The emotional roller-coaster ride that is mystery plants from the Zellers garden centre clearance rack

Mystery plant outside, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

So, I am a total sucker for plants on the clearance shelf in garden centres -- the sketchier the garden centre, the greater my sense of pathos. (Actually the reaction I have is almost identical to the one I get from Spike Jonze's Ikea commercial. Or, actually, this clip from Community. Because the part of my brain that personifies things without consciousness has had too much caffeine. OR NOT ENOUGH LOVE.)

Anyway, as a result I end up with these sad, bedraggled plants in my garden sometimes, and I don't necessarily know what they are, or even whether they are annuals or perennials. BUT! This one is apparently a perennial! Which means that I really got my $1's worth. I have three of these, and they have pretty, variegated pink leaves. Plus their new spring shoots look DELICIOUS. And pink! Like Gaga Pink! Yay spring! Yay mystery plants! Yay lamp!

This picture also signifies the fact that I'm finally out in my outside garden, trying to clean up some of the disastrous last-year mess. I did NOTHING to clean up my garden last fall. I mean, literally, the snow is melting and under the snow are pots, and bags of lawn clippings, and 8 months' worth of dog poop, and apparently at least a few plants that are going to grow again. (Or at least, they'll grow again if I hold up my end of the bargain and clear away the debris that is blocking the sun.) But it's still not really at a point where I'm comfortable taking pictures of it. Just take what you see in this picture -- mud, dead leaves, dead plants from last year -- and extrapolate.

In praise of enthusiastic plants

chard, originally uploaded by jocelynb. Less than 24 hours elapsed between left-hand and right-hand pictures.

I love the plants that are started inside closer to last frost because they're showmen and keeners. I planted swiss chard (variety Five Colour Silverbeet), zucchini (Costata Romanesco, which I had great luck with last year), and cucumbers (Early Russian and Armenian, which by the way is actually a melon) on Saturday. Over the past couple days it seems they've been sprouting one plant per hour.

When I checked the plants yesterday morning when I woke up, there were a couple of slight disruptions in the soil where the chard was about to poke up. By the evening, half a dozen little plants had sprouted and spread their initial leaves. By this morning there were about 15 shoots. No sign of the zucchini yet, but the Armenian Cucumbers are all sprouted, and so are most of the regular cukes. No offense to the slow germinating peppers and asparagus of earlier this year, but these are my kind of plants. I guess because I have the patience of a first-grader!

And I have more of this to look forward to, because the only seeds left to start indoors (this coming weekend) are the melons and squash. I'm going to try two varieties of watermelon (Sugar Baby and Cream of Saskatchewan) as well as Bennings Green Tint squash. And then I will get to wait for all THOSE to sprout.

April 26 2011: Taking the seedlings out for a walk

Once a week or so, I take my older seedlings out of their watering trays and give them some liquid fertilizer. (Once they get their first set of true leaves, they're ready to start getting fertilizer.) I start them on a very dilute mix (one-quarter of its regular strength) and build them up to full-strength fertilizer by the time they're ready to plant outside. My plants are on about half-strength fertilizer right now. You can see most of my seedlings in this picture -- the only ones that aren't down here are the very new ones which haven't sprouted true leaves yet -- chard, cucumbers, & zucchini, and a couple varieties of flowers. (Oh, and the cauliflower and broccoli are still in the lightbox upstairs.) You can also see the totally decrepit old freezer our house's previous owners left in the basement -- it is too heavy to move up the stairs! HOW DID IT GET DOWN THERE IN THE FIRST PLACE? Theory: the house was built around it.

I guess I could just give them fertilizer in their usual watering trays, but I'm wary of that because I don't want the fertilizer to collect in there -- it stops being dilute if the plants are sitting in it. So instead I take them out and put them on other trays just for today.

This is kind of a big job at this point, so to help make the work worthwhile I'll leave them sitting out for a couple hours with the fan on. I'm not sure if this is just superstition, but I have heard that setting seedlings in the breeze from a fan helps to prevent damping off.

