False spring

Hyacinth 'Splendid Cornelia'

It was a glorious 55 degrees today... what a lovely warm spell after two weeks of snow and ice! To add to the whole spring vibe, the first of my forced hyacinth bulbs has started to bloom at a time when the tulips and dutch iris outdoors are just starting to peek up out of the ground. The scent is wonderful. I have to remember to hunt down cheap hyacinth bulbs again in the coming fall.

Beside the tulips, rhubarb is starting to pop up outdoors, which reminds me that I've been planning to dig up the existing clumps and divide them this year. It's probably too early to get started with the digging, but it's never too early to start planning... and I've got a lot of planning to do this year, especially since I've got more seed varieties than my 100 square feet of garden can support. These divisions are going to need a lot more space, more sunlight, and plenty of fertilizer, and I'm short on everything but the fertilizer.*

Speaking of lack of space and more sunlight, this coming week, I need to get sweet peas (not to mention my beloved snow peas) planted. Last year, I unwisely planted my sweet peas in shade, and to make a long story short, they were spindly and pathetic. I overcompensated by buying three packages of sweet pea seeds for this year, and once again, I can't find a sunny place to plant them. So I'm setting myself a deadline to find a spot or make one-- next week, I'll either be blogging about my newly planted sweet peas, or sheepishly wallowing in shame and self-loathing.

So yeah, my sweet peas and I will be seeing you next week. (eep!)

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* - but that's a story for another week.

Cross-posted to Vox.

Meanwhile, indoors...

Propagating African violets

Temperatures this past week have been consistently below freezing. Outside, we've got snow lingering on the lawn and an icy stalagmite slowly forming on our back porch. inside, it's a different story:

1) Last weekend, I took some African violet leaf cuttings that I brought home from California and started trying to grow baby plants from them. I'm really excited about this project. The leaves are tucked into moist vermiculite in clear plastic cups sitting in my kitchen window, where I can keep an eye on them. I have to admit, the plastic cups are starting to grow on me-- they make such cute recycled mini-terrariums.

2) Back in November, a local store had packages of hyacinth bulbs on the clearance rack for under a dollar. I made up some improvisational forcing vases from empty Maille dijon jars, filled them with enough water to keep the base of the bulbs moist without touching, then wedged the bulbs in the openings and stored them in the refrigerator for six weeks. They're now out in my front window, and the leaves are starting to fan out nicely. I love the scent of hyacinths! I can't wait until they bloom.

3) Here's the not-so-pleasant one: back at the beginning of November, I packed my dahlia tubers away for the winter using a new method. In the past, I've always packed them loosely with leftover seed-starting mix. It's always worked; toward the end of winter, the tubers start to look a bit shriveled and pick up a bit of mildew, but I've never lost a tuber to either dessication or rot. This year, I went the professionally-recommended route: bleach wash, dusting sulfur, moist vermiculite. The process took about three evenings, all told. And last week, I discovered that about half of my packages had developed a major problem with mold. So I spent an evening re-washing, re-bleaching, re-dusting, and re-packing. It was about a 66% loss, but luckily, I still have at least one salvageable tuber for each variety. I'm pretty sure the culprit was excess moisture combined with insufficient sulfur dusting.

4) On a happier note, my Territorial Seed order arrived last week. Territorial is a well-respected company, especially in the Pacific Northwest-- they offer high-quality seed, run their own trial grounds, and publish an incredibly informative catalog each year. So I've moved on to planning the layout of the vegetable garden for the coming season. Sowing season feels so close at hand!! but my sowing chart tells me otherwise. It'll be a month before I can start planting seeds-- until then, I have to content myself with indoor pursuits a while longer.

Somehow, though, I don't think I'll be bored waiting ;-)

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Cross-posted to Vox.

Winter sowing

Wintersown containers

No, I have not turned my garden into an outdoor bakery and rotisserie!

This photo comes to you courtesy of the Winter Sowing forum at GardenWeb. Winter sowing is a method of seed-starting that works particularly well for seeds that need a period of stratification to germinate. Stratification is tricky-- it usually involves soaking seeds and chilling them in the refrigerator to mimic prime germination conditions in the wild. That's part of the appeal of winter sowing-- it lets nature do (almost) all the tricky work.

I have to admit, though: to me, a larger part of the appeal is the frugality of the approach. You can go out of the way to buy special cold frames for your wintersown seeds, but a near-infinite variety of recycled containers with clear tops will do just as well. You can see that my collection includes two strawberry baskets, four bakery boxes, and four roast chicken take-out containers. I've also got a bunch of milk jugs and sprout containers in reserve, should any additional seeds *ahem* fall into my shopping cart.

I'm hoping that this experiment will work out-- if so, you can bet I'll be on a seed-buying rampage this fall, when seed sales hit. I can't believe I'm actually looking forward to the end of the growing season... chalk it up to another point for winter sowing!

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Cross-posted to Vox.