What have you done today in the Garden?

Wow Carolyn, that's a "little" greenhouse? It's lovely with all that greenery growing, and I'm envious.
I do have the peppers on a heat mat. I think I may have gotten some crummy seeds. Luckily it is something I planted to see how it went, and not something that I'm depending on.

 

yes Jane... thats the little one. it is 12x16... I really need a 12x32? it is not big enough. thankfully it isn't brutally cold and I can open the next one up and start planting hanging baskets.

 

Wow, that's a lot of plants!!!!

 

I too am envious of your greenhouse Carolyn!

Today my husband & I cut saplings down at the edge of our garden area....keeping the woods at bay.

Other than that, the only other garden thing I did today was to borrow 6 gardening books from the public library! I am having a read-fest. What else to do in the cold days of winter?

 

Cayuga... it is work. work work work. I get a greenhouse full of hanging baskets from what you saw there. I spend probably 1000.00 on seeds and plugs for what I do. maybe even more. I haven't looked at the total of what I have spent. some seeds are duds and a total waste of money others I grow big enough to get a crop of cuttings off of to save some money on making baskets. but it is a business. I don't ever sit in the greenhouse and "enjoy " it. I don't keep any house plants out there except the clivias and that didn't work so well this year. I think they got too cold and some of them have rotted off. my amaryllis is also out there just starting to pop the leaves out.

 

Oh joy, oh happiness! The pepper seeds germinated and I have tiny pepper plants on the heat mat and under the dome.
I preach patience, and now I'm trying to practice it.

 

take the dome off or at least prop up a corner for air circulation now. this year have started using vermiculite as a top dressing. it keeps the potting mix from drying out and the plants immediately are exposed to air movement. I tried it with a bunch of Rosemary seeds and I am amazed at the amount of germinated seeds I already have. they are notorious for poor germination. did all my impatiens, petunias and geraniums so far.

 

Carolyn, I'll be rearranging starter cells today and moving the peppers under lights. I have vermiculite, so I'll top dress all the cells. Thanks for the information, and I'm happy you are having such good germination!

 

I plan to assess what seeds I have left over from last year. Begin preparing an order list.

 

For the first time I am doing a germination test on my seeds from last year...and 2016, 2015, 2014.

 

cleaned. I filled the dumpster with "stuff" I hate to send it to the landfill but all those black inserts? aren't recyclable. cleaned up the two greenhouses getting ready to open the next one up. the weather has been unbelievably warm and dry this week. no coat to work outside this week so far.took a few cuttings, pulled a few bitter cress in the high tunnel. recycled all the left over filled inserts from last year in the high tunnel... just general cleaning up and getting ready for the new season.

 

filled hanging baskets today. 150 done so far. mostly red geraniums, a few begonias, a few petunias... another 150 to go... maybe I will go buy more hanging baskets if I see I have plenty of material left to work with.

 

I went outside briefly to survey the landscape after yesterday's storm: I checked out the plantings, picked up a few felled branches, checked out the hellebores (nicely budded). I was probably out for a half hour, tops. I come back in, sit down and discover a tick crawling on me! Yuck.

I have been reading on our town website that the ticks are out in droves this spring. I am hoping we get a deep FREEZE and kill the little you-know-whats !!

 

OH YUCK! you need a few bantam chickens or Guinea hens. they are fabulous at controlling ticks I have heard... if you can tolerate their noise. I couldn't... we shot them dead! fed them to the foxes.

 

Got the grass mowed for te first time and it looks much better if ya saw our video in the other post ya know our citrus took the winter very hard and we have several bushes and shrubs that were hit hard too. The local ag center says be patient wait a couple weeks till they are leafed out and growing then prune off the dead. In the mean time I threw a slab of spare ribs on the pit and sitting and enjoying the weather. YEY March!!