Just finished seed order!!!

Wow, kind of a $ splurge tonight. I decided to go wholly with Johnny's Seeds this year for all my new vegetable & flower seeds. First I went through my seed stockpile armed with a seed viability chart, and got rid of a few packets based on age. Then I have 3 or 4 other packets (parsley, nicotiana [had that since '02 and not once planted it!]) that I'm going to do a germination test on versus automatically reordering. I think I've only done a germination test once before. I'll wet some paper towels, then spread several seeds out on the towels, then roll up the paper towels and put in a plastic bag. The test in our house will be keeping it in a warm place as is recommended. Depending on how many seeds germinate, I'll either use the seeds or toss them in the compost pile. My seed-starting reference book recommends waiting a maximum of three weeks for most seed varieties to germinate.
My purchase tonight includes green beans, broccoli, cabbage, carrots, parsnips, peppers, tomatillos, kohlrabi, beets, chard, lettuce mixes, melon (haven't grown these before), cucumbers, sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos, and joe pye weed (very iffy here).
I went a little crazy with ordering sunflowers - they're such enthusiastic plants, and the birds & bees love them so!
What Fun!

Sandhill cranes & companions out & about

Sandhill cranes (see image), Canada geese, various ducks, and red-winged blackbirds were in abundance, both visually and vocally, this evening on my dog walk. The ice on Home Lake is beginning to show puddles of water on top. With a high today of 52 degrees (F), it really felt like spring! Pretty difficult not to think of gardening, planting seeds, etc. right now. But ground is way too wet. Will have to settle for looking through the seed catalogs instead. Our yard still has snow cover on about 50% or less of its area. I actually did some pruning yesterday on some crabapples and a mountain ash.

Green Cone composting unit

In yesterday's post I mentioned a Green Cone composter. I bought my first one (left image) more than 15 years ago when we were living in a rental duplex, because the landlord wasn't enthused about me having a stand-alone, open compost pile out in the common yard. The Green Cone (also known as a Solar Digester) seemed like a perfect solution.

The part of the composter that holds the composting materials is actually underground. The photo to the left shows the laundry basket-like black section - this is the part that is put in the ground, and the green part attaches to it, above ground.

All of the moisture in the materials leaches into the ground through the holey basket, and the effect of the sun hitting the double-walled green part and creating air circulation eventually converts the organic materials into compost. Getting the compost out can be a difficult project, but fortunately it's not necessary to do it very often (less than once a year, depending on volume). Obviously, this unit is more designed to deal with organic materials in an environmentally sound way (i.e., not landfilling them), and has only a minor focus on producing useable compost.

Worms slowly adjust to "remodeled" home

The worms always seem to take a while to adjust to their new, poop-free digs. Of course, I don't know what I expect them to do---jump up and down in glee, sing my praises for providing them new, clean bedding, what???? How in the heck can I tell if they're adjusting slowly or quickly, they're worms, for gosh sakes! Okay, enough anthropomorphising.
Today was a spectacular day, 41 degrees F, clear, blue sky, sandhill cranes & Canada geese flying all around, more snow melting. The yard is still about half covered with snow, but it is dwindling rapidly.
I inventoried my vegetable seeds today to see what I need to purchase. Many of the packets are fairly old (two to six years) so I need to check my seed-starting book on germination rates for these guys. I also started a list that contained many gardening-related entries, but I guess since the ground is still frozen and we're going to get at least a couple of snow storms, I should calm down a bit. Last fall Bruce happened to come across a Green Cone composter unit that was being sold down the street from us at a garage sale ($7, WHAT A DEAL). I had hoped to get the hole dug for it prior to freeze, but didn't happen, so now I want to get that done this spring. Just one of the many tasks I want to do......

Compost worms' home "redecorated"

It's the time of year when I separate the compost worms from their castings (poop) and put the little critters in new bedding. For the health and longevity of the worms, this process should happen more than once a year, but I don't seem to get around to it.
The image above shows some baby worms that must have just hatched. This is the first time I've found so many baby worms; this group is a sample of the many I observed.
The other stuff in the image is castings (dark & moist-looking) and uncomposted kitchen scraps.
This periodic process of separating the worms from their poop is fairly tedious, especially because I believe that all of the worms should get a fair shot at life in a new, (briefly) poop-free home. Thus, I painstakingly fork gently through all of the castings, bunch by bunch, to make sure I don't consign any worms to freezing to death out on the porch where I store their castings until spring. This usually takes me a minimum of ten hours; last week I completed the task in two evenings, part of two Sunday afternoons, and one morning. Dedication is essential!

It should be obvious that it'd be difficult to be squeamish and be a worm composter at the same time . . .

Cat on a Tall, Wooden, Post

Last weekend we were driving to a local x-c ski area for some skiing, and Bruce noticed a cat perched on top of a power line pole. Yes, that little blob on top looking at me is a cat. We stopped and I got out of the car to see if anyone was home at the house, because Iwas concerned that the cat was unable to come back down. It began meowing almost as soon as I got out of the car. Since no one was home, we decided to proceed with our ski trip and then drive by on the way home to check on the little critter.
Luckily on our return trip there was no sign of the cat. Whew.