Herb Garden

I have four greenhouse planting beds, one each on the east and west ends, and two on the south side. The east bed has strawberries, and the west bed has tomatoes and peppers. I do not plan to change those two allocations.

My current plan is to convert the southeast bed to succulents, and the southwest bed to herbs. Most of the plants will be hardy and hopefully will survive the winter, although there also will be some summer visitors. I figure I have to take more than half the soil out of the succulent bed and replace it with pumice and coco coir, ending up with about 40% garden soil, 40% pumice, and 20% coir. The herb bed doesn't need such a drastic change, although I may mix in a bag of pumice.

The herb bed is currently planted in onions, with a tomato and pepper at one end near the others of their kind. I have cleared away enough onions to christen the herb garden with its first plant, a Greek Oregano cutting that happens to be flowering. It has some little branches on the bottom, and I probably should prune off the top to encourage bushiness. I also have an English Thyme plant that is ready to go in, and eventually will have permanent plantings of Italian Oregano, Lemon Thyme, sage and chives. Rosemary and Marjoram are not hardy enough to survive the winter unless I provide some heat, and even then I may have to switch to more hardy varieties. Basil, cilantro, peppermint, dill and others will be part-time residents.

The succulent bed was supposed to be a flower bed this summer, although the main thing that is flowering now is alyssum. The nasturtiums put on a show for a few months but were starting to look ratty, so I took out the last of them a few days ago. The alyssum and nasturtiums were not supposed to be the main event, just support players. The sunflowers were supposed to be the headliners. They have barely gotten to a foot in height but finally might be on the verge of blooming. The marigolds provide some blooms, but I have dug a few out and put them in pots to give the sunflowers some room. The zinnias never grew. I put a few Bachelor Buttons in their place and have plants, but no flowers yet. I have mixed in a few coleus where there is room, both in the dirt and in pots, and a couple have gotten bigger than anything else in that bed.

The sunflowers in the giant (16-inch) plastic pot on the north wall are much more successful than the ones in the bed. The zinnias have grown in the outside window boxes but haven't flowered yet, in part because the deer don't know that the internet says they are not supposed to like to eat them. I have planted a few coneflowers but too late in the season to do anything but get established for next year. Most of the flowers I have gotten this year such as petunias and geraniums are in pots or baskets. I'm still going to try to grow a lot of flowering plants, both annual and perennial, but will not have an inside greenhouse bed allocated for that purpose.

Caged

My 2025 petunias, which at this time last year were scraggly little stems in baskets, are mounding like crazy. Less than a month ago I gave the pots a severe trim, and they have bounced back with great vigor. Petunias are tender perennials, so they will survive the winter if kept in a warm place, like our garage which is heated to 50 degrees. After I got the greenhouse a year ago, I transferred the petunias from the baskets to a pot in the greenhouse, moved it to the garage in November, and this is the eventual result.

I have another pot identical to this one, and a mixed pot with geraniums and more of these petunias. I still do not recall what variety these are, but I probably got them at Home Depot in Spring 2025 and I suspect they may be Waves or some other named variety instead of just generics. I'm sure they are hybrids, but are not sterile because I've had a few volunteers with flowers that are pink, not purple. The oldest image I can find of the purple petunias is from October 18 after they had been in the greenhouse for about six weeks. This is a healthy group (at least three plants, maybe more), but nothing like what we have today. Over the winter I did get a some clones going (see below) and that's how I ended up with 2.5 pots of purple petunias this year.

The other thing to notice about the top image of the big mound of petunias is it is caged. Maybe I have have mentioned this before (a few hundred times), but deer eat everything here. I saw this morning that the deer topped off the Rudbeckia (Black-Eyed Susan) in the front yard AGAIN. It was in a two-foot cage, but there was no top and they bent the cage as they dove in. I gave it a taller cage today, and maybe that will allow the plant to flower this year. And as a reminder, may I quote the internet:

"Rudbeckia plants are generally considered deer resistant, with top varieties like 'Goldsturm', 'American Gold Rush', and Brown-Eyed Susan frequently skipped by hungry wildlife. Deer usually avoid them because of the coarse, fuzzy hair on the leaves and stems along with a bitter taste."

Lies, lies, lies. Our deer do not have access to the internet so they don't know they aren't supposed to eat Black-Eyed Susans and Shasta Daisies. I have Shasta 'Daisy May' in a barrel next to our new trees. I have a cage on it, and it will remain for at least the next year.

An alternative to caging is to use baskets. (Another alternative is an 8-foot fence, but the HOA is not cooperative.) This is probably as good as the Really Red/Latte basket has looked this summer.

Even though it is summer, overwintering is always on my mind. I have been trying to clone the nine Supertunias since I got them in April, and have had occasional success. The 2025 purples were a challenge to clone from cuttings. My first attempt failed completely. I had a little better success after I started using rooting hormone. I think my main problem is overwatering followed by underwatering, which means appropriate attention every few days rather than drowning them and then forgetting about them for a week. This is my first successful clone, image taken January 8 after taking a cutting in mid-November. This clone and at least one other one are the basis for one of the big mounded pots we have today, the source for the other pot being the original plants.

