Garden Journal

Overcast and drizzly today, which is just perfect weather for transplanting, esp. since we’re going to have a few days of this coming. That’ll do a lot to ease transplant shock for these perennials. Great time to transplant, especially since it doesn’t look like we’re going to get any overnight frosts in the next ten […]

Looks like some seedlings are ready to move out to the greenhouse. (Photo 1 — peppers and tomatoes.) Oops — too many seedlings germinated in these containers (photo 2). I’m going to try to divide them, gently pulling them apart at the roots, into 2-4 separate containers. Most seedlings can take a little bit of

Pruned the forsythia a few days ago. When I first put it in, the landscaper commented that it was a ‘weedy’ shrub. I’m not sure what he meant by that — maybe that it had a somewhat messy habit, maybe that it might sprout additional forsythia babies? But my garden isn’t very neat — I

• I’m not sure what that first little purple bulb is, but it’s cute • I tried hiring some local teens to plant bulbs for me last fall, and they didn’t know anything about gardening, so when they dug a trench for bulbs, they dug it really narrow, and I should’ve made them widen it,

I was a little worried that I’d killed my seedlings by forgetting to water for a few days — having them down in the basement means that when I get busy with work, it’s easy for me to forget. But I went down Sunday, found them sad and withering, hurriedly gave them lots of water

In general, I’m trying to resist the urge to do a ton of garden work right now, because as we know, it’s best to leave the leaf litter and mulch undisturbed until nighttime temps are consistently above 50F, since there are a lot of pollinators overwintering in there. Polinators surviving now = more flowers later.

So, I may have impulsively bought a pop-up greenhouse when they were on sale last year, and it’s sitting in my basement waiting to be assembled, and I’m realizing I have no idea when one is supposed to start using such a thing. Locals, do y’all have yours in use already? Are you moving seedlings

Happiness is seeing the seedling racks filling up. Although also a slight anxiety, as you wonder if you’re actually going to have room for all the seeds you ambitiously bought in the dead of winter. They were so seductive… Question: Some of my pepper seedlings have two seedlings in a pot. I should pinch down

Okay, so I may have wandered around my house and clipped bits off random plants and then stuck them in water in my new propagation station (thanks, Etsy! what would I do for pandemic impulse purchasing without you?). I have no idea which of these can actually be propagated this way, so I guess we’ll

Today I trimmed the fiddle leaf fig. It’s been making me sad for months, when I happen to glance at it, because it had all these crispy brown edges to it. I think that happened in the first week or so after I got it, when it wasn’t getting enough light — then I managed