Plant Propagation: The Basics January 2016

Ok, eggs are in the bator 5 chicks in the brooder and I have a pond to fix tomorrow and have to tend my bees when I get home, but here is a thread for us all.

Any more mealyworms mom? I'm training chicks. They LOVE mealyworms, not afraid of my hands anymore

Wish I'd have gone to the garden today or the flowerbed and planted peonies or tulips but there is what I must do to pay the bills and what I want to do that has to wait. I did make bee fondant with pollen sub, my lovely ladies enjoyed a bucket of sugar syrup and some dry pollen sub in the sunshine. There are no blooms for them just now, except for maybe one of my roses. and the broccoli I forgot to harvest

That's sweet Gypsi, you've got a black chick! I'm waiting for the new brood to start pipping and zipping. Now I'm worried about your bees not getting any blooms to feed on so I've been working on finding you things that have a late bloom time. Not that you're Broccoli isn't fabulous (cause it is).

Well yeah Miipi, but the broccoli isn't suppose to be blooming. 'that must be the little black hen. Wasn;t there a child's story about that? Must have been. LOL,

Gypsi, where do you get the meal worms? Do you get them live, or dead? I was thinking about getting some for the birds out here, but kind of hate to get the wild birds hooked on them. I don't think I could afford that very long.

All sounds like it is going pretty well .for you there Gypsi ,

Robin still doing seeds ? sounds it ..

Wintersowing myself , this year maybe I will get a few to grow , I am terrible at it .
Daylily , including three two year old seeds from mine ,
Curled kale
Red Kale .
Spinach mustard
Garden Mustard
Tatsoi mustard
Curly giant mustard
Bok choy
purple cauliflower
Showy blur penstemon
Snapdragons ,
Coneflowers
Phlox
Brussel sprouts

JU are those seeds from the day lily you hybridized, gave me a fan, and my sister killed it when I was in the hospital? 2 years old? The seeds are 2 years old, or the seeds are from the 2 year old plant? Electric Orange. Is that right? Just beautiful.
OH oh, we lost Debra Gypsi. Better go find her. Is there any way we can connect that thread with this one? I don't dare mess around again. I will end up back prior to the beginning of DG. jen

JU are those seeds from the day lily you hybridized, gave me a fan, and my sister killed it when I was in the hospital? 2 years old? The seeds are 2 years old, or the seeds are from the 2 year old plant? Electric Orange. Is that right? Just beautiful.
OH oh, we lost Debra Gypsi. Better go find her. Is there any way we can connect that thread with this one? I don't dare mess around again. I will end up back prior to the beginning of DG. jen

Broccoli setting and self seeding for next year, that's an easy way to garden isn't it Jen? It sure wouldn't be blooming in my zone. Even the cat's don't like going out for long here, it's too chilly. The good news is the long warm fall has shortened winter...hahaha, only three more months of cold. Ha I say. I love it.

I'm still trying to recover from my chest cold though, I've got a Dr. apt tomorrow to fix me up. This was the first time In memory I was stricken with a head cold and a chest cold at the same time. Usually it's one or the other.

It sure doesn't stop me from dreaming of Winter sowing and Tamales...I'll get there before that window closes. Nice seed list Ju.

I left a link on the December thread, and on the January 2015 thread that someone had posted on too, so hopefully Debra will find us. I think my 2 black chicks will be black australorp or part black australorp, (5 of my adult hens are australorps, they tolerate heat well) but since these are mixed chicks no telling. The other 3 are looking like the Americauna roo was very busy. Only one of those eggs was green but 3 birds look like americaunas.

I have gotten zero seeds started. but I can tell you I have a mealy worm colony. If you want a start ask me when the weather is warmer and I can mail a start. Takes wheat bran, the occasional chunk of potatoes, a plastic bin that is indoors (and you bake the bran before giving it to the worms or it can get mealy worm pests and parasites in it). I actually gave my colony away and the young man I gave it to got a couple more going so when I asked him for a few worms for the chicks he brought my bin back. Right now there are a lot of beetles in there. They will mate, lay eggs, and the cycle begins again

Cool, mealy worms colonies...who da thunk?

hay! i MADE IT! OH MY GOSH.. THERE IS A "NEW" ICON FOR "WATCHING" THREADS.. i JUST FOUND IT.. :p

Debra...great to hear from you! I'm sure it feels good to be missed.