I haven't kept meticulous records of the petunia cloning success rate, but I'm guessing it is maybe 25%. With Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic'™ and Coleus, the success rate this year is 100%. Persistence is a virtue with the tunias. There are two Supertunia Jazzberry cuttings in the garage right now that look very promising, and that is the variety that I most want to have success with. I've gotten something from most of the others, with Latte being the biggest challenge so far for some reason. Even Priscilla, which (to be frank) sucks in the big basket at the house with Hoopla gave me a good clone that I have in a small basket by itself in the greenhouse.

One year

A year ago today I took delivery of the greenhouse.

At first, all I had to put into the planters was a pot of basil.

I planted what I could in August and kept a few things going until November. I turned the heater off Nov. 30, but I still visited every few days to get ready for the spring awakening. The allium bulbs started coming up Feb. 5. I turned the heat back on April 4 and started planting.

Our last frost date is not until a week into June, and petunias have to grow in the greenhouse until then. This image is from May 13.

And this is what it looks like now.

I'm growing strawberries

Nasturtiums and borage would take over the strawberry bed if I let them. I cleared all of the nasturtiums out of the strawberry bed, left just one borage, and put down some more straw mulch. I took the last nasturtium out of that bed a few days ago. In the adjacent flower bed, I removed all but two nasturtiums. In both beds, I thinned out the alyssum just a bit so it wouldn't stray too far from the edge. This should give the strawberries and sunflowers some more room to grow. This image also shows the two cucumber baskets hanging from the rafters. The cucs have been hanging outside on the west side of the greenhouse for about a month, but the foliage is on the verge of hanging low enough for the deer to eat. The interweb says, "Cucumbers are generally considered deer resistant. Deer typically avoid them because of their prickly leaves and fuzzy vines." Red Lodge deer do not have access to the interweb, so they eat all sorts of things they are not supposed to like.

On the other side, I chopped down all the underperforming broccoli and seeded that area (to the right of the tomatoes) with cilatro/coriander. Also in this image at lower left, I dug up a marigold that was being overshadowed by the tomatoes and gave it its own pot. The basil plant in the left corner and another basil that is obscured by the tomatoes will get the same treatment in a few days.

Here is the west side of the greenhouse where the cucs used to be. I hung the Priscilla and Bubblegum tunia baskets there just for the photo, then they went back inside. I might put them there on occasion, but not all the time. Down below are 12 'Velveteens,' two peppermint, a Greek Oregano cutting, and one lonely coleus that I wanted to transition from inside. As I was getting ready to leave, the coleus looked sad and wilted from being outside in the wind, so I stuck it back in the greenhouse. "Hardening off" is a thing.

The Teddy Bear Sunflowers are starting to bloom, and they are crawling with ants. I wondered why that was since I hadn't seen aphid infestations on the leaves for quite a while. (Ants raise aphids like milk cattle.) I didn't have the answer until I took some macro images and saw them in the flowers. The interweb says, "active aphid populations begin to die off when temperatures consistently exceed 90°F," and I have not seen aphids on the pepper plants since it got really warm. But apparently the sunflower aphids are more hardy or are better protected inside the flower.

Expendable

I followed through on yesterday's post and planted one of the green coleus on the north side of the house. We have small rocks surrounding the house, so I cleared a spot and punched through the landscape fabric to dig the hole. The soil under the fabric is greasy clay. With some of the other plants I have put in, I amended the soil with coco coir to make it looser, but did not do that this time. It is planted in clay under the rocks.

I decided to cage it to give it a chance to get established before I throw it to the wolves, uh, deer. I really want to see if the deer will eat an established coleus, so will take the cage off in a few weeks. With average first frost around Sept. 12, this plant is doomed in perhaps seven weeks, so I want to see how big it gets planted in the ground...if it survives. This will help me decide what to do next year.

Meanwhile, at the greenhouse, the tomato plants on the west side are getting huge and I removed one of the marigolds that was getting shaded out. I potted it and put it outside. I might even have to move one of the pepper plants to a pot or a new location in the bed. There are three basil plants mixed in with the tomatoes that also will benefit from being moved eventually.

Behind the tomatoes, there are four broccoli plants. Two of them have finally produced heads 140 days after I started them from seed. That is almost two months longer than it should take, and the heads are very loose. I now believe that the location I have used for broccoli both last fall and this spring just does not get enough light. It is in the northwest corner, so it gets little morning light, and now the plants are being shaded by the tomatoes. I should just harvest what little there is and plant some cilantro back there.

If I was trying to grow nasturtiums and borage as primary crops, the east side of the greenhouse would be a roaring success. But I have to remind myself that I am trying to raise strawberries and sunflowers, not borage and nasturtiums. There are still a couple of nasturtiums in the southeast bed with the sunflowers and in the outside window boxes with the flowers, but I took the last one out of the east strawberry bed today. I have decided I will take some good pictures of the borage plants in the east bed tomorrow, then remove them, except maybe one. When I started removing nasturtiums, the alyssum got thick along the edge. I will keep some of it, but not all. The alyssum outside in the barrel has not grown quickly but it is alive. I might try to transplant some from inside, but it might not work according to the interweb.

Tower of flower

I am not going to overwinter all of the coleus, and the ones that are mostly green are the first ones on the chopping block. The usual advice for coleus is not to let them flower, but I decided to let this one go to see what would happen. This is the one with green frilled leaves that was mangled by deer just a month ago. I planted it in the greenhouse planting bed a few weeks ago and the flower stalks are now at least three feet high. It's actually rather impressive and I'm reconsidering its status for the upcoming cull.

