Gorgeous day!!

Hello my friends! Tis a truly gorgeous day, started off foggy with rain but is now 66 F with a lovely breeze. Makes me wish for a porch swing.

Paris Island Cos (romaine lettuce) has now been seeded in every greenhouse pot, and the second 72 cell propagator has been seeded with Black Prince snapdragons, Bull's Blood beets, Touchstone Gold beet/chard, 5-color silver beet (swiss chard), Early Purple Vienna kohlrabi, Pokey Joe cilantro, prairie sage, and milkweed. This is my cold stratification flat, so it's out in the greenhouse for some freezing nights.

I have so much more to do but have used up my spoons for the day and am close to using up my potting soil. Once I get more, I'll need holes in the bottom of my two new paint buckets--they're the 5 gallon size--because those taters have got to be planted soon. Never seen anything so enthusiastic; they're already opening leaves! And the bag of taters in the kitchen is all sprouted as well, so I can grab quite a few more starts since this works so nicely. No sweet tater starts yet though; I ate them before they could sprout. Have to try that again. **grin** 

This is weird...

 A blank post from last week. How did that happen? I bet it was a day when I was having computer woes.

Reseeding

Replanted peas in the greenhouse today: De Grace in the long low pot, Carouby De Maussane in the two 24" pots, and Sugar Bon in the two square pots. Haven't decided whether to reuse the cardboard tube pots with all the non-sprouted carrots and beets; probably will. 

Calendula are sprouting well. The weather is too unsettled to plant them out yet. Even unheated, my laundry room is 20 degrees warmer than the greenhouse so putting them in the greenhouse won't work either. But that greenhouse will be getting lavender sooner rather than later, because I forgot to read the germinating instructions and they say 30-45 days in the fridge before planting. To me that says "cold stratification" and in nature, that would be cold moist stratification (snow and rain)--easy to get right now with freezing nights. I'll likely plant the lavender and prairie sage in the same flat, and search out any others I have which need stratification.

Today's seeds, in a 72 hex-cell propagator which is now on top of the fridge: creeping thyme, clary sage, aromatic aster, lemon bee balm, purple prairie clover, and marshmallow, plus the three peas mentioned above.

Next up: salad mix, lavender, and prairie sage.

Disappointment

I got to the greenhouse. Everything froze to death, except the unknown weeds in the big pot. (Man, weeds are hardy! They're alive all over the yard, too!) One flimsy layer of plastic just cannot do anything when the windchill is 29 below and the actual temp is -11F. I'm so disappointed for my tiny brave seedlings. Clearly I need to know well in advance of extreme events like polar vortexes, so I can save my plants when the next one happens.

Well, it's been a week...OY has it been a week!

Hello! Sheesh, we made it through the polar vortex. We were among the lucky who didn't lose power although we were asked for a couple days to turn the furnace down and turn the lights off, and not to use the washer or dryer during the daytime. Mostly we did The Hibernating and stayed inside. Yesterday there was still six inches of snow in the backyard. Today it hit 40 and I took the dog out without putting a coat on either of us.

Still too much snow for me to get to the greenhouse.

The calendulas I planted in my first tray of six packs are in the laundry room. No sproutage yet.

All the seedlings have been moved to my kitchen counter and lights set up. It's gone from being dismally dark to being the bright corner! True leaves are starting to show everywhere.

The extreme cold has done a number on me, physically, and so I'm behind on starting new seeds and potting up the seedlings. It's not going to be reliably warm for a while anyway. The good news is that the slow melting of the snow means it sinks in rather than running down the driveway to the street, so when I start laying cardboard for my garden floor, the land will be well-watered.

This extraordinary cold

Got a closer look at the peas in the yard--which I had thought were probably freeze-dried in this extraordinary cold--and they actually seem to still be alive!! Now I wish I had planted tons more. It was an experiment, you know? The weeds were sprouting exuberantly and I thought, well surely there must be some equally hardy veggies, peas and lettuces at least, right? But I had NO IDEA the polar vortex would be this brutal. Monday night the low is going to be -11 F (temp conversion says -23.89 C), and that's a record low for us. Normally February is forty degrees F warmer, hovering right around freezing for the nights and a good ten degrees (F) warmer during the day. 

Be interesting to see if the plants in my little greenhouse have survived at all. You can bet this winter is going to inform what and when I plant next winter!!

In the house, tomatoes have the teeeeensiest true leaves showing, sweetpeas are vining, and zukes have one true leaf apiece, the biggest no larger than my thumbnail. Poppies are thread-like and seem to have needed tons more light than they're getting. The kitchen is currently the brightest place in the house because of all the lights. Strawberries and snapdragons remain compact, and such a bright green. Salad mix isn't doing as well as I had wished, lanky, fading, but opening true leaves here and there. Probably past time to plant the fast-growing part of the salad mix.

Running at a deficit, sheesh

Hello! Really worn out and worn down. This bitter cold just takes it out of me, and it snowed again too. BUT my sixpacks with the trays and domes came today!! I was quite gleeful, lol!

