Butterflies!

Saw my first Tiger Swallowtail in the yard today! This is a picture from last year. I need to get a lantana or something to tide them over until more stuff starts blooming...

...And They're Off!

I started the tomato, tomatillo, ground cherry and some pepper seeds last weekend (President's Weekend). Some of the tomatoes are up! Black Cherry, Cowlick's Brandywine, Aunt Ruby's German Green, and Pruden's Purple have poked their little green heads out of the soil. I started everything in newspaper pots with seet starting soil- 9 rows of 5. I made a map of the tray and as they come up I'm moving the little pots (very gently!) into a 2nd tray and I'm starting a new map. The pots are fragile as they have absorbed some of the water and have kind of stuck together. The 2nd tray is put under a shop light. I have the timer set to go on at 7am and go off at 9:30pm. I might adjust the time, I can't remember how long I'm supposed to keep the light on. I also have a fan in the room, I haven't turned it on yet but I probably will before too long to keep the air moving in the room.

I think I'm going to start my Romanesco broccoli today. I tried it last year but just got leaves then it bolted. I'll try again. I think maybe last year I started it too late and it bolted in the heat before it could head. I have some old Organic Gardening magizines from the late 70's that give month by month tips on when to start seeds/garden chores. I'll check to see what I should be doing for February.

The picture above is one of my favorites from last year's garden. It's a new leaf from a lemon cucumber plant in my garden. I fiddled with the settings of the camera for about a week until I was able to get really good macro pictures. Each picture takes up a ton of space on the camera but the pictures come out really crisp and with a lot of detail.

Seed time

I ordered my seeds today. I feel that it's a bit late but it took me this long to get my act together. I have a lot of saved/leftover seeds but I still ordered over $50 worth-sheesh! They are getting more and more expensive! Victory Seeds has very reasonable prices and they have signed the sustainable seed pledge (which is cool). I also ordered from John Sheepers seeds (also signed the sustainable seed pledge)- more expensive but they have the wacky stuff I'm looking for. I also plan on starting my tomatoes and peppers this weekend.

The weather is absolutely horrendous. It was snowing so hard today I couldn't see the neighbors house across the street for over 2 hours. It's been snowing all day. If it clears up I'll make a dash to the store to get seed starting soil and run some other errands. It was -3'f yesterday morning. I think I *may* start seeing the light at the end of the long winter tunnel this week. It's supposed to warm up to the 40's for a day or two. It will be a good 2 months before it will be Spring-like but above freezing will be a nice change.

The picture above is from my trip to the Cornell Plantations back in August. Trycyrtis Formosana-Variegated Toad Lily

End of the Season

We've had some uncharictaristically warm weather the past few days/weeks. Frost at night and in the 50's and 60's during the day. We got to 64'F yesterday. I took the opportunity to move some things around. I planted some Crocosmia Lucifer (that I had in a pot all summer) in the front garden by the lavender. I'm hoping the lavender will survive the winter- I started it from seed (wintersown) and it did really well- smells awesome! I moved Hippolyte (rose) from a weird spot in a corner of the fence to behind the mailbox. I hope it makes it. I kind of accidentally butchered it with the spade while I was digging it up. I put a raspberry bush where Hippolyte used to be. I have another raspberry bush in a pot -it's starting to rain so it might have to stay in the pot.

I dug up the dahlia's and the oriental lillies last weekend and let them dry out over the week. I dug up the lillies because the moles or other rodents like to eat them all in the winter and I can't get them to come up year after year. I cut the stalks off and knocked off the dirt, wrapped them in damp paper towels and put them in a damp burlap bag in the veg drawer of the fridge. I hope it works. I had a gorgeous pale, pale pink lily this year that I'd like to have again next year (see pic). I knocked off the excess dirt on my dahlias and put them in paper bags with pearlite- watered them all down and put them in a cardboard box and put them in the basement. I didn't divide them because I couldn't find any eyes. I'll wait until spring and hope I see some- if they survive. I'm kind of flying blind.

I did end up getting late blight on my tomatoes but not until late, late in the season. Like October, so I'm not complaining. I have the last of the tomatoes in the kitchen. They should be finishing up this week. The ones with the blight are rotting as they ripen so I'm pitching a lot of them out. I pulled up all of the tomato plants and put them in black trashbags- going in the dumpster.

Last weekend I finally got around to planting chard, kale, spinach and lettuce in pots on the deck. I have no idea if it will work. My aunt says they grow lettuce year round (in Zone 5) but I think she does it on her covered porch. I think I can jury rig some kind of clear plastic cover over the pots on the deck if it starts to look promising.

