Vacation

We drove to Denver to fly to Switzerland, so were gone from home for two full weeks. I set up all of the irrigation, everything in the greenhouse watered every two days except the baskets which were every day. This is more than enough and today I set all of the pots outside to dry everything out just a bit, and to transition some plants back to the house and move all of the hardy succulents back to the greenhouse. This is what it looked like after I moved everything back in.

Everything in the pots survived pretty well except the Bachelor Buttons, which didn't get hit by the irrigation and were dried out. Then after I moved all the pots outside and went home for a few minutes, the deer targeted it (and the chives) and tormented it even more. Oh well, it's an annual and will not be overwintered.

The cucumber baskets already have been cleaned for the winter, so it was a small surprise to see that the cucumber plant in the grow bag finally produce a cuc. With the windows closed most of the time, there isn't much opportunity for pollination.

The sunflowers in the bed were all dead when I got back so those went into the compost pile. It really isn't a compost pile; just about everything I throw there disappears within a day, eaten by the deer. In the southwest bed that eventually will be transitioned to a hardy succulent bed, I killed the tomato plant and potted up the pepper and basil plants. All that remains are green onions and a few bulb onions. Sometime next week I will have to move on from the onions and change the soil to a succulent mix -- 45% of the current garden soil, 45% half pumice, 10% coco coir. Then I will plant the Sempervivums and hope there is enough time for then to establish well enough for winter.

Other plans:

• Pot down the petunias in the baskets and large pots.
• Pot up the petunia cuttings that have developed roots in water.
• Pot up the coleus cuttings that have developed roots in water.
• Decide which Velveteens, peppermint, basil, rosemary will be allowed to freeze come winter.
• Mulch the strawberries with straw.

I'm already lacking room on the garage shelves for the petunias and coleus I want to overwinter. I have resisted moving anything into the closet under the grow light except for the succulent leaf propagations. Moving one or two of the larger coleus into the house will free up some space, and probably will be better for the coleus that may not find 50 degree in the garage to be that desireable.

With the Supertunia baskets protected from the wind inside the greenhouse for the past month, they look really good. The Vista basket (Bubblegum/Jazzberry) is getting really tall. This is the Really Red/Latte basket.

But I'm going to have to prune the tunia plants to fit in 6-inch pots for the winter. I just ordered 50 more 6-inch plastic pots, which is too many...for now.