Greenhouse Haven

August in the Garden

September 24, 2025

Overview

The late summer garden was very productive. I harvested tons of tomatoes, cut lots of flowers, and finally saw my first few cucumbers and summer squash.

The first cucumber finally arrived on the outside plant in early August, the greenhouse plants followed a couple weeks later. I lost several outdoor plants to the woodchuck, but this one survived by being right next to the rose bush.

Pumpkin fruit also finally made an appearance in August. The huge vines growing from the compost pile put out female flowers at last. By the end of the month there were three growing, and one was almost ready to harvest.

I’m still waiting on this massive jack-o-lantern to fully ripen, but it is getting close. It’s about a foot in length and is currently mostly orange. There are still a couple weeks til the frost, so I may give it all that time.

This was the year that tomato plants took over. I planted a nice selection, and then freebie plants kept popping up all over from my homemade compost. Most of them were cherry tomatoes, and I removed a few but let most of them just do their thing. I’ve now harvested over 40 pounds of tomatoes, and don’t want to process any more of them. I made many batches of pasta sauce and gave a bunch away to friends and family.

I struggled with several types of plants this year, but thankfully most of the flowers did really well. This new rose bush put out several very pretty flowers, and I’m excited to see how much larger and established it will be for next year. It was a clearance purchase at the end of last season and was only about 4 inches tall when I planted it. One stem put on over a foot of growth this year.

The new cut flower bed was a highlight of the season. I’ve cut over 100 dahlia flowers from just 7 plants. The bed is overflowing with marigolds, cosmos, and nasturtiums as well. I will need to re-think staking for next year as most of the dahlia’s ended up flopping over the edges and growing sideways. I didn’t know how tall and thick they would get. Dahlias are not winter hardy, so the tubers will not survive if left in the ground; they are not a bulb like tulips. I should be able to dig up and save a bunch of tubers to replant next year. I will do that after the frost kills off the plants, but before the ground freezes.

There were several days when I cut 10 or more flowers and had to get out a second vase to display them on the kitchen table.

The pepper plants were very slow to grow this season, even with daily watering from the sprinklers. I finally got a few small bell peppers in late August. I’ve been harvesting most of them green to try and get the plants to grow more.

The Chicago figs started ripening in August, but the Green Ischia are slower. I have harvested about a pound of Chicago so far. I’ve sold several of my propagated fig trees from last winter, which is good. I still have quite a few and I might keep them in the basement. I will mostly likely try to propagate whatever branches I cut off of the mature trees this fall, but it would be good to have a few established small trees as well.

Most of the squash plants were destroyed by the woodchuck, but one summer squash plant was spared. I harvested several small ones in August, and we enjoyed them grilled and steamed with meals.

The zinnia plants were small but put out some very pretty flowers. This variety is called candy cane, I direct sowed the seeds in late May. I also have solid orange, pink, and red flowers. They have been added to a few of the kitchen vases alongside the dahlias.

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Tomato Season Has Arrived!

August 8, 2025

Overview

Late July brought the first few ripe tomatoes from the garden. I’m harvesting a handful of cherry tomatoes each day and the larger tomatoes are starting to ripen as well. I’m growing Early Girl, San Marzano, Roma, Cherokee Purple, Jersey Breeze, Honeydrop, Bumble Bee Cherry, and Ruby Crush.

I’ve been cutting a bunch of dahlias each week to put in a vase on the kitchen table. I planted out a bunch of spare plants in the bed where the garlic had been, after extensively weeding and clearing out the grass that had taken over. I had about a dozen tomato plants, a handful of coleus and basil, and a couple of snapdragons. Trying to use all the gardening space I can, and get the last of the mature plants in the ground.

My new rose bush has produced several flowers, and has put on a good amount of new growth. Very happy with this purchase, it seems to be settling in to its spot in the corner near the fence.

I harvested my potatoes in 2 different batches in July. I had 5 total grow bags, of two different varieties. Keuka gold and Dark Red Norland. I harvested about 4 pounds of each variety, and we have been enjoying them, mostly steamed with butter and sour cream.

I actually managed to grow a few full-sized ones this year, which was a vast improvement over my only previous attempt a few years back.

Once the potatoes were harvested, I potted up the last few of my pepper plants into the now empty grow bags and moved them out of the greenhouse. These are a mix of bell and snacking peppers. The fig trees behind them are all coming along quite well and many of them are growing figs. As of right now, I have harvested 4 figs this season. Hoping for a bunch more in August and September as the fruit ripens.

