Day 2

In the greenhouse today, I planted seeds for all the cool-season vegetables in the west planter bed, including golden beets, carrots, various radishes, various lettuce, basil, broccoli and peas. The plan is to have all these except the basil finish producing by June and turn the bed over to tomatoes and peppers. The basil is all in one spot but will be moved around the bed if it is prospering by June.

In the southeast planter bed where I put the Teddy Bear sunflower seeds yesterday, I direct seeded zinnia, marigolds, nasturtium and alyssum. The potato grow bag got a scattering of cilantro seeds, and the sunflower pot got some bunching onions.

The southwest bed got all of the onion sets yesterday, so the only bed I haven't touched is the east one where the strawberries will go. Burpee will deliver the 25 bare roots (Albion) and one plant (Montana) in a few weeks. I will direct seed some borage, nasturtiums and alyssum in there in support of the strawberries. Direct seeding all of these is much easier than seed starting, and if they don't grow then I'll figure something else out. Anyway, varieties like sunflowers and nasturtiums don't always do well as transplants and are often better off being seeded directly. I still have plenty of seeds to start, it just won't include these.

Two of the three borrowed geranium pots from last year have returned. I don't have room for the third one if it is found. I whacked the foliage way back before dropping them off last November, and now they look as lush as ever. I took one cutting each from them and from my own pot back then, and to my dismay all four survived (after one restart) and now I have to figure out what to do with THEM. I have enough geraniums. I also moved the two biggest pots of holdover petunias to the greenhouse, giving the big one a haircut and a shot of fertilizer.

In addition to 14-inch and 16-inch coir baskets, I also have a couple of 10-inch hanging plastic pots. Nice green ones, not generic. I was going to put strawberries in them, but that idea originated before I had all these succulents. Now I think I will plant them with hardy succulents, and with that in mind my newest online order includes three sedums that are hardy and may look good in a hanging basket. I have to figure out what would go with these spillers. Maybe Graptosedum 'Francesco Baldi,' listed below. Here is the complete order from Succulents Depot. I am ordering from them for the first time because Mountain Crest only had Echeveria 'Topsy Turvy' in stock for a few days. Just to make sure (and to get free shipping), I ordered two of them.

• Corpuscularia lehmannii 'Ice Plant' (the "other" Ice Plant)
• Crassula imperialis 'Giant Watch Chain'
• Echeveria 'Atlantis' (green, pink edges)
• Echeveria runyonii 'Topsy Turvy' (2)
• Graptosedum 'Francesco Baldi' (colorful, can grow tall)
• Graptoveria 'Debbie' (neat rosette in shades of dusty pink)
• Greenovia aurea variegata (yellow-green, creamy, or sometimes pinkish-streaked variegation)
• Sedeveria 'Silver Frost' (pink-tipped pale green leaves)
• Sedum SunSparkler 'Blue Pearl' (smoky blue foliage on wine-red stems)
• Sedum alboroseum 'Mediovariegatum' variegated (Green and yellow, more upright than other sedums)
• Sedum takesimense 'Atlantis' variegated (small, serrated leaves are dark green with creamy yellow margins.)
• Sempervivum 'Hurricane' (webbed)

I've had my eye on the Greenovia at Succulents Depot for quite a while. No one else seems to have it. It is sort of like an Aeonium. The others in the order admittedly are not "must haves" but they were the most interesting ones I could find in stock. Succulents Depot makes a point of shipping many of their plants bare root rather than with soil in pots. Considering that a lot of the soil in these shipments ends up scattered around the box anyway, it makes some sense. We'll see how it works in practice.

I had this wild thought yesterday about the future of the greenhouse. If we want to travel during the summer but still raise fruits, vegetables and flowers, I need to make sure the irrigation system is working and also have someone check on it every day to make sure it is working. What if the greenhouse was stocked only with plants that only needed watering every week or two during the summer? What if my planter beds were filled with sempervivums and sedums that lived there year-round, and my bench and open area had summer residents such as echeverias and other tenders? (In the winter they would retire to our garage or windows.) Everyone raises tomatoes. Why do what everyone else does?

It's not going to happen this year. The soil needs to be amended with stuff like pumice and small gravel to a depth of at least six inches to provide proper drainage. And I do want to keep growing some thirsty things like Supertunias and strawberries. We'll see where this idea leads, but I would not be surprised to see a Sempervivum stuck in one of beds at some point.

By my count, I have eight tiny plants that have come into being through leaf propagation. I noticed this one today. It is the first one that shows the original leaf shriveling to this extent, so it is close to being required to survive on its own. I gave it its own little pot and will try to remember to mist it frequently. All these new little plants will need somewhere to grow, and I have a greenhouse...albeit it not a four-season greenhouse.