Seedlings up!

We've got some seedlings up already! I wasn't expecting to see any for another week or so.
As far as I can tell from my awesome note-taking skills, they are marigolds, cosmos, and hollyhocks.
Jacob and I were so excited when we saw them!

Some of them were bending sideways under the saran wrap, so we used toothpicks to make a little saran wrap tent for them. Some of them were quite dry, so I gave them a little drink.

Seed Starting

 We had fun starting some seeds today!

Since my only sunny windowsills are in the kitchen, and they are narrow, I actually took one of the trays and cut it down to fit, so 4 rows wide by 8 long. I ended up not using the second tray. I will probably hold onto it for next year, though.  These trays were really hard to pry apart, and some of the cells were damaged in the process. So not all of my trays ended up exactly the same size.

Tray 1: 4x8, above stove

2 rows + 1 cell: Cosmos--Sensation mix

3 cells + 3 rows: Marigold 'Mars'

2 rows: Marigold--Bonanza Mix

Tray 2: 4x7, above stove

3 cells + 2 rows: Petunia EasyWave Beachcomber mix

3 rows: Genovese Basil

1 row: Hollyhock--Summer Carnival mix

Jacob's Tray: 3 cells + 4 cells, above stove

3 cells: Royal Burgundy beans

1 cell: Cosmos--sensation

1 cell: Basil

2 cells: Marigold Bonanza

Tray 3: 4x7, above sink

3 rows: RB beans

2 rows: Marigold bonanza

1 row: Marigold Mars

1 row: Viola--Johnny Jump-ups

Tray 4: 4x6, above sink

2 rows: Hollyhock Summer Carnival

1 row: Viola

2 rows: Cosmos sensations

1 row: Genovese Basil

Since this was my first time doing this, I thought I would just list out what we did:

1. Poured special seed starting dirt into bin, added water, mixed with our hands until all medium was evenly moist, more or less.

2. Filled seed tray with mixture.

3. Put seeds in, covered them with more soil if needed.

4. Recorded what was growing in each one.

4. Covered trays with saran wrap and put on window sill.

I'm not sure if I'll have to water them at some point or not. Almost all of them say they should come up in 7-10 days, so I marked the calendar that we planted them--that way we'll know when to start looking for some green!

These seed trays are super small, so I may need to pot them up to a bigger size at some point before putting them outside. We'll see.

Seeds to plant outside: Royal Chantenay carrots, Super Sugar Snap peas, Wildflower Mix (on the slope), Bellflowers, and Sunflowers (when it gets warmer).

Violas and Lilac, Planted!

 I used almost the whole flat around the first tree.

They looked so lovely I just kept going and going.

 Jason helped me plant the lilac. I asked him to help get it out of the bucket and he noticed the hole I had dug was a bit on the shallow side. So he kindly made it much deeper and a bit wider.

Lilac: "My Favorite French Lilac", or Syringa vulgaris 'My Favorite'

Grows 6-12 feet wide and 8-15 feet tall.

Hardy to -40 F.

Slow growing, but should make a good wind break once it gains some size.

Lavender flowers.

 I ended up with 10 plants, in 3 clumps, around this back apple tree.

I still think they'll be pretty, and they may even last longer this summer as this side gets more shade than the other side.

Since I got them planted this week, we've had a hard frost, light snow, and another hailstorm.

So far they've held up beautifully under all of that.

Violas and Lilac, First Attempt

 Took a trip to a local nursery.

Loved it! I'll be going back...often.

They had a cat named Max that Becca loved.

Bought this whole flat of violas (Sorbet Mix), and a lilac bush (among other things).

Brought them home, did some pooper-scooping on the hill.

Then this came along.

 The third hailstorm of the day.

I decided to try again a different day.

Slope Dreams

Lately I've been dreaming up what I want to do with our back slope, in addition to the three garden-bed terraces for vegetables. It really needs some shrubs for wind-break for the terraces, and something other than that course grass to hold up the slope would be nice, too.

My current plan is to do at least one lilac bush to help with wind break, up between the aspens, maybe.  Some shrub roses would be nice, as well, to help filter the wind. Violas around the base of the apple trees (coming in seed order).  At the top of the slope I'm thinking about doing either a hedge of some sort to help with privacy (all we currently have is a chain-link fence), or possibly a planting of sunflowers all the way across.

I want to leave the small mountain ash that's to the side of the garden.

Starting next fall, I'm going to plant little pockets of daffodils, crocuses, and other spring bulbs scattered across the "wild" part of the slope. I think it would be so cheering to look out and see little patches of color here and there amidst the drab brown late-winter grass.  Before I do that, though, the whole slope needs some serious pooper-scooping. {sigh} At least it's not on the lawn as much, right?

I need to find a place for some grape vines and more raspberries, but haven't decided where the best placement of those would be. Blueberries would be a bonus too, but they might have to wait a year.

Seed Order: Thoughts

I finally got some seeds ordered today, from Territorial Seed Co.  I started off planning to order vegetables today, from a different source (Seeds of Change) and ended up ordering flowers from TSC. I made the switch after talking with a good friend here, who has started seeds lots of times and also purchased plants. 

The vegetables/fruits I would want to start early would be beans, cantaloupe, and possibly some others. But she pointed out that if I really only want 2-4 cantaloupe plants, for example, I might as well buy the starts. They would cost the same as the seed packet containing 100 seeds, but I wouldn't have all the work/worry of starting them myself only to have them possibly die off at some point, so all that effort wasted. Plus, if I didn't like the variety I wouldn't be stuck with 96 extra seeds.

Many of the seeds I was going to purchase can be direct-seeded here, though the growing season is shorter than Missouri, so things like the corn, cucumbers, etc., I will probably just do that way.

Things like beans, peas, beets, etc., she thought was worth it to buy the seed packets, because you plant multiples of those every year to get a good crop.  What scared me away from ordering those, though, was the flat-rate shipping fee of $8.00 for my measly 6 packet order. Not to mention that fact that I still have some half-packets left from previous years' gardening experiments. Also, a bunch of the ones I wanted most from Seeds of Change were out of stock--probably due to my late ordering.

TSC has about the same shipping fee, but I guess I ordered enough (8-10 packets) to feel okay about it. Plus, since I got all flowers, I can see myself using up the entire packet over several years, because again, you always tend to plant them in multiples.

Several of the catalogs I signed up for only ship live plants, which I decided against buying as well. For one, they are very expensive and shipping is even more. Plus there's always the chance that they get stressed or poorly handled or die en route then you're out all that money with nothing to show for it.  I would rather support my local nursery anyway, as they are likely to have the cultivars that do well in our area, and (lastly) I can wait to buy them until I'm ready to put them in the ground, rather than have a shipment come in the middle of a late snowstorm, or something.

So (phew!) $27 later, I've got a shipment of FLOWER seeds coming and a plan to go with my friend to a local nursery tomorrow to check out their selection of early spring veggies, lilac bushes, and  summer bulbs.