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Seedling Menagerie

Here are the herbs that I have started. They are in plastic cups as I had a major mishap with the newspaper pots going moldy. These are currently occupying a large section of my porch, which I'm sure my mailcarrier loves... I can't wait till they get big enough to transplant and I can give away the extras.

I swear I only sowed two marjoram seeds per cup. I have no idea why there are so many seedlings! Some careful division will be needed. Luckily I have a friend who loves marjoram, it's the secret ingredient in her Thanksgiving stuffing.

My super sophisticated labeling system for seed starting.

Plastic bottle cloches serve two purposes here. They provide some extra humidity and warmth for the little seedlings. Even more importantly they protect them from the squirrels who just LOVE to dig in my containers.

Columbine as well as some NOID volunteer seedlings. Only time will tell.

Some new tomato seedlings just popped up today!

I can't wait to see these dahlias in bloom. They are one of my favorite flowers and I am planning to dig up the tubers in the fall and storing them for next year. I did grow them last year but did not know you could save them. These are the watercolor silk variety from Renee's Garden.

Some Italian parsley peeking out of the soil. Did not have great luck growing this last year, hopefully better seeds (Renee's Garden as opposed to Burpee) and better gardening knowledge will lead to better parsley! Made the plant tags out of the pieces of blinds that my cat snapped off to make a viewing window.

The one herb I was most proud of last summer was my chives. They just did not stop! I had fresh chives in everything, I would just nip outside and trim them down. I never let them flower however, this year I am planning on allowing the to flower before cutting them all the way down.

These mini sunflowers are going to be adorable. Need to find more bottles for cloches to protect them from the squirrels, they really like these seedlings and I lost a whole pot full.

Cucumbers! I will thin them to one plant when they get bigger. I can't wait to harvest these, cucumbers are one of my favorite veggies.

R.I.P. Seedlings

My early started seeds that I murdered. The newspaper pots started growing some mold so I applied a baking soda spray to take care of it. Much too strong for the little guys and most of them sadly did not make it. However it did take care of that mold! Thankfully the spray worked great on my gardenia that was seriously stressed out. Bottom shelf holds some ranunculus bulbs that I got at the dollar store so I started them inside to see if they were duds. 9 out of 10 came up! Then my cat ate them. :(

Columbines started in eggshells. I started two seeds per egg, only three germinated, two of which were in the same egg. They are now planted in a box under cloches. Hopefully I started them early enough so they can flower this year!

Violas and Petunias, luckily a few of them survived and are now happily growing outside.

Tomato seedlings that bit the dust. So sad. On a side note, I love when the leaves pop up with the shell of the seed still attached.

Post-Bulb Lull

The beginning of spring has come and gone, as have the profusion of early flowering spring bulbs. While a few of the muscari remain all thats left of the other bulbs are their foliage. My daffodils disappeared prematurely, as they were all decapitated and shredded by the savages that live in my neighborhood. I kept a more watchful eye on the tulips and cut them all before they could be damaged.

Even a few crocus managed to avoid becoming squirrel food. I planted a mixed bag and strangely enough the only survivors were all white with stripes. Maybe the squirrels don't like those ones. I figured the muscari would be safe since they are so small and weird and would be unappealing to people who don't enjoy their eccentricities. Most of them made it, however I did discover after coming home from Easter dinner that an entire row of them had been stripped of their little bells, much like shelling peas from a pod. I don't really know what to do about keeping people from destroying my plants. They are so much worse that the squirrels who love to dig up my seedlings and eat my bulbs.

As for my current complete lack of blooms, I think the solution is to not murder all my early started seedlings, and get more bulbs for next year!

Gardenia growth spurt.

