Early fruits of labor

The hanging planters filled with Lantana hung on the porch have not only attracted hummingbirds already but a small unplanted clay planter has become a nesting spot for a couple of very energetic chickadees.  I'm trying to keep my distance except for necessary watering of the plants so as not to frighten them away - it will be great fun to watch if they complete nesting and hatch babies in there.  As an interesting side-note, the spider plants that I hung as fillers until I could get something else in there seem to also be encouraging various birds to visit and the hanging spiderlets are intriguing to the hummingbirds - go figure.  In any case, this combo seems to be working, so I won't be changing it anytime soon.

Time flies....

The past month has been so hectic that I missed writing in the blog entirely, missed the May 15 posting of what's in bloom, and missed documenting a lot of what's gone on in the greenhouse and garden.  Suffice it to say for now, that the greenhouse and garden along with their associated tasks have provided both mental and emotional respite from work and from family health issues (my mom falling and needing to have daily care for a few weeks), as well as much-needed physical exercise.  

Major accomplishments since the last posting in April:
1) the evil vole has moved out of the greenhouse and ceased its damage, as far as I can determine NOT because of any deterrents I tried, but because enough tasty things are now growing outside that it no longer needed the greenhouse goodies. 
2) 2 of three types of tomato seedlings did GREAT and are ready to go into the garden tonight; Sun Gold did great, Better Boy did fine, and Roma never sprouted - who knows why.  Purchased a flat of Romas to plant - should feel frustrated, but figure I'm still in the learning phases of growing veggies from seed.
3) Found out that while seeds may sprout well in soil-less mix, they need to be moved immediately after sprouting into a mix with soil (and/or fed), or they will stay tiny, tiny, tiny.  Can I re-use this mix next year or is it contaminated with potential greenhouse "stuff" that shouldn't be in there?  We'll find out next year (or sooner if I find something written about this).
4) Lilac seedlings that have been coddled in the greenhouse and in pots in the yard the last two years were (apparently successfully) planted into a new wind-break row.  The wind from the north-west kind of battered the poor things initially, even though I had spent several weeks hardening them off, but so far all seem to be doing ok.  It will be interesting to see if they all make it through the coming winter.
4) Chrysanthemum cuttings are nearly all doing well and blooming.  I've had about 90% success rate with the cuttings, and that is fun to experience.
5) Goldfish didn't fare so well in the greenhouse this winter - lost some to illness, but will be ready to move them into the outdoor pond later this week I hope.  This is about a month later than I usually move them, and I think the heat in the greenhouse may have been the culprit in affecting their health this spring.
6) Other cuttings have done reasonably well - more about those in a subsequent blog.
7) Put in a new shade garden this past weekend.  This was my first chance in years to do that and do it correctly, right from the start; we'll see if it fares better than the ones I just kind of threw together in years past.
8) Cleaned out and renovated herb garden; redug, tilled, and replanted perennial herbs, added more this past weekend, and planted some annuals as well.   Still more room to plant, which is great!  Am looking to expand the edible flowers in this garden area.
9) Planted three varieties of potatoes, two varieties of beans in the main garden several weeks ago.  Added peas about a week ago, and re-tilled this morning to make room for all the things that need to go in next, now that we've passed the Michigan "last-frost" date (at least on paper).
10) Planted a new row of flowing shrubs to serve as both summer windbreak eventually and flowing back-bone of a new area of flower garden.  Finished planting yesterday - this morning already discovered deer browse damage on two of the shrubs, which means more deer-deterrent spraying, which I hate to do.

Whew, now that I've taken the time to write this stuff down, I realize it's actually been a productive month, since these are just the major accomplishments - there are other smaller tasks that have been productive but too much to record for now.

Garden Bloggers Bloom Day April 2010

Returned from a 10-day vacation on Monday evening to find lots of new and beautiful blooms in the yard and gardens.  I LOVE spring!

Heat wave!

Unseasonably warm weather in Michigan all of a sudden.  Yesterday's temp was 80 degrees.  When I got home from work it was 120 degrees in the greenhouse even with the fan going and the screen door open!  Yikes!  I don't really know how, but none of the plants seemed the worse for wear, not even the seedlings.

Mystery guest, part II

After work yesterday found that two more daylillies had been damaged by my mystery vermin.  Not as severe as the earlier damage, but nonetheless, traps went down immediately.  This morning on checking the greenhouse found nothing caught by the mouse traps baited with apple, but also no further damage to the plants either.  

Good progress with spring flower-bed clean-up so far.  Today it's raining and tomorrow family arrive for a several-day visit, so probably won't be able to do more for at least a few days.  Love the way the earth smells in this early spring warmth in a mild drizzle.

