Blooming Pitcher Plants

When I first got carnivorous plants, I wasn't sure how to take care of them. I figured it out for the most part and the pitcher plants in the "Lowes Death Cubes" lived through the first winter. During the early summer, I was researching the best way to keep them moist without being high maintenance I even took a trip to Trident Tech horticulture department's pond and carnivorous bog garden. I believe their's is planted in a hole with a liner to retain moisture. After all of the research I came up with my own idea.

I took a shallow - about six inches - barrel liner, drilled holes in the bottom and lined it with landscape fabric. I filled it with moist sphagnum peat moss and planted my pitcher plants and sunk it in the pea gravel bog. The holes make sure it stays wet, but the landscape fabric keeps the peat from washing out.

I was looking at how crowded they've become in that container in the past year and I've decided to repot them. I've got a larger container that will fit in the bog that I can modify the same way I did the original one. I just need a little more peat and some time - maybe later this summer.

This past summer I was reading a book on carnivorous plants when I noticed a photo of ae blooming pitcher plant. At the time I had no idea this kind of plant would do that - although in hindsight, everything must flower to reproduce, I suppose. After that, all I wanted was for mine to do the same thing. I forgot about it over the winter, but recently I've noticed they've started growing again, producing more pitchers. Robin and I were in the yard last night when she noticed what looked like a flower bud. I was so surprised - it did look like it could be a flower. I went back outside with the camera to take photos of a few things and as I was taking photos of the flower bud on the pitcher plant, I noticed another and another and another. I'm pretty sure that's what this is. Right now I'm holding my breath a little - I can't wait to see this flower I have only seen in books. Look for the photo slideshow soon. I'll also update it as I get more pictures.

Spring Cleaning

When I walked outside yesterday morning, the amount of spring gardening chores briefly overwhelmed me. I think I had gone out there to lay out the new landscaping - smother grass and mulch - but I saw weeds to pull and lantana to prune and a pond to clean. After a little weeding and pruning, I got to the mulching. I've been saving our newspapers during the past several months for just this purpose. I also had several bags of shredded leaves that I was saving for this as well.

I didn't plan to mulch the whole area that day, but I thought I would do as much as the leaves lasted. I spent an hour or so laying down newspaper - about four sheets thick - and then spreading leaves over it. I probably mulched half the area I needed to cover - one side being an arc near where I plan to put a stone path from the lawn to the gate. I've been planning to do this with broken concrete instead of for cost reasons. I hadn't looked for any recently, but there was a post on craigslist yesterday for someone to haul off broken concrete, so I plan to do that before the weekend.

We had plans for the mid afternoon, but I realized it was a good day to clean out the pond. I was going to have to get in it and clean all the dead leaves and plants out of it. When I was knee-deep, it wasn't bad - it was 65 degrees - but it took a little getting used to when I had to squat down to reach the bottom. I managed to finish and take a shower in time for our plans. Overall, it was a productive day.

Garden Update

I have a lot of gardening and landscaping plans for the spring and summer - I just haven't gotten to them yet. I realized as my seeds* were sprouting this week that I was using my only completely free raised bed as a cold frame and I needed to do something about that.

*Both varieties of squash are sprouting, Razzleberry tomatoes, a few cucumbers and maybe a pepper, coneflower and agapanthus. I've also got another tomato, another pepper, watermelon, beans and corn to get started as well.

I can't decide what to do with my pole beans. I was going to put up a trellis made from conduit and twine, but now I'm wondering if it would be easier to do a tripod/tepee in the flower beds where I plan to grow watermelon, squash, cucumbers, pumpkins. I have so many questions about that - I was going to grow cucumbers up a trellis, but they're "salad bush hybrid" - does that mean they will be less of a vine? And am I planting too much of the same family together - squash, cucumber, pumpkins, watermelon?

Anyway, I got some more compost this morning. I opted to get $2 bags from the Romney Street location rather than loading my own at the landfill. I don't need as much right now - just enough to improve the soil in the landscaped beds so I can plant veggies out there. I'm rethinking the design of the bed, now that I've included part of the front yard in my vegetable gardening plan. I've got citrus that I want to put back into a pot, daylilies that I'll eventually move somewhere else - the same goes for the lilies, irises and phlox. I've got garlic that I'll harvest this summer. After all that, maybe I'll be able to design a nice planting that lets me incorporate long term landscaping with vegetables.