The first ripe Chicago fig

The small corn patch is doing quite well, and I have spotted a good number of ears of corn forming. I harvested the first one last week. It had good pollination, even though it was small in size, and tasted quite good when steamed. This square was native soil (sand), and we only added a bit of compost to each planting hole back in May. Next year I will try to do better at fertilizing and adding nutrients to the soil, to hopefully get larger ears of corn. Overall, I’m happy with how this experiment worked out.

Unfortunately, the attempt at growing winter squash amongst the corn does not seem to have worked nearly as well as I had hoped. As of right now I’ve only spotted one small decorative Jack-be-little pumpkin.

The compost mystery squash (bottom) and purposefully planted pumpkins (top) are sprawling like crazy and putting out tons of leafy growth. There are also lots of freebie tomatoes growing out of the other side of the compost bin. I have seen lots of male squash flowers, but it is hard to see under the leaves to see if any actual squash is growing. The one female flower I spotted at the end of a vine did not appear to be pollinated. Guess it’s just not my year for squash!

A handful of small dahlia and zinnia flowers heading for the kitchen island.

The Kevin Floodlight dahlias have been the most productive of my varieties. They are also the largest, a dinnerplate variety. This vase also contains 2 Ivanetti (purple globe variety). I’m very happy I made a dedicated flower bed this year. The dahlias are growing alongside cosmos, nasturtiums, marigolds, and snapdragons.

I started some seeds for succession crops for the fall. I direct sowed some beet and carrot seeds in a few gaps around tomato plants in the raised beds. Indoors I have started broccoli, cabbage, and lettuce seeds. I plan to start spinach, arugula, and pea seeds this weekend.

I have been harvesting and dehydrating lots of herbs including basil, lemon balm, oregano, and sage. I planted out my small indigo seedlings in late June and they have been slowly growing. I am hopeful that I will be able to do a couple of leaf printing projects before the growing season ends.

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July Ups and Downs

July 14, 2025

Overview

My first ever Myrtle Brandy’s dahlia bloomed in early July! The flower is over 5 inches wide, and globe shaped.

I went camping the first week of July and when I came home the first thing I saw in the garden was a woodchuck eating one of my kale plants. So now in addition to voles, chipmunks, and rabbits, I’m also dealing with a woodchuck. He dug under the porch stairs and did a considerable amount of damage.

The woodchuck ate all the leaves off my zucchini and yellow squash plants.

It decimated the outdoor cucumbers as well, and the coneflower that were on either side. Thankfully I have a second batch of cucumbers in the greenhouse, so I should still get some harvests.

I first spotted the woodchuck as it was stripping a couple of kale plants of all their leaves. It also ate some of the chard leaves, but thankfully not the entire plant. It devoured all the lettuce plants in the same bed.

There has been plenty of good news amongst all the rodent troubles! Many of my tomato plants are currently covered in flowers and starting to produce fruit. There are some nice sized Early Girls and a few full sized clusters of cherry tomatoes in the greenhouse. I spotted the first slightly ripening cherry tomato in the greenhouse today!

The early girl tomato plants escaped their wire cages and are trying to sprawl all over the nearby plants.

The fig trees are doing much better this year than last season. Many of them are covered in figs, I counted more than 40 the other day. I harvested the first 2 right before I left for my camping trip, but will probably have to wait over a month for these ones to reach peak size and ripeness.

The mystery compost squash plant has grown very large and opened up it’s first male flower the first week of July. Hopefully it will begin setting fruit soon. It’s poking out of the bottom of the compost pile and sprawling across the lawn.

The greenhouse is very full. Tomatoes, cucumbers, peas, and nasturtiums are all climbing various trellises and shelves. There are a bunch of small fig trees, two of which are producing fruit. Lots of herbs, chard, kale, peppers, and flowers are all crammed in together. I also have a couple of trays of extra plants which I will most likely put out in the garden once the woodchuck problem has been dealt with. I still have kale, coleus, basil, and a few peppers that need to go in.

This is my first time ever attempting to grow corn, thankfully the groundhog hasn’t found this part of the yard. I have 22 corn plants and multiple types of winter squash all in the same space. The corn is over waist high right now, so it looks promising.