To the right, over by the window is another coleus raised from seed. It probably will make the cut. Back in the corner is one of the ColorBlaze 'Wicked Witch' clones and it is a shoo-in. All of my coleus came from a Burpee variety seed pack, except 'Wicked Witch' which was Proven Winners Direct purchase.

I look this image on the 17th. It is one that I put in the planting bed, which implies that I wasn't planning on saving it. This is another one that is getting reconsidered. It isn't very tall but was producing a stalk with little purple flowers, so I nipped that in the bud.

So far the bushiest coleus, besides the original pot of 'Wicked Witch,' are a couple of mostly-green plants that I have at the house. I've been thinking about planting them on the north side of the house since, to be realistic, they are expendable. Unlike 'Wicked Witch,' these seed-raised plants don't seem to do well in full sun, so the north side probably would be an optimal location. The questions I want answered are (1) will the deer eat them and (2) how big will they get in the two months before they freeze.

Coleus foliage is considered mildly toxic to deer (Yay!), but that didn't prevent them from mangling the one shown in the top image. But that was at the greenhouse. The deer a mile away at the house have not bothered the coleus that are on the back patio. Those plants are either surrounded by stinky herbs or are close to an active part of the house. If I planted them on the north side, they would be on their own. I have found depressions in the stones on the north side which lead me to believe the deer nap there once in a while. Time for an experiment.

Sunflower

I'm finally getting something resembling sunflower blooms. This one is a Teddy Bear in the big tub in the greenhouse. The sunflowers behind the house shed are probably going to be next to bloom, and the ones planted in the southeast bed in the greenhouse are lagging far behind.

The tomato plants in the greenhouse are getting tall, and the two strawberry baskets above the southwest bed were getting to be in the way. But between those two baskets, another basket was suspended to hold four 4-inch pots of stapled strawberry runners. It was going to be difficult to move all three baskets at once, but I determined that the runners were rooted and were ready to be cut loose. The four pots went under a grow light in the mini, and I moved the two baskets to the hooks above the mini along with northeast wall. I extended the cage for that tomato plant in the southwest bed. It is the biggest one in the greenhouse and might be bigger than the ones at the house. The greenhouse hasn't produced any actual tomatoes yet, but there are two green ones on that plant. That plant along with the three in the west bed are starting to shade the rest of the greenhouse from the late afternoon sun, not necessarily a good thing.

Anyway, moving the four pots to the mini freed up a 10-inch basket. I decided to plant Supertunia Priscilla in it. Priscilla has not done well in the 16-inch basket at the house with Hoopla Vivid Orchid, but has been OK in the 6-inch pot in the greenhouse, and it was the only alternative. The only other Supertunia clone available was a Really Red that isn't very far along. Priscilla is in the blue pot at upper right in this view facing east, looking over the tall tomato plants. The strawberry baskets are off in the distance at left in their new location.

From the opposite window, facing west, there's an obvious size discrepancy between the Priscilla and the Bubblegum planted in the matching blue basket.

The two small blue baskets might end up at the house someday. I have hooks on the front porch, but the light there probably isn't enough to keep them there full time. I have similar green baskets that current hold sedums (visible in the photos above), but eventually I might turn those baskets over to tunias or bachelor buttons.

I need to trim the six big baskets at the house. The Blue Vein on the front porch in particular is long and lopsided. The other front porch basket is the Hoopla/Priscilla combo, and the Hoopla portion only needs a light trim. In the back, the Bubblegum/Jazzberry is most in need of a trim, followed by Honey. The Latte/Really Red needs a light trim at most, and the Royal Velvet look OK and might not need a cut. I stuck a Blue Vein clone into the Royal Velvet basket, and that single stalk is hanging down much further than the rest of the basket and will get a trim.

And finally, an image of a sage leaf. I water inside the greenhouse by hand when we are in town, but I have irrigation set up outside. I use misting nozzles because the water pressure isn't sufficient to get water to the end of the line with dripping nozzles.

New phone who dis?

When is 50 Mp not 50 Mp? When you are comparing a 50 Mp phone camera to a 45 Mp Canon R5 Mark II, The World's Most Powerful Mirrorless Camera. There is no comparison.

I ran over my phone last July 29 when the greenhouse was delivered. For almost the past year I have been using a hand-me-down from my spouse until it also met its end, less spectacularly, being dropped onto the bathroom floor. The screen fractured, then died over the next few days. Today I received the replacement, a Samsung S25. (By the way, when Walmart says 3-day delivery, they are LYING. It took seven days.) The S25 is not a flagship phone, but it is the closest I have ever gotten.

It took maybe 10 minutes to set up the new phone. I popped the SIM card out of the old phone and into the new one, and it was easy from there. Compared to other attempts to activate phones, I feel like we have finally arrived in the 21st Century. Then it was time to check out the camera. Let's jump right to the Expert Raw phase of the testing.

The original for this image is 5712x4284, about 24 Mp. This phone has some modes that go up to 50 Mp, but from what I can tell those are a waste of time and space and I don't think they are available in RAW. Anyway, here is Sempervivum Little Survivor

Those parts of the image that are in focus are sharp, but the problem that is immediately apparent is there is no depth of field. This image was shot at f/2.4, and I did not see any way to adjust the f/stop. You can change ISO, shutter speed, white balance and exposure compensation, but not the f/stop. When I shoot images like this with my ancient (c. 2017) M100, I usually shoot with f/8. When I use The World's Most Powerful Mirrorless Camera, I take up to 36 images at different focus points and combine them with Zerene Stacker.

