Singing Wolf..... It Gemini Sage that has all the extra lupine. Send him a quick dmail. Incase he misses it on here.
Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #22
Hey SingingWolf, you were the one I was thinking may want some Lupines! I think you've got the ideal environment for them. They like dry conditions, so you shouldn't have to worry too much about irrigating them. I'm still cleaning off the pods, but I'll get some out to you in the next few days. If you're not in the addy exchange, dmail me your addy.
Robin, I don't worry about sterilizing soil for seeds that germinate quickly. I only do it for seeds that are really tiny or tend to germinate or grow slowly- the longer there's a warm, moist environment with no air circulation, the more chance a fungus has to grow. Also for plants I've had damping off problems with in the past. I think some home environments have more floating around in the air than others. Seems I recall Suzy saying she doesn't sterilize pots or anything. I've had occasional issues with the random bag of potting media too.
Terese, I agree with Star, don't believe you could hardly kill a sedum. They're tough as nails!
thanks for the comments on the sedum... it is off in the mail, and hopefully the gal will get it Saturday.
I always worry about shipping plants. this was only the second time i've done it, and just want to make sure i do it right.
I LOVE the tp idea! Thanks for sharing - seems like a vague memory that I've read it before but now I can put it to use. :-)
I never know what I'm going to learn on here - kitty tricks, disinfectants, piggy pics - never a dull moment!
I'd be stunned if Suzy sterilized her pots - believe me, with as many as she's got - she'd never have the time to do much else! OK, off to take the tops off the seed trays as things are sprouting and I've gotta get the air circulating and the lights lowered.
Thanks Gemini_Sage. I was heart broken about the lupine. Now, I'll find places for it to go and hopefully reseed. : )
I really hate all the new (and empty) housing developments around me. I hate the loss of fields full of native purple and white wild flowers booming. Lost those to developers over two years ago, then they ran out of money to build. They knock down the beautiful hills, flatten everything out. Change the water drainages, I've got a friend having to go to court over that one. The new developments channel all the water onto his ranch. So few places retain even a semblance of what they used to be. : (
I hope to salvage what I can, and DH and I won't be putting in any housing developments! We won't be allowing anyone to take down our beautiful (but small) range of hills. Future generations will thank us.
Now if only the coyotes would find somewhere else to live, maybe I could sleep at night. (Dogs barking, and keeping them away from my critters). Poor critters are being squeezed out of their natural habitat too. : (
Talked to DH about making me a trough for bottom watering my milk jug containers of WS seeds. He made just the thing for the fir trees we brought down from Oregon for Christmas. Still has all the materials, so now I just need some help to move the 2x4's to where I want them. Then will attach the plastic with my trusty staple gun. I will take photos of the process. I so want to get these seeds planted.
WIB,
SW
Cool idea with the tp. Too bd we didn't have it a coupel of weks agao. Think of all them rolls from Christmas paper wrap and paper towel rolls.
Robin is Suzy ever coming back or is she a DG retiree now?
Singingwolf, I have an idea for watering them. Do you have any plastic storage containers? The kind that go under a bed would be perfect, you could fit a lot of jugs in them at once : )
Lala -- I think, from the last emailing we did, she just has a lot of projects she's involved with... I'm sure one day she will be back. Certainly hope she's not a retiree, as she's a wealth of knowledge.
lol...Starlight, you mean you have all that wrapping paper stuff cleaned up already?! You go girl! I've still got a dining room full of wrapping stuff, including the scraps of paper and at least one empty roll... and still working on getting the 12 foot tree emptied and down... the ghost of Christmas past is haunting me... and I'm hiding from it with my seeds :) At least now I know what I can do with the empty roll!
Do they really break down fast enough? I've even had trouble using peat pots in the past, when I pull up the plant at the end of the season, there it is, roots still confined to it. That was probably before my current watering set-up though.. things were a lot drier when I was in charge instead of a timer!
Robin What are you planting? We are in the same zone as you know and I am just curious. Seems like last year you and Lea and Suzy had larger plants growing inside than I did. Mine were so puny it was pitiful. I am going to try to keep them warmer this year. Maybe that will help. I am not planning to start regular (annuals I mean) plants until March. I guess I'm wondering if you are going to grow some things to a large size indoors.
