead of our moderately cold attic.  Still, I decided not to toss them.  Taking a chance, I brought them inside and let them acclimate to the warmer temperatures.  And...they started to bud out.  

I split them and potted them up, and now I've got close to 25 tubers throwing up sprouts, which I'll chop off and plant. 

I'll have a nice dahlia patch this year, I hope!  Last year, despite being planted late, left in pots too long, and positively starved of water and nutrients, they were beautiful.

Although I'm having a persistent and irritating problem with seedling droop...

...I'm learning a lot, and very optimistic about the future of my little (?) cutting garden. 

Have a great week!

bright eyes and (anti-mouse) war cries

In these chilly early spring days, we're getting a few projects knocked out of the way before the fencing and trenching crews come.  Todd cut up the last few stumps in the back field to help them burn easier.

When we first moved here, the lean-to on the white animal barn was full of metal and rubber debris.  Todd hauled it into the barn yard so that it can be hauled away...then he shoveled out the rich soil and laid out a new bed for spring (I'm thinking hollyhocks and sunflowers).

Finally, he put up shelving in the newly-cleared space for wood storage.  It's so tidy!

I planted more seedlings.  The sweet peas, which love the cold and will fizzle out when the heat hits, went in right before the rain.

I amended the soil with compost and popped them in.

To protect against birds, deer, and rabbits, netting was strung out over the whole row.

It's amazing what you can find, even in the cold.  This trio of dead plants look, well, dead.  They sat outside all winter, buried in snow.

But I never throw anything away until late spring,  because sometimes you will find...

New growth!!

Other exciting new growth...I paid $10 - $20 each for my first group of dahlia tubers last year.  I've been reading about multiplying them by potting up the tubers in late winter.  Now, I didn't store mine well, and several were wrinkled and shriveled.  But I potted up a couple of them anyway, and...

When those sprouts get a little bit bigger, I can cut them off and plant them.  The tubers will send up MORE sprouts, and repeat.  Best of all, I can still plant the original tubers in about a month!

Our first bulbs are sprouting...dwarf iris.

And hooray!  I had about 30 little pea-sized "bulbettes" that had broken from the main bulbs in one of my packages in the fall.

I didn't know if they'd grow, so I potted them up in a container and forgot about them.  This week:

I planted THREE pink bee balm plants in our back side bed last year.  They re-seeded...prolifically.

My winter sow containers have been sprouting, too.  IF all little seedlings prosper...it's going to be quite a year!  This is flax "Bright Eyes" and I think they're so charming!

photo courtesy of Etsy

ALL of these containers have sprouts!

The year of experimentation continues.  I've been potting up more seedlings that are a bit too crowded on their soil blocks.  It is so satisfying! 

It hasn't been without troubles.  I've been seeing a lot of this:

Because my set-up is so scattered, I don't have fans set up.  Good air circulation helps keep mold from forming and strengthens seedling stems.  Without it, they grow to a certain height and then flop.  I've replanted this one, deep, in hopes that it can be salvaged, but we're going to have to set up fans soon as the seedlings get larger to ensure good health.

I found this when I went into the potting barn yesterday:

Mice had gotten in and eaten about 40 seedlings!  Todd set some humane traps, and Claudia is sleeping in the barn for a few nights, to get rid of any pests.

March is definitely a bit of a challenging month.  Mainly chilly, mainly overcast...

We've gone hiking, but everything still looks like this:

To keep my "spring!  spring!  spring!" excitement up, the flower puttering helps...as does seeing all of the promising green in the garden.  It won't be long now!

Have a great week!