I plan to harvest the garlic and onions this week since they appear to be done growing. Most of the leaves on the garlic have died back and a few of the onions have flopped over. I just sowed some seeds inside for the fall. I have started lettuce, cabbage, and broccoli seeds so far. Might start more kale and arugula as well. When I clear the onions, I plan to direct sow a few beet seeds to fill in the empty spaces.

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June in the Garden

June 23, 2025

Overview

We have just passed the summer solstice, and the garden is finally looking full and green. Albany has had a fair amount of rain over the past month, and lots of cloudy weather. It has been warming up over the last couple of weeks, and the summer plants are showing signs of growth. Most of the seedlings are now planted, the garlic is almost ready to come out, and the cucumber and squash seedlings are looking good.

A single day’s harvest of lettuce

The star of the show for the spring has been lettuce. I’ve never managed to grow this many lettuce plants before, or to have them be so healthy. I’ve been harvesting just the outer leaves of the plants, and the romaine is now producing full sized leaves.

I direct sowed a couple of rows of a mesculin mix in the greenhouse in late April. This produced a variety of seedlings including romaine, butter crunch, oak leaf, and merlot lettuce. I have enjoyed the range of colors and shapes that have been growing. I did not thin them and just let them all grow close together. Then in late May I started transplanting them out of the greenhouse corner into other areas because I needed that spot for the cucumber plants.

About a dozen of the lettuce plants went into planters and the rest were scattered about the garden beds wherever I could find room. The cool spring has allowed them to remain growing longer than I expected. Once the summer heat hits, they will most likely all bolt and start to go to flower. The plants stop focusing on leaves at that point, and they also become bitter. I’m taking advantage now while I have abundant leaves, and am sharing the harvests, since it’s more than 2 people can eat. I plan to sow some more seeds for a fall crop in August.

I started harvesting the garlic scapes about 2 weeks ago from some of my plants. I have made 3 total harvests. Removing the scapes, which are actually the flower stalks, encourages the plant to focus it’s remaining energy into bulb production. This final month is when the garlic bulbs put on most of their growth and bulk up. I will probably harvest the garlic in mid-July.

I made my first batch of pesto, using mostly garlic scapes along with a few sprigs of basil off of my small plants. I ended up with 2 cups. I’ve been enjoying it as a dip for chips and on sandwiches.

The flowers in the garden have been starting to pop all over the garden. This is on my new, small peach rose bush.

My two small yarrow plants survived the winter and are starting to bloom now. It is a medicinal herb that I can harvest for use in a first aid salve. It’s also good for certain pollinators because it has lots of tiny flowers.

The petunias in my homemade coco-coir hanging baskets are now blooming. I have purple and white flowers. They have been growing in the greenhouse but are now large enough to be moved outside and actually hung up.

I have been harvesting and drying my first few bunches of flowers, including lavender and chamomile for tea. The marigolds and cosmos can be used for natural dye.

The main garden bed is full of all sorts of plants, in various stages of growth. Garlic and onions run down the middle along with multiple tomatoes, peppers, kale, broccoli, lettuce, herbs and flowers scattered throughout. Beans are starting to climb the trellis on the end.

The first of the Early Girl tomatoes are starting to grow, as are some cherry tomatoes. It’s almost tomato season.

The greenhouse is quite full at the moment, lots of plants in the ground and also in containers. There are a bunch of tomatoes near the bamboo trellis with lemon balm, sage, peppers, nasturtiums, lettuce, kale, marigolds, and rosemary interspersed throughout. My small potted fig trees are in the greenhouse, and a couple are even trying to produce figs. The far right corner has 5 cucumber plants and we need to put in the trellis before they get too much taller. The far left corner has snow peas.

Typical late spring harvest, lots of herbs have been hung up to dry, and there are a bunch of strawberries growing on their tower.

My new raised bed is absolutely brimming with the dahlia plants. There are 7 in the bed along with some nasturtiums, marigolds, and calendula along the edges. The smaller plants are honestly getting crowded out, but I’m leaving everything to see what makes it.

The first dahlia flower is about to open! Can’t wait to see it in full bloom.

I have harvested about 9.5 pounds of produce from the garden so far this season! And that’s been mostly lightweight leafy greens and herbs.

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Ready…Set…Plant!

June 1, 2025

Overview

The middle of May finally brought nice weather to upstate New York. It rained for the whole first week of the month, but there was a window of cloudy days in the 60/70 F range. During that time, I made huge strides for planting out my seedlings, hardening off the next round, and have direct sowed quite a few seeds as well.