I keep wanting a shortcut 'like button' I have had the eyecon for awhile, was discussing the 'unwatch this forum' on Tx thread, it caught folks eyes and they wondered if it were old or new

whew, home and guess what I found my thread. Geez! I have missed you all. I thought everyone abandoned ship! lookie here at these zinnias..I bet these are easy to propagate LOL

I get mealey worms at the pet store around the corner from here.. I didn't know u can grow them. I pay 1.00 for a small cup of 24 worms. Gamera loves them.

Good grief I dropped my laptop and lost my post, lost the thread, went to a lot of previous years. I do believe the new format is getting worse.

Gypsy, I was saying when you aren't so busy, you need to write out the instructions and send one to whoever wants a start. I am sure they aren't as bad as growing fishing worms. Maybe we can pay you thru paypal for your postage and efforts.

Debra, what is this icon you are talking about? I keep getting that October 31st thread and tried constantly to get rid of it the way Kitt told me with the watch/no watch , or whatever, but now if I don't get that one, I get 2014 or later. ttyl, jen

(((Jen))) <------hugs the "eye"con is to the top left

This message was edited Jan 8, 2016 10:13 PM

Those pine cones sure do look like Zinnia's.

Saw this and thought of all of you.

Cute Sharon...and accurate, lol. I do a lot of that kind of gardening.

so do I! I just spent a couple hours down in the basement gardens, had to trim some things so now they are in the rooting tub..

Oh good grief. I have sacks all around me of different magazines, and guess which one is the heaviest. LOL, you got it. Seed catalogs. Those seeds are getting so expensive now. I guess Parks decided the plants were too much trouble, and they hardly have any in the flowers. Mostly seeds. But, that's ok. They don't ship plants very good. So, they left plants to Burpees. Burpees have almost all plants, some seeds. No matter which, they are becoming so expensive. I decided I would make a wish list from Parks, and then go to Summerhill on the computer and compare prices. They are really good seeds too.

Debra, the piece of Monstera I cut out of the middle of my plant about 4 months ago, did not root. I had it planted in a pot of mix and pins holding it down. Didn't work. Then I put it in water for a bit, and it is starting to rot. Now what?

Bob had called from town to see if I had thought of anything else I needed and said I got a ton of mail. A couple more seed catalogs.
And a box of 4 different kinds of Catnip seeds from JU!! Wasn't that nice of him. Gee with all those kits, he should have kept them himself! Thank you JU! And a whole bunch of pretty flower pictures for me. Beautiful. Jen

Oh good grief. I have sacks all around me of different magazines, and guess which one is the heaviest. LOL, you got it. Seed catalogs. Those seeds are getting so expensive now. I guess Parks decided the plants were too much trouble, and they hardly have any in the flowers. Mostly seeds. But, that's ok. They don't ship plants very good. So, they left plants to Burpees. Burpees have almost all plants, some seeds. No matter which, they are becoming so expensive. I decided I would make a wish list from Parks, and then go to Summerhill on the computer and compare prices. They are really good seeds too.

Debra, the piece of Monstera I cut out of the middle of my plant about 4 months ago, did not root. I had it planted in a pot of mix and pins holding it down. Didn't work. Then I put it in water for a bit, and it is starting to rot. Now what?

Bob had called from town to see if I had thought of anything else I needed and said I got a ton of mail. A couple more seed catalogs.
And a box of 4 different kinds of Catnip seeds from JU!! Wasn't that nice of him. Gee with all those kits, he should have kept them himself! Thank you JU! And a whole bunch of pretty flower pictures for me. Beautiful. Jen

Sorry, I don't know how I keep getting these double posts. Not so interesting that I think you want to read them twice. Bob had to go out and find the bird food container in the snow. The raccoons must have stolen it the other night. It is an oil pan used to drain the oil from your car when changing it. I have had it for years and the perfect thing to fit in the feeder I made them years ago. Sure glad they didn't didn't take it with them when Bob ran them off. They did that one time, took the suet feeder and left me a banana peel in it's place.

