Wednesday, March 28, 2018

March garden plans

It is still winter here with a few inches of snow on the ground. It will be a full month before we see any signs of green shoots coming up. 

But, ever anxious to get a jump on the season, I have set up some mini greenhouses on the patio table. Following the directions for "winter sowing" from Kevin's blog, A Garden for the House, (http://www.agardenforthehouse.com/?s=winter+sowing), I have planted seeds for tomatoes, impatiens, and cosmos outside in plastic containers. What do I have to lose, except the cost of some seeds? And if they work, I will have lots of little plants to put out in containers or in the garden beds by the end of May.


I also started some seeds indoors in coconut coir pots. These containers have plastic lids so that you can create another greenhouse for them as they germinate. In these ones in the photo below, I have some cherry tomatoes, romaine lettuce, morning glories, and a few other annual flowers.


In these containers below, more flowers - this time nasturtiums both standard and climbing varieties, sunflowers and sweet peas. Some of these could wait and be planted directly into the soil or into containers come the end of May, but these might get going and then flowers will come sooner rather than later. I will also direct seed these into the garden (plenty of seeds left in the envelopes) once the days are warm enough.


And the local grocery store had these pretty campanulas for sale last week. I think these are campanula portenschlagiana but I am not really sure. The flower petals separate from one another, unlike most campanula whose flowers are bellshaped but the petals are not separate.
Whatever species these are, they are two beautiful shades of purple and will be transplanted into a garden bed later this season.