Getting my seedlings some much needed sunshine during the hardening off process.

The large garden bed was looking pretty empty at the beginning of May, aside from some garlic and onions down the middle of the bed. Thankfully all 3 of my lavender plants in the bed survived the winter and were starting to put on new growth. Time to start filling it up!

My new Birdie’s raised bed has been planted. 7 overwintered dahlias as well as some nasturtiums, snapdragons and calendula. I also direct sowed some marigolds and cosmos along two of the edges, as well as one watermelon in a corner.

During a sunny day last week my dad tilled this section between our inner fence and the deck stairs. Once it was mostly weed-free I put down cardboard with a pile of garden soil and compost on top. This will hopefully turn into an explosion of squash plants in a couple months. I direct sowed summer squash, zucchini, and melons. We plan to add wood mulch to hold everything in place and slow down the weeds/grass from regrowing. I planted a couple of zinnias along the fence and there is one large strawberry plant in the corner which is growing 3 berries.

First couple of in-ground strawberries are sizing up!

The cold, wet spring has been bad for the summer plants, but it has been very good for the spring sown, cool crops. I’ve made several leafy green harvests like this and my peas in the greenhouse are starting to flower.

A bunny rabbit has proved to be a nuisance. It is currently small enough to fit through the chain link fence and has been eating some of my plants. It nibbled on 2 coneflower and one clump of chives. It completely ate 3 broccoli and 2 kale plants this past week. I have put covers on what I can, but soon the plants will be too tall. Hoping we can either catch the bunny or scare it away.

A few of the flowering perennials are starting to bloom including my first ever poppy flower! It’s huge and bright orange. The other two smaller poppy plants nearby are also working on flower buds, so hopefully there will be more soon, and perhaps in different colors. My rose bushes have leaves and are also working on flower buds.

I tried growing coreopsis from seed and got a few sprouts this spring indoors, but they are still tiny. I decided to purchase 2 small starter plants from work in order to get flowers this year. Coreopsis has small flowers and is a good dye plant, both for a dye pot and for hammering or steam transfer onto fabric. I plan to direct sow some of my seeds around the established plant to widen the patch.

Two of the three apple trees have several clusters of tiny fruit, the bees pollinated almost all of the flowers. In about a month, I will go through and thin out each cluster to one a single fruit. I will also probably cover the fruit with a mesh bag to try and protect them from pests. These are very young trees, but I am excited to get a couple of apples per tree come fall!

Here’s a before and after of my initial planting in the large in-ground garden bed. The second photo was taken about a week later. I cleared out a couple of flowering kale and mache plants and re-set the bed with new plants.

Peas, kale, peppers, broccoli, marigold, cabbage, radishes, basil, cosmos, and the first of the tomatoes. This section also has 3 small perennial lemon balm plants and a large lavender plant which is currently hidden behind the tomato.

Looking forward to getting more plants moved out in the coming weeks and hoping to see a lot of direct sown seedlings as well.

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Springtime

April 28, 2025

Overview

Spring is finally arriving here in upstate NY! We had a very long and windy winter but new life is finally emerging. The fruit trees are waking up and the daffodils bloomed just in time for Easter. The magnolia tree is currently in full bloom, and a couple of tulips are growing.

Magnolia tree

Daffodils

Many of my perennial herbs survived the winter. I have several patches of oregano, lemon balm, mint, sage, and thyme. Several of the comfrey plants are just starting to peek through the dead stems from last year. The blueberry bushes are starting to bud. All 3 of the black currants that I got for free in the fall survived the winter, as did the thornless black raspberry.

New flush of black current leaves

New growth visible on a couple of my rooted elderberry cuttings as well!

Two of the apple trees are breaking dormancy and putting out new leaves. The third one, which got damaged by caterpillars last year has a few buds swelling. It lost most of it’s leaves so I imagine it will be making slow progress this year, but at least it is showing signs of waking up. I was afraid it might die off, but that is happily not the case.

All three of the new pear trees are also just starting to wake up, I expect to see leaves soon.

I started to tidy up the fruit trees by removing the bubble wrap, tree guards, and burlap/leaf mulch. I plan to give them all some fertilizer, compost, and new straw mulch soon.

I had my first small harvest from the garden this week! I harvested sorrel, a perennial in the greenhouse, and overwintered outdoor kale.

