A Weird Hillbilly's Garden

[Ninurta]

Don't give up on your seedlings yet! They might just need more water or sunlight to germinate as well as more time. What it says on seed packets is not set in stone and lots of variables play in.

When weather is nice and I put my seed trays outside I cover them in Saran wrap but sometimes even that isn't enough with the wind. Here also only the strong survive! There are things I grew down in bayou country that just wont grow here no matter what I try, and the growing season is so much shorter here. *le sigh*

Some times, it's best to get seed locally, for plants that have had a few generations to acclimate to the local conditions and growing season. Some times that isn't possible.

That's why I went out last fall to try to find seed for peppermint, goosefoot (to replace the quinoa), and catnip. I couldn't find any peppermint at all where I used to gather it from, the goosefoot was not in bloom yet so I missed out on that, and the catnip, well, I snapped a flower head off of it and brought that home and set it in a cup of water on the deck to mature and set seed. I also brought back a goosefoot cutting to try to get it to root, but since I didn't know what I was doing, the goosefoot failed to root.

The catnip lived for about another month. I dunno if it set see or not. I was going to try it this spring, but the cats around here would probably wallow it to death before it could get much past sprouting, so I have to develop a plan for it. every time I get the baggie out with the dried flower head in it to see if i can find any seed, the cat suddenly wants to be my best friend, and is so annoying about it that I can't manage to examine for seed.

The hemp seed came from an area of Italy that is supposed to have about the same conditions and growing season as here, but if it don't sprout, it can't thrive, no matter the conditions.

I know the pampas grass is viable, as I sprouted a setting of it before, so I'm not quite sure where I went south with it this time around.

The quinoa was just an experiment to see if I could get it to sprout. so far, I haven't been able to, but I'm still waiting.

The dirt here outdoors ain't no good for farming. It can barely grow grass in my yard. I need to import some dirt and create some raised seed beds out in the yard for eating crops, but that's a big task I'm not up to this year.

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