Gardening by Mistake

Okay, I admit it: I was enjoying having the quiet house to myself. This is spring break for the kids. They wanted to have a water fight outside, but I nixed that idea for a couple of reasons, one of which is that the yard is still drying out from all the rain we’ve had. So, I armed them each with a spray bottle and turned them loose. That was mistake #1.

Mistake #2 was relaxing too much in the quiet house. I should have checked on them more often than I did. At my last update, they were industriously trying to convince an ant colony to relocate through the use of the spray bottles. I guess they realized the futility of that and found another way to occupy themselves.

The picture doesn’t show the full extent of the mess, but you get the idea. Both of them had the mud smeared into their hair in a thick layer.

Looking forward to school resuming.

I’ve seen many vermicomposting newbies ask what cocoons look like. As I’m in the middle of harvesting a couple bins, I thought I’d take the opportunity to get some pictures of the cocoons.

This first picture shows the cocoons in the VC inside a container:

This next picture shows many cocoons. Cocoons start out a color like a young corn kernel and then they darken to a reddish brown to dark brown when they are ready to hatch.

The bottom three circled cocoons were recently cast. You can see what a light color they are. At the top, I’ve circled two cocoons which are much closer to hatching.

One thing to note: often times the cocoons are coated in a layer of VC and it looks like a small lump of ball of VC. If you gently rub it with a finger, the VC will come off, leaving the cocoon visible. In fact, you can see this to some extent with two cocoons to the right up and up a bit (on a leaf) from those circled in the middle. Those are partially coated in VC.

I took advantage of our beautiful (if windy) weather today to re-organize my winter sowing pots. Now they are all together, either in the “sprouts” bin or the non-sprouts bin. I moved a few  pots to the “sprouts” bin this afternoon—yay! The plant whose label was so faded as to be almost completely unreadable has been replaced. It was a delphinium exaltatum. I could just make out “exalt” so that clinched it for me.

New germinations today were:

• psoralea tenuiflora
• viola pedatifida

Both of these are natives and I’m very excited about the viola, although so far I have a lone sprout.  I hope some others germinate, as well. I’m wishing now that I had sown more than I did.

When I talk about having the pots in bins, it might not be clear what I mean. Here’s a picture showing my 4-inch pots inside the under-bed bins. The bins protected the pots from the elements but because they are opaque they still let light in. They also acted as cold frames to an extent.  My pots are all newly re-labeled. (Something odd has happened to the pictures if you click through to the full-size, btw. I don’t know what happened).

And a closer view of my little pots. These are the pots without any sprouts so far.

Photo credits go to my 10 year old daughter. Thanks, kiddo!

True to the name of this blog, I’ve got two new gardening mistakes to confess. One is bad enough, but two! Geez.

I decided to re-arrange all my pots today, which is how I became aware of the problems. One of the storage containers now has only pots with sprouts. The other storage bin has pots where nothing has sprouted yet. Those are now the pots I’ll be checking anxiously every day.

The first mistake is one most gardeners make and, in fact, I made this mistake with a seedling this past fall: not labeling a plant. I know exactly what I was thinking: “I’ll remember what that is because it’s the only one.” Ha! I do not remember what seed that lone pot contains and I can’t figure it out from a quick check of my records. I suppose I could try to mark off every container against my records, but that’s assuming my records are completely accurate. Who knows? I have to laugh at myself because I imagine those seeds sprouting and me having no clue what it is until it blooms. (And maybe not then! Most of these seeds are plants that are new to me and quite a few are uncommon natives). And, being perennials, it could be 2 or 3 years before they bloom! If it germinates. I’d like to think that, having done this twice now, I’ve learned my lesson and won’t do it again. I suspect, though, that I’ll end up in a hurry again at some point and succumb to the temptation to skip the label because “I’ll remember what that is.”

My other labeling mistake? I’m actually not sure where it went wrong. I used a sharpie to write on pieces of an old Venetian blind. That’s not an uncommon way to label plants. I didn’t think I’d need to worry about the sun fading the labels since the pots are inside clear storage containers. It might be condensation washing the labels, I’m not sure. Whatever it is, I’ve got to get those re-done ASAP. A couple I looked at tonight were frightening faint. I’m not sure I’ll be able to read one of them. (Then I’ll have two mystery containers, instead of one.)

I am finally doing a worm bin harvest. I’ve been wanting to do this bin in particular as well as one other for probably 2 months. I opened the bin up about a week ago, so it could dry out a bit. It didn’t dry out one teeny tiny bit. Not one. I couldn’t believe it. Usually they dry quite nicely in that amount of time. Today I got tired of waiting and just decided to see how bad it was to harvest it that moist.

It didn’t take me long to realize why the VC was so moist and apparently going to always be: sphagnum. Last summer I had what I thought was a brilliant idea to use sphagnum as my bedding. It turns out this was yet another in my long list of mistakes. My reasoning wasn’t bad: it would be a nice, light, and fluffy medium for the worms to move around in, and it would stay moist. Boy did it!  And apparently the sphagnum can hold so much water that it just keeps wicking into the VC as the VC dries. The end result is that the VC has stayed really moist even after being in the open air for a week. The VC is far more moist than I prefer to be dealing with. It’s dense rather than light and fluffy. At least the worms seem to be doing well in the bin. They are large and healthy and I’ve seen lots of cocoons.