The chives in the greenhouse are looking good and I’ve spotted a few coneflower sprouts along with lots of self-sown chamomile all across the raised beds.

Chives in the greenhouse

The leafy greens and radishes that I direct sowed a couple of weeks ago are now sprouting, as are the 2 types of peas. I planted out a few onion sets and have another batch nearly ready to go out in the ground.

Hoping the peas will climb the shelf in the corner of the greenhouse. I added a few sticks to encourage them to head in that direction.

I have started to harden off a few of my cold weather crops by placing them in the greenhouse. I will leave them out for incrementally more time each day for about a week to get them adjusted to normal growing conditions before transplanting near the end of April/early May. So far, I have a few kale, cabbage, chives, and broccoli seedlings.

I am also hardening off a few of the larger fig cuttings so that they can get more sunlight and hopefully start growing more.

Azalea blossoms

Last weekend I cleaned up the strawberry tower which had overwintered in the basement. A couple of plants died, but there were about a dozen small runners growing amongst the more mature plants. I carefully divided them out so that there was only one plant per pocket and I put most of the runners in their own pots so that they can grow on without competition.

Before and after shots of the strawberries. I added some homemade compost, granulated fertilizer, and fresh potting mix to level out the soil and hopefully provide enough nutrients for the season ahead.

These are an everbearing variety, so that means I should get a bunch of small harvests until frost, rather than one huge glut like June-bearing varieties. I was very happy with how the strawberries did last year, and am looking forward to growing more. I now have extra plants so I might make either another layer of the grow tower, or a couple of hanging baskets, depending on how many of them survive the dividing process.

I planted all my overwintered dahlia tubers in a variety of small pots and a couple of them are already sprouting. I don’t know how many will make it, but I had over 30 tubers, of 4 varieties. I will be planting some of them in my new raised bed which has hardware cloth on the bottom to keep out the voles.

We assembled the new Birdie’s metal raised bed a couple of weeks ago and figured out where I wanted it. We then filled the bottom half with logs, branches, and leaves.

My dad then added a layer of topsoil and compost from out huge leaf/debris pile out back. The final 6-8 inches will be filled with purchased manure and raised bed soil. I expect the level to drop a good bit over the coming year as the leaves and sticks start to break down, but then next spring we will be able to top it up with more compost.

I’m so happy that spring has arrived and that new life is visible on so many plants. Green leaves and fresh shoots are so nice to see after a long, dull winter!

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Willow Cuttings

April 17, 2025

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At the beginning of March I ordered willow cuttings from a farm in PA. They had a small stock of their own cuttings available for sale, and I decided to go for it. I ordered 10 cuttings, and they arrived a few days later in the mail. I enjoy weaving with willow and have attended two classes, and want to make more items with willow. However, classes and materials (willow) are expensive, and not locally offered. I’m going to try to grow my own this year.

The cuttings arrived quickly, and each cutting was about 1 foot long. I left them in the fridge overnight, while I rehydrated a brick of coco-coir to use as the base of my growing medium for the cuttings.

Once again, I used clear plastic containers to plant in, this time I used 6 inch pots, instead of the small cups. These cuttings were quite a bit thicker and longer than my fig cuttings, and I wanted to be able to plant a couple of the growth points to help with the rooting process.

I’m trying something different this time around. I dipped the top ends of the cuttings in wax before planting. This is supposed to help them better retain moisture and protect them from disease. Not sure yet if it will work, but I had wax, so I decided to give it a go. I did not dip these cuttings in rooting hormone like I did for the figs, willow naturally produce rooting hormone and are supposed to root quickly from cuttings.

My light and airy homemade potting mix, which I use for all my cuttings. Coco-coir, pine bark fines, and a small amount of perlite. It retains moisture but doesn’t get soggy. Once all the cuttings were planted, I put them in a tote on a heat mat to make a miniature greenhouse. They were in an area with minimal light, so I was hoping the plants would focus on root growth.

The cuttings were planted on March 12, and left in the tote with the lid just cracked for the first few days. I misted them with water once to make sure the top of the soil wasn’t drying out. In less than a week there was visible bud growth as they broke dormancy and started growing. I did spot tiny roots around the edge of a couple of the containers, so I think they are going to all make it and do just fine.

By early April they all had shoots of new growth and some roots were quite visible around the bottom of the clear cups. A couple of them actually started to wilt and go brown, I think this was because the initial growing mix did not contain many nutrients for these fast growing plants. I potted them up into 6 inch pots and gave them fresh potting mix with a bit of compost.

