Thursday, February 19, 2015

Seeds Here, Seeds There


Yesterday afternoon, I checked the daylily seeds to see if any had sprouted.  Yes, they had!

(I didn't remember to take a photo until after I'd potted some of the seeds, so this isn't all of them...)

Germinating Daylily Seeds

Over the weekend, I'd prepared some little pots for the seeds, so I brought some of them inside and began planting.  (It's too cold, yet, to leave the delicate little things outside, so they're staying in the breakfast room, by the bay window, until milder weather returns.)  So far, 44 of the 125 have been potted.  The rest have gone back into their warm, humid ziploc bag.  (I'd show you the planted pots, but they're pretty boring to look at right now.)

Envelopes of Possibility

Here are the envelopes of the other seeds I mentioned last time.  It's probably not too soon to plant some of them, also-- at least the ones that I'm not planting directly into the ground.  (The yogurt cup holds morning glory seeds harvested from one of last year's Grandpa Ott vines.  None of last year's morning glories did that well, but I'll still at least scatter these seeds somewhere.) 

Frugal Seed Starters

Last year, I saved a lot of cardboard tubes from used paper towel rolls-- particularly during Luna's puppy months.  Now they're cut and folded into free seed starters.  Just add potting soil!

- - - - - - -

In other garden/outdoor news...

Donald's been bringing home the stones for our fire pit/fire ring, several at a time.  It shouldn't take long to get that set up, and then we can have an inaugural "campfire", one of these chilly early-spring evenings.  (Photos when it's done.) 

While clearing the fire ring area, we set aside some of the small trees.  The idea is to make two or three very simple, rustic obelisks to support annual vines.  I don't know what they'll end up looking like or how sturdy they'll be (or how long they'll last), but since they'll be almost completely composed of things we'd have no other use for, anyway, it's worth trying. 

We've started figuring out where, exactly, we want to place the raised vegetable beds, in their new location behind the garage.  (It's thanks to Donald.  I wouldn't have gotten that far, yet, if left to my own devices...)  Right now, we're thinking three beds perpendicular to the west-facing garage wall.  Enough room to mow between the garage and the beds (and enough room to keep the beds out of the garage's shade).  Narrower walking/kneeling spaces between the beds (where the weed-eater will come into play, since the mower won't fit).  ...We'll see how it goes.