Awash in green

Watermelon, sunflowers, cosmos, petunias, pansies, corn, marigolds, basil, tomatoes, hollyhocks, morning glories, zebrina malva, english daisy, and wildflower mixes. All of those plants have sprouted for me in my winter sown containers.

Corn (two kinds), which most farmers don't have in the ground yet, sprouted in paper pots in a baggie. Their little green tips are poking up above the dirt. I have another stalk in a plastic water bottle (that I started earlier then the ones in the paper pots) that has a few true leaves and really needs to be transplanted soon.

I've transplanted a few of the sunflowers last week, and need to transplant a few more today.

I need to do something with the cosmos soon too, though they still look reasonably happy in the pots they are in now. I just want to get them off the deck, since it's getting increasingly crowded out there as I continue to add to my collection of sown seeds.

Last night I sowed chinese lanterns, lavatera, larkspur, and petunias. Earlier in the week I sowed a few more cosmos and hollyhocks.

The Cascadia peas I grew inside on a windowsill are now out in the garden, along with the pole bean plant. I directly sowed another dozen (more I think) pea seeds beside the transplanted plants so I can see which fares better, and produces more peas.
I;m transplanting the Fortune peas today, into a different part of the yard.

Speaking of transplanting, I've dug up the yard for two more beds, one of which we are thinking of turning into a raised bed. I like the idea of a raised bed there but I don't know when we are going to find the time to build it.

I took pictures of my seedlings the other day. Today, if I remember to and get around to it, I'm going to get some "before" shots of the yard. I'll try to post the pictures soon.

These are some of the plants I have along the kitchen windowsill. The 9-cell tray on the right has peas (Fortune garden peas I think). The 3" pot nearest the window beside the tray has Hershey pepper plants, beside that is a Gardener's Delight tomato plant. The rest of those pots have Cascadia (sugar snap) and Fortune peas.

A winter-sown Cosmos sprout.

A water bottle with the top on. There are 4 newspaper pots in the bottle.

The top of a water bottle I've cut up to use as a winter-sowing container.

Sprouts!

After having ignored them for the most part since planting them, I checked on my winter-sown flats today. Much to my surprise things are actually growing out there.

A couple colours of cosmos are up and a whole flat (9 cells, one seed to each) of morning glories look like they will be up any day now. I know this because I couldn't resist digging around in the flats to see what was growing. Some pepper and tomato seeds look like they are trying to sprout roots, hopefully watering them today helped and they will grow a little faster.

After I write this I'm going to plant a more cosmos seeds and some other stuff (haven't decided what yet) and then try to remember to take pictures of the plants I've got sitting in front of the kitchen window (the peas, a couple of tomatoes,...).

Just another 5 weeks until the last frost date. I'm tempted to print out a calendar just so I can X out the days. (grin)

Pea plants

I planted 3 Cascadia pea seeds on March 1st. Yesterday they were obviously outgrowing the starter cells in the trays I'm using so I transplanted them to 3in pots.
I'll post a picture later today. The little pea plants are very cute.

Yesterday I planted Fortune peas in the cells the Cascadia were in. Today I'm going to plant some tomatos and probably some flowers.

In other sprouting related news, 2 alpine strawberry seeds have sprouted and so has a goldenberry seed.

And then the bill came

That seed purchase I made? After thinking for a few weeks that the price I paid for the seeds was pretty much on par with the prices I found on the websites of other online seed companies, I got the bill.
On T&M's wbesite you can click on flags to pick your country. I clicked on the Canada flag and just assumed that the prices I saw were in Canadian funds. I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. When the credit card bill arrived I found I had paid substantially more then I wanted to for the seeds. Not to mention more for some varieties that can be had for less from other companies. Bah.

Since my last post I discovered the wonderful world of seed trading (I'm hooked!), and also ordered some seeds from Vesey. I wish I had discovered Vesey before I ordered from T&M, their prices are a lot more reasonable.

