More blooms, more spring catch-up

Some blooms that didn't arrive for GBBD:

Viburnum 'Mohawk' in full flower now, smelling like cloves gone to heaven.  It blooms for about a week, and I go outside every night to smell it.  At the other end of the front porch, the Pieris japonica keeps going for about a month, pumping out the honey scent, and I love it too, but the viburnum, like everything we have only a short while, steals my heart.

When I said that one little tulip was the last of the 'Surprise' era, and none of the others were going to bloom this year?  I lied.  I think they'll be there forever.

I just liked this magnolia with magnolia snow under it.  It's been a little hot (and drizzly) for some of the spring flowers this week, but it'll get cold again tonight.

Speaking of which (seedlings in photo, hardening off outside for reasons explained here, but will have to come in again tonight) I have been terrible about keeping track of seed-starting, but um, obviously I started some tomatoes (and other things) back in mid-March, and they are doing well despite [see link above].  Over the past weekend I put in seeds for squash, cucumbers, peanuts, Malabar spinach, maybe something else... the cukes are coming up.  Need to start melons and sunflowers.

In other news for which I neglected to get a photo, we've had a pair of what we're pretty sure are vultures hanging out on occasion in our enormous black walnut tree (they are high up, and I haven't looked through binoculars yet).  I sort of hope they come back, although on the other hand they are creepy and I am telling the cat not to take a nap in the yard.

Tomorrow I am teaching Intensive Vegetable Gardening at Montgomery College, and am rushing about printing things and doing a last-minute run to the Rockville library to check out Square Foot Gardening which, why do I not have a copy of it, I don't know.  So this is all for now.

Bloom Day April

I'm not doing a great job keeping up with recording things here, but I had to chime in for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day, because so much is in bloom so suddenly; it's been quite a week for awakenings, as the cold not-quite-spring gave way to the hot not-quite-summer.  None of these flowers will last as long as they did last spring, which went on for months, so it's as well we celebrate them now.

Here's a quick tour of some of what I've got, unlabeled because I don't want to take the time figuring out for sure which daffodil is which.

The tulip at the end is apparently the last surviving of the supposedly-not-perennial 'Surprise' which has been surprising me for at least ten years now in eight inches of clay by the mailbox, timing itself perfectly to clash violently with the above purple-pink magnolia.  I can't help admiring them as I chant "die, already" each spring.

I didn't walk back to photograph the daffodils on the far back slope, but I'm glad to see they are growing and blooming.  I pretty much had to ignore that project last year, and I know I've got to go down and cut back multiflora rose and Japanese honeysuckle, but at least some of what I put in has survived, and I've just added a few nandina plants that my neighbor wanted to get rid of because they had too much of a suckering habit for her purposes.  In my situation, the more suckering the better.

Hope everyone's enjoying their spring blooms!

Happy Easter

Have some daffodils in a slumped pot (this is pretty much how I feel right now).

(Vase by The Lion Potter.  I think it's brilliant.)

I should do some gardening today, huh?  Would help if it wasn't cold and gray and probably going to rain...

More record-keeping, and amaryllis

Did more seed-starting yesterday: more Chinese broccoli varieties, papaloquelite, borage, roselle, tomatillo, eggplant, and wonderberry.  Tomatoes go in later this week.  Also did more transplanting of greens into pots.  All the older transplants are now going outside days (and nights starting tomorrow) under a tunnel of sheet plastic.  It'll get down to freezing again later this week, but I think temperatures will stay high enough under there to leave the plants out.  I have no room left under the lights, in any case.

Today did some path-making and bed prep at the community garden plot (only a bit, oh I am out of shape, but enough to get started planting soon).  Put some compost in the salad table on the deck, and (what the heck) put in seeds for various things that I will mention if they actually come up and survive.  This looks to be a very spring-like week, but winter may return soon (I can cover the table if necessary).

And, in case I forget to post for GBBD on Friday, here is an amaryllis that bloomed this week.  (I think I may start collecting amaryllis (which I believe is the plural of amaryllis).  They're so easy to keep going from year to year, and really there is no reason they need to be timed to bloom at Christmas, I say having forgotten to put them into dormancy early enough, but after all we were away at Christmas, and February-March is a fine time to bloom too.)  Here's the opening sequence:

There.  That was entertaining, wasn't it?  There are all sorts of crocuses outside, too, so I hope I do remember to post.

Just housekeeping

Seed-starting update, boring, pass on...

Today transplanted dozens of little brassica-type plants from the egg cartons into peat pots, which will hopefully hold them until it's time to plant.

Also put in seeds for: mizuna, radicchio, ground cherries, ornamental millet, and dahlias.

Also sorted out my ridiculously-large seed collection into categories: Probably Will Use This Year, Old Flower and Herb Seeds to Combine and Throw Onto a Bed and Maybe Something Will Come Up, Keep in the Freezer In Case I Want It Again, Give to the Seed Swaps (there are two coming up), and (can't believe I managed this) Discard.

It was a seedy kind of day.

