From commentor JeffG166:
1.26.2022
Winter sowing seeds in mini greenhouses outside in Philadelphia, PA. All the seeds either need a cold period or don’t mind being started outside. No idea when or if they will come up. If they do there is no hardening them off to transplant them.The seeds are snapdragons, verbena bonariensis, red coreopsis, white and red coreopsis and wild columbines.
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Commentor MomSense:
Here are a couple of photos of knitting projects taken in the garden.
Above: Flower Bookmark made with scrap yarn. The yarn is plant dyed in small batches.
Infinity scarf with a leaf pattern taken on the back deck next to a small container flower arrangement. Wish I had taken a photo of the container after it filled in later in the summer.
This is some Norwegian wool I bought in Oslo years ago. There is now a Montauk daisy where the petunias are in this photo.
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1.29.2022
Mini greenhouses this morning.
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The earliest daffodil clumps — sunny southern exposure, next to the basement window — are greening up nicely.
(So, unfortunately, is the garlic mustard in the back yard… )
What’s going on in your garden (planning / memories / indoor), this week?
zeecube
Beautifull scarves.
Baud
@zeecube:
Yeah, MomSense knows how to dress up a garden.
raven
Garden Girl has already been to the Growers Outlet and planted a bunch of stuff. It’s going to be as warm as the upped 70’s this week with rain so it will probably screw up the peach crop.
raven
I thought I’d post a couple of pics of the kudzu valley behind our house.
Kudzu in bloom
Dormant
MomSense
We lost all our beautiful snow last week. It warmed up to 50 degrees, all the snow melted, and then it dropped back to the teens and my driveway is a luge track. I should probably go cover all the plants with some wool.
MomSense
@raven:
Can you co-exist with it at a distance or is it something you have to try to get rid of?
debbie
This afternoon will be warm enough to get out and stalk the neighborhood for snowdrops, the first sign of spring around here.
Raven
@MomSense: The way you control it is by consistent mowing after you have the gigantic roots dug up!
https://flic.kr/p/bFrHkD
Kay
I tried winter sowing two years ago with Shasta Daisies and it worked well- they came up and I set them early with no hardening off- they’re still there. I just don’t think I gained any time from starting them indoors under lights but it’s much easier than indoors.
I think it would work beautifully for snapdragons which I start indoors but didn’t winter sow.
satby
@Baud: MomSense makes wonderful knit wear. She should link to her Etsy store.
@MomSense: We had 51° and rain on Wednesday, which melted the last couple inches of snow and ice from the previous 13 inches of snow cover. The rain turned to sleet and then snow, only about 5 inches total on Thursday, but on top of an ice glaze. The bulbs on the south side of my house had sent out some green shoots, which I hope didn’t get too frazzled by the low single digit temperatures Thursday and Friday overnight.
debbie
@MomSense:
I love the colors you’ve used for the scarves!
OzarkHillbilly
Temps in the 60s today, tomorrow, and Tuesday, then the bottom drops out with snow predicted for Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. No prediction yet on amounts.
Who was it who said February was the cruelest month?
Thanx for the pics JeffG and MomSense, a real brightener to start the day/week with.
MomSense
@satby:
I’m getting really tired of ice. Missing snow and being able to snowshoe and cross country ski. Now we just get the cold without the fun parts of winter.
Ken
@Raven: I googled kudzu recipes, and apparently the leaves and roots are edible. Though it’s the first recipe I’ve seen where the ingredients list starts “protective clothing”.
NotMax
@OzarkHillbilly
It’s all relative, innit? 99-year-old aunt decamped for the month to her beach house.
She’s in Brazil, so the height of summer.
SiubhanDuinne
@OzarkHillbilly:
Maybe late in the calendar, but still timely in the weather:
satby
@JeffG166: I used the milk carton mini-greenhouses for new tiny shrubs the first winters after I planted them, never used them for direct sowing. I’ve had rotten luck with some perennials like rudibeckia that I’ve transplanted, so I’m going to try that next winter to fill in some gaps. Thanks!