I'm contemplating starting to move some of the seeds outside during the day -- partly to harden them off, but also partly just because I'm running out of space and lights. If it was just a little warmer, I would consider planting some of the tougher plants out. We are still getting night-time temperatures of 0 or a few degrees below, so I think it's almost time to plant out the artichokes, broccoli and cauliflower. In the meantime, I will just have to keep squishing them in, since I'm obviously not going to stop starting new plants -- that's a little too logical.

Dispatch from the basement (Zone 2 probably)

I have a great feeling of accomplishment because I finally washed all the little pots from last year's seed-starting. This is such a boring job, I never feel like doing it, but now that it's done I do feel good about it.




 

And here is a picture of the first artichoke to poke through. It still has its seed casing stuck to it. I will give it a day or two to see if it can crack it on its own. I've pulled them off in the past (VERY carefully) with no ill effects. But I don't like playing God :)

As of today I am up to 8 asparagus sprouts and 1 artichoke. I've been impressed with the germination of the asparagus. The package said they germinate in 2-8 weeks, and I had my first sprout 10 days after planting. I really think my heat mats help with this. (Yes, the heat mats also constitute playing God. For some reason it's different.)

Outside temperature: -16. Believe it or not this is balmy compared to the -25 to -30 weather we've had for the past couple weeks. Bring on spring!

the umpire calls hotbox

www.flickr.com

The Hotbox!
I have 3 little baby asparaguses now so today I moved them into the light box I made this winter. I like to call it the HOTBOX!!! because it reminds me of Wes Anderson.

I made it out of a storage tub on wheels and IKEA components. HOTBOX!

Mini project: self-watering seed starter

Mini project of the day: self-watering seed starter. I'm starting another set of seeds today (artichokes!) and I had some plastic bottles and containers sitting around on my counter I decided to re-use.

I cut this water bottle about in half and turned the top around and stuck it inside the bottom. Easy. The self-watering part actually consists of a hole I punched in the lid, which I then threaded some wick through. I used wick from patio lanterns because I happened to have some sitting around, but I think any cotton string or fabric would do the trick. The final step will probably be a cover of some kind, just until the seeds sprout -- maybe just the working man's greenhouse, saran wrap. So far it seems to be doing pretty well -- I gave it a thorough misting after I put the seeds in, and watched the water move down into the water reservoir via the wick. There is something so satisfying about this, and something so counter-intuitive, to me. I will never really believe in the notion of "self-watering," were the evidence not BEFORE MY VERY EYES.

I love the versatility of plants, the way they grow almost anywhere. I recently picked up a new gardening book and (like every other gardening book seemingly) it features little tomato and chile plants growing beautifully in old olive oil tins. There is something so appealing about these images to me, but I never seem to find any attractive old containers lying around. Everything in my house is clear plastic, and once contained Chinese or Indian takeout, it seems. Oh well. The important thing is that plants WILL grow in there, they just won't look as elegant.

I have a couple more improvised planter projects I've been working on, which I will post over the next few weeks as I start to move plants into them.

The first seeds of spring

The winter is still feeling really bleak here. We woke up this morning to a fresh layer of snow over everything.  Last week it was down to the mid- minus-30s with the windchill. And yet! Today has this note in my calendar: 12W Asparagus. It's hard to believe, but we're about 10 weeks from last frost -- 12 weeks from safe planting. Before I started a garden, I never would have guessed how much this feeling of anticipation and excitement over the year to come could help the last few months of winter go by faster.

So here they are: Asparagus, variety UC-157, an open-pollinated hybrid variety that is supposed to be be an early producer. I pre-soaked them for about two hours and then planted them. (And yes, those are leftover cake container lids helping to keep them moist. That's how I roll: eco-friendly, cheap AND tacky.) I've heard that asparagus are supposed to be tough to start from seed, and maybe not worth the effort -- finnicky, slow germinators, and then at least two years from planting until they actually produce good asparagus spears. I did see some crowns (the one-year-old plants) at garden centres last year, and I was tempted by them, but by that point it was too late in the season to plant them -- and I have also read that they take a long time to recover from transplanting. I don't have high hopes for these ones, but if they're looking at all promising in three months' time, I will find a (permanent, sunny, well-drained, trench-dug) spot for them in my garden. Because, honestly, they are SO GOOD baked in phyllo pastry.

