Spring sprung without me

Hello!

I know I haven't been around much but a series of events have lead me to neglect my gardening blog. First I'd like to thank everyone who has commented since I last made an update. I'd also like to sincerely thank everyone who has expressed concern over my well-being and has made an attempt to contact me through e-mail. I'll try to respond to each e-mail personally but if I don't get around to it I just want you to know that I've seen the e-mail and appreciate sentiment behind it and I'm doing good.

I'm not dead just dormant.

For a while I wasn't able to access my blog and e-mail account because I couldn't remember the password and then my computer just kind stopped working. Without being able to take pictures, edit them and upload 'em to this gardening blog my heart wasn't in it. Then I had a puppy for a while and dealing with the puppy became too much...

The "C" word that isn't composting.

The biggest reason that I've been away is because my mother has been battling a brain tumor for the past 13 months. About 9 months ago my mother had surgery to remove a tumor from the left side of her brain. I haven't really talked about it much with people in real life and made no mention of it on this blog mostly because after the surgery things looked great for her.

After the tumor was removed she recovered quickly and was up and it looked like she had beaten it and life was going to return to normal for everyone. Then things sorta got bad in January- worse than they had been before or after the surgery. Over the past few months she started to slur her words, forget names and lose mobility on the right side of her body. It was a clear sign that the tumor had returned and the radiation treatment hadn't had the desired effect.

Last year when the tulips bloomed I cut a few and put them in a vase for her and when I presented them to her she admitted to standing out in the garden earlier and wanting to take some but thinking twice of it because I would be upset. This April I cut lots of them, still feeling a bit of guilt over keeping the blooms mostly for myself last year, and brought them in. There was a clump of pink tulips that I begged to fight the warm temperatures (so I could cut them for Mother's Day) that thankfully seemed to understand their purpose. They were beautiful, large and looked better than all the store bought flowers I saw that day, if I do say so myself.

She's now entering her second week of chemotherapy and surprising me with the inner strength and dignity she's exhibited throughout this whole battle. She can't say much but sometimes a smile comes over her or she raises her eyebrows at the sight of a flower I show her. I feel a lot of guilt over neglecting my indoor plants while helping with my mother- not for the plants because they can be replace- but because she always appreciates a nice plant or bloom no matter how strange my plant is.

California dreaming.

I was born in California but raised in Chicago from an early age and still have a lot of family there. Some family members have made the trek to Chicago to take advantage of our warming temperatures and spend time here since it isn't blistering cold. Unfortunately they've brought their California gardening practices with them and their opinions. I've already got a "gardening coach" of my own, thank you very much! Plant after plant has fallen victim to my over-watering grandmother. You'd think someone who supposedly has such bad arthritis that she can't cook or scrub a pan would have trouble pouring glasses of water daily on my cacti & succulents but nooooooooo.

I have an uncle who took it upon himself to help me in the garden by dividing my black iris clump-at the end of February. Fortunately the rhizomes have survived and oddly enough seem to be thriving and each one is sending up a flower stalk. The dividing of plants and the weeding has done minimal damage but caused me a few near heart attacks when I saw him out in the garden with a shovel. It's funny how dandelions seem to escape his grasp when he's weeding but perennials and seedlings that I'm purposefully growing seem to get the brunt of the garden trowel.

Promises, promises.

Now that I've made the connection between the therapeutic quality of plants and flowers and my mother's daily battle I'm bound to be more interested in actually gardening and taking photos out in the garden again. I'll try to update more often- I've even got a few new pictures I'd like to share so I should be around more.

Enough about me.

Feel free to let me know what's going on in your world if you come across this and share what's new in your garden or gardening blog. I haven't keep up with the garden blog world the past four months and I feel like a kid in a new school. Links are welcomed.

Again, thanks for the e-mails and I'm sorry I couldn't respond sooner.

MrBrownThumb

Homemade Seed Pots

Most gardeners have already been scouring seed catalogs for a few weeks and in the coming weeks and months gardeners will buy seeds from seed racks at garden centers. Every gardener has their preferred method of seed starting and what seed pots they use. Frugal gardeners have know for a long time that many items around the house can be converted into homemade seed pots. Everyday household items can be made into seed pots as long as they can hold soil and have some drainage. I did a post on making seed pots from rolling a sheet of newspaper, you can start seeds in a plastic sandwich bag or make a seed starter from a soda bottle. If you aren't familiar with those cheap ways of starting seeds take a moment to read those links and add that seed starting information to your gardening arsenal.

Peat pellets and peat pots have a long history of being used as seed pots especially among organic gardeners. But peat isn't the most environmentally friendly product and many suppliers like GrowOrganic.com are providing coco (made from coconuts) coir seed pellets as an environmentally friendly and sustainable alternative. I'll provide a cheaper tip below.

Eggshells are a classic homemade seed pot. Empty eggshells that have been rinsed out and carefully broken to hold a few spoonfuls of potting soil or seed starting mix make interesting seed pots. Remember to clean out the eggshell seed pot by rinsing it and setting it aside to dry. It would be a good idea to poke a small drainage hole at the base of the eggshell so your soil or seed mix doesn't become waterlogged. If you buy your eggs in a cardboard carton you can also use the carton as a seed pot or simply use it as a way to prop up your eggshell seed pots so they don't tip over or roll around. Once your seeds have sprouted and they're ready to be planted in the garden you can plant your eggshell seed pot in the ground; you can give the young roots and seedling a little help by crushing the eggshell seed pot.


Instead of discarding the cardboard toilet paper rolls you can easily turn them into homemade seed pots by filling them with soil or seed starting mix. Like the eggshell seed pot the cardboard roll seed pot is an environmentally friendly seed pot that you can plant directly in the garden once the growing season begins in your area. If you still have the empty cardboard rolls that held your wrapping paper in place they can also be used to create seed pots. I kind of prefer the wrapping paper cardboard seed pot because it is more durable and doesn't become soft so soon. With these seed pots there is no need to create a drainage hole since both sides of the cardboard tube are open. Keep your paper tube seed pots a minimum of three inches in length so when the seed sprouts there will be plenty of soil for the roots to grow into. If you cut your tubes too short you may find it hard to keep your seed pots moist and your seedlings growing.

Yogurt cups, Styrofoam cups, butter/cream cheese tubs and takeout containers also make good homemade seed pots. Just remember to poke holes in the bottom of the container and choose durable plastics that can last as seed pots for a couple of years.

I personally use a general houseplant potting mix to start all of my seeds but others may use a specific seed starting soil mix. The one thing I've learned after a few years of growing from seeds is to prep the soil mix I'm using with a little bit of perlite and to moisten the soil mix before using it. If you enlarge the eggshell seed pot image above you may notice that the soil mix is dark. That's because I moistened it before spooning it into the eggshell and cardboard roll seed pots. Lightly wetting the soil mix for my seeds makes it easier to handle so I waste less and can water easier than if the mix was dry.

The peat pellets tip I mentioned.

Both peat and coco fiber seed starting pellets are good products with their advantages but their drawback to me is price. The seed starting page for Burpee has 48 peat pellets selling for under nine dollars and the coco coir pellets can start at fifteen cents per seed pellet. While good products with their pros and cons I'd rather spend the money on buying seeds. If you visit your local pet supply store you can buy a brick of coco coir for few dollars. The Coco fibers is sold as reptile bedding and is even used by terrarium builders as a soil. If you buy a large brick and stuff either the cardboard roll or the eggshell seed pods with the moistened fiber it is basically the same thing as a peat or coco coir pellet, except it will cost you less.

If you're curious the seeds in the examples above are some Amaryllis seeds I'm currently sowing.