Here's a little easier challenge from further away. These are the Supertunia Hoopla Vivid Orchid blooms in the basket on our front porch. There also is a Supertunia Priscilla on the back side, but it has been a disappointment and you can't even see it. It looks good at first blush, but closer examination also reveals a lack of depth of field. Focal length is (wait for it) 5mm. That is a small lens and a small sensor. There's your problem.

This Supertunia basket on the back porch is a bit better. I took it in telephoto mode, which increased the focal length to 7mm and f/2.4. There is no obvious depth of field problem, so standing further away is good. It was shot in golden light just before sunset and I fiddled with the color a little bit. The magenta Jazzberry Vista mixed in with the Honey is not blown out, but it is close. Strangely enough, this is probably our best basket at the moment. A month ago I put it in greenhouse rehab because it was looking sad. Now the Bubblegum/Jazzberry basket needs a trim, and the Blue Vein basket is very lopsided. The other three baskets aren't as bushy.

My way-too-early conclusion is the S25 camera phone is good at medium to wide images, but absolutely sucks at anything resembling a macro. Despite its near-flagship status, it is still a point-and-shoot.

Then the question becomes, is this the camera I take on my next couple of trips? In both Michigan (August) and Switzerland (September/October), I don't expect I will need a telephoto lens for wildlife. But I would like to have a capable macro camera. The best solution is the R5 with the 100mm macro lens and the 14-35mm zoom, my only two RF-mount lenses. (I have converters for EF wildlife lenses such as the 100-400 zoom and the 500mm monster.) The lighter solution is the M100 with the 22mm f/2, or its native 15-45 zoom lens. The latter is not a real macro setup, but it does well enough. BTW, you can still buy a new M100 with a 15-45, no longer supported by Canon, for $859 on Amazon. I don't think I paid that much in 2017.

Priscilla

The weak link in the Supertunia baskets so far is Priscilla. It is in the same basket as Hoopla Vivid Orchid and just isn't keeping up. But it is one of the few successful cloning efforts so far and it is doing well in this 6-inch pot.

Now the question is, what to do with it. The Bachelor Button Cornflowers are coming up, and I'm thinking about doing a combo pot with it. Maybe even add in a 'Wicked Witch' Coleus. It might be awful, or it might work. Or maybe have the flowers in one pot and the Coleus in another.

Since it was impossible to dig a hole next to the shed due to the dense gravel pad, I'll probably put the pot in front of there. I have more 3-foot fencing arriving in a day or two, and that's the right height for flower pots.

Gratuitous view of another successful Supertunia clone, Bubblegum.

Let's rank the nine Supertunias I got this year. The criteria is which have been successful but which I also want to successfully clone and carry over to next year.

• Vista Jazzberry - Vibrant magenta purple. I paired it with Bubblegum, and also stuck a clone in with Honey. I want six of these.
• Royal Velvet - Deep purple, unlike anything else I have. Swapped clones with Blue Vein, and will do it again next year if I can.
• Vista Bubblegum - Pink. Very vigorous, almost too vigorous. The Jazzberry is showing through in the shared basket, but I think something other than another Vista might get overwhelmed.
• Blue Vein - White with blue vein. This is the surprise so far. Very vigorous, right up there with Bubblegum. Great pairing with Royal Velvet.
• Hoopla Vivid Orchid - Purple with white edge. Successful in its basket with Priscilla.
• Really Red - A last minute addition since I thought I needed a red. I paired it with Latte and could use it in other combos.
• Latte - Ivory white with dark veins that almost appear brown. The basket with Red is doing OK. Not spectacular, just OK.
• Honey - The most interesting thing about this is the blossoms shifting from yellow to salmon and some other colors. But the flowers often look a bit wilted. It is in a basket with a much smaller Jazzberry clone and I recently gave it a few weeks in the greenhouse to get right. It looks as good now as it has, and all the blossoms right now are yellow. Hard to figure out, maybe it is making a comeback.
• Priscilla - Purple and white double. As mentioned, not successful so far in the basket, doing better by itself in a small pot. The big double blossoms do not self-clean very effectively and it is often necessary to deadhead the dried-out remnants. You can see a dried-out flower in the image above that I neglected to remove.

Vermin

Deer are cute. Deer are vermin. Both things can be true. Keeping them from eating my plants, including plants they allegedly don't like, is a never-ending process.

I was leaving the greenhouse a couple days ago when I had a nagging thought that I hadn't latched the door. Nah. I dismissed it. Then checking the trail camera today, I saw this, my biggest nightmare.

The wind blew the unlatched door open and there was a deer, being given the opportunity to ravage my strawberries and whatever else it desired. But it cautiously stuck its head in the door, then backed away. A few seconds later, the door swung shut.

And then there is the cute part.

Coleus flower

I managed to raise 10 coleus from a Burpee variety seed packet this year, and two of them got chewed up by deer when I left them outside three weeks ago. Those two have recovered well, and the green one that looks like lettuce now has a flower stalk.