Big Projects: Front West Bed [aka Perennial problems]

Since I moved into my house last spring, I have enjoyed the challenge that is my south-facing backyard -- putting in 50 square feet of raised beds, planting shrubs, and my most recent project, a berry patch. I have big plans the next year including more beds, including some on the concrete beside our garage; cold frames to sit on top of my existing beds; and, hopefully in the summer of 2011, a deck.

But I don't think it's an exaggeration to say that my front yard fills me with despair.

The north-facing front yard doesn't get much sun to start with, and much of that is blocked by the (lovely) boulevard trees on our street. Even the lawn doesn't really grow, although the quack grass does -- so prodigiously that this spring it rapidly outpaced our little push-mower and a kind neighbour had to cut it with his gas mower. The beds that I carefully built out of old railway ties last summer and planted with native perennials in the fall this spring sprouted... hardy invasive thistle, more quackgrass, and ants. The temptation at this point is to give up, and possibly replace the small yard with a hot tub, or cover it with gravel, or plant hosta and call it landscaped. (If the hosta would even grow.)

BUT! That is not my style! Fortified by recent successes in the backyard-- blooming peas almost as tall as me, the first tomatoes and strawberries appearing, and the humble beginnings of a berry patch that will, I hope, mean fresh blueberries, raspberries and saskatoons next year-- I have finally found the motivation to try again. With recommendations from a wise gardening co-worker and the friendly people at the Bedrock Seed Bank's Farmer's Market booth, I have planted the following in my front beds:

Bonus: the pathetic grass/weeds are visible. The only reason they're this short is because our
neighbour took pity on us and cut them with his gas mower. Before they were almost waist-height!

• Clematis [back centre, against the fence] -- I don't know how this one will do, but I bought it weeks ago, and I had nowhere else to plant it. I do not have high hopes for it but it should be better in the ground than in its little pot. I also managed to mangle it pretty seriously in the process of trying to remove it from the pot. Sigh. If it survives until next year at all it will be a miracle.

• Euonymus [immediately to the left and right of the clematis] -- at the garden centre on the weekend, I knew we were looking for a mysterious shrub whose name had a lot of vowels. "I can't remember the word. I will recognize it when I see it." I love the variegated leaves of this plant and I hope it does OK in my front bed.

• A plant I got from the Walmart garden centre whose tag identified it as sandwort, arenaria montana [centre front]. But once I got it home and looked it up online, I'm beginning to believe that the plant had had its tag switched as it looks nothing like the arenaria pictures I found. So perhaps it is a mystery. FUN MYSTERY PLANT!

• And a boxwood shrub [right of the clematis], which I bought for $4. I cannot resist a bargain shrub. They are my kryptonite.

• And the ones that Bedrock suggested:

Gooseberry [far left] -- Because it's planted in a bed of old railway ties, we probably won't eat the berries from this plant. But if they bring birds to the garden, perhaps the birds will eat the ants. As a bonus project, I could write a children's book about this.
Meadowsweet [far right]
Maltese Cross[small plants on far left and right, front]

After planting these, I covered the remaining empty parts of the bed with landscape fabric and then with cardboard in an attempt to keep the weeds down until I find more plants for the front. And it has been raining on and off since I planted--Old Testament levels of rain, actually. I have high hopes for actual, non-weed plants in the front yard soon. And I hope to soon mix up some more of my organic fertilizer mix and compost to top-dress this bed, since the soil that went into it last year was the dregs of what we had delivered, and the quality is probably the poorest of all my beds.

June 14: the veggies

I have identified a problem with having a garden blog, which is that when it's warm and things are growing and I have stuff to blog about, I don't really have time to post because I'm in my garden. Go figure. But there ARE some things growing in my yard at last, so here I am (at last).