It took me three separate tries, but I finally got potting soil mixed with water, the damp soil spooned (carefully! I was working on my kitchen counter) into the first set of sixpacks, and then calendula seeds planted. I now have two sixpacks each of Resina (Baker Creek), Strawberry Blonde (Wild Garden Seed), and Solis Sponsa (Strictly Medicinal). These are all mixes and so the seeds are quite variable, some curled tightly, some more comma-shaped, some dark, some light. 

Between yesterday's potting up of strawberries and new plantings of sweetpeas and today's calendula, I'm three quarters of the way through my bag of potting soil. Will have to get more soon. But since I am, as I said, operating at an energy deficit today, more soil mixing and planting will have to wait a while.

Transplanting and the Polar Vortex

Hi! I haven't been here in a week because I haven't been able to garden. I did manage to buy a small growlight (LED) and I've clamped it on my kitchen dishrack (which is a two level over-the-sink rack). The seedlings get some light every day now, not ideal, but the best I can manage--and the dishes get washed at night after the seedlings go back to the top of the fridge.

The Costata Romanesco squash is vigorous and exuberant, roots coming out everywhere, so tonight I repotted them into giant styrofoam drink cups--nothing like recycled and free! It's a good thing I only started three squash plants, sheesh. Hope the cups will do them for a couple weeks. We did have to laugh when we saw all the roots poking out of the sides of the toilet paper cores! They won't be able to do that with the cups, but they will have five times the soil.

Sweetpeas have to get potted up next, because their roots are coming out the bottom of the tubes already.

I think I may be saving toilet paper and paper towel cores permanently now, because that was the easiest potting up I've ever done--just lifted the whole thing into the cup and filled around the tube with wet potting soil. I do have sixpacks coming, but there's no obligation to use them all or to use them exclusively. They'll be quite convenient for carrying seedlings to other gardens and I can keep using the cores here.

The polar vortex has called a precipitate halt to my outdoor plans. I'm not safe walking through uneven snow, so I can't get to the greenhouse and that means my plans to bring seedlings inside have come to naught. So now we are having a big experiment: will lettuce and pea seedlings survive two weeks frozen solid? They do fine at freezing, but how will they do in single digit frozen nights when the wind chills are below zero? Luckily I have plenty of seeds, right? I was going to succession plant anyway, but I tell you what, if these seedlings survive the bitter cold, I am definitely gonna save seeds from them and plant it again! Polar vortexes come 6 to 8 times a decade so plants which are hardy enough to survive them will be a treasure!

Seeds are in!

 Hello!! Seeds are in from Prairie Moon and on their way from Strictly Medicinal and Baker Creek. That, I think, is the last of it until the plants start shipping in mid-March. 

Today Gryph repaired our leaky hose and cut open a lot of boxes for me. I finished the greenhouse floor (for a while: it is biodegradable after all, and will need done again) and started on the area around the greenhouse. Our friend is working on liberating her hardwood floors from the carpet and assorted tacks and staples. Once she starts bringing empty boxes by again I'll start laying the "garden floor" but until then, we need to go out and cut down the weed trees which are in my way.

What a concept!! "Weed trees." Growing up in the desert where these trees were scarce it just astounds me that they're so abundant here they can only be classified as weeds! But there you have it, they come up everywhere, make walking impossible, and the ailanthus trees even kill off other plants. So down they all come and get covered with cardboard to keep them down--because the cut seedlings come back year after year if you don't actually dig them out! Who knew that could happen? Never would have in the desert, sheesh! Really caught me off-guard.... but you notice I'm still here where there's enough rain to support weed trees, eh? And I'm staying here, especially if my garden succeeds, because I'll have deepened my roots in this place. There's just something about planting trees and flowers that ties me to the land, and growing food as well sets me firmly into the seasonal cycle of a particular place. I belong here. Just as much as this place belongs to me, I belong to this place. I belong to this land. I belong to this home and garden.

Today is lovely warm and bright, a brief respite before low double-digit temps freeze us all out on Saturday. I discovered that the greenhouse plastic acts like shade cloth, so I left the door tied open for a while to get some sun on my babies and also turned the pots to get them to straighten up and stop leaning. Pretty sure the 2017 seed is not up at all and the seedlings are all lettuce from 2021 seed stock. The peas (also from 2021) are very slow but continue to peek up over the soil surface. No sign of the chard, carrots, or beets.

Tomorrow I need to get my calendula and prairie sage into a 72 cell propagator and into the greenhouse; this evening I'll check on which of my other seeds need that kind of cold moist stratification (definitely this year's chard, carrots, and beets, sheesh). I can plant more peas and the sweet peas also, but not in the same propagator. Don't want to take any chance on mixing those up because sweetpeas are toxic. They'll be by themselves and well-labeled--probably in another deli chicken container since the dome is high.