Sounds like a good day Jen, sacks of seed catalogs with more on the way and special friends sending you seeds and flower pictures. what more could a gardener want in January?

Weekend glitches. Double threads, disappearing threads, overloaded eyecons. Chuckl, hackers that are bored maybe? Love the 'thinking of us' Sharon! I am at the house and worrying about everyone in other parts and how you are doing, stay warm! Seeds, I gotta sort my boxes, gotta sort....

I gotta do something - I did plant a strawberry plant and a passiflora foetida today, figured they would weather the freeze better in the ground. have to finish bookkeeping. Trying to unspoil my rotti who has decided he only wants people food, and cook some of that winter squash casserole to feed me for a couple of days. Have the fire built up, cut some seasoned kindling today with the chain saw.

dang, I didn't even know there were 4 kinds of catnip LOL
it is 8 degrees out, I am still dog sitting, and can't drag out my seed tubs or my sewing stuff until he is back at his home, as I don't want his rambunctious energy knocking my tables over. He has done a good job at keeping us safe , tho.
are passies cold hardy? I know one kind is, I planted some seeds of it, but all these other passies are still down in the basement everywhere.

I have only heard of two being hardy enough for z6a. P. incarnata - Maypop and P. caerulea, they are both deciduous though (die to the ground). I'm sure more experienced growers can come up with some more.

5 catnips. Catnip, Common catnip, Greek, Camphor and Lemon. Abt 250 kinds of catmint, (calaminthes)

most passiflora are cold hardy here, just not the incense exotics. These were from RU, root cuttings from another member. They do prefer to be in the ground and not above ground in the wind (although I occasionally leave in pot and dig in if I think I will want to move them or to protect from weedwhacker

Robin, been meaning to tell you, I like your new image. Were you looking in the mirror when you posted it? Pretty cool. Very pretty. jen

Aw, thanks Jen. It's a photo of me and made into a pencil drawing via Paintshop Pro. I have sketched self portraits though...it's tough to have a critical eye for that, I always made them more beautiful than I was, lol.

Awww! They gave us a 'like' diamond on the 'Garden Funnies!'

Kittriana - is that on Dave's Garden? Robin, that is a neat pic. I don't know if I have paintshop pro anymore.

Kit, I think we need a link. I never knew they gave out diamonds...

I like diamonds!

Thanks for the compliment Gypsy.

When Sunday Funnies pop up, and you read replies to the pix, there is a tiny triangle(diamond). One is up, one is down. To tell the poster you like his quip. Sunday Funnies is DG, upper rightcorner Home Page, or a thread I have never chased down

I'll figure that diamond out later. In the meantime the first birds are about 3.5 weeks old. and first pip thru a shell just happened on the new ones. Hard to photograph birds right after you move their cage, they are in the fish room where the temps are cooler. Under my greenhouse shelf is a 7 ft x 2 ft x 2 ft run, fully caged, and I can put a heat lamp above it, but they are not really large enough and feathered enough to go to the greenhouse. and the last pic, those are the chick watchers taking a break.

Wonder why all of your pictures were up side down Gypsi. I used to be able to rotate them, but couldn't these. How exciting. Your very own babies. Think that makes you a surrogate doesn't it? I thought it was about time for them to pop so had to get here for the big event. Wonder if you had your camera upside down. Be sure to get pictures of them. What time is it there that they are doing this? jen

well my camera was actually flat on top of their cage and it was the cell phone, and I guess it lost its balance. It was about 4 this afternoon. If I surrogate instead of having hens raise, I get much better behaved chicks. I have a hen that was raised by her mother and an americauna who was in the mothering mood. I can't catch her. She will run around in circles far from me before entering the pen. If there is a hawk chasing her it will be the death of her. Last hatch under the hens.

Good for you. Turning it over to a different mama. That's good. How many will there be if they all make it? Gosh, and you can't put them with the others can you. They will mistreat them won't they?