Open For Business

Things are hopping here.  We are open for business, the customers are pleased with our products.  Here are some glimpses of our offerings:  Above is a "Mosaic" geranium.  I think it is a sport off an orange geranium.  Every blossom is different in patterning.  Some have whole little flowerets that are all orange, some are blotchy.  One plant even has one flower in the mosaic pattern while another is solid orange.

A Sunset Shades Begonia.  There is a variety of coloration in this series.  All are basically yellow.  Some have orange picoteés, some rose, some are peachy-blushed.

Our tomato benches with lettuce in the foreground.

Purple Baron Millet

So I've  come this far, and Blogger isn't letting me upload any more pictures.  Will try again tomorrow.

Things are Hopping at the Greenhouse

The Martha Washington Geraniums are coming into bloom. There are still 2 colors not open, but here are the early starters.

The Purple Baron Millet will look great in mixed pots

The Papyrus reminds me of Cleopatra and the Nile.

We're about half finished the 600+/- hanging baskets.  It's hard to believe that in just 6 short weeks they will be full of blossoms cascading down the sides of the pots all the way to the bottom.

The young tumbler tomatoes--they already have tiny blossoms. 

This perky orange is just one of seven colors of osteospermum that we raise.




Tiny Snow Crystals Alyssums in their plug trays.

We'll be eating berries soon from the Seascape Day Neutral Strawberry plants.

Newly-transplanted tomatoes. We plant over 30 different varieties.  These are in 5 1/2 inch pots.  They will be about 12" tall by the latter part of May, and some of the earlier varieties will have blossoms already.

Last, but not least, newly-seeded onions and cabbages (including Kale, Cauliflower and Kohlrabi.  The white material in the first few flats is vermiculite.  We make our mix a bit gritty since onions do not like to be waterlogged.







Till next time.  Must go catch a few ZZZ's.  More work tomorrow.  Catch up with my crafting and our "wonderful" Alberta weather on my other blog here.  By the way, if anyone can tell my why the text gets all messed up, I'd appreciate the suggestions.  Should I be doing all the typing first and then inserting the images later? 

Another Busy Day in the Greenhouse

On Friday, I went to a wholesale greenhouse to pick up another shipment of young plants.  Below are some grasses:  There is Carex Red Rooster (a grass that stays a rusty brown), Stipa Ponytails, and Juncus Curly Wurly.  Also the plants for the Picasso Petunia.

And more grasses.  Pennisetum "Fireworks" in the Centre, as well as many others, including Papyrus.

Colorful:  Almost black Ipomea (Sweet Potato Vine--Blackie), and Lime Green Ipomea (Sweet Potato Vine--Marguerite), also a beautiful fuchsia colored grass-like plant called Rhoea.

The million bells (Calibrachoa)  are filling out nicely--transplanted on Tuesday.

The begonias are happy in their large pots.  They look mouldy, but they aren't--just a silvery light reflection that the camera picked up.

Just a few more of the plants to be transplanted tomorrow:  Chrysanthmums, Million Bells, Osteospermum, Bacopa, Verbena, Lotus Vine, Vinca Vine, Bidens......

Tonight we set the clock ahead, so early to bed, to get at the rest of the transplants.  Monday, March 15, is the heaviest seeding date of the whole season.  It'll be a pleasure to see the little plants in a few weeks.

Our old grand-dog, Tundra, a German shepherd, whom our son, Kubota Man Jr. retired to the farm, has a knack of always being under my feet in the greenhouse.  We're learning to work around each other.  This has made me aware of how observant our own dogs are--when they hear my footsteps, they look where I will be walking, and walk beside, not in front of, me.  Tundra will learn, too.

Gardening hints: 
1.  Always freeze your cucurbit (cucumber, pumpkin, zucchini, melons, etc) type seeds over night before planting.  You will have excellent germination and the sprouts will be much more vigorous.  We have tested this ourselves.
2.  Tomatoes like to be transplanted deeper than they were growing before--they will root all along the buried stems.  BUT Peppers need to be transplanted at the same soil line as before.  They do not like to be planted deeper.

What Were You Doing During the Olympics?

Greenhouse Work starts on or about Feb. 15 at our house.  We're a small, Mom&Pop operation, with only 2 pairs of hands, and no hired help.  We operate about 6000 square feet of greenhouses under plastic, and perennials, vegetables, and trees and shrubs outside (later in the season).  This is where it all began:These benches had been cleaned after the greenhouse season last year.  These weeds grew throughout the summer and went to seed, and I didn't set foot in the greenhouse till last week.  These weeds are all amaranth (red-root pigweed) and wild buckwheat, so I carefully gathered most of the seeds, and fed them to the sheep.  They were happy little sheep.

