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.