Spring is coming! I moved three flats of seedlings out to my cold-frame yesterday to free up space under the lights for more seedlings. The Angelonia, Purple Wave Petunias, and Dahlberg Daisies are now out in the cold-frame getting used to cooler nights. They'll stay there for the next five weeks or so and more plants will join them as the nights get a bit warmer. Days here are now pretty consistently in the fifties with nights a bit above freezing most of the time. The coolest forecast night between now and the 31st is 37 degrees, and that's not bad for the plants in the cold-frame. It should stay ten to twenty degrees warmer than the outside air in the cold-frame. Their growth rate will slow down a bit out there, but not bad.
I started the last of the impatiens seeds yesterday. There were supposedly 250 seeds in the pack and I haven't counted how many I started, but I believe it was four flats of 72 which would put it right at 288. I still have a bunch of other seeds to start. The Marigolds will likely be the next up. I've been repotting some of the earlier plants I started. My double flowering Impatiens are looking good and starting to flower. The same with the two types of begonias. Things are off to a good start now. I have to work out the watering schedule for the plants in the cold-frame. They'll be a bit thirstier out there in all likelihood.
The Purple Wave Petunia seedlings are starting to put out their runner/longer stems, so they're well on their way to being ready for the garden. The plan is to train those long stems along the monofilament fishing line along the banisters lining my front porch. While not technically a vining plant, they do get four foot long stems that I should be able to train along the fishing line. If that works out as hoped, they should form a wall of flowers behind the porch planter boxes. The line may cut into the stems though so I'll have to keep an eye out for that. I may need to switch it out with some thicker nylon twine.
The planter boxes were rebuilt last year and survived the winter intact, which is good. I'd never used the PVC boards for that type of a job before, so it was good they didn't all fall apart. Most of the joints were just held in place with adhesive and the freeze/thaw cycles had me a bit worried. The only real issue with the planter boxes is that they're not perfectly level so some water tends to pool in some areas. (The plants in the boxes stay in pots the whole season.) I got the idea to try some home-made capillary matting this year to distribute that water. Capillary matting is essentially felt, so I bought some cheap, colorful squares of felt to play with and it seems to work perfectly at moving water along its length. Anyone looking inside the boxes will get a very colorful view, but the pots will cover the felt almost completely. Real commercial capillary matting would cost me nearly $100 for the amount I'd need, but the felt pieces only cost a total of $6 for all I need.
The pipe connecting the two halves of the boxes is a bit undersized and clogs easily from dirt that washes out of the bottom of the pots. I played with various screening options last year to prevent that, but nothing proved overly effective. Most of the screens either allowed too much stuff through or clogged too quickly. This year I'm lining the boxes with quilt batting atop the felt and over the pipe openings to try and trap any loose soil. I use quilt batting as filter material in my aquariums so it should work out nicely in that role. It's very inexpensive also so if it becomes too soiled it's easy to replace.
We've had a few nice "spring is coming" days in the seventies lately. The daffodils and other bulbs are flowering nicely. The perennials are starting to emerge and green-up. We're still about six weeks from the last frost date, but the end of winter is now in sight and spring will soon be upon us. We're apt to get an annoying snow shower until mid-April, but from then on, things turn around pretty quickly.
The new season of Gardener's World has started on BritBox, so that's also a reminder that the new growing season is almost upon us. Other than an aphid issue among my seedlings, annoying but not devastating, things are going pretty much perfectly so far.
Fly!!! Eagles!!! Fly!!!
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