Flowers are a no-no in the coleus world because they detract from the real show, the leaves. Although this one has unusual leaves, it has no color other than green. I decided to let the flower stalk go and see what happened. Every once in a while I take the greenhouse potted coleus outside and let them sit in water for half an hour. When they go back inside, I put them on top of the beds without the saucers.

A solid green coleus might be interesting if paired with ones of different colors, but for the most part this is what you want when you plant an unknown variety from a seed collection. I moved this one into our bedroom today.

I'm presuming that the 10 Burpee coleus are not sun tolerant and I keep them on the back porch where they miss the morning and mid-day sun. The four ColorBlaze 'Wicked Witch' (original plant and three clones) are fine in the sun. I have some things I want to do next year and I'll probably have to get ColorBlaze varieties to do them. The three 'Drop' varieties (Strawberry, Cherry and Chocolate) have a trailing habit and could be used in hanging baskets or large planters. I also want to get the 'Golden Dreams' variety. I'll have a hard time finding a place for the colorful generics, and the generic greens probably will not make the cut for overwintering in the garage. So flower away, it may be your closing act.

Our long national nightmare is over

I started the Monarda/Bergamot/Bee Balm seeds back in January. It has been quite a journey to get to this point, involving the justified deaths of several million aphids. For months I was soaping down the seedlings every day. But eventually two of the plants became vigorous enough to withstand the infestations and became viable plants more than a foot high, and today I planted them next to the house. The first one is the larger of the two, and its recent demands for water were a motivating factor in getting this done. It was wicking up several saucers of water every day and it became easier just to plant it.

The other one isn't quite as big or as thirsty. I put it next to some other plants that we have had since the beginning (2020) that the deer have been chewing on continuously. I finally caged them today.

I put cages around the two Monarda even though they are supposedly deer resistant. The one at the greenhouse has not been touched, but one at the northeast corner of the house was sampled and has not fully recovered. We also have three Monarda in a new landscaping project at the house, and they have not been touched yet and actually have flowers although they are not as tall as the two pictured here. The plan is to throw a fence around them just in case.

So that's right, we have seven Monarda at the two properties. What makes these two in the images special is I started them from seed. I also have two cuttings that aren't dead yet, and one seedling that appeared from somewhere, not sure where. I'm not 100% sure it is a Monarda, but that's my guess at this point based on the shape of the leaves.

Originally I wanted to plant the two hand-raised Monarda next to our shed. But apparently the Amish who packed down the gravel bed for the shed did an excellent job and it was impossible to plant anything in it. It was like digging into concrete.

I also gave the 2025 petunias and geraniums a trim and moved them out to a new expanse of rocks that were part of the landscaping project. If I could go back in time six years, I may have started that area with wood chips rather than rocks, but here we are. The barrel in the background has not been planted yet, but the current plan is to put a Shasta Daisy May in the center and perhaps some alyssum seeded around the edge. Once again, a Shasta Daisy should be deer resistant according to the interweb, but Red Lodge deer have proven that they do not read the interweb and there will be a precautionary two-foot cage around it at least for a while.

In the greenhouse, I have the big pot of seven Supertunia cuttings and three smaller pots with large, vigorous Bubblegum, Priscilla and Really Red cuttings. Maybe some of those will end up in a big pot in the rock garden but I have to figure out the cage situation. Tunias are what you call "deer candy" and protecting them is not optional like it might be with Monarda. This image of Bubblegum in a 10-inch plastic basket is from June 28 and it is bigger now. Unlike the 16-inch coir baskets, I didn't put water crystals or a plastic plate in the basket to retain water, and it is doing just fine. I may have been overthinking the baskets.

Coleus

Rather than battle aphids to raise peppers, I'm becoming a believer in planting what grows without trouble. Coleus, for the most part, is easy, and I can buy peppers at the store.

Sure, a couple of these "deer-resistant" plants got mauled by a deer a few weeks ago, but they have both bounced back. This one, in fact, is probably the tallest coleus and now has a flower stalk. There's a lot of advice out there that you should just go ahead and clip coleus flower stalks, but I'm going to let this one go. I want to see what develops, and to be frank, this plant has always been expendable due to its lack of color other than green. After it is done flowering, I may put it outside again to see if the deer are still interested in it.

Most of my coleus are out of a Burpee seed mixture, and most have some color. And of course there is the purchased ColorBlaze 'Wicked Witch' that I got along with my Supertunia order from Proven Winners Direct 10 weeks ago. The alleged height of a mature plant is 24-40 inches with a spread of 18-36 inches. That is "garden" size. In a small/medium ceramic pot, my plant is nowhere near that size. I clipped off the older leaves which seemed a bit tired, for lack of a better description, and the newer leaves are smaller. It is very bushy, but small. I'm thinking maybe it needs a bigger pot. I took three cuttings, and one of those ended up in a larger pot at the greenhouse, so we'll see what happens with that.

Lately I've come across ideas for potting coleus and petunias together. I have coleus, I have petunias. I don't have an available large pot unless I relegate one of the chives back to a fake terra cotta, of which I have two. I gave away the saucers for use as fairy gardens, but I can use one of the black saucers instead. I could take the two smaller 'Wicked Witch' cuttings and pair them with 'Jazzberry' and 'Bubblegum,' if I have viable cuttings of those. (Not sure.) Then put it outside the house, swapping out the petunia pot next to the AC unit on the south side. That pot would go to the greenhouse, where there will be room once the potato plants die. One reason I write this blog which no one has access to read is it helps me decide what to do.

