Happiness!

Well, I finally managed it! This afternoon I filled my "seedling pots" with soil and planted small amounts of several seeds! It's very interesting; if you compact the potting soil well, it stays in the pot when you lift and move it, doesn't fall out the bottom at all. As an aid to my future more-detailed Seed Inventory, I wrote the date on the seed packets. It's easy to imagine there will be several dates on most of the packets by the time the seed is used up.

BC=Baker Creek WG=Wild Garden Seed

Strawberry "Regina" BC
Sweetpea "Cupani" WGS
Snapdragon "Apple Blossom" BC
Poppy "Florist Pepperbox" BC
Tomato "Home Stoop" WGS
Zucchini "Costata Romanesco" BC
Salad Mix "Fall/Winter" Slow Germinating WG

The strawberry is a European variety, not like our commercial cultivars but like a wild strawberry. The sweetpea is one of the oldest surviving varieties, several hundred years old. The snapdragon is a 3 foot tender perennial. The poppy is for seeds and decorative pods. The tomato is Frank Morton's favorite, one he hybridized from Homestead and Stupice decades ago. The zuke is bred for flowers so I guess I'll be figuring out what to stuff them with on a grain-and-dairy-free diet! But I'm also hoping for plenty of squash because I just LOVE zucchini. And the salad mix is to grow mixed greens, of course, but the seeds are divided into slow-germinating and fast-germinating; the fast ones get started a week after the slow.

I will say that as I was cutting tubes and wrapping their edges with masking tape, my spirit guide asked, quite bemused, why I didn't just buy seed starters. "They're cheap," he said, puzzled, "and easier." I have two reasons. The first is, they weren't in the stores when I started this a few weeks ago, so toilet paper cores were all I could get at the time. The second is, starter pots are mostly peat based, and peat mining is an extractive earth-damaging technology. Not that paper-making isn't extractive! But the toilet paper cores are a waste product from something we can't do without, and here is reason number three: it tickles me to my soul to turn a waste product into something indispensable. 

To show you how much it tickles me, I still use the shelves I built out of cardboard boxes and old Tupperware catalogs... and of course since I expected to use them vertically, they've now been horizontal for years. But they still look pretty much like this:  http://dreambit1.blogspot.com/2012/08/walks-in-chortling-softly-im-makin.html

So this afternoon I put Gryph to work using an awl to punch holes in the bottoms of all sorts of recycled bowls, cups, and trays. As my energy allows, I'll mix more potting soil with water and fill more containers, because I have an acute sense of time slipping away and taking the seed-starting window with it. It might be ridiculously cold nights out there for the next two months, but once the heat hits it'll be here fast. I can't afford to wait for spring before I plant--spring is only two weeks long and then we're into early summer!--so I've got to do it now. And it's a joy! Who wouldn't want to do something which tickles them to the soul?

Still waiting, btw, for the next batch of seeds from Baker Creek. I had high hopes for today's mail. **drats** Maybe they'll come tomorrow. 

I also checked into worm bins today. Oy, those things are expensive!! But then I found a youtube showing how to make a $5 worm bin. Well, mine will be less than that; we have an old tub we can repurpose. I'll have to buy the worms, since nightcrawlers don't work well in a worm bin. If I remember right, you can get small amounts of red wigglers as bait, but if not, I'll find them online.

In short, this is the year I'm going to find alternatives to all the things which have kept me from gardening successfully here. Soil's depleted? Fertilizer. Squirrels destroy everything? Greenhouse. Compost won't make? Worm bin. One way or another I'm going to get around all the obstacles and grow some food and flowers.

And speaking of flowers! I found vases of tulips on closeout at the grocery store last week, got five of them. Once the flowers fade---sheesh, an open tulip is like an alien life form!! lol!!--I'll move the bulbs to potting soil and fertilize them. They'll have to live in the greenhouse until I figure out how to get them safely into the yard--probably have to build them a cage out of hardware cloth since they're totally edible and enticing to any digging burrowing critter, including rabbits, raccoons, and possums. But now I'll have tulips in the yard again! I'm reclaiming my life, one plant at a time!

More Seedses!!!

The Wild Garden Seeds order is in. I'm beginning to feel a sense of completion, like I'm close to having all the seeds I need, even though I'm not getting all the seeds I want. One more order to come from Baker Creek, with beans and other warm season crops.

It made me feel more secure to get tomato seeds today. Isn't that funny? We don't live a tomato-dependent life. Gryph is sensitive to the acid in them and of course they're a nightshade, so they promote inflammation. We've gone for years not having them, but somehow in these uncertain times, we need them again. Knowing I have seeds eases an inner anxiety I didn't even know was there.