Other things growing - The potatoes I planted just over three weeks ago have broken the surface and the spinach is getting to be large enough to start harvesting. Daylilies have sprouted. The water hyacinths in the pond - I had given up on them, but hadn't tossed in the compost pile - they've got new growth on them.

My list of things I want to do is growing as well. The area in the front yard where the garden is, will become a continuation of the side flower bed and curve around in front of the house. I have to edge and smother the grass and mulch. Then I have to decide what to plant and put a path through it to the side gate. I'm planning to use pieces of broken concrete to make something that looks like a stone path. I've started collecting it recently.

I'm planning to take another shot at a shade garden, my first attempt not being the best location, as it turns out. I hope under our oak tree will be good enough. It gets a little morning sun and a little more evening sun - I hope it won't be a problem. I have a 50% off coupon for a garden catalog that I was going to use to buy all the plants for the shade garden when I was ready, but the coupon expires in April and I just don't think I'll be working on it at that point - and with shipping, who knows how much I'll really save.

According to my plan, I need to build two more raised beds (maybe three). I also need to lay out beds in the back yard. There's a strip of grass about a foot wide along the driveway that I want to rip up and plant a ground cover...

More rain barrels, chickens, rain garden/bioswale. The list goes on...

Seeds are sprouting!

I'm just going to say it. I had my doubts about growing lots of vegetables from seeds. I haven't had the best luck and I don't have the ideal setup. I've been religiously opening the cold frame in the morning (when it's 45 degrees) and trying to close it a little early some days to help it retain some heat overnight. I would stare at the soil every day and hope something would come up - and something did. These are the year-old squash seeds in the photo. Also Razzleberry tomatoes have begun sprouting. Most of my concern is with the vegetable seeds. I know the other seeds might take longer, or are no good, but that's just par for the course.

There was another reason I worried - I skimped on buying a seed-starting potting mix. I confess. I was at Lowe's and I couldn't find it and I gave up. Then I thought I would make my own, which was a bad idea because of time constraints - so I winged it. I had various soils lying around and I mixed a little of this with a little of that - perlite, compost, peat moss, shredded bark, anything that I thought had the qualities of a good potting mix, however oxymoronic - holds moisture and drains well.

Despite having succeeded the smallest amount, I am still holding my breath a little longer for more seeds to germinate. I have more to plant after this. I was at Lowe's and picked up watermelon seeds, and on a whim, I got some cactus seeds as well. I was cataloging my seeds for myfolia.com and I realized the beans I have are bush and not pole, so I need more of those too. A gardener's work is never done.

MyFolia.com

I know I usually do something outside before I have something to write about, but my friend Russ told me about a site that lets you manage your garden online. It's called MyFolia.com and I was hooked immediately.

Depending upon the size of your garden - vegetable or other - there could be a lot of information to enter initially. You have to create "beds" and add "plantings" - the site will ask you where your plants or seeds came from originally. Some of these details are optional, while others aren't. This became a problem when I was inputting information for plants I was starting from seeds that I had collected from the wild. In these cases, I had to add these seeds to my "seed stash" before I could use them in a "planting".

As the process got more complicated, I debated whether this was something I should be spending my time on, but I think I'm going to see it through. I think I have all of my vegetable garden info online now, and I'm slowly adding other plants as I find a place for them - in the yard and online.

There are some features that you have to be a subscriber to use, but I haven't spent too much time dwelling on those. I'm happy with what there is for now. They have widgets to display on your site, like "Last 3 Plantings" or "Last 3 Harvests", but I feel like these give too little information. ( I've added these widgets to this blog but, will most likely replace them with a link to my MyFolia page.) MyFolia.com, in contrast, tries to be a one-stop shop for all your gardening needs, including a blog. While I plan to use it as a place to collect detailed information about my gardening activities, it will never replace my blog. To view my MyFolia page, click here.