Gardening Adventures
May. 4th, 2010 08:11 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
bluesgardenField trip day! For this post anyway. If you count pictures. Work with me here. Right, so this is kind of a 'My Day in Pictures', only not nearly as tedious as such a thing would actually be if I attempted it (the completist/perfectionist in me would have a neurotic field day). Mostly it's two greenhouses, a garden center, my greenhouse, and a couple of stray beagles.
The greenhouse at some ungodly hour of the morning (which I count as any time before 11am) because D and the two hellions woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep like I usually do. D - annoying morning person that he is - brought the camera out intending to inflict it upon me, but I hadn't even had coffee yet. (D: "You look kinda grumpy." Blue: *snarls*) As you can see, it's kinda full out there.
Pepper seedlings!
The Tomato Jungle, Revisited
The table for the problem children.
Back inside, the pumpkins are making a break for the garden. Personally, I was just making a break for the bed, but I didn't manage to get back to sleep. I did manage food and coffee, though, so that was a drastic improvement. I have vague plans of planting tomorrow and I finished my fertilizer last night, so I decided to make a run to Perrysburg in this awesome weather we're having.
My first stop was Black Diamond Greenhouse. This was my main destination and, while I was there, I picked up fertilizer for the tomatoes and the rest of the garden, perlite, copper fungicide to have on hand, rubber hose washers, and garden gypsum. The fertilizers and gypsum were available in smaller bags (5lb), but the larger bags were more cost effective (5lb gypsum was $4.99 and 38lb gypsum was $8.93, while the fertilizers were more like 5lb for $7.99 or 20lb for $15.99). If I have some leftover this summer, there's always next year. Or I may have to go buy more in a couple of months, I have no idea at this point.
Anyone need any tomatoes?
These would be perfectly fine for planting out.
The pepper seedlings look a bit weak, though. I'd be a bit afraid they'd snap, although they're otherwise healthy.
I'd picked up some mint, but hadn't gone far when a lady, also holding mint, asked me if I grew herbs? I said yes, and we compared notes on the way the mint smelled. I'd noticed it was a bit odd, but thought it was my imagination. She'd had the same impression though, and we concluded that the distributor had been less than careful in their isolation and perhaps wintergreen and spearmint had cross-bred. It wasn't pure spearmint for certain, and we both ended up putting them back.
Last year I'd gotten my orange mint from The Anderson's, and it wasn't far away (I'd been thinking of going anyway), so I decided to try them for a better quality spearmint.
I made my way a bit further north, across the river, to The Anderson's. As you might guess from the picture (if you know what you're looking at), the company began life as a grain elevator. It's now a diverse agribusiness, part of which is a retail store located across the street from it's primary grain elevator location. What you see above is a small fraction of the complex.
My destination was considerably more pedestrian - the garden center attached to the store. (The yellow banner at the edge is part of the construction they're doing on the area between the garden center and the main building.)
They had some nice looking peppers.
Sturdier stems on these ones.
(Blue's Subconscious: "Would you stop looking at other tomato plants?! YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED HERE LAST YEAR, OMG."
Blue: "The Black Krim turned out awesome though!"
Blue's Subconscious: *has conniption fit*)
The important thing to note is that I'm not the only one with flopsy tomato plants.
Anyway, I got my mint - which smelled like actual spearmint - and headed for the checkout. Always a wait on a nice day, but at least it's good scenery!
On the way home, I stopped at the bookstore I was passing - one of the Books-a-Million chain - and found that they had no books of interest to me in either canning (unless I planned on living on jams and jellies all winter) or gardening. Piffle. By the time I left there, I was getting hungry and ready to be home, so that was the direction I headed. I almost made it, too! Then, at Sugar Ridge Road, I turned right instead of going straight. Whoops.
Apparently, the car wanted to go to Wolf's Greenhouse.
There was nothing especially exciting considering I'd already bought the two plants I needed, but it was a nice stop. It probably would've been nicer if I hadn't been sweating from hunger, but my brain had shorted out from all the plant fumes by this point.
Back home, I ate (foodohthankgod), changed clothes, collared up the kids, and headed outside to unload the trunk.
D is working on the mowing. Yes, this is part of our 'yard'. Has anyone seen River?
As I got things out of the trunk, Jack and River had to inspect the merchandise.
The final result of my trip:
1 bag of perlite (for covering up the carrot seeds)
12 4 inch Jiffy peat pots for the melons, as the experiment continues
1 bottle of concentrated copper fungicide
1 bag of rubber hose washers
2 spearmint plants
38lbs garden gypsum
20lbs Plant-tone
20lbs Tomato-tone
After putting things away, I watered the plants in the greenhouse (they're going through water like you wouldn't believe - they're really outgrowing their pots but it's almost time to put them in the ground so they can hold on a few days, right?) and then vegged for a while. Later on, the pups and I made another trip outside, I topped up the plants in the greenhouse with water again, then there were BUNNIES (yes, plural) and the usual shenanigans.
Now I'm feeling surprisingly pink as I apparently got more sun than I realized between the greenhouses and the open garden centers, not to mention picking up more rocks out of the garden yesterday. Not burnt at all, just toasty. Did I mention my new bypass clippers? This would be the one tool I use constantly in the garden and I've been wanting a better pair. D picked these up at a yard sale, sharpened them, and brought them home to me. I might get to try them out tomorrow, although there's not much to trim until it's time to plant the tomatoes.
So yes, that's the better part of my day so far. Tomorrow (Wednesday) has only a 30% of thunderstorms, Thursday should be mostly sunny, Friday has a 60% chance of thunderstorms (potentially damaging to fragile plants), Saturday starts a run of sunny/cloudy/not-raining-so-I-don't-care weather but has a forecasted low of 33°F (1°C) that night (i.e. FROST). Hrm. I think the potatoes and other assorted things can go out tomorrow or Thursday, but the tomatoes will have to wait until Sunday.