I've already begun planting some of the seeds in trays I got from a dollar store. Some of the trays are outside (winter sowing method) and some are on various windowsills.
Sprouting so far: Peas, Peaches & Cream hollyhocks (in 4 days, instead of 14-21 the packet said it would take), carrots, and Daddy Mixed petunias.
Also planted: Assorted tomatos, golden berry, chocolate pepper, basil, parsley, and alpine strawberry. I have more flowers planted too but I don't remember which ones.

I was begining to wonder where I was going to put a number of the plants that require full (or near full) sun when mom told me I can dig up pretty much everything along one side of the pool. I can just picture that space full of tomatos, peas, corn, and perhaps a couple of sunflower plants.

Oh, speaking of sunflowers, this year I'm planting: Seeds saved from the red flowered plant, Kong, Early Russian Giant, Giant Grey Stripe, Giganteus, Teddy Bear, and Dwarf Yellow Spray.
That is a lot of sunflowers. I can't wait to see them all full grown and in bloom... assuming the slugs don't eat them. I have my fingers mentally corssed in regards to the slugs and most of the seeds I bought. Considering I spent so much on seeds, I hate to have most of the plants all wind up as slug food. Again.

The seeds have arrived

The seeds I ordered from Thompson & Morgan came in today's mail!
I have 47 packets of potential plants arranged in a newspaper basket on the table beside my desk as I type this. Why a newspaper basket? Because 47 seed packets need some sort of container to keep them in one place, and I was making newspaper pots while wondering what to put the seeds in to keep them visible but neatly stored.

This poor plant was taller earlier on in the summer (took this picture in early September i think), and had a few more branches. The squirls broke several branches and windy weather got one. Even still, it had a number of flowers that kept blooming through to late September.

This is the same pumpkin from the previous entry as it looked in the begining of September. The side on the ground turned out a bit flat, but that was handy when I carved it. I wanted to get some pictures of it carved and lit up but I forgot to take them.
By this point the leaves were suffering from an odd white coating that I think is powdery mildew. You can see it on the leaf on the left.

This head is almost ready to be picked. It is easy to tell the fertalized seeds from the unfetalized. Or so it seems. More often then I liked it turned out that seeds I thought were fertile hadn't fully developed. Just the largest seeds are actually going to be useable, the rest must have stopped growing at some point though they were fertalized.

A sunflower from the plant by the backdoor. It's just past it's prime here and petals are starting to fall off.

Ok, trying again. Orange cosmos flower.

A flax flower and an orange cosmos flower.

Another big spider. This one did move quite a bit, it was difficult to get a clear shot of it. Even this picture at it's full resolution is ever so slightly fuzzy. This is a garden balsam plant it is sitting on.

I walked right into the Big web this spider made between the bush under the window you can see in some pictures of the back wall, and the sunflower plant beside the back door. When I backed out of the web I looked around and spotted the spider, was wigged out for a moment (it's big and harry, you'd be wigged out too), and then went to get my camera. It was a well behaved subject and didn't move much. Due to a bit of wind I had to hold the branch of the bush steady to take pictures and I kept thinking it would move any moment and crawl on my hand. It didn't.

One of our bees on a sunflower in the upper deck garden. The bees live under the pool walkway. We see them coming and going from between the slabs. They've been there for two years so far without it being a problem so we've opted to let them be. The full version of this picture make a great desktop image.

Adorable little bleepity bleeping squirl that crawled between the fence boards with the intention of stealing sunflower heads. I was sitting outside taking pictures of the flowers being visited by our resident bees (hive in the yard) when he came along.

These are the two potted pumpkin clones I had outside. Both lived, though the one in the larger pot fared better. It even had a number of flowers. I kept meaning to bring the pots inside before it got too cold, but I never did and consequently they died. But hey, at least I know growing pumpkin cuttngs can work. Useful information for this year if I decide to try it again.