The very first tomato to bloom, a Sweet Tumbler in a pot on my stoop. I gave an audible squeal of delight when I spotted it.

The biggest Bloody Butcher tomato plant. It is looking pretty healthy, also. When the seedling had a few true leaves, I planted it straight into this big pot and it has been growing happily in there ever since (on a bed of potting soil and styrofoam packing peanuts, so the pot is still light enough to lift). It was VERY spindly when I moved it outside, but it has filled out nicely, like that nerdy platonic friend from junior high.

Peas, growing like gangbusters. What is a gangbuster, anyway? That sounds like something I could be successful at growing in my garden. Presumably they're not too hard to start from seed. You could say they grow like peas.

James and I finally got the last raised bed built and stained. It's planted with snapdragons (along the left side), succulents (along the right side), and 2 Jimmy Nardello peppers. It's in a corner of the yard where it just COOKS during the day. I hope the peppers flourish there. Yep, those are blue plastic bendy straws holding up the tender pepper plants. I roll like that.

The other vegetables that are growing from seed are also starting to poke their little heads up, including onions and scallions. I just planted some lettuce last weekend--it should have been in the ground much earlier, but I decided better late than never. All my seedlings are in the ground, almost, except for a stray watermelon (I have no space for it and may put it in a pot) and a single hybrid zucchini (which I BOUGHT after my hybrids perished in the cold weather earlier). Still to come, some day when it's raining: flowers!

Emma guards the plants

photo.jpg, originally uploaded by jocelynb.

My dog, Emma, is so diligent in her protection of the plants on my back stoop. Thank goodness! If she wasn't guarding them, who knows what might befall them. Of course, the fact that it's sunny and warm out there is just a side benefit as far as she's concerned.

Succulents

I've been just obsessed with succulents lately. I think this post on Apartment Therapy sparked the initial obsession. Look at this amazing planter! I love the range of textures and colours you can find in succulents, the little leaves that just beg to be touched, the spiky otherworldly shapes they grow in. They can grow very close together-- they don't mind being a bit squished.

Here's my version--somewhat crappy photo with my iphone. I picked up the blue container from the discount shelf at Winners. I filled the bottom with styrofoam packing peanuts to make it lighter and to improve drainage-- succulents really don't like having wet roots.

And I keep buying more. I was at the surprisingly awesome Walmart garden centre today and I picked up another bagful:






It's astonishing to me that anything survives our winters, let alone these delicate-looking little plants that look like they grew on another planet. I've already planted a bunch in my outside planters, and hopefully I will get these ones into the ground today or tomorrow. My desk at work is also being overwhelmed by them. The Safeway near my work carries cute little ceramic pots full of succulents too. I'm finding them everywhere.

Plants not dead! Pt II

The weekend was pretty much a write-off, garden-wise. We had a little hail storm yesterday and it was kind of miserable all weekend. I'm home sick today, and actually I would be home anyway since it's my day off. I'm never sure which is worse, missing work because you're sick or having to give up a day off on the couch, watching movies and feeling sorry for yourself.

I did venture outside, though (my dog insisted on being walked even though I told her I was sick), and I took some pictures of what's going on out there.





My peas are starting to come up. The rough weather left some of them a bit exposed but they seem none the worse for wear.



This mysterious plant is growing right on the edge of an old compost heap. It's in quite a damp and shady part of the yard. I have no idea what it is, but it doesn't look anything like our ususal weeds. I'm going to leave it and see if it grows into anything interesting. Is it crazy to think it might be bamboo? Does bamboo even grow here? There are some bamboo shoots that ended up in the compost near where this mystery plant is coming up.



Apple tree buds!



On the inside front, all the watermelon and pepper seeds are sprouted now.

Finally: I've been covering up my outside beds at night, but it's looking like I might finally be able to relax about it. Here's our friendly weather forecast:

I don't mind my tax dollars paying for weather forecasts like this!