Daffidols

First tulip

Cat Grass is a Houseplant's Best Friend

I have two cats, Thisbe and Sebastian. Thisbe loves plants as much as I do. She will sit next to my houseplants and brush her face against the leaves ever so lightly. I have also witnessed her kissing the blooms on my orchids. She is pretty gentle with them, except for the occasional munching on leaves. She is particularly fond of the gardenia. Here is where the cat grass comes in. She will happily eat her grass and not eat my houseplants. She lays her head on it and will just sit and stare at it for hours. I got a bag of seeds from the pet store and plant about a table spoon at a time in a small pot. I put it in a dark place to sprout and they grow for a few weeks before withering and then I start over again. Not only does the grass save my houseplants, it helps with her digestion as she is known to produce quite a few hair balls.

Upcoming Projects

I have several projects that I am working on, and even more that I want to start working on. These are things that I am interested in and will become the future posts in this blog. I'm gonna start with the master list and go into further detail as time and the projects themselves progress. Here we go:

• Photo documentation!
• Making a paper pot maker out of wood
• Starting seeds indoors with paper pots
• Starting seeds in egg shells
• Growing lithops from seed
• Succulent leaf propagation
• Harvesting and growing amaryllis seeds from my seed pods
• Decorating terra cotta pots with moss slurry
• Building a low fence to keep the two legged pests out
• Turning my firetrap/balcony into a vegetable and herb garden
• Making hypertufa planters out of food packaging
• Growing things other than moss in terrariums
• Collecting and storing seeds from my plants

First Seed Order of the Season

On Monday I placed my first seed order with Renee's Garden. I had previously only bought seeds through Burpee, but I wanted to expand my horizons and Renee's Garden seemed very appealing. First of all the seed packets depict adorable watercolor paintings of the plants, a big draw; for me at least. They also have a lot of heirloom and exotic varieties. Also all of their seeds are under $3. Practically everything will be going in to containers. The vegetables are all designed to grow in containers, the tiny eggplant are exceptionally cute.

• Here is what I ordered:
• Little Price Eggplant
• Bush Slicer Cucumber
• Super Bush Tomato
• Windowbox Basil
• Italian Pesto Basil
• Garlic Chives
• Perfume Lavender
• Sweet Marjoram
• Greek Oregano
• Gigante Parsley
• Heirloom Pepperbox Poppies
• French Culinary Rosemary
• Alpine Mignonette Strawberries
• Mrs. Scott Elliot Columbines
• Watercolor Silks Dahlia
• Pastel Sundial Portulaca
• Chantillly Snapdragon
• Junior Sunflower
• Color Palette Sweet Pea
• Scented Gold Wallflower
• Salpiglossis *Bonus*

I was overcharged about 40 cents and I send them an email and I will be getting an extra packet of Salpiglossis! Great customer service, I will sure order from them again. I don't have everything I want yet, I need to get some Petunias, Violas and Pansies for outside. I am also itching to buy some lithops seeds from Ebay.

Almost Killed an Orchid

Now winter has come and with no gardening to do outside I have focused all my attention to my houseplants. It has almost been a year since I brought home my first one; from Ikea of all places. After weeks of bugging my husband every time I saw the orchids in Home Depot I saw them at Ikea for half the price so I bullied him into buying it. I stupidly bought a 8 inch pot for it, thinking it would need to grow into it. This was my first houseplant as an adult, besides a moss terrarium. It was such a lovely Phalaenopsis, white with purple spots, and I loved it so. I would sit and stare at it for minutes on end, admiring it's elegant curve and it's exotic flowers. All the while patting myself on the back for my selection of the large minimalist gray terracotta pot I planted in it. Now it's blooms have long since faded and I am waiting for a new spike to grow this spring. My love for it spurred me to pick up two more at the Depot after getting a BOGO houseplant coupon from their garden club. I got a pure white one and a green one. My puppy ate the green one, thankfully they are not toxic. It was replaced by a lovely white and pink blushed one with yellow lips. Realizing my previous ignorance I have recently repotted my three orchids in smaller pots.