Ken
T. S. Eliot, but it was April. Also as a sometime gardener, I have to disagree with his reasons:
“April is the cruelest month,
breeding lilacs out of the dead land,
mixing memory and desire,
stirring dull roots with spring rain.”
(I suppose I should say “sometime gardener and plebian”, because I suspect there’s a metaphor or two lurking there which I’m not fully appreciating.)
satby
@MomSense: ice without snow is why I won’t move to Lexington in spite of my younger son’s not so veiled hints about how old I’m getting ? (and 67 only seems ancient to 30-somethings). I like snow, but hate to walk and drive on ice.
satby
@NotMax: jeez, you come from a long lived gene pool!
NotMax
@satby
67 these days is in the outskirts of the suburbs of Ancientville.
;)
Gin & Tonic
@OzarkHillbilly: The word for February in Ukrainian is the same as “ferocious.”
mrmoshpotato
@Baud:
Duck Tales!Scarf tree! Woo hoo!NotMax
@satby
Yuppers. From both sides!
mrmoshpotato
@debbie:
Neighborhood stalker.
Chief Oshkosh
We’ve been participating in the big bird count this weekend. Weird year. Normally we have a full complement of all the birds that will be here through Spring, but this year just a few sparrows and red-winged blackbirds. Anyway, if you’re interested, it’s very easy to participate (only takes 15 mins) and it’s fun, with full online support, including an app if you want it:
http://birdcount.org
Today is the last day to participate.
raven
@Ken: Yea, we’re not interested.
OzarkHillbilly
@Ken: I guess it was me who said it then.
mrmoshpotato
@NotMax:
Both sides! DRINK (coffee)!
NotMax
@mrmoshpotato
Winding down, but still prime martini time here.
;)
Dorothy A. Winsor
I love the way gardeners can hardly wait at this time of year.
NotMax
@Dorothy A. Winsor
It’s order too damn many tomatoes season.
//
Scout211
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
So true. It’s like a new beginning all over again.
I was planning on planting my salad garden seeds this weekend because the weather has been so warm lately. But then I checked the weather for next week. Apparently, most of the country is in for an “involuntary polar plunge” next week. Our weather, recently in the upper 70s will plunge to the low 50s and low 30s overnight. That’s cold for NorCal.
So I will wait one more week to plant my seeds. Sigh.
CaseyL
JeffG166: How do you get the plants out of those mini-greenhouses? Can you just upend the bottles and the plants slide out?
MomSense: I love the colors! I hardly ever wear scarves (I don’t like things around my neck) – but do appreciate them as art.
I’ve done some patio-garden work of late. I have an abundance of potted strawberries. Started out with 4 plants, and hoo boy do strawberries like to propagate! I now have 12. Some still in nice-sized pots, but I finally got some wooden planter boxes for the ones that had been stuck in smaller pots. Plus another planter box and lattice for peas, for which I bought seeds, which I really need to plant soon. Very much a novice at this, so I’m relying on YouTube and Google for advice on when and how to sow the seeds. Also got some lettuce seeds, but am not sure where to plant those.
Until yesterday all the planter boxes were on the patio/deck, and the pots anywhere I could put them (on the deck, on a small table, on a lawn chair ottoman). I wanted something structural-yet-pretty to put them all on, get them up off the cement – and away from my cats who think the planters are litter boxes. Then yesterday on NextDoor Finds I saw a firepit table, wrought iron and tile, that looked like it would do.
Turned out quite the score: the table is 4 feet square, lovely and sturdy, with a metal lid on the firepit part. The tiles are 12″ squares which, fortunately, come out: with the tiles in place, the table must weigh about 35 pounds, without them, maybe 20. Much easier to carry and load into the car! So I brought the table home, put the tiles back in. Not only do all the planter boxes fit on it, so do all the pots! It looks really, really nice, and I am so pleased.
zhena gogolia
@Baud: They are gorgeous!
zhena gogolia
Have we discussed that Queen Elizabeth has Covid?