They are all now in the basement under grow lights and a few are putting out fresh, healthy shoots. I plan to keep them in pots on the back patio so as to not have them become invasive in the yard. Don’t know what kind of a harvest I will get from potted, first year willow, but I’m looking forward to the experiment.

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April Showers

April 7, 2025

Overview

Garden clean-up, potting on seedlings, and sowing more seeds

March was a cold, windy month. I carefully tended to the seedlings that I had growing and I sowed my tomato seeds towards the end of the month. In the past two weeks I have been slowly potting up my largest pepper plants and several of the fig cuttings. I did a second round of garden cleanup at the end of March and spread some of my homemade compost in the greenhouse.

The sorrel and chives are putting on lots of fresh growth due to the warmth in the greenhouse. The sad looking kale on the right actually had several new leaves coming off the base of the stem. I trimmed the upper part off, but should get a few baby leaves for salads in a couple weeks. After I spread the compost, I direct sowed some lettuce, spinach, and pea seeds in the greenhouse.

My garlic is looking pretty good for this time of year. The fresh shoots are pushing through the leaf mulch, and I will need to fertilize them soon so they can put on lots of bulb growth over the next few months.

I checked the fruit trees, and the Cortland apple is starting to bud up, so that is exciting. Our huge magnolia tree has a bunch of flower buds that are almost opening up. The crab-apple bush is covered in buds. The two clearance rose bushes that I got in the fall survived the winter, so that is exciting. I kept them covered by plastic domes all winter to give them a little extra snow protection and warmth on the sunny days.

I planted several small poppy plants in the fall, a couple in raised beds and a couple straight in the ground. This plant is in front of some daffodils at the end of the garlic bed next to a tree stump. I’m hoping the overlap of the daffodils and poppies will provide flowers for multiple months.

The daffodils at the back edge of the garden are filling in nicely, I expect to see flowers soon!

I have a few tulips along the side of the driveway, and I noticed some of the leaves had been munched on about a week ago. I expect it was a rabbit. I put mesh covers over them all and they have recovered and are growing new leaves. I don’t like the aesthetic of the covers, but since these are the only tulips I have and they are outside the fence, I will do what I can to protect them so I might actually get flowers.

Yesterday my dad and I flipped the current compost pile from one bin to another one. Now it will all sit and decompose over the next year. I should have nice compost to spread next spring. Slow composting is pretty hands free. We just throw all the grass, leaves, and garden clippings into a pile and leave it and we only turn it once a year. The top layer is the leaves and needles we raked up to set up the new bin. My sandy native soil needs all the nutrition and water retention that it can get from adding compost.

It might not look like much, but this is last year’s compost pile. Mostly broken down and certainly ready to be utilized in the garden. After I went back inside, I saw a couple robins scratching around in the bare ground/dirt that was left from flipping the pile. Hope they found some bugs.

I also spread a nice layer of last year’s compost on two of my raised beds yesterday. It’s mostly nice and crumbly, any really large twigs or stems I just tossed on the current pile. I weeded the two beds and removed most of last fall’s leaves which I had been using as a mulch. Took a few buckets worth of material and dumped it on the compost pile.

This is an overwintered kale which has grown several new leaves this spring already. I should be able to get a few small harvests off of it before it bolts and goes to seed in late May. Kale is a biennial plant, so it naturally will produce seeds in its second year. I may leave it to flower for the pollinators.

Indoors I’ve been keeping busy the last few weeks. All stages of indoor seed starting are ongoing, from freshly sown pea seeds to potting up one, two, and three-month-old seedlings. These two trays have kale, peppers, broccoli, coleus, figs, and hibiscus, as well as a recently purchased lemon verbena plant. Now the game of Tetris is in full swing as I try to fit as many plants as possible either under the grow lights or by the sliding back door so they can get the natural light.

So much potential for the garden: flower, tomato, pepper, leek, and basil seedlings.

I am really proud of how nice my kale seedlings look at this stage. They are big enough to go outside but I’m going to wait a couple more weeks, since my neighborhood got a dusting of snow this morning.

I am trying onion sets for the first time this year. I purchased both red and white last week and have planted a few inside to give them a head start before transplanting outside. I grew a few onions last year from seedlings, but they didn’t develop into large bulbs. I’m not sure if that was my error or the type of seedlings. Going to see if sets perform any better.

