Start of a new Gardening Season 2015

Firebird Dahlia*

Started planting some vegetable and flower seeds yesterday.  It doesn't look much like spring outside. Almost all of our snow was melted but Old Man winter reminded us over the weekend that winter isn't over yet!  Dumped 2 more inches of snow on us, then even more on Monday. Looks like the temperatures are warming up now so it should start melting soon.  Was quite slushy today when I took the dog for a walk.

I had harvested a bunch of tomato seeds last fall, putting them on paper towelling, letting them dry for a couple of days, labelling them and then sticking them in zip lock bags. I had done the same type of collection method for my squashes and the English cucumber that we had grown in our greenhouse.

I potted 3 small pots of Early Girl tomatoes (3 seeds in each pot- about 9 plants), 2 pots of yellow Lemon Boys, (3 seeds each- 6 plants if they all grow), 2 pots of Patio Tomatoes, (with nice compact growth) about 6 seeds, 2 pots of Tumblers (6 seeds), one pot of New Zealand tomatoes (3 seeds) and 2 pots of Purple Russians, heirloom tomatoes.  The New Zealand tomatoes grow long thin leggy branches which require a lot of staking and the fruit is slow to develop, but they eventually get quite large and tasty tomatoes. The patio tomatoes are the opposite and are ideal for deck pots.

I also planted 2 pots of Spaghetti squash ( 6 seeds), 1 Butternut squash ( 3 seeds) and about 6 seeds of English cucumber.

Pink Lavatara*

Flowers: so far I have planted 2 small pots of pink lavatara, one medium pot of about 8- 10 cosmos and some snapdragons seeds which I brought in from  the dead stems left in the tub at the bottom of the deck steps.

Snapdragons and regal geraniums*

Regarding Snapdragon seeds, I learned the hard way that they need to have the cold winter weather in order for them to sprout at all. It's a process called scarification; the cold cracks the seed coats so they can germinate. Two years ago I brought snap seeds in the house in the fall, planted them in pots in the greenhouse,  and none of them sprouted!  I found a few seed pods on some of the dead stems in one  flower bed, which had been there all winter, shook some seeds out on the soil and planted some in a pot under 1/4 inch of dirt in the green house. Guess which ones sprouted?!
Yup! You guess it! Only the ones that I had sprinkled on top of the flower bed soil. Turns out that there arts some seeds that need light to germinate and snaps are like that! Babying them are a big mistake.
Calendula seeds are similar.

Red Thompson Dahlia*

My Dahlia tubers had sent out long white shoots, much like a potato would if kept in the dark long enough. I should have checked my dahlia tigers a few weeks ago as I had intended. (I was over wintering them in a rubbermaid bin in the laundry room/ furnace room. It is very warm in there and likely not the best conditions for over wintering a root. Maybe next fall I'll stash them in a container under the stairs which is a bit cooler.)  I cut back the eyes and just left a few thicker shorter ones on the tubers. I potted 2 of the big clumps in large pots, filling them with good potting soil and a bit of the peat moss they were sitting in.  One is my old standby, the red Dahlia which I have had since we lived in Thompson over 8 years ago. I have been growing that particular dahlia for about a dozen years now!

The other pot has a firebird dahlia in it which gets large orange and yellow flowers in August. That dahlia I have had for approximately 4 or 5 years now, digging it up each fall after the frost and over wintering the tubers, replanting them each spring.

The new small two tone pink and purple dahlia that I bought last year shows no sign of life, but I'm going to pot it and see what happens…. Also have one other big clump of Firebird dahlias tubers to pot.

The bright orange tuberous begonias that I dug out of my big yard tub and tried to over winter look a bit moldy, (maybe not enough peat moss); But I'm going to try and grow them anyway. I'll leave the tubers to dry for a couple more days and then try and plant them.  There doesn't seem to be much there, though.

Orange Begonias from last year*

I soaked some Morning glory seeds last night and they are ready to pot up as well.
I ran out of potting soil yesterday, but now remembered that diligent husband had bought a new bag of soil and left it on the deck.  Time to finish up my planting!

(* Photos are all from last season)

Goldfish Transfer/ Pond Clean Up Oct. 2014

October Goldfish Transfer/Pond Clean up

8 medium to large goldfish

October 10 we brought our goldfish into the house for the winter. We often have had to do this at the end of Sept. in past years because of cooler weather, but this fall we seem to be blessed with a boute of prolonged warm weather! 

I had set up the 30 gallon tank in the laundry room a few days before to get ready for the goldfish transfer. Our pond is very small and much too shallow to leave the fish out all winter as many people do. We drained the pond using a combination of the pond pump and the shop vac. :)  The shop vac worked fastest, but we used just the pump for the first while till we netted most of the goldfish.  We were afraid that if there were any little babies, they would get sucked up in the shop vac.

A lot of leaves had fallen into the pond and were stacked on the bottom in a wet layer. That’s where the goldfish were trying to hibernate. When the weather is chilly the fish are sluggish and easy to catch. (It was a warm sunny morning, about 12C, but the pond water itself was still quite cold.)  

The pond water was as dark as tea so we were 'fishing in the ark" so to speak , randomly running the nets through the water….We scooped out a lot of wetsoggy leaves, then had to poke around in them to find the tiniest little grey fish we have ever had!  🐟
We also rescued 5 big fish and 1 medium sized one. Not very many really, considering that we had put 24 fish into the pond last May to begin with!  But after 2 unfortunate pond disasters this summer, we were glad to get any goldfish!  There were 14 little babies altogether, but I think 2 got eaten during the rescue since we only ended up with 12.  😐

I had to set up the 2nd fish tank in the laundry room in a big hurry, a new home for the tiny babies. The water in that tank is cloudy right now, but I think it is under going “new tank” syndrome. I put a lot of Cycle in the water so it should help establish the bacteria level. After that the water should clear up.

The 7 big goldfish are in the bigger 30 gallon tank which is nice and clear.

March 25, 2015
All the goldfish survived the winter well. The teeny tiny babies have grown a lot and have all turned gold. They started out about the length of a nickel, but are 2 to 3 inches long now. There are 7 big fish and 1 medium sized in the larger tank; 12 small ones in the smaller tank.

12 small goldfish

In about 5 weeks we will get the pond ready for another season and put most of the goldfish out. I'll probably keep 6 of the small ones inside as "spares" in case we have any 'goldfish disasters' this summer.

Looking forward to a new gardening season! :)