Mystery guest

I went to the greenhouse this morning to perform the usual morning check and maintenance and found I've been visited by a mystery guest.  This "guest" (or guests?) had demolished two plants overnight.  A beautiful little red and gold primula that had been in full bloom a few days ago was nibbled down to the ground, and a daylilly start that I had repotted a few days ago (it had a beautiful big, healthy root ball) had been dug around, leaving a large empty hole surrounding what was left of the roots, with the soil and other root remnants had been kicked out of the drainage holes in the bottom of the pot and piled around it.  WEIRD!  From my reading since then, I'm assuming my visitor or visitors are voles, since they have to be small enough to enter through the drainage holes and move all that dirt.   ARGH!  Sounds like there aren't a lot of viable options for getting rid of them without a lot of work, since I don't want to poison them and risk poisoning whatever predators might eat them.  Until a month ago, my cat lived in and patrolled the greenhouse, and during that time I never saw any damage, although the previous winter (before the cat moved in), a number of my weaker shrub starts suffered from what I thought was mice-damage (chewing of bark and branches).  When we put in the greenhouse several seasons ago, we dug down about 6 inches throughout, covered with weed barrier, and then covered the weed barrier with

3-4" of pea-gravel, and since then have placed concrete pavers on the aisles to both act as heat sinks and make walking in the greenhouse easier.  Still, it's just a hoop greenhouse, and from what I've read, sounds like that wouldn't have provided much of a challenge for the voles - assuming that's what is doing the damage.  Mouse traps baited with apple will go down tonight (voles supposedly like apple), and we'll see what happens.

Spring is slow in coming

Spring bulbs are late in coming this year...or maybe I'm just impatient.  This is the only little crocus that has braved the elements so far, although the daffodils are shooting up more each day.  I've been working on clearing the majority of the leaf debris from the main flower beds to give the poor spring bulbs less work in fighting their way up, but as is typical for Michigan springs, if the days are warm and sunny, they are also windy in the extreme, which means my efforts to clean one bed are quickly challenged by the wind moving those same leaves to another bed.  Oh, for a windless, sunny day in which to work in the garden!

Snow is Gone, Spring Bulbs Beginning to Emerge

The snow has finally melted off all sections of the yard and spring bulbs are beginning to emerge.  Time to do spring-cleaning of flower beds, before the bulbs leaf out too much and are in danger of damage from my ministrations.  At the same time, greenhouse work is in full-swing, and shrubs and trees are in need of their late winter/early spring trimming for health maintenance, pond needs cleaning, etc.   Whew!  Too many fun jobs, and days are still too short to do them all! 

Pest Treatments

This is what I've done to begin my pest-control program:
1) Set out saucers of beer for the fungus gnats
2) Isolated plants with fungus from those that appear free of fungus or other problems
3) Put of starting the seeds I was going to start, until I get this all under control
4) Sprayed scale-infected plants with soap solution
5) Opened the bottom part of the greenhouse door and set the fan thermostat to a lower heat setting to increase air movement in the greenhouse and around the plants (Is this counterproductive? Will it help spread fungus?)
6) Scheduled daily MORNING work in the greenhouse, rather than afternoon work to avoid watering late in the day.

So far this appears to have brought things back under control.  I did have to just destroy a couple of plants that had been pretty much overcome by fungus.  They were all kalanchoes that I had started from cuttings in the spring of 2009 and then moved to larger pots several times during the summer.  It looks as though possibly with the last repotting in the late fall, I overcrowded them by planting several starts in a single larger pot.  As they filled in and branched out they were beautiful, but by the time they began blossoming in late January they were showing signs of stress which I failed to remedy, and then overlooked the start of the fungus until it had taken serious hold on those plants.  I've been able to control what few additional plants became affected because I addressed those immediately, but the original infected plants had to be destroyed.  Hard lesson.

First robins of spring

We had our first spring robins in the yard yesterday - a hopeful sign, even if most of the yard is still snow-covered. The greenhouse has made it through a fairly typical Michigan winter using only 60% of the propane tank filled in November. This is tremendous progress from the first couple of years; I may have finally hit on the right balance of heat sinks and other heat-retaining methods for a hoop-house this size in our climate. It's still surprising to me that I've not been able to locate more published information on home-greenhouse maintenance for this climate, but through various readings from writers and bloggers in other zones, I seem to be finally piecing together what works here.

The next challenge, coming up quickly now, is how best to circulate the air and cool the greenhouse as the days become warmer and sunny days begin to be predominant, overheating the greenhouse by 1pm. So far just opening the glass of the screen door part-way has been sufficient to prevent overheating, but soon it will require more than that, complicated by my being gone during the day and unable to fine-tune adjustments as the day progresses. I'm looking at several alternatives now to provide better air circulation and cooling of the greenhouse for the spring months, and will report them here as I try them.