I was so involved in my harvest this afternoon that I almost forgot about my daughter’s soccer practice. I just happened to look at the clock and see that I had 8 minutes to get cleaned up and the kids rounded up. Oops! I’d have rather kept working on the worm bin. I’m hoping to finish this harvest tonight.

It occurred to me while I was doing this that I really should harvest all the worm bins very soon so that I don’t have to worry about them until the end of gardening season. I’ll probably have time in the middle of the worst summer heat to harvest the bins— I’m not going to be out working in the garden in the brutal July heat if I can help it— but I figure if I start out with new bins now with lots of room, I don’t have to worry about them if I’m up to my ears in WS plants that are needing homes (which I should be if this winter sowing goes right).

I’m getting very eager to start my annual containers. Yes, the 50 or so types of plants I’ve already winter sowed aren’t crazy enough for me. I’m planning a ton of annuals, as well. I’ve absolutely no idea how I’m going to get them all planted. My daughter thinks she wants to help. I figure after the first dozen or so (if that), she’ll get over it and then it will be a daunting task. Thoughts of the future bounty of blooms will hopefully keep me going.

This will be my first year growing and planting annuals. Until now my focus and efforts have been on getting perennials into the garden because they are plant once and enjoy for years. That’s still my overall focus, but this year I have two reasons for the annuals. The main reason is birds – I’m planting lots of bird flowers, flowers that will seed and which are popular with birds. Often these same flowers are popular with butterflies, so that’s a nice side benefit. Cut flowers to bring inside and to give away are another reason to grow them.

As hoped and (mostly) expected, the 2 days of snow cover didn’t appear to have any adverse effect on the winter-sown sprouts outside.

They seem to be doing well. New sprouts are appearing almost daily. Soon it will be easier to keep track of what hasn’t germinated rather than what has.

Here’s the current list of what has sprouted:

• liatris pychnostachya
• achillea cassis
• aster oblongifolius
• Tanacetum corymbosum
• Monarda fistulosa
• Gaillardia
• Salvia azurea
• Boltonia asteroides
• Solidago nemoralis
• Coreopsis ‘Early Sunrise’
• Oenothera speciosa
• Penstemon ‘Husker Red’
  
• Agastache anisata
• Thymus serpyllum
• Phlox paniculata
• Campanula rotundifolia
• Veronica incana ‘Silbersee’
• Silene regia
• Echinacea purpurea ‘Prairie Splendor’
  

Looking at those teeny tiny sprouts it’s hard to imagine them ever making it on their own in nature. I know they do, but it’s an amazing thing. I’m going to be waiting until mine are bigger before chancing their survival out in the garden. As you can see, not all of the seeds I’ve sown are natives, but the vast majority are.

We got more than 7 inches of snow yesterday. After a couple days in the 60′s, that was painful. Fortunately, it’s not going to stick around too long; already today we’re above freezing and it’s melting.

At the winter sowing forum they say not to worry about snow after the seedlings appear. I know they should be fine, but I’ll admit that I’m going to be relieved to see them doing well once the snow is gone.

Hopefully the next time I look, I’ll find a new container or two have sprouted since I checked them on Friday.

I can’t believe it. I’m overrun with voles— I just discovered this a couple days ago when I ventured out to the garden. I thought that was bad enough but today, a mole has come by— in my front yard. He’s left quite a tunnel.

I had a mole last summer. He made tons of runs through the yard and what I minded most was that they weren’t always visible, and twisting an ankle was a real possibility. When it started hanging out in my garden, I started to get upset. In a previous year a mole went through one bed and killed some plants. Rather, they were casualties of it going by. Moles aren’t herbivores. I thought I’d gotten lucky last summer when my dogs caught and killed the mole for me when it tunneled into the back yard. Yes! Unfortunately, my mole-free status lasted about a week. That mole never wandered into the back yard. I don’t know if this mole is the same one or not; it probably is. But I’m annoyed at the run going across my front yard, right along the porch steps.

Last summer (and in previous years), I debated trying to kill the mole. I decided I couldn’t do it. So, I gave some thought to having someone come trap and remove it. I may still end up doing that. I wonder if they can handle vole removal, too?

The voles are a big concern. Unlike moles, voles ARE herbivores. They also reproduce at frightening rates. The reproduce so quickly, in fact, that predators cannot be relied on for population control. Yikes! Even Thor isn’t going to get me out of that one. So this weekend I’ll be looking for some bait to put in the tunnels in the hope of killing them.

You know, with all the many critters that wander through my yard, it’s sometimes hard to believe I have a regular lot in a neighborhood and not a house on several acres.

I have four new containers of winter-sown seeds that are germinating:

• boltonia asteroides
  
• salvia azurea
• coreopsis ‘Early Sunrise’
  
• solidago nemoralis

Of the 10 kinds that have germinated so far (I have more than 50 kinds sown), I’m most excited about the salvia azurea and the aster oblongifolius, both of which are new to me.

A couple days ago I discovered a gardening tragedy: my container of geranium maculatum had been knocked down and overturned. Everything is still in the container since it had a lid, but it’s been thoroughly mixed. I doubt I’ll get any germinations from it. I was really, really wanting those, too. It couldn’t have been either of the containers of penstemon ‘Husker Red’ sitting next to it.