Itching

I was very amused this morning to read articles in the Washington Post by the two Thursday garden columnists, Adrian Higgins and Barbara Damrosch, which start out respectively:

If you are itching to get into the garden on a mild winter’s day, you might want to grab a good pair of hand pruners and some sharp loppers and go in search of a shrub to prune.

and

If you’ve got the gardening itch and it’s too early to scratch it, try growing some microgreens.

I think we can agree that everyone is a little itchy, and possibly irritable and testy and skin-crawly and hot under the collar, and if it's not the flu it may be the gardening bug.  I tend to scratch the itch by getting some soilless mix under my fingernails and starting seeds.  Photos soon ETA: photo of some of my baby plants:

Here's the list of what I've started so far.

Greens for demo garden: kale (Lacinato, Lark's Tongue), mustard (Southern Giant Curled and Red Giant), Chinese cabbage, komatsuna, purple pak choi, broccoli raab, collards (Green Glaze), kohlrabi (green and purple), cabbage (Early Jersey Wakefield and Red Acre), and gai lan (Chinese broccoli).  I may be a little early on some of these, but it gets so hot so fast and a lot of them bolt, so better to get them planted early and offer temperature protection if needed.

Peppers (mostly for me): Fish (no luck with germination, but I have just acquired some new seeds), Antioch (an Armenian heirloom, mildly hot), Red Cheese, Sweet Banana, and Romeo (these are to go with Juliet tomatoes, yes I am geeky).  Also some yellow bells and Italian frying peppers that have not germinated.

Other: cardoons (also on second germination try and succeeding this time), sorrel (more old seed, dunno if it'll work but I do want more plants), parsley, celeriac.

I wish I had room for microgreens.  As it is Older Son is going to have to share his room with some seedlings on his visit home.

Some of the many things I need to do outside when we do have a mild day and I have time in it:

Pruning, yes, thank you Adrian.

Setting up the tunnel I got PVC pipe and fastened brackets onto a raised bed for several years ago and have never actually used.  I'm not going to grow anything in the bed, but I do need some outdoor space for hardening off seedlings, and after the demise of my "mini-greenhouse" thing with the shelves and the zippered cover that broke the first year, all I have is a small shelf on the deck and row cover, and that is not enough for the vast number of seedlings in pots that are soon going to be requiring space that currently does not exist.  Existential crisis!  Metaphysics!  Tunnel of intermediate size to the rescue!

Getting over to the community garden plot and making the soil ready for planting.  I can actually direct-seed some hardy things right away once I get that done.  Real soil under the fingernails!

Like the headlights of an oncoming train...

Which is the end of the sentence "I see spring in the distance..."  Oh, it's a joy to have little plants bursting out of seeds in the laundry room again, and to be planning what to grow, and to be talking to other people about all that, but... it comes at you fast, doesn't it?  Yikes.

On the other hand, it's sleeting on and off outside just now, so I am reminded that it's still February.

Hi there.  I haven't written anything here in a while.  This is for several reasons:

1) Still wrestling with some health issues: the thyroid problems not solved yet and the knee still hurting. But I do have more energy and I can walk, and I'm hoping I'll be able to manage the physical labor of gardening and you know, squatting and kneeling and so forth.  Or else ignominiously scooting about on my butt with my right leg stretched out straight.  Somehow I'll manage it.  At the demo garden I have minions MG interns to dictate various tasks to, but my new community garden plot will need lots of work and that is down to ME.

Here's what it looked like when I was last there in December, by the way:

(It is very, very difficult to take a good photo of an empty garden plot.  Photos will get more interesting as the season progresses.)

I need to get out there again to start getting beds ready for planting.  Whenever it warms up a little.

2) Every time I thought about posting the ghosts of a thousand worms held me back.  That's right; I killed my worms.  It was plain and simple neglect; and yeah, I was sick, but still. *guilt*  They did make some lovely compost for me before they succumbed; in fact, I thought they were doing great and were ready to come up to the next level of my worm bin, and then... somehow they didn't make the journey, and apparently all died from starvation, best I can tell.  And if I'd been looking at them every few days as I should have, that wouldn't have happened.

I'm going to start over in the spring.  But oh dear.  Alas poor worms.

3) Some winters I just don't want to think about gardening, okay?  Especially since I know how many projects I got behind on last summer and will probably not have time or energy to catch up on this year.

But I'm back and I will make an effort to post on a regular basis, here and at Grow It Eat It.  I haven't done a Garden Bloggers Bloom Day in a while; next month there will probably be lots of flowers.  Right now I just have frozen snowdrops, and inside this weird and spectacular amaryllis:

In the MG world, aside from blogging and plotting, I seem to have become someone who stands up in front of groups and talks.  I was asked to do the three-hour introduction to vegetable gardening for the new MG class (I interpreted that as "what do you have to know about vegetable gardening to be a MG" and it went pretty well, I think); last night I talked about container gardening in schools to local teachers; next month I'm doing a spring veggie gardening talk to a garden club; and in April, if I have enough people registered, I'm teaching Intensive Vegetable Gardening again at Montgomery College.  I like putting together the powerpoints and I'm getting better at making the words come out of my mouth coherently, so I'll probably be doing more of this as time goes on.

I'm behind on keeping records already, but next post I'll try to list seedlings already started, and maybe put up some baby pictures.

Train arriving soon...