Some notes for next year: Either start the summer squash late (ie: end of June) or start a 2nd planting at the end of June in an attempt to foil the SVB. They got me again this year. I heard there are SVB resistant types but I love cocozelle. I don't see the point in planting zucchini if you can't get the kind you want. Every other gardener has zucchini coming out their ears, I don't know why I don't! I might also try clipping the blossoms off until after July 4, I've read that the SVB moth(?) hones in on the yellow.

I'm not doing eggplant again. I tried them in containers this year. I got a few tiny ones but it's really not worth the effort. I'm also not doing winter squash. Takes up too much space. I do plan on doing more tomatillo plants. I did 2 this year. I'm thinking a minimum of 6 next year. Tomatillos seem to be determinate so they came all at once, I put them in the freezer and had good luck using them frozen. I just didn't have enough to last me past October!

The butterfly feeder is going up again. That was very successful even though I started it so late in the season. I'm also focusing on butterfly host and feeder plants in the front garden next season. I started some butterfly bushes from cuttings this year so I'll plunk those out there either this fall or in the spring (over winter them in the sunroom).

I need more blues/ purples and less pinks in the flower bed on the southside. It was so pink this year I found it hard to look at. It was pretty ugly! I planted a balloon flower over there, I saved some seeds so I'll try to get some more of that. It seems to be a pretty good foil for the pinks.

Less tomatoes next year! As far as the small tomatoes go. I'll stick with Black Cherry, Matt's Wild Cherry and either Coyote or Champagne Cherry. For a GWR I'm going with Aunt Ruby's German Green. Pruden's Purple and Black from Tula are coming back. I think I'll give Black Krim a rest. Absinthe is going to have to go, it was prolific but they didn't seem to ripen very well, they'd go bad almost immediately. I'll probably do Dr Wyche's Yellow, Goose Creek, Berkeley Tie Die and KBX again. I need to really pare it down this year. I did can some but the main problem was the lack of really good tomato growing space. A lot of varieties didn't get a fair shot. I'd like to give Indian Stripe and JD's Special C-Tex a better spot.

The SWC experiment went really well. I plan on making at least 2 more next year. The worm experiment is going well too. I moved the worms into the garage this week. I set container #2 on top of container #1 (full of poop) about a month ago and the worms are starting to migrate up looking for food. I'll have to monitor the temps in the garage and will have to move them into the basement if it gets too cold. My Ruth Stout experiment went really well. It was less work putting the garden in in the Spring and the plants seemed happy this year, I need to put something on the paths next year, that's where the weeds came up. Maybe mulch or something. I didn't shred the leaves I put on the garden this year. Let's see if that works. If it doesn't I'm screwed because there's a lot of leaves out there!The compost tea experiment went really well. For the most part the plants seemed very healthy and prolific this year.

I did have a problem with cucumber beetles for the first time this year. I'm on the fence about planting cucumbers again next year- I ended up with a powdery mildew problem. If I do plant cucumbers I'll go with the lemon cukes- cute and taste great! No more Armenian cucumbers- I've tried and failed 3 years in a row.

As usual I need to keep up better with my mulching and weeding. I definitely need to get mulch for the front beds near the house. They looked BAD this year. I got a lot of compliments on the mailbox garden and a few requests to enlarge it. I'm going to try to convince the better half to move my lilac bushes to a spot along the driveway then maybe I can extend the mailbox bed eastward toward the house to encorporate the lilacs and then add some more plants on the south side.

I took pictures of the beds this year and made notes of where to move things and what to dig up. I need some kind of plan and need to stick to it. Some of the beds look a little schitzo. So that will be #1 goal for next year: Garden design like a sane person.

Goal #2: More butterflies. I have butterfly garden seeds in the fridge from monarch watch, I need to study up on what's native and what I need to plant to attract them and keep them hanging around. It's tough when the neighbors use pesticides.

Goal #3: Visit more professional gardens next year: The Plantations at Cornell, Sonnenberg Gardens, ect. Less time puttering and more constructive use of time.

Goal #4 for next year: Try to mae a cloning machine (ala 7th street cottage). This isn't a major goal but it sounds like a cool thing to try if I can do it cheaply.

A good day and a bad day for butterflies

I have been reading up lately on Butterfly Feeders. There are tons of recipes out there on the web- concoctions of fruit, beer and yeast. I was on Garden Web (butterfly forum)yesterday and someone posted a picture of a plate with rotting fruit and a ton of butterflies. I figured I'd give it a shot. It works! 36 hours after putting out a frozen banana (the brown slug looking thing in the picture) and a few plums that are past their prime I was visted by a Red Admiral- Woo Hoo!

