While it’s so goddawful hot outside, I’m thinking ahead to fall plants and next year’s spring crops. I have to pull out my fall planting guide that I received at the WDC Gardener Magazine Seed Swap this past January. I’m sure I should have started a bunch of stuff already… I also have to think about what I’m going to start next spring. Now I have a cold frame, so I can start things even earlier. Who knows, I might even get organized enough to do some Winter Sowing.
I just ordered coconut pellets for the next batch of plant starts. No more peat pellets if I can possibly help it. Peat pellets have been the most reliable method of seed starting for me, but the environmental toll that harvesting peat causes, negates the benefit of my growing food for myself. Coconut fiber is supposedly more sustainable (until someone tells me otherwise) which makes me feel better about using these pellets.
In the meantime, I’ll be sitting in the house, enjoying the A/C, and looking at pictures of what is outside:
I was at it again this weekend. Walking back to work from lunch at the DC Waterfront, I happened across some Gladiolus stuffed in a trash can. If I were a normal person, I would have kept walking. Being me, I felt the need to check to see what was going on. Somehow I knew they weren’t just cut flowers, and I was rewarded with at least 10 beautiful peach colored Gladiolus with bulbs attached.
My enabling co-worker helped me out by finding a garbage bag at work so I could carry them home. When I got back to my desk, I cut the stems down to about a foot tall, and put them back in the bag under my desk. Then I went to the bathroom and disinfected my hands and the scissors.
Just another day in the life of this crazy plant girl.
My first homegrown radish ever!
I really need to take time to enjoy our garden more. I’d forgotten that my Blackberry Lily was blooming until I was reading Garden Muse and saw Cindy’s pictures. I get so caught up in watering and deadheading flowers that I forget to just walk around and enjoy everything.
So of course, I grabbed the iPhone and snapped some pics.
Note to self: Enjoy the fruits of your labor and don’t forget to walk around the house at least once a day.
…or donate a boatload of seedlings.
If you’ve been reading my blog recently, you’ll remember the eleventy thousand billion tomato seedlings. I’d given meanlouise a bunch last month, but they keep growing and I’m still swimming in seedlings.
I’ve gotten to the point where I don’t feel guilty weeding out the smaller ones, but it’s been frustrating to have all of these great plants and know that these plants could be useful to someone else as well. But how to get them to people that would like them?
Last weekend I stopped by the Arlington Public Library’s Central Branch to pick up a book that Fairfax County didn’t have (I LOVE reciprocal library lending!). As I walked to the door, I passed by the Library’s garden, and I thought to myself that it would be great to find a way to donate some plants to the garden. As it turns out, the garden was planted to benefit the Arlington Food Assistance Center (AFAC). When I contacted AFAC later that week, I found out that they would be willing to accept plant seedlings as donations.
Today I brought 45 seedlings to AFAC. They’ll be sent home with families in need of healthy food. Even if not every one of the seedlings goes to a new home, I can feel good that some families will have real food that the’ve grown themselves.
It’s been hot here in the metro DC area. UGLY hot. The last couple of days have been cooler and less horrendous, but the damage has been done. The ‘Spitfire’ Nasturtiums look like I passed them over with a blow torch. I can’t even bear to take a picture. They’re alive and appear hearty enough to survive, but it’s probably going to be a while before they recover.
We’re supposed to hit 98° on Sunday. 99° on Tuesday, and high 90s all week. I hope I won’t be writing an epitaph for the Nasties in a couple of weeks.
I’m growing Nasturtium “Spitfire” for the GROW project. Thanks, to Renee’s Garden for the seeds.