Veronica.
Oh Ella-I am so glad you like it!!!! I can't wait for you to take a pic of it as I forgot to take one to keep in my folder I have of all my crafty things-did you look inside it?? And now that you see all the cutting, pasting , taping and typing I did you know why I took FOREVER!!!
Hunted my cord and downloaded.
My personal piggy trough
Open up and it has little baggies in it ready to hold piggy swap seeds. LOL
OH how sweet!! is that from Stacy?? how absolutely adorable!!
well fudge forgot the pic.
Well if that isn't the cutest thing!!
(Tell Suzy we miss her next time you're incommunicado.)
Hey Veronica - the only thing I've started so far are pansies, straw flowers (which just sprouted) and violas. I didn't have time today, but will tomorrow - to pull out the stuff that needs to be started under lights 8-12 weeks ahead of time, and the WS stuff as well. I'll dmail you my list once I get my wee widdle act together :-) When I transplant seedlings the first time I add a wee bit of those water crystals, and some fertilizer that has myco. fungi in it, so they get a bit of a heady shot right away and I don't need to fret quite so much about watering them. That is, unless they're things that don't like it damp/wet, like geraniums. We just won't talk about my abysmal track record with geraniums....
Terese has nailed it for Suzy, she's just one busy woman, although I feel pretty safe in saying I don't think she's watching the football game tonight - LOL!
Star, that has to be one of the cutest piggies I've ever seen!!
I love the way Stacey put the trough piggy over a sky-blue background - she could be flying!
Ella, you "one excellent flying, Queen-of-the-Trough piggie"! Someone already called your efforts with regard to this swap/benefit "Herculean", so let me add how magical I think what I you're accomplishing here is, as well.
I've heard from Lea - a tough time. Wouldn't it be a fun distraction for us all, if we could be flying around on flying piggies - like those motorcycling, 50+ year-old "Iron Maidens" - in the sky? Trying to imagine what a vrooooming oink would sound like. Lea might like a distracting, cheering-up dmail.
Adorable! Now you'll never forget this piggie swap... hee hee!
Here's last year's Groundhog's Day article -- an introduction to Winter Sowing. http://davesgarden.com/guides/articles/view/585/
Sorry... thought I'd posted that link, and it looks like I didn't. You can find a chronological list of my articles on my home page (click on my DG name to the right of this or any post to get there). You can also click the "more articles by Jill" link at the bottom of any of my articles, and you'll get a list that has thumbnail images and intro's as well as titles.
Also, if you go to the "guides & info" tab and then to "articles," you will be able to search the articles for phrases like "winter sowing" or "seed starting" or "pickle recipe." :-)
Meredith, yup, I got some of them. They are currently holding extra blankets. Learned during my worm farming days what the sun will do to the plastic. Figured since I already have the materials, I might as well reuse them and adapt them for this purpose. Got started thinking about the watering issue. We don't get that much rain so I will have to water even in the winter, decided that bottom watering was the way for me to go. I figured out where to put them. The thing is, I'm such a piggy, that I know that I'll have more containers than the other containers will hold. Have my Piggy Swap seeds, plus seeds I never got around to planting last year, plus seed I collected at Dad's in Sept. Lots of seeds to get started so I figured I should go ahead and plan on making it easy on me. Also took into consideration the wind, and the critters who live here. Figured out the perfect place to put it too. Will take photos. : )
I always used to save tp rolls for kite string holders. Who'd have thought of so many uses for them! : )
LOL, gives new meaning to the phrase "When Pigs Fly"! Slapping the bed, laughing so hard. I think that sound of pigs flying would be more of a humming sound, with oinking shrills of exuberant laughter! : )
Forgot to say to Gemini_Sage, my info is in the seed exchange. If you can't find it, let me know, so I can fix it and I'll dmail you my address. Thanks again!
WIB,
SW
Ella-I am glad you liked it-I wanted to make you something that would be useful and couldn't think of anything for forever!! Then I was looking and my baggie box and thought-hmmmm-found the piggie, then got the box and after I positioned it, I also thought it looked as if it was flying-hence the sky background:) I like to be crafty:)
So glad they made is safe and sound....... Fairy, CUTE box !! (but you sure put my little piddly bags of seed to shame!) .... ^_^ You did a great job!