The greenhouse at some ungodly hour of the morning (which I count as any time before 11am) because D and the two hellions woke me up and I couldn't get back to sleep like I usually do. D - annoying morning person that he is - brought the camera out intending to inflict it upon me, but I hadn't even had coffee yet. (D: "You look kinda grumpy." Blue: *snarls*) As you can see, it's kinda full out there.
Pepper seedlings!
The Tomato Jungle, Revisited
The table for the problem children.
Back inside, the pumpkins are making a break for the garden. Personally, I was just making a break for the bed, but I didn't manage to get back to sleep. I did manage food and coffee, though, so that was a drastic improvement. I have vague plans of planting tomorrow and I finished my fertilizer last night, so I decided to make a run to Perrysburg in this awesome weather we're having.
My first stop was Black Diamond Greenhouse. This was my main destination and, while I was there, I picked up fertilizer for the tomatoes and the rest of the garden, perlite, copper fungicide to have on hand, rubber hose washers, and garden gypsum. The fertilizers and gypsum were available in smaller bags (5lb), but the larger bags were more cost effective (5lb gypsum was $4.99 and 38lb gypsum was $8.93, while the fertilizers were more like 5lb for $7.99 or 20lb for $15.99). If I have some leftover this summer, there's always next year. Or I may have to go buy more in a couple of months, I have no idea at this point.
Anyone need any tomatoes?
These would be perfectly fine for planting out.
The pepper seedlings look a bit weak, though. I'd be a bit afraid they'd snap, although they're otherwise healthy.
I'd picked up some mint, but hadn't gone far when a lady, also holding mint, asked me if I grew herbs? I said yes, and we compared notes on the way the mint smelled. I'd noticed it was a bit odd, but thought it was my imagination. She'd had the same impression though, and we concluded that the distributor had been less than careful in their isolation and perhaps wintergreen and spearmint had cross-bred. It wasn't pure spearmint for certain, and we both ended up putting them back.
Last year I'd gotten my orange mint from The Anderson's, and it wasn't far away (I'd been thinking of going anyway), so I decided to try them for a better quality spearmint.
I made my way a bit further north, across the river, to The Anderson's. As you might guess from the picture (if you know what you're looking at), the company began life as a grain elevator. It's now a diverse agribusiness, part of which is a retail store located across the street from it's primary grain elevator location. What you see above is a small fraction of the complex.
My destination was considerably more pedestrian - the garden center attached to the store. (The yellow banner at the edge is part of the construction they're doing on the area between the garden center and the main building.)
They had some nice looking peppers.
Sturdier stems on these ones.
(Blue's Subconscious: "Would you stop looking at other tomato plants?! YOU KNOW WHAT HAPPENED HERE LAST YEAR, OMG."
Blue: "The Black Krim turned out awesome though!"
Blue's Subconscious: *has conniption fit*)
The important thing to note is that I'm not the only one with flopsy tomato plants.
Anyway, I got my mint - which smelled like actual spearmint - and headed for the checkout. Always a wait on a nice day, but at least it's good scenery!
On the way home, I stopped at the bookstore I was passing - one of the Books-a-Million chain - and found that they had no books of interest to me in either canning (unless I planned on living on jams and jellies all winter) or gardening. Piffle. By the time I left there, I was getting hungry and ready to be home, so that was the direction I headed. I almost made it, too! Then, at Sugar Ridge Road, I turned right instead of going straight. Whoops.
Apparently, the car wanted to go to Wolf's Greenhouse.
There was nothing especially exciting considering I'd already bought the two plants I needed, but it was a nice stop. It probably would've been nicer if I hadn't been sweating from hunger, but my brain had shorted out from all the plant fumes by this point.
Back home, I ate (foodohthankgod), changed clothes, collared up the kids, and headed outside to unload the trunk.
D is working on the mowing. Yes, this is part of our 'yard'. Has anyone seen River?
As I got things out of the trunk, Jack and River had to inspect the merchandise.
The final result of my trip:
1 bag of perlite (for covering up the carrot seeds)
12 4 inch Jiffy peat pots for the melons, as the experiment continues
1 bottle of concentrated copper fungicide
1 bag of rubber hose washers
2 spearmint plants
38lbs garden gypsum
20lbs Plant-tone
20lbs Tomato-tone
After putting things away, I watered the plants in the greenhouse (they're going through water like you wouldn't believe - they're really outgrowing their pots but it's almost time to put them in the ground so they can hold on a few days, right?) and then vegged for a while. Later on, the pups and I made another trip outside, I topped up the plants in the greenhouse with water again, then there were BUNNIES (yes, plural) and the usual shenanigans.
Now I'm feeling surprisingly pink as I apparently got more sun than I realized between the greenhouses and the open garden centers, not to mention picking up more rocks out of the garden yesterday. Not burnt at all, just toasty. Did I mention my new bypass clippers? This would be the one tool I use constantly in the garden and I've been wanting a better pair. D picked these up at a yard sale, sharpened them, and brought them home to me. I might get to try them out tomorrow, although there's not much to trim until it's time to plant the tomatoes.
So yes, that's the better part of my day so far. Tomorrow (Wednesday) has only a 30% of thunderstorms, Thursday should be mostly sunny, Friday has a 60% chance of thunderstorms (potentially damaging to fragile plants), Saturday starts a run of sunny/cloudy/not-raining-so-I-don't-care weather but has a forecasted low of 33°F (1°C) that night (i.e. FROST). Hrm. I think the potatoes and other assorted things can go out tomorrow or Thursday, but the tomatoes will have to wait until Sunday.