The neighborhood has an abundance of daisies this year, so I dug one up out of the vacant lot next door and potted it. I doubt the owners would mind because they mowed the lot a week later. It is blooming on the back patio now.

I was wondering what variety it was and found this on the interweb: "The most common wild daisy in Montana is the Oxeye Daisy (Leucanthemum vulgare). Originally an ornamental escape, it is an aggressive, state-listed noxious weed commonly found along roadsides and in meadows. Oxeye daisy is highly invasive and spreads aggressively through both seeds and underground rhizomes."

Don't plant it in the ground and deadhead the spent flowers, check.

Wrong!

July 27: I posted the following "Lies from the Internet" June 28 and have been adding to it ever since. The lies are that certain plants are resistant to deer, and I've got two new ones today.

• "Delosperma (hardy ice plant) is considered exceptionally deer resistant. Deer typically pass on these vibrant mat-forming succulents."

WRONG!!! I put one of my Delosperma outside the greenhouse to get it some more sun, hoping it would finally flower. The deer knocked over the pot in their haste to chomp on it. It got a good pruning but will survive...inside.

• "Nasturtiums are generally considered deer-resistant because of their spicy scent, peppery taste, and pungent oils."

WRONG!!! The nasturtiums growing in my greenhouse window box were consumed by deer in the past 24 hours.

Also today, the deer confirmed that they will eat Coleus (see below). My two larger Coleus 'Wicked Witch' pots have not been touched at the house, but the deer around the greenhouse ate the two smaller ones I had there, following up on an incident a month ago. One or both might bounce back eventually. I'm still waiting for the supposed toxicity of Coleus to kick in and take out some of the herd, but that may be wishful thinking. There may be a difference in acquired taste in the two deer herds a mile apart, but in light of recent events at the greenhouse I feel compelled to cage the two big 'Wicked Witch' at the house.

There were five deer around the lodge today, three adults and two fawns. I would walk toward them making threatening moves, and they would just stare at me. If I got too close, they would jog about 20 yards and look back at me. Truly town deer.

This just in: The deer at the house lopped the top off of our Stevia plant. But to be fair, Stevia is not considered deer resistant.

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Previous entries:

• "Borage is highly deer-resistant. Its sprawling foliage and stems are covered in rough, bristly hairs that deer and rabbits tend to avoid."

WRONG!!! They ate a borage plant and half of a strawberry plant in a caged grow bag in the yard. Fortunately, I was already planning to remove that borage so a strawberry runner from an adjacent grow bag could root there. The other bag had a slightly taller cage and escaped unscathed. The strawberry plant might bounce back. I put a netting over the top of both cages and still should be able to root the runner there. Growing borage with strawberries is supposed to have a number of benefits which I'm not going to go into. Here is an image of a borage (with strawberry plants at its feet) inside the greenhouse where the deer can't get it. Note the plastic bars set up to keep them from poking their heads in if I leave the window open. Looks like I have to add a couple more bars near the top.

• "Black-Eyed Susans (Rudbeckia) are considered deer-resistant. Deer generally avoid them because of their rough, hairy texture and strong taste."

WRONG!!! They dove down into the two-foot cage and lopped off the top. It might come back. I will put netting over the top of the cage.

• "Yes, aloe vera is generally deer-resistant. Deer typically avoid it because of its thick, spiky leaves and bitter sap."

WRONG WRONG WRONG!!! Surrounded by acres of lush early-summer vegetation, deer at the greenhouse have sampled aloe vera on two different occasions. I'm leaving some aloe vera outside the greenhouse as an act of defiance, and in hopes that the reported toxicity will kick in and take care of the problem. Deer at the house (a mile away) have not sampled the aloe vera. July 1 update: The deer at the greenhouse chewed on both of the 'Tiger Tooth' aloes. As mentioned, they have their choice of lush vegetation the area, but they decided to sample plants with sharp spines. It would be like chewing on razor blades. This is ridiculous. At the house, a deer was seen sniffing an aloe vera on the back deck, so now all aloe at both locations are inside. The six at the greenhouse are lined up at the back of the bench because they are big, and to stay out of direct light. I noticed that all six have chunks missing. The two at the house made it inside sniffed but unscathed.

• "Yes, Monarda (commonly known as Bee Balm or Bergamot) is widely considered reliably deer-resistant. Deer typically avoid it due to its strong, medicinal, mint-like fragrance and slightly fuzzy leaf texture."

WRONG!!! They sampled a Monarda I bought and planted at the corner of our house. It will bounce back eventually, but that set it back significantly. I'm planning on planting next to the shed the two Monardas I have nurtured from seed since late winter, killing millions of aphids to get to this point. Right now they are aphid free and more than a foot tall. But I was waiting to plant until I got more fencing material, which I now have. We also have a landscaping project coming up and it includes three Monardas. (Update: They have been caged.) The deer at the greenhouse have not chewed on the purchased Monarda that is the centerpiece of the outside barrel. They prefer aloe vera 'Tiger Tooth' aloe.

• "Yes, Salvia (sage) is widely considered an exceptionally deer-resistant plant. Deer typically avoid it because of its strong, aromatic fragrance and slightly fuzzy, textured leaves, which they find highly unappealing."