These are our cabinets for the labels and tags.  I had these all mostly cleaned up and sorted last summer, but our Indomitable Greenhouse Guards (see next picture) had a chasing game with the dogs (who are able to jump onto the benches) and several cabinets fell over, and then the critters played a slip-and -slide game on the spilled tags, so I had to sort them all again. 

The indomitable Greenhouse Guards!

Everything is tidy, ready to set up.  Notice the bags of special growing medium that we use.  No soil in this mix.  It is a professional mix that we have trucked in from Northern Alberta.

Many years ago, we built the benches of plywood.  It has buckled and shifted from the weight and the moisture, and has had many a hole drilled to drain off pools of water.  Now, to even the surface, we use webbed flats upside-down to hold our trays, these allow air circulation and drainage. 

All set to go!

Some plants have arrived.  In the back the little Dracaena (spikes) are visible.  In the foreground are the young Martha Washington Geraniums--all 256 of them.   Arrived Friday afternoon at 2:00, all transplanted by 3:30--Kubota Man had the pots all filled and ready.

Here are two of the little plants:

And here's more work of nimble fingers:  The first cuttings made from stock plants which I wintered in the house:  spider plants, cuban oregano, stinky plant (a plectranthus that smells like skunk and is reputed to keep cats away), creeping rosemary, chocolate mint, a pink scaevola, and Alternanthera Royal Tapestry.

Kelsae Onion Seeds--they are treated with a blue fungicide so the seedlings don't dampen off.  Each pack has 3 rows with 20+ seeds, counted and placed by hand.

Many flats of seeded onions. 

Pepper seeds--each one in its own cell-406 cells per tray.  All neatly hand-placed.

And some of the fruits of the last 2 weeks' labor:

Baby Pansies

Tiny herbs

Little Tumbler tomatoes--one of these plants will fill a 12" hanging basket and have red tomatoes by May 24th.

This evening I also wrote a 750+word article on Pruning Fruit Trees, for the local paper.

Now I'll go upstairs to work on the Angel Christmas Tree Skirt (see my other blog), then early to bed-- there are petunias and lobelias and marigolds waiting to be seeded tomorrow.  Later this week Iwill pick up all our zonal geranium cuttings, then another day this week, our perennial roots and bare-root strawberries are scheduled to arrive from British Columbia. 

Countdown to Greenhouse Time

Tomorrow I'm going into the greenhouse for the first time since fall.   I've spent the evening revising my planting sheets, each of which consists of one week's projected seeding plans.  I have my seeds sorted in Zip-Loc bags according to the planting dates.  By the end of the week the greenhouse will look something like this.  We raise the flats buy putting them on upside-down webbed flats, so air can circulate, so there is less likelihood of fungi and algae.

The flats of filled pots are ready and waiting on the far bench. The seed flats go into a heated chamber (except for those seeds that need cooler conditions.)

This is the middle-sized one of our 3 greenhouses.  We start in this one. Then, as we need more space, we heat the next larger one, then finally the third one.  DH turned on the heat on Saturday. Now watch the gas bills soar.

My other blog will update you on what other activities I have to try to complete before the greenhouse work starts in earnest.                                                                                                                                           

So Long for Now

Here is a last glimpse of summer 2009.











I was never very good at keeping up the garden blog. Maybe it's because I wasn't good at keeping up the garden--so many other things came up this year. And everyone else's gardens were so beautiful, I was feeling sort of like the ugly duckling. And I never did get in the habit of carrying my camera with me to capture bits of beauty even amid the thorns.
So, since I don't do much with houseplants, I will take a hiatus from this blog until late winter, when we start making plans and working in the greenhouse.

My youngest daughter just became engaged, and is contemplating having her wedding here at the farm (she also has the gift of seeing the potential in my gardens). So, with family help, the huge satellite dish will disappear, and my ugly beds will likely be cleaned up, and I will have to make a lot of pots for the wedding (probably Labor Day Weekend). Then I will likely resume this site. I will still be following the garden blogs, and surfing for new ones over the winter.

In the meantime, you can follow my other blog if you like. And do pop in here once in a while in case I do have an idea or two.
Happy Thanksgiving.

Daylilies--Better Late than Never

I think daylilies are among my favorite flowers. They usually start in July and bloom for the rest of the summer. The varieties of colors and markings is endless. Since many of my picture labels lost resolution, I will label those that I remember. Actually, it's not letting me insert text by the pictures. Everything gets all mixed up. And I can't make the big gaps disappear. The preview showed everything OK. Maybe next time.

Check out my other blog for garden bounty.




























































































































































It seems I'm not as committed to the garden blog as I am to the other blog. right now it seems as all there are is weeds, and I don't want to share these anymore. I'm glad I found the daylilies. I'll have to practice Linda's philosophy and carry the camera with me, and learn to really see the beautiful things out there.