This is the time of year that although it is only 10ºF (-12ºC) or so, I start gardening again -- yahoo! Like many of you I start seeds indoors at this time, but this is also when I start seriously thinking about propagation of some of the plants I overwintered.
I'm dedicated to success with sprouts right now. The first sunflower sprout crop was a bit of a disappointment, as the true leaves came in before the sprouts were big enough. We still ate them though. The second set of sunflower sprouts -- also grown in soil like the first -- were given less light but appear to have the same issue. We're still eating those.
Most years the lure of the seed catalogs combines with an early taste of spring fever and I end up ordering seeds without regard for what I might already have leftover from previous years. The same applies when I visit local seed displays, with the result being that I usually have much more seed than I can use in a single season.
My late-because-of-me Amaryllis have started to bloom, at least the one that didn't produce the offsets. It's my favorite of the two I have, so I'm glad it's the one that flowered!
Yesterday I posted butterfly photos from summer 2007 to give myself a reminder of what's coming in the next few months -- this cold can't last forever. Today I continue with that look back to highlight one of the things that I miss most about not being out in the garden: discovery!
I don't know if it got as cold as they said it would last night, but this morning when I checked it was 0ºF (-18ºC), which is cold enough. In fact, I'm not in the mood to show you anything wintery today, so I decided to look back into my pre-blog photo archives to find...
By "it" I mean the bamboo-killing cold. Last year we reached -8ºF (-22ºC) as a low a couple of times here in St. Louis when the Polar Vortex spun down and made us wonder exactly how that arctic ice was disappearing, and the result was that all of my bamboos spent a few months with brown leaves.
I started my current sprouts experiment eleven days ago on February 6, and although enough time has passed that I should have a verdict on this growing method, I don't yet -- I'll explain why shortly.
I can't complain too much about this winter in St. Louis, as it hasn't been too bad. Until you compare it to a weekend walking the beach in Florida that is, then it's pretty terrible.
Two of my favorite things about winter: bare branches and being able to see more sunrises.
It's what we're all about, we gardeners, plant people. Growing plants. It's a rare gardener indeed who wants things to stay exactly the same in the garden, and for the great majority of us any sign of growth means excitement!
I was happily able to spend a couple of days in Florida this past weekend, leaving the crazily warm weather in St. Louis for pretty much exactly the same temperatures in Daytona Beach.
I don't like to post about the same topic twice in a row, but after putting the sunflower seeds onto the soil to sprout, I left for the weekend and the three days that they were meant to be growing underneath the heavy weights have already passed.
The sprouting experiment that is.
I've said it before: I'm not that good with houseplants. I've finally determined that it's not my fault though, it's my house. There's just not enough light coming through the windows for much of the day.
Have you ever grown your own sprouts or shoots? I have both in jars and in special sprout trays, and I must admit that I don't find it to be as simple as they say it is. Even though I believe I've always followed the necessary schedule of rinsing, it seems that I have about a 50% chance of getting edible sprouts from my efforts. After a failure I get discouraged and end up putting thoughts of healthy, fresh sprouts out of my mind for months or longer, until I get the urge to try again. I haven't tried for well over a year, possibly two.
This book review is long overdue, but don't take that as an indication of the book's merit: this is probably my favorite gardening book published in 2014. But I'm getting ahead of myself...
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