Category Archives: early spring chores

Feelin’ Rich

I’ve been on a buying spree lately.  After months of doubtful back and forth it looks like my job will be around for another year, so I’ve finally cracked open the wallet to treat myself to a few extras on my wish list.  The first was last weeks’ $100 trip to Lowes.  A new 4 light T8 shop light with timer, light bulbs, and a bag of potting soil all got a spot in the cart.  I eyed the seed potatoes for a while (they had a nice selection, reasonably priced) but didn’t bite.  After years of sitting on my wallet it’s hard to go all out.

I’ve got the lights set up in a corner of the basement close to the furnace, so I’m hoping this will be a good spot for the warm growers like tomatoes and peppers.  Of course space under the new the light is already filled up with nonsense like coleus cuttings and geraniums, but I did fit a bunch of new seedling pots in.  Hopefully by the time I need more space a few of the cool weather things can already go outside. seedlings under lights

It’s a crappy picture but it shows about all you want to see of the spindly coleus cuttings that have spent all winter on the windowsill.   I should have potted them up earlier but….. you know…. hopefully they will grow fast enough to give me a few additional cuttings as I pinch them back.

Nothing fancy about the light set up.  It’s a basic T8 shop light with generic 5000K “sunlight” light bulbs rated for laundry rooms and closets.  I may be feeling rich but I’m not going crazy with special (aka expensive) growlights, and based on the success of the first light setup this one should be fine.

My credit card got a little more excersise over the next couple days.  Not much, but I’ll wait a few days before fessing up to my other purchases.

A day late and a dollar short

I go back and forth on overwintering tropicals and summer bulbs.  Last year was an up year.  I planted a bunch of cannas, elephant ears, dahlias, and banana plants in a new bed over at my mother in law’s.  The tropicals plus a number of tasteless, gaudy, bright annuals were all right up my alley.

tropicalismo garden

A little bit of tropicalismo in my Pennsylvania garden

The annuals were all seed grown and the tropicals were all little bits and sprigs that I keep over from year to year.  I overwinter the lazy way and some are ok with that while others…..

In short, the good gardener will check up on them around early February, add water to the dry ones, remove the rotted ones, air out the damp ones, just give them a general once over to carry them through the rest of the winter.  If you are not of the good gardener type you can still save most of your tropicals if you check on them around March 13th and give them a once over.  I think the yellow, crispy asparagus ferns may still pull through, now that they got a bit of water.

overwinter succulents

Tropicals hiding from the cold

The aloes and jade plant snuggled up against the dim (slightly heated) garage window are troopers and don’t need a drop all winter.

These are the bulbs and roots and tubers that I threw into bags and buckets.  I’m hoping for the best, but it’s tricky to walk the line between keeping them dry and cool enough to keep them dormant vs everything else that could go wrong.  Too wet, they rot.  Too dry, they crisp.  Too warm, they sprout.  Too cold, they freeze……

overwinter cannas

The ugly truth of my overwintering process

I guess I do just kinda throw them in a pile and hope for the best.  To do otherwise would go against my natural laziness.

Here are a few bigger pots, just rolled into the garage and allowed to go dry.  You wouldn’t think it but many tropicals will just “hang out” in the dim, cool garage until spring  (I did throw some water on these about a month ago).  The only one giving real problems is the fig which decided to sprout once it got water.  I really should have left that one outside.

overwinter tropicals

Geraniums….. probably shouldn’t have bothered.

overwinter geraniums

I won’t make you look at the coleus cuttings.  They’ve been in water on the windowsill since October and look worse than the geraniums.  In a week or so I’ll pot them up, take some geraniums cuttings and see what we can do with them.  It should have been done now, but I’m always running a day late and a dollar short.

Seeds and seedlings

Our usual last frost is somewhere in the area of May 15th but I’ve never seen it happen that late. Usually the first week of May has been ok. Still I go off the 15th anyway and as a result I always feel behind. I did start the onions and leeks about two weeks ago (I think that’s about nine weeks early?) and the little sprouts have been coming up on the fringes of the shop light, but as they start grow it’s time for the change-over.

seedlings growlights

The cyclamen and snowdrops are kicked out from under the light, and the new seedlings take over.  They’ll be fine on the cold windowsills now that its warmed up a bit and the onions and leeks should be happy with the prime lighting locations.  You’re looking at lancelot leek and copra, red wings, and ailsa craig onions.

seedlings growlights

In another two or so weeks I’ll start the main crops of warm weather transplants such as tomatoes, eggplants and peppers.  Also I’ll get some lettuce and cabbage started for early transplanting.  A cold frame would really come in handy about now but I never did more than just collect the windows.

I did start some other stuff (hardy perennials and bulb seeds) when I started the onions, these are all chilling outside.  The finer stuff sits under a plastic tote, the larger seeds get topped off with chicken grit for protection and sit out in the open.  When things warm up outside to their liking hopefully I’ll get some sprouts.

winter sowing

They should have been planted about a month earlier to get a real taste of winter, but I didn’t get the seeds until the end of February, so they get what the get.

I also tried something new this year.  For seeds that need a cold spell, I tried the Deno method.  It’s named after Dr Norman Deno and is a method he used to test germination on thousands of seed types.   Basically you take moist paper towels, spread the seeds out on them and then fold them up.  This goes in a baggie with info on the outside and either gets room temperature treatment (warm) or refrigerator treatment (cold).

winter sowing

They need a little more attention (you need to check on them periodically for germination), and they need immediate planting in soil when they do show signs of sprouting, but they take up so much less room!  The other big plus is you know where your seeds are and you can easily see if they’re dead and rotted.  No more staring at an empty pot waiting.

Here I have a dozen or so started seeds sitting in the fridge, nice and neat and out of the way, and so much more acceptable than pots full of dirt next to the yogurt.

winter sowing

If you’re into seed starting, check out “the science of seed germination” at Hayefield blog.  It’s a great intro to the science behind seeds and it offers a couple great links, I’d try and put the link right here for you but haven’t mastered that bit yet 😉

Good luck on your seeds!