some stuff

I was going to call this post "all the squirmy wormies" but then started writing about more than just the worms, so. 

I realized that along with a bit of houseplant and fish tank neglect, I had been ignoring my worms lately, too. Had not fed them in a long while. Which actually made emptying the bin easier- they had been comsuming their bedding so really there was only a layer of carboard chips on the top to remove, the rest was mostly finished vermicompost. I didn't sort out the worms and unfinished bits by shaking through a handmade sifter like usual- the bottom two-thirds of the bin was too damp, and very compacted. 

Instead I loosened it up by hand and then picked out the bits of still-recognizable cardboard, and the individual worms that hadn't been in the first handfuls out of the feeding corner, or off the top layer. It was just a few hours, over two days, spent sitting by the bin carefully going through it. I didn't see any worm eggs. but there were plenty of tiny baby worms, so they've been breeding not so long ago. Worms in my hand.

Some are yellowish, but not too many. None of the worms felt tacky, they all had good moisture and most are healthy pink. I did notice lately it had been drier, so at that point I had sprinkled in some water, and started feeding them again hoping they'd all move to that corner. It never works completely, there's always more worms to pick out of the rest of the bin. I'm sure if I just kept the ones scooped out of the top layer and food area, that's plenty to keep the population going. But I still feel like "rescuing" as many as I can, knowing those that get thrown out with the vermicompost to fertilize the lawn and garden, will just die overwinter.

These tiny millipedes were in the bin. More than I've ever seen before, and I found a pile of dried-up ones off to one side behind the bin- has a spider been eating them there? They curl up in little silvery spirals. Picking worms individually out of the bin allowed me to leave behind most of the millipedes to get tossed out into the yard. I hope.

Then I started trying to get some plants in better shape. Groomed a bunch of houseplants, and those on the deck. Trimmed back some of the geraniums that had got leggy, and replanted the cut stems.

Sprayed with soapy water/oil the ones that seem to still have bug problems: chocolate mint, ginger mint, stevia, the cuban oregano- 

whose leaves are all so small right now I feel it must be suffering

I went to pick out this dead leaf that had drifted into my basil plant- and noticed somebody was on it

a little mantis!

This plant that's still new to me, the self-heal, is starting to bloom-

Another pic of my fish today- I think I should add to his name: Tucker Firetail

today

I planted the new self-heal in a clay pot (having learned that it is related to mint, so I don't want it to spread in the ground)

and dug up a few swamp milkweeds from the first sideyard, moved them to the second where there's much more sun. In the spot I'm removing them from, the standard joe pye are all coming up where I shifted them very late in the year.

They're really puny compared to the common milkweed already starting to get established there. Need to weed more in this spot, and spread some mulch!

plant swap

was on the weekend. I took thirty-some plants, those pictured earlier: yellow salvias, echinacea, black-eyed susans, stonecrops, baby hellebores, the citronella cuttings, plus three young hollies and this one hickory sapling that grew out of a pot stored in my small greenhouse- must have been planted by a squirrel earlier in the season.

I brought home in return just over twenty plants. Most got hastily stuck in the greenhouse as I didn't have time to dig right away- this ostrich fern got planted immediately (it turned out to be one decent-sized plant and three much smaller ones)

making my little patch a bit fuller!

the rest had to wait. Some are still waiting. I did plant the two lyreleaf sage I got already

but most I am holding off on simply because a lot of these plants are new to me- I know which like sun and which prefer shade, but color and height and spread? I need to learn a bit about them. There's coreopsis rosea, Liatris spicata, a small herb called self-heal, Solidago rugosa 'fireworks', Little brown-eyed susan, one nasturtium and one (very small) New England aster. (I've tried to grow these asters myself from seed before, got small plants that disappeared soon after planting).

a plant called late thormwort (in the back here)- at least that's what the label says but maybe I'm misreading someone's handwriting. The internet suggests this is probably late thoroughwort, or boneset.

three or four obedient plants- which were bare root and badly wilted, but I stuck them in an empty pot of soil and watered well, they already perked up enough to poke through the wire shelf above

and two pots of 'Catherine Woodbury' daylilies, which I planted yesterday.