My Onions and Shallots Are Coming Up

I planted my red onions and shallots a couple of weeks ago.  They are poking through the soil.  I'm relieved because I should have planted the shallots last fall.  They overwintered in my mudroom and were pretty dry by the time I got around to planting them last month.  I don't see a lot of them poking through, yet.  I suspect that some of them didn't make it through the winter indoors, but I should see at least a few more.

Potting Up Matt's Tomatoes

 

I had to thin out the seedlings that Matt gave to me. The black cherry tomato pot had more than 25 seedlings.

First, I poured a high quality seedling mix (NOT what I used when all my seedlings turned purple and grew scrawny) into a large pot to make potting easier.

Then I took the hunk of seedlings out of the pot and gently teased individual seedlings out of the root clump, trying to get as much root as possible with each seedling. I removed the lower leaves from the seedlings.

I chose the strongest looking seedlings with the largest clump of roots to pot up since I had so many seedlings.  Tomato plants will grow roots along their stems if the stems are buried, so it is a good idea to bury a good portion of the stem when tomato seedlings are potted up.  I buried a good 3-4" of stem for each tomato plant.

I ended up with 18 black cherry tomatoes.  I'll  use a couple of them and give the rest away to friends, neighbors, and gardeners who come to the Central Indiana Plant Swap.

Thank Goodness for Friends LIke Matt

When my friend, Matt, heard about my purple tomato seedling plight, he brought his extra tomato seedlings into work for me.

He brought me:
bloody butcher
roma
golden pineapple
brandywine
black cherry
orange Russian
black krim

Tonight, I will watch Butler beat Duke and divide the seedlings into their own pots. [Update:  Okay, maybe I was wrong about this, but Butler did put up a good fight.]

This is such a sweet offer.  Thanks, Matt!!!  You're the best!!!!

Potting Up Plants for the Plant Swap

Earlier, I wrote a post about the Central Indiana Plant Swap, which is an opportunity for gardeners who live around Indianapolis to come together to give away their extra plants and receive new plants.  There is no charge for this event.  This year it will be at Holiday Park in Indianapolis on May 16th at 2pm.  For more information, click here.  Please join us.  The more people that come, the better the plant selection will be!

As I'm cleaning up my yard this spring, I am potting up divisions for the swap.

I just load up my wheel barrow with potting supplies

and dig up stray and overgrown perennials as I encounter them.

Since my garden is maturing, some of my plants are 

growing in to each other.  Here you can see my hardy 

geranium and a viburnum sucker spreading into my iris.

I'm taking the geranium and viburnum sucker to 

to the plant swap.

So far, I have potted up
3 lamium (either pink pewter or purple dragon)
6 sweet woodruff
3 hellebores/Lenten Rose (either pink or cream)
6 monarda/bee balm (Jacob Klein-red)
2 purple coneflower
1 salvia (May Night-purple)
6 short bearded reblooming iris (yellow, purple, or light blue---probably purple)
3 hardy geranium (pink)
1 stargazer lily
1 daylily-probably blacked eyed stella, but I'm not certain
1 snowball viburnum

I'll post a list of the plants that I dig up for the swap and maybe some photos of them in their summer glory after I dig them up, so check back over the next month to see what new additions I will bring to the swap.  I still have my back yard perennials to pot up and I'll have some extra vegetable seedlings.

Here's what I have for the swap so far.  These plants are 

from my front yard.  I haven't started on the back, yet.

Marci reminded me to water the plant swap plants.

Here are photos some of the plants that I will take to the plant swap:

These iris are about 18" tall and bloom 

in both the spring and fall in Indiana.

You can see the red monarda that I'm bringing to the

swap in this photo.  I haven't seen how the other plants

are growing yet, because some of them are just starting to 

emerge, but I will likely also bring some liatris (bottom 

left), some Helen Von Stein lamb's ear (bottom right), and 

heliopsis (top right).

Purple coneflower
I'm not sure which variety the cone flower is,
because something, probably a bird, sowed
several of them in my yard.  They were a
wonderful gift, but enough is enough :)

Sweet woodruff (on the left)

Hardy geranium

First harvest of the year

I harvested some kale today from the alley garden.  My neighbor planted it last fall and it looks fantastic. We share the alley garden, so it's fine if I harvest some of the produce that she has planted.

I decided to make toasted kale with my first harvest.

 First, I chopped the thick stems off of the kale and tore the clump into individual leaves.

Then I rinsed them off and I gently patted them try with a clean dish towel.

Next I put the leaves into a bowl and tossed them with 1 teaspoon of olive oil, spread them out in a single layer on a baking sheet, and LIGHTLY sprinkled seasoning salt over them.  Kale will shrink considerably in the oven, so a tiny bit of salt is enough.

Finally, I baked the kale in a preheated oven at 350F for 12 minutes. They came out crunchy with a sweet/salty twist.

Planting in the Rain

I was excited this morning to sow my greens and carrots in the alley bed.  As soon as I stepped outside, I felt a couple of raindrops.  I thought that I could at least get some of the seeds sown before the rain started to come down hard, and if I were lucky, the rain would remain light.

I really wanted to sow my sweet mesclun mix, gourmet mesclun mix, herb salad mix, spinach, kaleidoscope carrot mix, and nantes carrots.

So, I loaded up the wheel barrow which already had soil from edging the beds in it, and I wheeled it back to the end of the alley.

I got four rows in before the rain started coming down hard and I was beginning to feel soggy.  I gave up and will have to finish the sowing tomorrow.

I was able to take off my wet clothes, but unfortunately my garden helpers have to stay in the laundry/dog/mud room until they are dry enough to come into the rest of the house.  They are NOT happy about it, either.

Ground bees!

Today when I was out in my garden, I noticed that there were hundreds of bees swarming over my lawn. Then I saw their mounds and holes. Terrible things ran through my mind. I went inside to find information on the Internet about ground bees. What I found out was reassuring.

Apparently, ground bees come out for about 4 weeks in the spring and then go dormant until the next year. They are not aggressive. Since I don't have much risk of getting stung by them, I can just leave them alone this year.  They are attracted to dry ground that has bare spots. If I fill in the spots with some grass seed, then I should create an inhospitable place for the bees next year.  I was going to grass in the spots anyway, so this remedy is no big deal.

Of course, if they turn out to be aggressive, I may be able to encourage them to move on by soaking the ground every day for a couple of days.  They don't like wet soil and will leave.  At least I hope so.