Trish's Trials

That's what gardening feels like. Trial and error. Or should I say that I learn new things every season, kill lots of plants, have successes and failures, and can't wait till December to start again. Reality has set in and there are no grand plans for next season except enjoy the plants, smell the flowers, fight with the squirrels, and enjoy life. I do plan to spend more time outdoors enjoying the garden in my own small yard. Ordering seeds and waiting for catalogues to arrive is my favorite time of year along with starting seeds. It's almost that time, but first let's enjoy Thanksgiving and Christmas.

The glow from golden leaves fill the yard and my bedroom with light and it's absolutely beautiful. So are the leaves on the Norway Maple out front.

I'll be spending some time tomorrow raking in between finishing the shopping for items on my Thanksgiving list. Bulb planting may have to wait till Thanksgiving weekend.

Trouble indoors already. Banished out the house for fungus gnats but they have to go back inside this weekend so I'll hopefully have blooms by Christmas and the temperature on the porch at night is too cold. The gnats were obviously in the house in other plants. In the past, growing amaryllis in soil has always resulted in gnats. The bulbs are the nicest, largest ones I've had and putting them in water was not an option. So, not an organic method but Raid House and Garden did the job and hopefully the residue will keep any future gnats away.

After my Bluestone Perennial order being delivered to a neighbor this summer, I said I'd never order from them again. The 50% bulb sale got me. They were delivered in record time, healthy with no mold and in good condition. I just have to plant them soon.

Not shown but also ordered were white wedgewood irises, Angelique tulips, and pink triumph tulips. I already had one bag of triumph tulips like the ones above but one set may be for forcing. Fall is the time for me to think of what vegetables seeds to start this winter. Root vegetables are my favorite including carrots, rutabagas, and beets  which I've never tried to start from seed.  

I've had most of these seeds for a while so I hope they germinate. From what  I've read about starting beet and carrot seeds  I believe they had to be thinned because more than one plant germinates from a seed and each plant needs room to grow. Let's see if I can be successful growing at least a few.

Hope I can get a harvest and they taste as good as the ones I had recently from the Reading Terminal. They were wonderful roasted.

I love beets but also look forward to the tops as greens.

I bought these seeds for this season but didn't use them. Starting some inside during the winter may be an option because I can eat them as baby greens.

Next season I've decided to be reasonable and grow tomatoes that may do better in containers and I won't have to deal with vines all over the place.

I loved freckles romaine lettuce and will sow some again for spring.

These seeds did well this season and I'll probably start seedlings again of lettuce and broccoli but not the tomatoes. Kale also did well and if there's room I'll try that again.

Didn't like the tomatoes and the Swiss chard although pretty did not thrive at all. I like the one's I usually buy from Bonnie Plants and they always do well. 

Seed mat's ready when it's time to start seeds.

The laugh for the day. These seeds have been sitting on the seed starting shelf waiting for me to start some herbs since the one's I bought have done horrible even under lights. So last Saturday I took my seeds upstairs and layed them on my bed. As I looked at them I thought I heard a buzzing sound. It wasn't my imagination. My cat heard it to. I grabbed the seeds off the bed and put them in a plastic ziplock bag and threw them  into the hallway on the floor. How did a bug get inside a packet and what bug was it? My cat was tearing up the bag because she heard the sound also. Scared of what might be inside, I grabbed it and ran down stairs and threw the plastic bag outside onto the cold floor. It was in the 30's that night and whatever was inside should be dead by morning. It's a week later and I haven't touched that bag, but my seeds are inside and I can't throw out all my seeds but I'm afraid to see what's inside. Isn't that awful. I can hear my mother's voice say, "you need to be ashamed." It would be wonderful if she were still here to inspect the seeds and take out whatever bug got inside an open packet. How can someone who loves plants be afraid of insects? I know it came from plants on the shelf that were taken in from outside. This is why I don't usually put houseplants outside in the summer because even if I'm careful and spray them before bringing them inside because something can always survive. I want to plant my herbs so I'm going to have to go through every packet. Think I'll take it to my nephew's house and let him go through them, lol!

My delphinium seeds were on the shelf also and the seeds below. I need to put them in the refrigerator for 5 weeks but...

Happy gardening.