• "Vermillionaire® (Cuphea hybrid), also known as the Large Firecracker Plant, is highly deer-resistant. Its tubular flowers have an unappealing texture and a strong, unpalatable scent that grazing deer typically avoid."

WRONG!!! I planted a salvia and a Vermillionaire together in a grow bag and the deer couldn't wait to take the tops off of them that night. The salvia recovered sooner than the Vermillionaire, but neither is near its original height.

• "Yes, coleus are generally considered deer-resistant. Their textured leaves, strong natural scents, and the plant's mild toxicity make them unappealing to browsing deer."

WRONG!!! The greenhouse deer chewed on two coleus which I had outside. Fortunately they didn't completely destroy them and they have regrown from the stubs.

• "Oregano is highly deer-resistant."

MAYBE!!! I'm not 100% sure, but I think they sampled my new Italian Oregano plant. I won't even let them have a chance at the marjoram, which is milder. They have left the more robust Greek Oregano alone.

• "Yes, marigolds are generally considered deer resistant. Deer typically avoid them due to their pungent, medicinal odor and bitter-tasting foliage."

• "Yes, chives are highly deer resistant. Because they belong to the Allium (onion) family, they have a strong smell and pungent taste that deer instinctively avoid."

WRONG??? If they yank marigolds or chives out of the pot but don't actually eat them, does that mean they are deer resistant? Last year they pulled the marigolds out of the window boxes and spit them out. They were intact enough to replant. A couple months later, they did it again. It was too late in the year to bother replanting them. This year I planted the nastiest marigolds I could find, and they have left them alone. Also this year, they yanked a chive plant out of its pot and spit it out. I replanted it and it probably will be OK.

• "Zinnias are considered moderately deer resistant. While deer generally avoid the coarse texture and strong scent of mature zinnia plants, they will happily eat tender young seedlings or the flowers if their preferred food sources are scarce."

Right (mostly)!!! What I disagree with here is other food sources are not scarce! They took out two of my six zinnia seedlings that were about four inches high in the window boxes, ignoring acres of lush vegetation surrounding them.

Usually these internet statements are accompanied by a disclaimer that deer will eat just about anything if that's all they have or if there is a drought. For the record, both my house and the greenhouse are surrounded by lush fields of vegetation that have received adequate rainfall this spring and early summer. They have no excuse. They are 150-lb. rodents.

So far the plants the deer have not touched are Agastache, Basil, Lavender, Greek Oregano, Rosemary, Sage, Russian Sage, Peppermint, Sempervivums, Thyme, and Plectranthus 'Velveteen Aromatic'™. I have 20 fuzzy, aromatic 'Velveteen' plants scattered around outside and they don't touch them. They also haven't touched my petunias...but they are in baskets eight feet in the air.

On a more positive note, it appears two of the four potato stalks are in the process of dying. They have leaned over quite a bit just since yesterday. That might mean the harvest is not too far away. We are just about at the 90-day mark, so apparently we are on track. They have not flowered, but flowering is not a required step to get a harvest. I'm excited, not just for the potatoes, but for getting that big grow bag out of the greenhouse where the plants overshadow their neighbors.

I don't plan on growing potatoes inside the greenhouse next year, but I might put the big grow bag in our yard next to our new trees, and the question is whether I have to fence it. "Yes, potato plants are generally considered deer resistant. Deer typically avoid grazing on them because the leaves are part of the nightshade family and contain bitter toxins (glycoalkaloids) that are unappealing." I like the part about the toxins, but I probably will fence them at least initially. Red Lodge deer have made a liar of the internet too many times for me to lower my guard.

This might actually work

I planted 26 Albion strawberry bare roots along with one Montana plant. Half of the Albions died, for which I blame everyone and everything but myself. But now there are new plants coming online. There are seven Albion runners at various stages of making new plants.

Two of them are in the east planting bed in the greenhouse, which is good since there are many holes to fill there. One is in a grow bag at the house, and I will be able to direct it to root in the other grow bag, which has only one strawberry plant. I will probably have to sacrifice a good-sized borage that I started in that bag when the second plant died, but what are we raising here, strawberries or borage? The interweb says borage is difficult to move because it has a taproot, so it's probably doomed.

The other four runners are in the most inconvenient location, the two smaller hanging baskets in the greenhouse. I have a four-inch pot perched in one of the baskets to catch the first runner that appeared, and it has some good-looking leaves and the beginnings of roots (visible at the bottom). I actually had to cut another runner off of this one because it had nowhere to go, which is that stub on the right.

The other three runners from the two baskets are being directed into a new basket between them in which I have placed three 4-inch pots. (Red, of course.) My 6-inch landscape staples are too long for the pots so I used bent paper clips. I do have some 4-inch staples on order but they won't be here for 10 days.

So far the harvest is two berries with two more mostly red and several days away. We are not being inundated yet, to say the least. If I clipped off the runners perhaps the berries would come faster. But I would like to get about 13 Albion plants to replace those that were lost. And I would like the Montana plant to send out a couple of runners so I can get more copies of that, but no such luck yet.