Need to get busy reading these winter sowing articles.... I have a feeling I am going to need some info FAST !!
Genna
SW, got your addy, and will be going to the PO today :-)
Genna. Your new and if though ya only had a few seeds to share, yoru seeds are valuable too to the folks who oinked them. Without ya shareign them few, those folks would be minus some beauty this year and when ya get your pggy trough, you'll have lot sof seeds to try and grow and next year you'll have more seed to share.
The whole idea is not how much or how little, but the idea of sharign and learning and giving of not just seeds but friendship from the heart and knowledge that cna be passed on from friend to friend and family to family to extend one day to communities.
This was not a one to one like a regular swap, this was people who loved gardening and had big hearts and love of gardening who love being able to share whatever they have no matter how much or little with others.
it a swap that gives from the heart and does a whole lot of enablign too. LOL
I think you have absolutely nailed the spirit of this swap, Star!
Yes -- excellent Star!! and so true.
You all are so sweet! I do just love everyone here! It's been wonderful to have found Dave's this fall. I lost my job in October, and having you all to listen in on, and enjoy my hobby with, is a great way to keep my spirits up!
While I'm chatting... I've got some containers ready to WS, and I'm debating about the soil. What I have available is MG with added fertilizer already in it. I thought perhaps this was the reason some of my seeds didn't sprout last year. Does anyone have experience with the fertilized kinds of soil being good or bad for wintersowing? I can get something else, but am inclined to use what I have first...
kls -- i use the MG with fertilizer.
i questioned this once, bu to the fact that i'd read you should not give seedlings fertilizer ... and it was replied to me that this stuff is fine to use... plus, i had used it 2 yrs already, and really did not have problems.
Terese
Yippee! Thanks for the quick response, I've got an hour til I have to get my daughter... can't think of a better use for it :)
Right now I'm thinking any soil that's not frozen solid should work :)
LOL... Robin -- no doubt about it.
I have used soil with fertilizer in it the last two years somewhat because it was what I had ,but also, I do not get around to transplanting the seedlings till they get quite large sometimes. So I feel they need some nutrients.
Ella, beautifully said!
I use MG soil too and it works well, but I've been wondering if the nutrients leach out before the seeds come up. Do any of you know? Slow release fertilizers typically feed for 3 months, and I'm curious if its all gone by the time spring comes.
Thanks Star! That is really sweet. I know that gardeners have BIG hearts for sure and I have already had so many new friends from Dave's enable me. It has been amazing. I am hoping to surprise a few people and actually bring PLANTS to the roundups in the Spring...because as the newbie, I have not had anything to share......so IF I can get some of the seeds to sprout, I should have plenty of things for myself and to share.
I really appreciate everyone's generosity and their willingness to share -not just their seeds, but their knowledge, encouragement, and excitement for gardening...... I just hope I can catch on to some of the knowledge I have been exposed to and be successful with at least part of these seeds so that I can share with others as well.
Thanks again!!
Genna
I must also agree with you Ella - this swap has started a thread of friends that, IMHO, are unique on DG. It starts with the seeds, and then just comfortably swims along through starting the babies, tending the babies, showing off the babies, and then gathering more seeds! I've learned more from these piggy swaps and posts than just about anywhere else on DG - not just because of all the different experiences we share, but also because we get great links from other areas that folks have read (which saves so much time in the searching department!).
aaaawwww ya'll are giving me the warm fuzzies! Everyone on here has been wonderfully sweet and I love all the fun sharing and caring that has been passed on along with the seeds. I think I have read a book to my girls about a flying pig....? Will have to look into that.
Robin, was it you that gave the apply cider vinegar tea recipe? I just got everything to make it and had a cup....LOVE IT! Thank you!
SW, did you say a few days back that you were from Oklahoma? I grew up in Sequoyah county......town of Sallisaw - the famous location from "The Grapes of Wrath". Funny thing is that we were not required to read it in High School.
Yep, I'm guilty of bringing up the apple cider vinegar "concoction" (as we call it here) but I originally got it from Lea. (Although I think I add more honey...)