On a sad note- I went out to the back 40 today to see what the dogs were barking at (I never found out) on my way back I peeked in the back square of the veg garden and saw a Spicebush Swallowtail hanging out on the ground near my volunteer Nicotania. I ran back to the house and got my camera and got some good pictures of it before it realized I was there and it crawled under some leaves. We left for a few hours and came back and I checked just to see if it was still there. It was but it hadn't moved. So I went into the garden to see if it would move when I got close. Nope. I got a stick and wiggled some of the leaves above it. Nothing. I think it died :( I'm totally bummed.

I was also visited this week by a White Admiral (who had seen better days) and a Silver Spotted Skipper as well as the Monarch and Tiger Swallowtail and a couple of Hummingbirds. If I could figure out how to post more than one photo per post I'd add some pictures.

On another happy note: No sight of the dreaded late blight. I checked the late blight map a few weeks ago and it showd that a house in my neighborhood was reporting spores. I walked past the house- no garden, no pots of tomatoes. Just an overgrown bed with a badly pruned lilac. I wonder where they get their info.

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaagggggggggggghhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/article/20100807/NEWS01/8070314/Late-blight-threatens-local-tomatoes--potatoes&referrer=NEWSFRONTCAROUSEL

$#&@%!

I love winter sowing but I don't love mislabled seeds! What I thought was catmint...definitely not catmint...maybe annual blue salvia. An annual, not a perennial, deep green foliage not fuzzy gray-green foliage. What was supposed to be forget me nots is possibly false forget me nots (Siberian Bugloss). They bloom in the summer, not the spring. 2 ft tall not 6 inches. The creeping thyme that I planted between the pavers of the slate patio was mostly weed seeds and a little bit of herbaceous upright thyme. It was the seeds that were mislabled not an error on my part. I didn't even know what Siberian Bugloss was until today. I certainly didn't buy seeds for it. I always thought that blue salvia was the perennial I have in the back garden. I'll have to make note of where I got these seeds so I don't get any more from the same source. Sad thing is I know they came from 3 different places. The Siberian bugloss came from one of the big box stores (impulse buy), the thyme came from a "cheap" seed source (duh!) I guess I got what I paid for. I don't remember where the blue annual salvia came from. I have it written down somewhere.

So the front garden is looking a little schitzo. I have a gaping hole where the zucchini was. I had to rip out the buttercup squash today too. It seems to be rooted in several places so I cut it off and inspected for SVB and left the part that looks semi-promising. It's getting all wilty right now in the scorching sun. I pulled out the bachelor buttons. They were all dried out and brown. I don't know if it was the heat or if they got peed on by dogs. I'm sad about the bachelor buttons. They were really pretty. I hit some garden sales this week. I stopped at Squire Gardens on the way back from Syracuse one day. $6 perennials. I got 3- a balloon flower for the too pink south bed (it's a nice bright blue), catmint (since the stuff from seed didn't work out), and a yellow coreopsis. They don't take plastic which is a bummer and it's a little crazy out back but if you know what you are looking for and how to recognize it there are some good deals to be had. I should have picked up a $10 buddleia to fill in the gaping zucchini hole. I figured there would be similar prices around here. Wrong.

At Lucas Greenhouse today for $10 (total)I got- a burgundy scabiosa (for $1!), An ornamental grass, Kangaroo Paw (tender perennial will try to carry through the winter indoors), and a Rex Begonia (for inside the house). I looked for a butterfly bush but they did't have any. They had some other nice things and their prices are great. I'm pretty sure they grow all their own stuff or it's locally grown -bonus!

Finally I went to Wayside. Very nice, big place but a little expensive and commercial, their plants look really healthy though. I did get a good deal on some coleus a few weeks back and I got a new plant stand for $20 (50% off). I was looking for a butterfly bush (still) and a Joe Pye Weed (none at Lucas and Squire was sold out or I couldn't find it). Well I found the butterfly bushes- $30 each! They were in (I think) 3 gal containers- so they were good sized plants but geeeze! That's a lot of cash! Needless to say I passed them up. I found some Joe Pye Weed they had a lot of that "Little Joe" it's like a mini or something. Some of the flowers looked pink, some white. I hope end up liking it. I wanted the bigger kind with the purply veined stalks and the pinky-mauve flowers but I haven't had a lot of luck finding it this year. The prices ranged from $9-$13 depending upon the pot size. I got the $10 one - not a great deal but I was tired of looking.