School Concert

Very nice job third graders. The theme was Songs from Around the World. This is "Scotland the Brave." I love kids' concerts, they are still little enough to be enthusiastic about it. Although now I have the irritating chorus of "The Happy Wanderer" stuck in my head, Val-deri,Val-dera,Val-dera-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Art Show and a Fairy House

Here are R's entries into Tuesday's Art Show at school. This is called "Little House with Bed and Couch." She left off half the roof so she could play with the furniture inside the house.
This is "Moonlight Howl." Media: Crayon on Paper. She asked Santa for a standing easel with a big roll of paper and acrylic paints and pastels, but she mostly likes to use crayons on typing paper and work at her desk. On Thursday she brought home this box of sand and sugar, left over from their Native American projects at school. This is not even her group's project. She said "The other kids said their moms were just going to throw it out, so I said I would take it home." Now I really can't throw it out, for a while anyway, because she built an elaborate fairy house in it after school. She is pointing to an ivy leaf umbrella over the patio. Next to that is the "vineyard" with dusty miller vines and grape muscari grapes. The rocks with the bark roof in the upper left are the "sleeping quarters." There is a little pool with a bark ladder and slide, and in the foreground is the garden, "planted with seeds."

Seedling Update

The upstairs seedling room has been through several iterations since my last post. A lot of the cold-hardy seedlings have been spending time outside hardening off.

Salad greens, pansies, Johnny jump-ups, leeks, sweet peas and stock flowers.
Some have been moved outside to the cold frame and hoop house that D built for me. I'm putting in more lasagna beds (no fun to put down the newspapers on a windy day, but we wanted to get it done).

Some of the wintersown seedlings in jugs are starting to come up. This is spinach.

Cleome and alyssym.

Stock.

The asters I planted in January.

Salad greens moved from the front window to the garden, and herbs moved in.

Newspaper pots in the upstairs seedling room.

Genovese, spicy globe and opal purple basil. The basil has really taken off in its heated beds.
 
Japanese eggplant just sprouting. The peppers and tomatoes are still waiting.

Gorgeous mesclun. Botanical Interests Valentine Mesclun, one of my favorites.

Although I promised I wouldn't, I started a little colony of seedlings in the basement.

Impatiens, phlox and rainbow coleus.

Old Friends

Old friends are the best friends. I am so lucky to have three of my best high school friends living close. Earlier this month, M and T came over for our second annual seed-trading lunch. I forgot to take pictures of the grownups, but these are M's kids. R was just getting over the flu and a really high fever--she looks a little the worse for wear.And then the next weekend, our high school friend S visited from New Mexico, and we got together at our house with T and our other high school friend J, this time for dinner.

R practiced her cursive on the place cards. A lot of embarrassing old stories were unearthed and repeated.

Lucky to be friends with these three for twenty-plus years.

Charlie had a lovely evening, he thought everyone came to see him.

Wintersowing

This year for the first time I am trying wintersowing, where you create mini-greenhouses out of recycled containers, sow them with cold-hardy plants like perennial flowers, and place them outside until spring.

My sweet friend Amanda is saving her filtered water jugs for me to use. You can use all kinds of containers, but gallon milk jugs are among the best. These giant water jugs are even better. You cut around the jug, about 3/4 of the way up, stopping at the back to make a hinged lid that can be lifted. Cut off the spigot and leave it open, so water can get in and evaporate out. I also made drain holes across the bottom, and a few venting holes on the side. Some wintersowing sites suggest you drill the holes or punch them out with an awl, but I found it to be easier--less likely to result in bloodletting for a clumsy person--to heat up a metal skewer in the flame of the gas stove, and use the hot metal point to poke holes.
Then you fill the bottom with moistened potting soil or seed starter mix (I used a combination of both, so it was light for germination but would nourish the seedlings as they grew,) and sow it with seeds. Most wintersowing sites suggest you close the halves of the jug with duct tape, but I found an idea I like better. You just poke a hole in the upper lid and one in the lower, and tie the them together with a twist tie, or I used garden twine. This keeps it closed in the wind, but allows a little venting on the sides. It also seems like it would be easier to check the seedlings this way. I like how the height of these containers will allow even tall seedlings to stay protected until it's time to plant them out.

Then you set the jug outside, and wait until spring. I put this jug next to a container of asters I started last week. If it's been very dry, you water the jugs through the top. This method is supposed to work especially well for plants that need a period of cold stratification, like some flowers that are perennial in Colorado. They can freeze and thaw in the soil to stratify, but there is heat and sun inside the jug and the seeds stay safe from birds until they have a chance to germinate and grow. They also don't travel around, like seeds in the open do when snow melts.

These are some of the flowers I'm planning to wintersow. I'm intrigued by this idea, of using the sun and snowmelt to grow some of your seedlings without the resources of lights and water indoors. I hope that at least some of them work. It would be a lot better than paying for flats of nursery flowers in the spring.

Let the Wild Rumpus Start

It's indoor planting time again. Last year was a very lazy year for the garden, and I'm hoping to get an early start to get back on track this year. Here are the flowers I've started under lights so far.

Bok choy, leeks and purple broccoli (I couldn't find the seed package for that). I also started little round Parisian carrots in a container just to entertain R. If they grow, we'll eat those before they can get planted out. I also started four kinds of basil.


Here are the greens I've started.

I have four windowboxes with greens in the sunny front window.

Magenta Swiss Chard.

Asian Greens Mesclun.

Part of our upstairs guest room Seedling Empire.

I even colonized a closet.
 
Impatiens finally germinated when I put them on a heat mat.
 
Tiny Johnny Jump-Up seedlings, just getting started.

Holiday Weekend Trail Walk

Overcast Sunday afternoon walk, through the messy muddy melting snow.

excerpt from "Year's End"

Now winter downs the dying of the year,   

And night is all a settlement of snow;

From the soft street the rooms of houses show   

A gathered light, a shapen atmosphere,   

Like frozen-over lakes whose ice is thin   

And still allows some stirring down within. 

                                         - Richard Wilbur