I let my inner control freak NightMist out to play. Since my space is so limited, and I want a specific layout, I germinate the seeds indoors and plant them out when they are a few inches high. My sun faceing indoor windows will be packed with shelves full of peat pots and paper pots by mid April. The cats will fear my tread, should they happen to be within four feet of anything green, by mid-May.
We had a marten last year, so the squirrel situation may be less than it was last spring. My family of stoned chipmunks seems to have moved on. DH did go out and put cinnamon oil in their hidey hole under the siding when the juviniles were big enough to fend.
I know what you mean with bird feeders. My great grama would go out and transplant out plants that grew up under the birdfeeder in order to grow them big enough to find out what they were. She had several feeders and birdhouses and was always trying new exotic bird seed mixes.
My DH does the same... plant in "Pots" (out in our lil greenhouse.) We start a lot of our garden stuff this way, first in a smaller tray, then transplant to the larger styro cups, then into the garden. Actually, we use (recycle) the foam coffee cups from the local coffee shops which our DS's SO saves for us. {then, once we plant them, we rinse the dirt off and put them in the recycle bin).
Speaking of which -- the seed catalogs have started to arrive! Soooo many choices, so little room! Time to order seeds so we can start 'em in March/April. We can't set out anything but root crops before the end of May up here in Maine, but the earlier planting/transplanting keeps us busy till the snow melts and the ground thaws
Last year, one of the "critters" - aka groundhogs - actually dug up half of the plants ... trying to find the seeds, I guess. A groundhog is much easier to discourage than a doggone skunk! Before they built a condominium "village" nearby, we used to get raccoons and an occasional fox (besides the skunks).... don't miss those at all!
I don't use a lot of yellows or yellow toned colors. I am a totally 'gone' batik freak. I found this delicious yellow batik. With this lovely, I could use yellow in almost any quilt! VBG
Being lazy I just start right out in labled peat or paper pots. Two or three seeds to a pot and then thin as needed. Then I just plant the whole thing. Of course I do spend some time while watchng movies folding origami flower pots when I could be quilting. Over the years I have drifted to the point where I get most of my seeds from heirloom and specialty places, and I get almost 100% germination from some of them. So planting direct to pots works well for me. I am trying Himalayan blue poppies from seed this year though, and regardless of where you get them the germination on those is very low. So I may well use a tray for those. All the sunflowers are coming from Burpees or Gurney's this year though. I'll sprout those before putting them in medium.
Is it my imagnation or have both Gurney's and Henry Field's been going downhill the past several years? Live plants seem to be a bit sub-par, seed doesn't have quite the germination rate they used to, many mistakes in shipping (it is how I ended up with a free russian princess lobelia in addition to my rose of sharon), shipping is not timely, and they just send you a refund instead of telling you when things go out of stock. Overheard a guy down to the feed store rantng about that last. Seems he and his forbears have bought their seed corn from Gurney's for lo these many years. Then last year it didn't arrive. He called and they counseled patience. After a few more calls he ordered from Stokes and cancelled the order from Gurney's. When he called to cancel they told him his refund had already been credited to his card because the seed was out of stock. Now they have done that to me, in fact a couple of years ago they ended up giving me more in merchadise credit (you usually get bonus merchandise credit with your refund) than I had actually spent in the first place before all was said and done. But to do it to somebody buying enough seed to do acres of planting, that is an amazing act of idiocy. They were putting somebody's liveliehood at risk.
Hee hee! I have been getting catalogs since December!
The weather has been so wierd the last few years, I'm not sure when it is safe to plant. We had snow right up to the end of April last year. My daffs and such got buried more than once. It would warm up and get all spring-like, then it would snow. I didn't dare do more than work the ground, and plant things that would not last indoors, until after the first week in May. Row covers only help so much. As it was I found myself potting up 50 bareroot stawberry plants that I couldn't plant in the snow. I had to teach DD3 to fold pots since I had definitely not planned on having to do that. Didn't get everything in (and that with some blasted hard work!) until almost the end of May. Made me very glad I start seeds.
I am right in the middle of town and we still got that marten.
My mystery muncher from last year is still unidentified and presumed to still be at large. A dainty and picky eater that is definitely not human. It also does not leave tracks or do damage beyond what it eats. Not only has its identity remained a mystery to me, but also to the master gardners at the extension, the fellows at pest and varmint control at the state, and experienced gardeners in several other states. I am going to try planting pest and varmint repellent herbs throughout the garden, ring it with hot peppers, just go mad planting alliums, and increase my number of pest and varmint repellent ornamentals. I shall also be putting up windspinners, shiney things, blue balls and bottles, and shide (japanese charms made from paper, the folded zig zags, that are intended to prevent the entry of bad spirits). The only things I can think of that would eat just the leaves and blossoms off red tomatos while ignoring the black ones, eat just the top of a corn stalk, and eat one two foot long row of snow peas to the ground, all the while ignoreing strawberries, shrub cherries, the rest of the snow peas, and everything else including new asparagus, while doing no other damage and leaving no tracks, falls into the realm of the supernatural. So why take chances! (G)
I love yellows, and would like to use them more than I do. But most of the folks I make quilts for want purples, or blues, or greens. I read somewhere, years ago, that a fondness for the color yellow is an indication of a happy and stable personality. I wonder if that is true.
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