<intermission>

Gryph and I have worked a bit more while there was light. He cut down some of the weed trees and we both worked on getting that topsoil off the driveway and into the garden cart, then spread into a low spot. Here he's working on the north side of the wheelchair ramp:

And then he spread the dirt onto a low spot:

Soon as we have that patch filled, we'll cover it with cardboard to await garden plants!

Checked the indoor seedlings. A miracle has occurred. For the very first time EVER, wild strawberries have germinated for me! We even have a couple tomatoes showing green hints right at soil level. All hail the warmth of the fridge top!!! 

For now, it's early supper and a heating pad. Whatever tomorrow brings, I'm looking forward to it!

Sproutage!!

So hello!! Top of the fridge is evidently a great place for sproutage! Today we have Salad Mix from Wild Garden Seed; these are most likely lettuces, with other greens still to come up:

And here we have mixed seedlings, Cupani Sweetpea from WGS on the right, Florist Pepperbox Poppy from Baker Creek on the left. The middle row, Apple Blossom Snapdragon from BC, is yet to pop:

You can see my goofy baked goods and deli chicken trays and my ever-so-high-tech seedling pots. The masking tape is holding its own! Pots in the greenhouse are falling apart but these are just fine. We're not going through the toilet paper fast enough to satisfy my seedling needs (it might be pretty awful if we were!!), so today I bought two 72 cell propagators. The cells are hexagonal rather than square and I don't honestly know if they're all they're cracked up to be--supposed to promote healthier roots that don't get rootbound, but who knows, really?--the main selling point was the price, only $5 each. I'll look online to find something cheaper, since I have to start hundreds of seeds, but for now these will do.

Don't know exactly how many people I want this garden to feed. It's going to be divvied up across three widely-spaced yards, although the third garden may turn out to be pretty small. We're calling it Sisters Seed Co-op. It'll meet multiple functions; food, flowers, medicinal herbs, groundcover, wildlife habitat, windbreak, and Native American sacred plants. The white sage plants (Strictly Medicinal Seeds) are coming in March and the Sweetgrass plants (Prairie Moon Nursery) in May; the Kansas native shrubs (Kansas Forest Service) will probably come in March as well, and will need some kind of protection from rabbits. Love those bunnies, but not enough to let them eat my baby shrubs--especially since once the shrubs get some height to them, their fruit will feed the rabbits just fine.

Got a shock when I checked out a local CSA. Under "what to expect" they had a list of veggies by month and even though their seedlings are already bigger than mine, it's nothing but greens until April, then radishes and peas, but nothing that I would consider substantial produce until JULY. No tomatoes, peppers, beans, squash until July! That isn't gonna work for me! If I'm starting seeds in February, I by golly want my first summer crops on the plants by May--because most crops are 75 to 90 days, and May marks 90 days. What this means is that I have to get serious about both growing space and lights, so that I can keep the summer plants inside until it's warm enough to put them in the greenhouse (mid-March). 

That's considerably more indoor growing than I had planned for and it'll be a challenge to find space for larger pots. Gryph and I are eyeing the laundry room, looking to see if we can make it work better and get shelves in which will hold the plants and give us storage both at once. 

Been planning on a lot of succession planting, so I guess I'll find out if planting now is a fool's errand or not... but honestly, the kid in me is so excited about seeds and seedlings that it's worth it. Hoping to be eating baby lettuce and needing to replant by the end of February, anyway! It's almost time to get fish emulsion so I can feed all those valiant little lettuce and pea plants growing in frozen soil in the greenhouse. It's supposed to drop to single digits by the end of this week, so I'll wait on that until it warms up again.

Wasn't sure I would ever be done buying seeds but when the next batch comes in the mail, I think that's it. This is all I can handle and more besides. Now I have to divert the money to seedling pots and potting soil, drip irrigation, 20 inch pots to go next to the wheelchair ramp, bird neeting to keep the squirrels out, and fertilizer.

Unexpected find as we were rummaging around in the laundry room--weed control fabric! That combined with the cardboard which is starting to come in from one of the co-op sisters who's moving into a new garden (with bonus house! Imagine!), should give me a head start on making a good-sized garden without digging or hoeing, always a consideration when one is disabled.

Going to do my best to keep this garden organic. Have omri-certified Neem oil and copper fungicide and will find an omri-certified fertilizer as well. The cardboard should eliminate needing to spray for weeds and should also defeat digging squirrels. We've used cardboard for the path from the steps to the trash can for several years now, and they ignore it as if it were concrete, so my hopes are up!

One final weird thing: the driveway runs from the street through the yard all the way to the back gate, and I lost the ability to keep it swept clean about six years ago. Mother Nature appreciated that. Between the silty dust that blows in on the wind and the fallen leaves each year, she's managed to lay down a three inch layer of topsoil over much of the driveway in the back yard. That's basically half an inch of new topsoil per year! We still have low spots where the elderberries came out, so that topsoil now has a destination, however slow I am to get it moved. We need a clean path with safe footing along the north side of the wheelchair ramp and space for all those 20' pots along the south side. .