Wintersowing a few things

Annanas and gardeness - welcome to my blog, and thanks for following!

Ok. I don't know squat about growing flowers from seed, but wanted to add some beauty to the landscape out back. I'll come up with some type of planter probably, and will place it somewhere in the vicinity of the garden. Since nobody really sees the area but me and Jude, this planting is gonna be for us. I'll wintersow these in plastic bottles in the near future, and just let Mother Nature germinate them for me. I'm sure the bees will like them, too!

Here's the four varieties of perrenials that are included in the pack. Although they probably won't produce flowers this year, they should provide flowers for years to come. I still can't believe i'm planting flowers....it kinda makes me feel "dirty" - especially since i'm the big, manly redneck type. Ewww......I need to do something manly right now, like maybe chop down a tree or eviscerate a wild animal....

Speaking of wintersowing, here's a couple of jugs/bottles prepped and ready to be used. Most people like the milk jugs, but i'm kinda partial to the 2 liter bottles. The yogurt cups are for constructing swc's/swp's with, and just happened to be in the picture. Momma sure does go through alot of yogurt, holy moly!

Photo below - While looking at the seed racks for the "girly flower stuff", I also picked up a pack of Early Girl tomato seeds. Since the "days to maturity" is only about 53 days, they will be wintersowed too, because there's no room for them in the 2 propagation systems where the other tomato seedlings are being grown. They will most likely be given away to family and friends, and I may try at least one myself, too.

Now, let me tell ya about the upcoming sale of tomato plants....I have made a nice little binder that is complete with pictures and descriptions of the various heirloom tomatoes that i'm growing, and left it down at the store close to where we live. The customers browse through it, and become very interested in the various colors and such. These plants are probably gonna go pretty quick, and will be priced from $1 - $3 each (according to size of plant and container). It should be interesting, to say the least. Due to increasing interest, I may be able to justify purchasing the lights needed for one of the long shelves. Woo doggie! That would let me grow around 400 plants. Watch out - it just might happen! Hehe.....

As you can imagine, the outdoor building projects are starting to pile up - which is usually the way things happen. I'm putting together a schedule of when each is to be done (in order), which will hopefully keep me on track with things. They are:

1. Compost turner - This project has got to be finished soon, because time is running out. I'll go to my friend's shop hopefully on Saturday morning, and perform some welding on the pieces of I-beam for the trolley to run on, as it needs to be mounted before the concrete is poured into the post holes. I already have the motor/gearbox and auger on hand, and will check the output shaft of the gearbox this weekend. My calculations tell me that it'll produce around 11 rpms, but I hope it will be even faster.

2. Install homemade shelves in the old playhouse - Whether I want to or not, this has gotta happen. It has become so cluttered from saved plastic bottles and such, that I can barely walk into it. I'll do at least 1 side, which should be enough for now. I hope to start on them this weekend, because Saturday's weather is supposed to be pretty nice.

3. Add another propagation system - With the increased interest for tomato transplants by friends, family, and citizens in  my town - I really don't feel that 192 plants will be enough. I mean - some people put out 20-30 plants each year. If 6 gardeners like this ordered plants this year, that would give me only 6-7 total customers, which wouldn't provide much "word-of-mouth" advertising. I'm gonna have to get at least 1 of the long shelves ready before long, because that would increase my capacity to at least 400 - 500 tomato plants.

4. Build a flowerbed along one side of the driveway - this is gonna be a big project, and will be about 3 feet wide, by 40 feet long. Landscaping timbers, lots of hard labor, and filling with compost will occupy several weekends of my time as spring arrives. This project is for my beautiful wife, and I really don't know what will be planted in it.

5. Support part of my parents' roof with a new wall - The entire end of their house (where the carport is located) is falling. This is due to several years of termite damage to the supporting walls. I'll have to use my 12 ton jack to lift the entire roof section, then construct a new wall in place. It might sound like a pretty big deal to some people, but will actually be quite easy.

Anyway, that's pretty much the schedule of things to happen.

Take care, and happy gardening!

EG