3April2010
Posted by Jake under: general.
Last weekend, we cleaned the leaves out the front gardens. Not a moment too soon–the hostas were ready! They went from tiny sprouts to plants overnight! Today, I cleared out leaves from a side garden. Different flavor of hostas in the side garden but they look like they are ready to get going.
Some of my new gardening gear arrived from Gardener’s Supply including my upside-down tomato growing bags (which seem much sturdier than other brands I have seen) and the Salad Planting Bag which is deeper and larger than I expected. I am going to try growing carrots and radishes along with some leaf lettuce. Last year, I bought seed strips for radishes and carrots (a smaller variety) that I didn’t use. ( These are seeds pre-spaced in paper strips–what can I say, I don’t like to thin seedlings!)
The seedlings look good for the most part–not sure what to make of the cauliflower seedlings but they seem to be getting true leaves now, so I am going to take that as a good sign.
I also bought some bird seed–it’s been a tough winter for our feathered friends. I think they can use a free lunch.
The grass looks like it could use a mow and I have a bunch of leaves to compost–sounds like a winning combination. I am looking for a supplier for large plastic nursery pots–the kind used for trees. These are great for container gardening and it looks like container gardening is my best strategy in this yard (both because of shade and the bunny factor–didn’t really have critter competition in my Reno garden).
Speaking of the Reno garden: we had the irrigation turned on yesterday and the pond will be cleaned and started up for Spring next week. I ordered a koi castle and a plantable floating island for the pond to give the fish some shade and protection while the plants grow and fill in. I also ordered a floating hoop with netting to corral floating plants (and keep my plant investment out of the skimmer).
I AM SO GLAD WINTER IS BEHIND US!! Happy gardening. 
21March2010
Posted by Jake under: Indoor Gardening; Propagation; Seedstarting.
Well, it’s been a lonnnnnnnng winter and apparently it’s not over yet.
Woke up this morning to a foot of snow on the ground. Ok, maybe it’s 10 inches. This is hardly a consolation. This is not what I imagined for my first couple of days of spring in my new garden.
I look out the back window onto a winter wonderland and out of the corner of my eye is my seed starting station: 70 peat pellets—many of them with sprouts—eagerly anticipating planting day. Oh, boy. They are a comfortable 75 degrees on their heating mat under a fluorescent light. I hope they can’t see through their humidity dome to the outside world. They might just give it up right now!
I *hoped* to do a little yard clean-up this weekend to make way for the daffodils and tulips that seemed to appear overnight (hopefully they are okay under their blanket of snow). Instead I turned my attention to my indoor plants. I purchased a couple of tropical plants at Home Depot last Saturday with my Garden Club buy-one-get one coupon. I have fantastic light in my office at work so I am planning to create an indoor garden there. I am terrible with tropical plant names and I can’t find my houseplant book so more on those later. I repotted one of the plants but my potting soil purchased is mostly too wet to work with so the other will need to wait for things to dry out a bit!
I did some shopping for containers. I have a small back yard here and no natural place for a vegetable garden so I am thinking that I will do a lot of container gardening. I have a few large self-watering planters that I purchased from Gardener’s Supply a couple of years ago. They were expensive but a worthwhile investment as they have held up very well. I am planning to buy a few more potato bags (the only way to grow potatoes, IMO) and a couple of Tomato Success Kits. Stay tuned.
Indoor Gardening Report
I did take this opportunity to repot my bromeliads. I have a dish garden with three different bromeliads that I received as a gift from my honey two years ago. It’s done really well but recently one of the plants gave it up. I noticed that it had offsets so I did a little reading and learned that bromeliads die after they bloom! Not unlike some Arizona agaves. But they produce pups before they give it up and sure enough I have seven pups from the three original plants. I repotted five of the pups in the original dish, mixing in some orchid bark to lighten up the soil mixture. The other two pups are in peat pots at the moment—I’ll get them a new dish in a couple weeks. I repotted the remaining mother plants in another pot—I am not sure if they are done. Maybe they have more work to do. I have an air plant that has been hanging out with the bromeliads and seems to be doing well. I would like to find a decorative branch to attach it to using some moss. A small project to look forward to while I am waiting for the real spring to show up.
11October2009
Posted by Jake under: general.
Just moved to the heartland after many, many years in the wild west. While in Arizona, I became a master gardener and learned that I had to UN-learn everything that I thought I knew about gardening in order to garden in a place that can be brutal to plant life. Then I moved to the foothills of the Sierras–the high desert of Nevada–and had to learn how to garden in an even drier environment! (Plus add in freezing temps, snow and wildfire to keep things interesting!) I am an experimental gardener in every sense of the word. I like a good challenge and I embrace the plant natives. I am also a sentimental gardener, bringing a small piece of each garden with me when I move from place to place. I make a lot of mistakes and there are some failures. But I believe in the law of big numbers: try many things and the percentage of failures inevitable drops.
Now I am Kansas City, Missouri where no one measures the precipitation in tenths of inches. This week I saw more rain than I saw in the past eight months in Reno.
It’s also cold-cold-cold for this former desert lizard. And the wet makes it feel even more cold. AND WHERE IS THE SUN?? Still, I haven’t had a home-grown beefsteak tomato in YEARS and I have been assured that they will grow here. And I love every place. It’s just the way that I roll.
I know the blog design is a little boring–I will get to that soon. But I wanted to put roots down now. They say that the fall is the best time to plant.
On Twitter? Me, too: http://twitter.com/IntrepidGarden
For my high desert gardening friends, I am maintaining the archives of my Northern Nevada garden blog.