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: Something related to liutyi?
Baud
@zhena gogolia:
Mentioned in the covid thread. Symptoms mild so far.
Anne Laurie
@satby: Proverb: The more you complain, the longer G*d lets you live.
Kay
@CaseyL:
You cut the milk jug in half, top and bottom when you plant the seeds. I hinged mine – left one side intact- then you duct tape it around the middle when it’s planted and set it out. When the seeds come up you can grow them on for a while in the jug then just take off the top half and transplant.
Drainage is important- it’s cold wet mix sitting for two months- so heat up a screwdriver and poke lots of drainage holes in the bottom of the jug.
oldgold
@Ken:
A Green Rule of Thumb: Plants the begin with the letter K, like Kudzu and Kale, even if not poisonous, should never be eaten.
debbie
@zhena gogolia:
I’d love to see Momsense’s garden be-scarfed, just like Tamara’s ducks!
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: It is exactly лютий.
NotMax
@oldgold
So I’ll have to chop down the kumquat tree in the back yard?
Argiope
@MomSense: your red scarf pattern is the same as one of my UFOs! Also doing it in red, but a deeper one, and I’m doing a non-infinity version. Nice to see how that pattern can turn out!
satby
@NotMax: ? perfect!
@Anne Laurie: truth. Corollary to “only the good die young” I guess.
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: I like the traditional names. March is березень, for the birches, April is квітень, for flowers, May is травень, for the grass.
satby
@CaseyL: Kay has a different way to do it, I just cut the bottoms off old milk jugs and put them flat on the ground, a little dug in on the edges, and with a stick to hold them upright through the top hole.
delk
@MomSense: beautiful knitting! Love the color on the infinity I’m about to finish a scarf. It’s just over six feet long. The first five feet took a week.The last foot has taken about two months.
rikyrah
Good Morning, Everyone???
Baud
@rikyrah:
Good morning.
O. Felix Culpa
@MomSense: @satby: MomSense has an etsy store? Linky please. :)
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: Very appropriate.
zhena gogolia
@Gin & Tonic: Yes, those are lovely. Like the French revolutionary months. I think Czech has something similar? November is listopad, “falling of the leaves.”
Gin & Tonic
@zhena gogolia: Same in Ukrainian.
NeenerNeener
The bottles remind me of what my mother used to do to start plants in late winter. She also used medium-sized fish tanks (29 gallon to 55 gallon) as cold frames.
SiubhanDuinne
@zhena gogolia:
So much more engaging than the tedious ordinal countdown we have in English via Latin: September, October, November, December. Yawn.
SiubhanDuinne
@MomSense:
Your knitting is gorgeous. I will never forget your kindness when you knitted a lovely light blue sweater for the new baby of my bartender friend, who had given me $20 toward rescuing/transporting Walter from Cole’s house to Debit’s.
Kay
@NeenerNeener:
It’s really easy. If you started the same seeds inside you would need space indoors to set them out and supplemental light. But it won’t work for tender or tropical-origin annuals. I’m sure it would work great for cool season vegetables- spinach, lettuce, broccoli. Not peas I don’t think because they don’t transplant well.
If I get a late frost predicted and have already planted seedling tomatoes I just pop a big drinking glass over the seedlings overnight. You have to pull the glasses off first thing the next morning though or they’ll bake in there even with weak early spring sun.
delk
@zhena gogolia: November in Polish is listopad.
oldgold
@NotMax:
The cumquat tree can be spared from the axe using 1) the Australian spelling; 2) the well known fruit loophole; and, 3) the humor exemption – George Carlin deemed cumquats the funniest food.
Knock-knock. Who’s there? Cumquat. Cumquat who?
SiubhanDuinne
@oldgold:
Cumquat may.
