Field Notes: Week 15

April 12-16

We finally opened up the Airport Heights Elementary School greenhouse. After a couple of weeks delay due to below zero nighttime temps, we fired it up!

I am blessed to be able to use this space and am excited to say that I’m assisting in their annual plant sale this year.

Stay posted as I will be helping them sell Garden Kits this year - full of a collection of popular and simple to grow veggie, herb, and flower starts.

Me in the greenhouse after moving plants from my home seed starting set-up (lights and shelves). Look at those freaking dahlias!!!

It happens every year… I am officially behind on planting!

Here’s what I was SUPPOSED to plant this week:

Scabiosa: fire king & black knight

Coreopsis hybrida: Incredible! Tall Mix

Cynoglossum: Firmament OP

Dill: Bouquet

Gomphrena: QIS Orange & QIS carmine

Grass: Ruby Silk

Grass: Highlander

Kale: Elegance

Nasturtium: Trailing Mix & Phoenix & Purple Emperor

Marigold: Giant Orange

Poppy: shirley

Saponaria: pink beauty

Zinnia: queen lime orange & queen lime with blush & Zowie Yellow Flame

Statice: QIS apricot & Rosysed

Here’s what I actually did plant:

Ranunculus: ALL my saved corms. Happy to say I saved around 200 corms from 2020.

Anemone: ALL

Oh well - you know what I’ll be doing tonight! Catching up on planting.

Last but not least: the kids and I started a planter garden on the front porch. Each planter is filled with a different salad green: arugula, spinach, lettuce mix, swiss chard, and baby kale.

We sprinkle the seeds on top of the soil - pretty close as we want lots of small baby greens. Then press down gently and water in. Then we’ll keep the seeds lightly watered until they germinate.

I’m so excited every year to do this as I get to plant a good 2-3 weeks before I can really get in my garden beds. And by that time we’ll be harvesting salad every night!

Once the salad greens are done I’ll move a few dahlias and tomatoes into those planters. This, dear friends, is a great method if you’re tight on space!

Field Notes: Week 13

We celebrated my mom’s 70th birthday this past weekend! Along with another dump of snow and low temperatures, winter is persisting. Here’s what I seeded this week:

Amaranthus: coral fountain & Emerald tassels

Ammobium: winged everlasting

Bupleurum

Celosia: Chief Mix OP

Cerinthe: Kiwi Blue

Cosmos: double click snow puff & double click bicolor violet

Heliopsis (P): Burning Hearts

HIbiscus: Mahogany Splendor

Rudbeckia: prairie sun & Cherokee sunset

Ruby Silk

Eucalyptus: lemon bush

Broccoli: belstar & blue wind

Field Notes: Week 12

Here’s what I seeded this week:

Stock - Iron Rose, Iron Apricot and Iron Yellow (I only grow the Iron varieties nowadays)

Dusty Miller - New Look (I love this stuff but it’s finicky in the vase. We’ll see how much I actually use)

Ammi - Dara

Atriplex - Copper and Red

Frosted Explosion (an amazing ornamental grass)

Statice - Blue, White, Apricot, Rosyred (new color!!)

Artemesia - Sweet Annie

Tomatoes - Sungold (my absolute favorite), Edox, Sakura, White Cherry, Chocolate Pear

Dahlias - planted the remainder of my dahlia tubers to equal 150 plants. Have some tubers left over. But my house is full.

Just about ready to transplant plants from a couple of weeks ago!

Came home from a weekend in Talkeetna to find an entire tray of seedlings all dried out!! NOOOO! Luckily they perked right up.

Half my dahlias are up and under the lights!

Field Notes: Week 11

March 15-21

Here’s what I seeded this week:

• Achillea-Cloth of Gold (40). Love this name. Also ordered Cassis, but there was a crop failure.

• Asclepias-Wild Orange Type (20), Snowy Milkweed (20)

• Gomphrena-QIS Orange (40)

• Echinacea-Bravado (20), Green Twister (20)

• Eryngium-White Glitter (40)

• Solidago-Golden Baby (20).

  Rudbeckia-Green Wizard (20), Cappuccino (20), Denver Daisy (20), Triloba (20)

A few dahlias are starting to sprout: Thomas Edison, Ben Huston, Cafe au Lait. So glad I’m not heating a greenhouse yet! It’s been cold (negative last night) and we got over a foot of snow in the last week.

Thomas Edison dahlia is the first to sprout! Once they sprout, put them under lights and start to water them regularly.