Good thing I checked the greenhouse today; the seedlings were sitting in water from yesterday. Guess they won't need anything more for a week or so. Had to get a couple extra trays to be able to get them out of the water. Dumped it and some extra soil onto the calendula and pea pots. 

Speaking of which--whatever is growing in the pot is not calendula. I suppose that first snowstorm took them out and what stayed is one of the weeds. And now that I'm looking at identification images, it's not chickweed either. Don't think I have chickweed in the yard, so I'm glad I bought a packet, along with another packet of calendula. The Seed Inventory just gets longer and longer!

What I haven't got and really need to is the sacred plants: White Sage, Sweetgrass, Tobacco. These are on the "definitely try again" list. 

Melons and Candy Roaster Squash are on the "I wish!" list. Also on that list? A big photo keeper from the craft store. I believe all the individual keepers will hold seed packets wonderfully well, and the outer container will keep everything together.

Been thinking about redoing the Seed Inventory to add space for the seed company's name. Right now it's driving me nuts to be unable to remember where I found bare-root sweetgrass several years ago. I don't wish to try reordering seeds in a year or two and not know where to look. The older I get, the more I notice that "how could I ever forget that?!" increasingly becomes "How I wish I could remember..." so I may as well do this right from the beginning and include the seed company. That way I can also compare things like seedling vigor, growth habits, whether the plants are true to the description, yields, time to harvest, etc. I don't know if my garden will become a reliable food source or not, but the more I pay attention and write things down, the better chance it has. 

I leave you with two pics. The greenhouse doesn't look like much but I think as it fills up it'll become more attractive. For now it's keeping both wind and squirrels off the plants and that's huge. The second pic is the lettuce sprouts which are making me smile bigtime.

 

Seedses!!!

 My Baker Creek order came today! I'll be back once I finish fondl---errr, sorting and organizing them.

Oh, I begin to think my teensiest sprouts in the greenhouse are lettuce after all; one finally pushed up the remains of a seed coat, and it's same color and texture as the remaining lettuce seeds, if rather larger--I guess it swelled with the moisture. Never been so micro-focused on seeds before!

Whoooot!!!!

Dog had to go out so I surfaced from my wish list. Filled a watering can with room temperature water, headed out, and discovered that an unheated greenhouse is a REALLY lovely thing. Not only are my peas now sprouting (undisturbed by squirrels!!!) in a couple of pots, I have carrots sprouting!!! Whooooot!!!! Odd that they're even faster than the lettuce, especially since the carrot seeds are older, but hey--I'll take it!!! And when they're big enough for my camera to distinguish, I'll post pics!

Well, can you blame me?

 **logs into Baker Creek's seed catalog to dream for a couple minutes**

**discovers the "wish list" function**

**disappears for hours**

Oh, it's been a difficult week, for sure

Hello again. I come to you much subdued, physically, in a very bad fibromyalgia flare. Exactly nothing has happened in the way of physical gardening over the past week, although I am happy to tell you that I will soon have to update the seed inventory. I have orders in with Wild Garden Seeds and Baker Creek Seeds, both, and can't wait to get the seeds into my hands! Worked around the dreaded "out of stock" and the even MORE dreaded "out of money" to get more peas, lots of greens, zucchini, and watermelon seeds!

Greenhouse flooring continues to accumulate. I finally have a way to reuse frozen food boxes!! You can't recycle them, you know, because they're waxed. But they can be an underlayer for the greenhouse floor! At this point the squirrels are still ignoring the greenhouse and I am heartily cheered by that. It's beginning to look like a second (bigger!) greenhouse is definitely in the works for us, so I'm accumulating all the cardboard I can. And while we are in limbo, I keep plottin' and plannin' what to do next. 

My favorite daydream right now is a dozen 20" pots lined up along the wheelchair ramp, beans closest to the ramp, squashes or melons or tomatoes in the center of the pots, herbs at the front edge. Haven't decided whether to use hardware cloth or bird netting to keep the squirrels out. I just know that the idea of fresh green beans dangling over the inside of the railings tickles me enormously--and melons! I ordered a variety called Tigger, little half pound stripey melons, and it would be a kick to have them dangling over the railings!!

Inside the greenhouse, I have pea sproutage. It's very slow, just the tiniest green tips at soil level, but I think every warm day will see them stretch a little more into the light. The one day I was able to check on them, I noticed the green house was noticeably warmer than the outside temp, so the cover really does work--probably not least because it cuts off the wind. It's supposed to hit 60F here Wednesday, so I'll take a watering can out. Right now I'd rather use a watering can than the hose--I can make the water room temp, which will help germination.

