What's Bloomin'

I love walking through my gardens and seeing what's bloomin'. I try to walk through them every day and when I see something that is at it's peak bloom time, I snap some pictures. Here are some of my pictures from the last few days out in my gardens...

Columbine:

Lungwort:

Bleeding Heart (white):

Ornamental Strawberries:

Creeping Phlox (pink):

Bleeding Heart:

Creeping Phlox (light purple):

There are other things out there that are just starting to bloom but I want to wait to post those until they are in full bloom. I will continue to post pictures as my gardens bloom this summer.


I hope that you are out enjoying your garden blooms too! Feel free to share pictures of what is blooming in your garden on my Facebook page.

May comes in like a lion...

We've all heard the sayings "March comes in like a lion and goes out like a lamb" and "April showers bring May flowers". Those are terms we use during a normal spring here in MN. But this year, March showers brought us April flowers, and May is coming in like a lion. It's confusing, especially for our plants and our plans for gardening. It's not unheard of to get freezing temperatures and snow in some areas in May; but after the warm March and April we've had, it's understandable why we're confused... and our plants are confused too! After a weekend of freezing temperatures and threats of snow in my area, I took a walk around the garden yesterday to see if there was any damage. I found that a few of my perennials and some of my cold weather vegetables had damage to the tender new growth. So what do you do if you see damage on any of your plants? It depends on how severe the damage is. Here is a picture of the damage to the leaves of my grape vines...


This is pretty severe. I plan to trim off a few of the heaviest damaged leaves (but not all of the leaves!) and then I will leave it alone for a few weeks and see what happens. Over the next couple of weeks as more new leaves start to open, I will trim off any remaining damaged leaves. If you have a plant that has only minor damage, you can just leave it alone or you can trim off the unsightly damaged growth. It's not going to hurt the plant either way.

As for the damage done to a few of my cold weather seedlings, I will just pinch out the damaged seedlings (they needed to be thinned anyway). Here is a picture of the damage to some of my cauliflower seedlings that are still really small...


If you planted any of your warm weather vegetables or non-hardy annuals and they were damaged, there may still be hope they will survive. I would just leave them alone and monitor them over the next few days. You can trim off some of the damaged leaves and look for any new growth. If there is heavy damage to the plant, prepare yourself that it may not survive. Over the next few days, we will still be getting some cold nights so cover your tender plants overnight to keep them from getting any further damage.

So now that we're all thoroughly confused, when will it be safe to plant your warm weather vegetables and annuals? I don't know about you, but I'm going to keep an eye on the weather report over the next week. The earliest I will plant my tender stuff would be this weekend. Although depending on the 10 day weather forecast, I may wait another week. Remember that May 15th is our average last frost date. That means that we could still get frost after that date!

Since the spring has been so backwards, I can't wait to see what the summer will bring. I'm not sure if I should be excited or nervous. Hummm...has it ever snowed in June??

Winter sowing progress report #8

I thought I was done sowing for this year, but I received a package in the mail with seeds I forgot I had ordered! So I sowed 6 more containers of...

• Sweet Banana
• Lemon Basil
• Black cherry tomatoes
• Earl's Faux tomato
• Golden zucchini
• Semperuiuum mix
• Allium christophii
• Boston pickling cucumber

That brings my grand total of containers sown up to 142

I started to list out all of the things that have sprouted...but the list got to be so long that I thought it would be easier for me (and more interesting for you) if I just list the seeds that have not sprouted.

First I will start by sharing my theories about why these seeds didn't sprout for me. There are several reasons why seeds don't sprout. In my case, I get most of my seeds by trading with people online. Some of the seed packets I get aren't dated so I have no idea how old the seeds are. I know for a fact that some of the seeds I planted were at least a few years old. Most seeds are good for several years, but some don't keep well and will lose their viability in only a year or two.

I had a large stash of seeds and decided this year that I was going to plant everything and empty out my seed boxes. I suspect that the reason several of these seeds below have not sprouted is because they were simply too old. It could also be that some of the containers were getting more sun than I realized and may have gotten cooked. Another reason could be that they just weren't well suited to be winter sowed. Winter sowing isn't good for every kind of seed. This year, I decided to start all of my seeds by winter sowing. (I am not surprised by some of these because I never expected a few of them would sprout in the first place) I like to experiment!!

So here it is, my list of seeds that did not sprout for me this year...

• Zucchini - I planted a few different types of zucchini seeds, most of which sprouted. Only one kind didn't sprout.
  
• Bells of Ireland - These were commercial seeds. I have tried getting these to sprout several times over the years, both indoor and winter sowing and have never been successful. I guess it's my bad luck.
• Moss Verbena - I received these in a trade.
• Datura (white) - These were old seeds that I got in a trade.
• Waltham Butternut Squash - I got these in a trade.
• Datura Ferox - From a trade.
• Datura Purple Ballerina - from trade
• Cleome 'Rose Queen' - from trade
• Cleome Lavender - from trade
• Echinacea sundown - from trade and old seed
  
• Aster Perfection and Aster 'Hulk' - I had 3 other types of Aster that I planted and they all sprouted, not sure what happened with these two types. I got all of my Aster seeds through trades.
• Allium sphaerocephalon (ornamental onion) - probably old seed, onion seeds don't last more than 1 year.
• Soybean Disoy - commercial seeds left over from last year (should have been fine?).
• Okra - Some commercial, some from trade. Could just be slow to sprout?
• Small sugar pumpkin - all my other pumpkins sprouted a while ago - all were from trades.
• Cucumber - I planted several types of cucumbers, some commercial, some from trades. None sprouted. Not sure why.
• Yellow onion - from trade, probably old seed
• Astilbe - received from trade. I've never tried astilbe from seed so I'm not sure what happened with these.
• Clematis - I have tried growing clematis from seed several times over the last few years and have never had any seeds sprout. I guess they don't like me.
• Acorn squash - I planted several acorn squash seeds and this is the only container that didn't sprout. Seeds from trade.
• Lincoln pea - another mystery container. I had 5 other containers of peas and they have all sprouted but this one didn't. Seeds from trade.

I also have a few other containers out there that I am not ready to give up on yet so those are not listed here. Next year I am going to try to keep better track of how many seeds I planted in each container and where I got the seeds. I also want to keep track of how old the seeds are.

All and all, I am very happy with my success so far this year!! In fact, I don't know where I will put it all!


In case you missed them, here are links to my previous status reports...
Winter Sowing Progress Report #1
Winter Sowing Progress Report #2
Winter Sowing Progress Report #3
Winter Sowing Progress Report #4
Winter Sowing Progress Report #5
Winter Sowing Progress Report #6
Winter Sowing Progress Report #7