I’m also attempting to grow hibiscus from seed. I had 5 of 6 seeds sprout, and they are all growing their second set of true leaves now. Don’t know how big they will get this year, but it’s fun to try new things. I will keep them inside for a while before putting them out in the greenhouse. I do enjoy hibiscus tea which uses the flower calyxes for the sour flavor and pink color. With my short growing season, I had to get a big head start on the season, since they like tropical weather. I will put them in pots so that I can bring them inside in the fall because they are not frost tolerant.

Lots of pepper seedlings are now in 3- or 4-inch Epic seed cells. I should get a good variety of colors and sizes to harvest over the summer months. This shelf also has calendula, cabbage, and sage seedlings.

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Houseplant Propagation

March 24, 2025

houseplant

Another project I have been working on over the winter has been dividing, repotting, and taking cuttings from some of my houseplants. In December I purchased 2 Anthuriums and decided to divide them up because each contained multiple plants. I ended up with seven pots and I planted each in a half orchid/half indoor potting mix. Six of them survived the dividing process.

I have taken and successfully rooted cuttings from my Christmas cactus (pictured above), goldfish, and polka dot plants. I am also experimenting to see if I can air layer my peperomia succulents to get more plants. My two poinsettias are still alive, and the hot pink one is putting on a flush of new growth. The red variegated appears to be in a holding pattern for now, which is better than I have managed in the past.

My pink poinsettia started a lot of new dark red growth once the initial wave of blooms died back. I try to only water it once a week, and it gets natural light through the sliding glass door. It’s not under the grow lights, or getting any kind of special treatment. The other one is the centerpiece on the kitchen table.

Successfully rooted goldfish plant cuttings

I took a bunch of coleus cuttings in the fall before the frost killed the plants, and they rooted very well. I had them in small pots for a couple months and have now re-cut them to propagate again in cups of water. I want to refresh the roots and provide them with new potting mix in a couple months without needing to repot them again before they can be transplanted outside.

Coleus cuttings well rooted in water. I have now transplanted them to 3-inch seed cells to keep growing.

My variegated pothos is doing quite well and has run out of room along the shelf to grow, it’s trying to grow up the corner cabinet. Rather than risk it falling off and breaking the single vine, I have decided to cut it back and propagate it.

I took about a dozen single node cuttings the first week of Feb and most of them rooted in water over the past few weeks. I have now planted them in pots and hope to have a nice full hanging basket come summertime.

I’m also trying to reset some of my succulents by trying to root the leaves. Two were especially long and straggly looking, so I have cut them off and am hoping they will re-root from their stems.

My new split leaf monstera is putting out a new leaf, and I’m excited to see what it looks like once it unravels in a few days.

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Spring Cleaning in the Garden

March 15, 2025

Overview

On March 10, we had a very nice spring day so I took advantage to tidy up out in the garden and greenhouse. I removed dead plants, trimmed back the herbs, pruned the fruit trees slightly, and weeded in the greenhouse. I filled several buckets with material for the compost pile. I enjoyed being able to spend time outside without wearing a jacket since the greenhouse was about 80 degrees.

The greenhouse growing spaces needed a good clean up, lots of dead plants and weed. The actual walls and roof will probably need to be power washed this spring to clear off some algae and allow better sun exposure.

After I had cleared out the right hand side, I left a couple of kale plants along with the sage and parsley. The thyme plant was massively overgrown down near the end, so it got a significant trim. Chives are starting to regrow in the pot.

Fresh growth on the in-ground chives too.

The lefthand side of the greenhouse floor, which is under shelves, was full of weeds. Took a while to clear it out, I also had to trim back a messy oregano plant that had gone to seed last fall.

Much better! Will probably need another round of weeding before I plant anything, but at least this cut down on the weeds significantly.

I also checked on the garden and spotted a few garlic shoots coming through the mulch, two of the poppies I planted in the fall have fresh leaves, and a couple of the herb plants have tiny new shoots. I think the rose bushes survived. I removed some dead plants from the raised beds and pruned the lavender, sage, coreopsis, and lemon balm. I spotted some chamomile seedlings too. The apple and pear trees are looking good, still partially wrapped in bubble wrap and burlap. I pruned the tips off of the tallest two, to encourage them to put out more branches and fill in better. Spring is on the way.

I found a baby carrot among all the weeds in the greenhouse!

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