My white Phal however; is currently in the ICU. A few weeks ago I had them soaking in the tub for their weekly watering. My kitchen timer was broken and my husband was home with me; so I ended up forgetting about them and they spent over an hour the water. Upon realizing what I had done I ran out of the room mid sentence. I pulled them out of the water with the same fervor as back in my lifeguarding days. I put them back in their window and was too guilty to visit them for several days. Thats when I noticed one of them was not doing very well. That prompted me to buy the smaller pots and I repotted them all, this time adding a good heaping to pearlite to the sphagnum moss. I was terribly nervous when I examined the crown of my poor white Phal. The roots were terrible, most were hollow and the intact ones were rotted. I was on the verge of tears when I noticed a new plump, healthy root growing. My Phal had the will to survive! I sprinkled some rooting powder on the crown in hopes of encouraging some new growth and I am hoping for the best. I have noticed that the leaves have become more turgid and it definitely looks more perky. Also the new leaf that had started poking out but stopped growing is now growing!

Learning from My Mistakes

My husband will have owned our house for two years in April. We didn't move in for several months while we were renovating, but I was determined to grow a garden. We have a row home so my gardening space consists of a steep slope of grass about twelve feet by six feet. As well as a medium sized porch and a metal balcony jutting out the back of out kitchen dubbed "The fire trap". I placed a long planter on the top of the slope and dug out two spots on either side of it for gardenia bushes. The planter was beautiful, I filled it with a rainbow of annuals that I bought at Home Depot and simply popped them in the dirt, can't get easier than that right? My small strip that lined the sidewalk was beautiful as well, for about a week. That was before the neighborhood kids discovered that trotting on my newly uncovered flower bed was a much better alternative to walking on the sidewalk. I bought a bunch of seeds and planted them without paying much attention to the growing instructions. I ended up with four foot tall Zinnias planted in the five inch strip that I has cut out of the bottom of the slope of my lawn. They looked completely ridiculous. I also had this grand idea of growing morning glories up from the planter on the lawn onto the railing of the porch. I bought floral wire and stapled it to the box and diligently trained the vines to grow up to the porch. Needless to say, it did not work. The wires kept falling off and killing the vines and even thought they grew like crazy they never flowered.

My second summer was filled with more disappointments. I eagerly planted all my seeds on the first day of spring, well before the last frost date. As I dug in the soil my next door neighbors, a pair of brothers aged three and five, (absolutely feral children who the summer before cursed out my husband and friends anytime we were outside) who were exiled to their porch for the day; inched ever so closer, watching me in amazement. Their mother is a true gem, and they spend every single day that is above freezing corralled on the porch with various other visiting children. While she holes up in the house with her friends with the radio blasting and illicit odors wafting out. I showed them an earthworm and they squealed in delight. I handed them seeds and showed them where to put them and was so proud of myself for making friends and teaching them about gardening. My efforts however had a negative effect. These cretin children now regarded my garden as theirs; and proceeded to systematically destroy everything that grew. All my seedlings were immediately shredded, and I found lilly bulbs smashed on the sidewalk. After being ratted on by the other kids on the block they admitted to doing it, but continued to decimate my garden despite my pleas. It took some shouting from my husband to finally keep them out for good, but the damage had been done.

My gardenia bush amazingly survived one of the snowiest winters in Philadelphia's history. I had bought a frost free variety from Brighter Blooms nursery that could weather our northern winters. It had doubled in size and I decided to buy another one to mirror it. It's companion arrived via FedEx and I saw trouble from the instant the truck door opened. The box was on it's side, despite the "This side up" and "live plant" warnings. I really wanted to punch the FedEx guy. It was terribly beat up and baked to a crisp, despite having several amazing smelling blooms on it. It was also a lot more puny than it's predecessor and needless to say it did not survive the stifling hot summer with it's endless heat waves. What was with the extreme weather last year? I left it's dried up corpse planted in the grown in vain hopes that it would one day spring back to life. I gave up hope when I found it laying on my lawn in the fall. I ordered a replacement a but too late to plant outside so it is currently potted up in my living room, hanging out with the succulents and my African violets.