The top of the fridge is home to my slowly growing accumulation of toilet paper cores. I have one deli chicken container filled with them and ready for soil (when I'm up to mixing it), and a few more cores waiting to be cut for the next container. My big experiment is to wrap the tops and bottoms of the cores with masking tape, to see if it helps them hold together longer. When I've used them in the past they've fallen apart as I tried to lift them out of their containers for transplanting, which leaves the roots truly vulnerable and sets the plants back. We'll see whether masking tape is my secret ingredient this year.

As far as big melons, like watermelons, we have a driveway which runs through the back yard. Most of it is covered with dirt and plants, but the part which gets the strongest western sun exposure is still bare. I want to plant watermelons on either side and let them run rampant on the concrete. My aim is twofold: reduce the heat the driveway throws into the yard (because those huge leaves will shade it), and give the melons someplace clean and hot to grow upon. It might be that year by year, foot by foot, I'll reclaim the concrete for gardening purposes. Always have loved container gardening, and letting vines spill out onto clean concrete speaks to my soul.

Most of the usual gardening suspects are out of the question for us. Food allergies dictate that we not grow corn, broccoli, eggplant, cabbage, so many veggies... better to focus on what we can grow, I think. Gryph, although sensitive to tomatoes, is willing to try them on a very limited basis. We haven't figured out where to plant asparagus and it might very well go into the middle of some of the wheelchair-ramp-pots, since like the tomatoes we can only handle it in limited amounts. I'm seriously considering getting an indoor light set-up to grow baby salad greens until the greenhouse is warm enough (it's unheated), but the question there is how to keep Cleo (the cat) from digging in the trays... maybe bird netting will discourage her the way it discourages squirrels... the trouble is, it also discourages me!

Which reminds me, some gardening did happen--I pulled the netting out of the way and pruned the raspberry canes in the giant stump planter out front. The general rule is to cut them back to 12" in January, and this year I remembered! Also pruned the grape vine pretty severely. I didn't get either task done in January of 2020 and was startled how poorly the plants did compared to the years when I've remembered. Got my fingers crossed I'll be well enough in March to fertilize them all on time.

And that brings up a neglected subject. I've been reluctant to spend money on fertilizers, especially organic fertilizers, but now it's money-where-your-mouth-is time. I have to adjust my thinking from "omg that's shockingly expensive!" to "okay, yes, this is a necessary expenditure." You do get what you pay for, and you certainly can't get organic fertilizers from the dollar store. If our bodies do better when we eat organic food--and Gryph and I have experimented enough over the years to be certain this is true for us--then we need to get organic fertilizer.

I think the tide has turned for me, and my trips to Michaels or JoAnn Fabrics have lost their luster. Now I very much want to spend every spare cent on pots, soil, seeds, fertilizer, and whatever it takes to keep my garden safe from squirrels--be that another greenhouse, hardware cloth, or bird netting. Time for me to reclaim this great love of my heart and rebuild my yard into the paradise I've always wanted it to be, one pot at a time.

It's all in the perspective, right?

 I got so excited! A new piece of the greenhouse floor came today! It was wrapped around our new can opener. I've already got the floor piece cut open and folded flat for when the snow melts and I can walk through the yard to get to the greenhouse. The can opener? Eh. It's sitting on the counter waiting for Gryph. 

The floor piece also contained my newest planter. It's garden fabric, a square dividied into four pots with a drainage hole in each. The reviews were mixed. My fav were the two which said "Be careful, this thing gets waterlogged and won't drain!" and "Be careful, this thing won't hold enough water!" I guess it depends on where you use it, how much rain it gets exposed to, and how heavy-handed you are with the garden hose.

Speaking of which, I need to get a nozzle for our hose, preferably one that has a "gentle shower" setting. Won't do at all to be washing the seeds out of their pots!

And in the meantime, I smile every time I think about my greenhouse floor. It'll be layers and layers thick before you know it! No ivy taking over MY plants, oh no siree! But I do feel a little like a toddler, way less excited about the new items than the box they came in, lol...

Snow!!

I finished the seed inventory. Have many more packets of seeds than I expected! My warm season seeds are all three or four years old now, but my cool season seeds will have to come first. All the carrots and beets are four years old and given they take a month to germinate, I need to replace them quickly just in case they don't germinate after all. That does, of course, call for different varieties just in case they DO germinate!

I don't have enough greens and I seriously don't have enough snow peas. Not certain anyone can ever have enough snow peas! But I was tickled to discover that I had already ordered wild strawberry seeds. Really hoping they'll do well.

Everything came to a halt for two reasons. The first was a very much needed grocery shopping trip, which took everything I had. The second was four inches of snow that night. Interestingly, there was--still is!--snow on every surface in the yard except the greenhouse. Evidently the slant of the roof is so steep that it all slid off without sticking. I won't be going into the snow to check on it as I'm disabled and don't wish to take any chance at all on falling, so this will be a good test of how well the greenhouse does when temps at night are well below freezing and the gardener is well below blankets.