CaseyL
@Kay: @satby:
Yes, the milk jugs I can understand, cut or create a hinge. It’s the glass bottle I was curious about – but, looking at it more closely, now I see that one is also plastic. Never mind!
oldgold
@SiubhanDuinne: !
zhena gogolia
@SiubhanDuinne: Russian has the same. Too lazy to look it up, but probably good old Peter I trying to be Western again.
MomSense
@delk:
Sounds like the sweater I’m working on. It’s duster length – light fingering. and the body has been done for a month but the sleeves are killing me.
@Argiope:
It’s such a nice lace stitch.
zhena gogolia
@zhena gogolia: Russian once had the more descriptive Slavic month names. I can’t find a reference to when they adopted the boring Latin-derived ones.
Kay
@CaseyL:
There are fancy glass “cloches” to use as little greenhouses for direct seeding in the ground, shaped like a bell. I have one I inherited, I have no idea who had it first or how I got it – it’s beautiful. Light green glass and really heavy. But just one, which is not enough :)
oldgold
My neighbor, the sulphurically scented Dee Dee Plorable, put up a six figure greenhouse last summer. To date it has provided excellent shelter for two Schwinns and a Weber grill.
Last I saw her, she was hyperventilating over the murderous inflation.
Kay
@oldgold:
I’ve wanted one since I was 8 years old. My middle son tells me he’ll get me one but then we start looking at them online and picking them apart and I can’t commit. I read they were a really popular purchase during the pandemic so maybe I can get one used :)
NeenerNeener
@Kay: That sounds like an old glass transformer insulator I saw once.
oldgold
@Kay: A cumquat tree, greenhouse, Schwinn or Weber Grill?
Tata
Has anyone propagated fig trees? I can get twigs to sprout but can’t keep them alive. It’s upsetting. Wish I knew what I’m doing wrong.
satby
@Tata: I have not, but found a wealth of info on the web. Including this video. TBH, I look up stuff I’m pretty sure I know, just because there’s a whole mishmash of gardening tips in my head; and as I found out since I’ve moved to sandy dunes IN, what I used to know doesn’t always apply anymore.
Miss Bianca
@OzarkHillbilly: February? I thought it was April. Pretty sure it was TS Eliot for the latter, but I’m too lazy to verify.
@Ken: See, I should have known someone would get there before me.
Miss Bianca
@SiubhanDuinne: Speaking of BJ animal transfers, has anyone heard anything about little Tado, who was posted last week? I stand poised to alert my local animal welfare group if he still needs a home, but I’ve heard crickets so far. (And yes, I have contacted both Adam and texasboyshaun.)
oldgold
@Tata: I usually plant them in tandem with a Newton.
S. Cerevisiae
The snow keeps falling
it piles up foot by foot
February sucks
J R in WV
I can’t help but think Adam is working way past full time right now.
OT and stressful tension combined, most likely.
eachother
Seeing tulip leaf tips peeking out of a dirt patch. This is the first time in 45 years of not seeing them anywhere near the month of February. @ 5,000′ for gosh sakes. Tomorrow’s low, zero. High in the teens. That will tell them tips what’s what.
Tata
@satby: Thank you! That seems like a reasonable method, and he’s not far from me.
Tata
@oldgold: Hey now!
StringOnAStick
Since I’m rebuilding an entire yard, I’m trying to grow 1/3 of the perennials I need from seed. I cold stratified two kinds of multicolored Echinacea and some sea holly seeds for 3 weeks, put them in germination cells a week ago and noticed this morning that about 1/4 of the cells show sprouts, yea!
I’ve prepared a spreadsheet of which seeds to start when, which means eventually today’s sprouts will get potted on and transferred to the cold frame. I’ve never attempted to grow perennials or use a cold frame before, so wish me luck!
We are getting subzero overnight lows in Monday and Tuesday, the first this year and after weeks of barely freezing and mid 50’s days. One blueberry is starting to bud so I hope it’s a tough plant. The nectarine tree is far along too but I bet it has never produced in this erratic climate; the pie cherry obviously hasn’t been so easily fooled.