Along the lines of "What are we raising here?" the nasturtiums inside the greenhouse are taking over. I trim them every day, and I took out two plants that were shadowing others. I found a lot of alyssum under there after I did that. Here is a nasturtium flower, of which there are many:

I planted nasturtiums in two of the outside window boxes, and two of them have come up in each box. They are not huge yet. I also have alyssum in those boxes, so I'll probably have to do more pruning starting in a week or so.

Playing the hand you are dealt

My overarching feeling about the greenhouse season so far is that aphids make your life miserable if you insist on growing certain plants in certain locations. I was spraying the greenhouse pepper plants every day with soap, which I'm sure wasn't good for them as they don't seem to be growing. The past week or so the spraying seems to have shifted to the marigold buds next to the pepper plants. A bud gets covered with them, I spray them down, and an hour later they are making a comeback. But MAYBE they are going after the marigold buds now instead of the peppers so MAYBE companion planting for pest control isn't total garbage. I don't believe that yet.

Other marigolds less than five feet away do not get aphids at all. They are outside in the window boxes. The tomato plants that are a few feet in the other direction, inside, have not had aphids since I wiped out a few that were going after the young stems. There are different types of aphids, and right now I have the ones that like marigold buds, but only inside.

In my designated flower bed (southeast), the marigolds also have aphids and have not grown as much as the others across the room. The sunflowers are growing, slowly. The sunflower plants in the big pot six feet to the north are 20 times larger. I have one scraggly zinnia in the flower bed where there should be at least five. What is prospering in that bed is the nasturtiums, to the extent that I took out two of the plants to allow the alyssum to thrive, which it has since then. Instead of zinnias filling the front windows, I have coleus plants in 6" pots sitting on the sills. Ya'know what, if zinnias don't prosper there but coleus do, I should plant more coleus. I have five more that need to be potted up, maybe I should just stick them in the bed next to the window. I've also considered planting the harvested allium bulbs in that front strip, but it might be too damp to plant them now. In any event the allium wouldn't flower until next spring. The zinnias, alyssum and nasturtiums in the outside window boxes look healthy but are still small because they were direct seeded after it got somewhat warm. (But it never really gets warm here. Maybe on August 15.)

Half of the strawberry plants died. Some of the ones that survived are sending out runners, two of them in the east bed but also the two in the smaller (14") greenhouse baskets. I'm going to try to get the runners to root in 4" pots, which takes a bit of effort with the hanging baskets. There is one 4" pot perched inside a basket, and I also hung a new 10" basket between the two strawberry baskets and will put three 4" pots inside that basket. So far I have harvested two Albion strawberries, one from a greenhouse basket and the other from a house basket. Both were a bit tart, but not bad. I guess I should leave them for a few more days after they are 100% red.

I did get two new 10" baskets today, identical except for color to the green ones that I'm using for the sedums. One will be trying to capture strawberry runners, and I potted up the other one with a thriving Supertunia Vista Bubblegum:

Bottom line: If something doesn't want to grow in a particular location, try something else or try somewhere else. I'm not going to keep trying to grow peppers in the greenhouse if it doesn't work.

Potato

This is my first time growing potatoes. I stuck three Yukon Gold pieces in a 15-gallon grow bag inside the greenhouse April 4. According to the interweb, they should be done in 90 days, which would be eight days from now. The plants are green and vigorous but haven't flowered yet. Flowering is not necessary to produce potatoes, but this lack makes me wonder if the timeline is off. I really want the plants to die so I can harvest the potatoes and get that big grow bag out of the middle of the greenhouse.

Also in that part of the greenhouse:

• The big container of Teddy Bear Sunflowers. I planted three seeds to make sure something grew, and all three came up. I'm not going to thin them. Compared to the other two locations I have sunflowers, these are the most vigorous.
• The 10-gallon grow bag with dill, in which I recently planted a cucumber in a Jiffy pot. Same story with the cucumber, I planted three seeds and all three came up. The other two went into hanging baskets, as planned, leaving one extra.
• Two pots of mums, one of which is doing better than the other. I pruned the bigger one June 10 because it was becoming very large. The image was taken before the pruning:
  
  
  
  I hope the fall flowers are worth it. I sort of don't care about the mums and I'm not going to make any extra effort to overwinter them again. Last winter I buried the big pots in the greenhouse beds, but the coming winter they will just be sitting on the ground. If they die, they die. If they don't die, I will have to think about dividing them next spring...but I really don't want more mum pots.
• I installed two SANSI grow lights and started off by putting Echeveria 'Lola' and Aeonium 'Florens' in big ceramic pots under them. The Aeonium is supposed to go into summer dormancy, so I put it off to the side and now have a new pot with six Supertunia cuttings under that grow light.
• Also in the area is a 15-gallon grow bag with cold-hardy succulents. This is a test run for converting the southwest planting bed to succulents, which will require a large change to the soil. I'll have to remove more than half of it and heavily amend it with pumice and coco coir. I think all of the greenhouse beds need to be loosened up to drain better and could use some amendment. Not to the same extent as for succulents, but something. This would be difficult to do in the strawberry bed unless I dig up everything and replant it, but the others will be empty this winter.

I left this part of the greenhouse open so I could put big containers there. I would do potatoes again, but maybe outside. It became massive quickly. I've considered moving the big bag to the house behind the shed before harvest. I ordered a nice new hand cart to replace the flimsy one I've had for many years, but I don't know if I will be able to lift the bag in and out of the truck. If I attempt it, I need to stop watering for a few days ahead of time.