more things sprouting

Dill and chervil in the seedling trays.

Lovage outside in the garden.

Lemon balm

Catmint has been up for quite a while, now getting more lush.

Both clematis have spring leaves,

and the pink one a few buds already.

My garlics are doing great!

pot of hyssop is thick with new growth

and the rhubarb (not yet pictured) is showing above ground again. I might actually eat it this year.

up quickly

Snap peas, shelling peas, tatasoi and tokyo bekana sprouted in just a few days. Tatsoi pictured.

feels like spring

Or even warmer- just over seventy today so the lettuces I just planted in the garden yesterday might start bolting already. More stuff is springing up and sprouting new leaves- the clematis, sedums, daylilies. My hellebores are blooming but I haven't got any photos yet, though I did cut a few flowers to float in tiny jars on the kitchen windowsill, so pretty.

Today I started more seed- dill, chervil, parsley, a few more leeks, snap peas (both 'golden' from a packet and saved from my own garden), shelling peas, tatsoi and tokyo bekana. Outside I direct-sowed detroit red beets, golden beets, turnips and turnip-rutabaga in the garden. Sowed four types of carrots in eight large pots on the deck. Soil nice and loose, the roots won't run into any rocks, I don't have to dig over a garden bed, and there's more space down below for something else!

Note to self: end of my packets beet seed. Must buy more next year.

Also stuck four twigs in the ground, their flowers have fallen and green leaves are sprouting. Cuttings of 'white forsythia' a friend gave me (It's really Abeliophyllum distichum). Sounds like it roots just as crazy easy as the common yellow forsythia, but I think late summer or fall is better time to grow cuttings so don't know how these will do. I put two by the mailbox spot, one near the vegetable garden, and one on an edge of the rear perennial bed. I was at her house when it was blooming- lovely little starlike white flowers with an amazing scent. It reminded me so much of lilac. The rest of the year it will just look like a plain green shrub, but I think those early spring white flowers would be lovely around the mailbox, ready for something different from the celosia and borage perhaps.

March snowfall

Too cold in the mini greenhouse outside today!

So all the newly-potted seedlings are sharing space with my houseplants indoors, crowded by the windows. When I get more seedlings started, I'll have to set up the tiers of benches.

For now there's some on the floor-

Yesterday these collards and chard were wilted from transplant shock, this morning have perked up quite a bit.

One tray of arugula is on the worm bin with the coleus plants.

potted up

My first set of seedlings have outgrown their trays-

I potted them up today. Kale: 

Leeks:

Arugula: 

Collards: 

and Leaf Beet Chard:

corn plant smell

My large dracanea in the corner is in full flower again- and fills the house with perfume at night. It's almost too much, on the verge of sickly-sweet.

on lean water

Another new tactic this year- I am trying to use only meltwater from snow and ice outside, or collected rainwater, for my succulents and tender plants. Some of them really don't like tapwater. Like the spider plant. I think it's the flouride content. Others- the succulents- do poorly with the rich nitrate content in the aquarium wastewater I use. Most of them seem to be doing better now! 

My blue-green "ponytail" plant- I trimmed and replanted in the same pot most of the trailing stems, and it looks much nicer now. Wow, how it's grown.

Zygo (thanksgiving) cactus is still small, but has doubled in size again:

Still don't know the actual name of this pale green one in the crassula family. It frequently had leaves that withered and dropped, before I started using the meltwater.

Surprise! I still have a remnant of the echeveria- two small plantlets- I keep them very dry now. The one in red pot sharing space with some babies of the blue-green 'ponytail' which fell there of their own accord.

Madagascar palm the only one that doesn't look happy yet. Too much draft? Not enough warmth? (it's near a door so there's some draft). Not sure. I might give up on this one soon.

Other plants that I usually give lean water now too, or mixed with just a small portion of tankwater: creeping charlies, sansevieria, peace lilly- which has grown a lot!

and now even has new baby shoots emerging-

and my spider plants- no more burned leaf tips! This pot has several offspring from

my original plain spider plant- still vigorous and with new baby offshoots growing all the time

houseplant blooms

A week or two ago my schefflera started blooming again.

I cut the stalk off, because it makes such a sticky mess. 

Haven't seen this in a few years, but my 'corn plant' (dracanea) is flowering again!

And the crown of thorns plant- one of the stems died, but the remaining two are growing new leaves plus it's budding!

appropriated

My cat likes this shallow box I use to carrying seedlings in and out.

sesame: not great

One of the plants I tried growing last year, and didn't get good results from- sesame (aka benne). It was really intriguing to see how the seed pods were shaped- these fluted lobes

where all the seeds are stacked together and they just pop out.

I only had two plants, so didn't expect a lot of seed, but what there was, disappointing. Some of the pods got musty, the seeds didn't look usable. Probably I waited too long to harvest and they got damp.

Others never matured- the pods didn't open. Also it was difficult to get the seed clean of chaff and debris. And the taste was sometimes a bit bitter. I'm sure my timing with planting and/or harvesting, or amount of watering, was off in some way- and there's methods to clean the seed- but this little growing experiment was in the middle of pandemic time and I just did not feel like making a lot of effort with it. 

Maybe another year I'll try them again.

greens in the little house

The weather has really been fluctuating here. Yesterday it was in the seventies during the day, then it fell to freezing again overnight. So my tatsoi in the little greenhouse

suddenly bolted. Their winter end!

There's still some tokyo bekana, small now as I've eaten more of it again.

And lettuces are filling the shelves (hope to plant them out soon in March)

plus the baby kale, collards and leeks go out on warmer days- more progress on their true leaves!