I am so jealous. :)

I don't think you're jumping the gun.

Yes, go ahead and plant 'em out now.

Brat.

token - I was going to ask YOU - and this is my fifth year wintersowing. It's those darn surprise freezes that we can get in April - and I don't mean just 30ish - I am talking about 20s - that scare me. I, personally, wait every year but there are some sure seedlings that can take the cold..as you know. I bet your dianthus has been fine through all of the low 20s, as well as poppies, larkspurs, nigella and the famous "reseeders" that pop-up as early as January.

I have stokes aster seedlings that are about 3 inches high and while they are evergreen perennials here - I just hesitate to let them go.

What are you thinking of planting out? Let's compare notes since I am in your same "weather" system - beautiful next ten days but who knows what after that... ;0/

Carrie

Carrie, I planted out these on Feb 12.

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The lasagna pans contained diathus pinks maiden and trailing carnations. In the two-liter soda bottles were sea holly, cupid's dart(2), hollyhocks(2), scabiosa(3), dianthus 'Sweet William', and lamb's ear.

I've lost a few dianthus maiden pink due to lack of watering on my part. I've lost a few cupid's dart to something that is munching my seedlings. And I've lost a couple of the Sweet Williams too. I don't think any of them were due to the cold, but that could be wrong. I haven't been able to check on them hourly over the past 2 weeks. LOL.

My larkspur and poppies were planted out a week earlier. Most are doing okay, but there's not a lot of growth. I probably need to fertilize.

Would need a pick axe to plant here.
Perennials for you I would go ahead, and Thursday is the perfect moon time for planting out.
If you get nervous later with a big dip in the temps, a great cover for frost is old sheer curtains. I get them at yard sales,sal val, they are great for that, also I have used them as a shade cloth when transplanting large specimens. Works like a charm.

Token, my poppies were started direct sow with plastic containers over them (sort of the opposite of wintersowing). I did that purposely in January and noticed that while they germinated, their growth has been slow. Last year, I had reseeds and noticed that at this time of year, they were small (just like the larkspurs). But.. when the weather turned warmer they really popped, so I don't think it is lack of fertilizer, but hey, you could try. My reseeded larkspurs are small too, but they will really start growing once it warms up.

Yeah, prob dianthus would be fine (mine have been) if you had watered (?) or did something munch on those(?)... I scatter broken dried egg shells around my seedlings, hoping to keep away slugs, etc.

I am going to hold off planting out. To me, March is way too risky and I'd hate to lose anything but I am like YOU, itching to empty the containers! Enjoy this wonderful next ten days we will have and wish for the rest of the winter to be just as nice!

Carrie

lizzy, thanks for reminding me about the moon phase.

Our moon will be in Pisces which is also my sign and the second best for transplanting. Also, the new moon is tonight. Two days on either side of the new moon for transplanting.

gardening by the moon

Moon sign calculator

Carrie, I've been putting out wood ash around my plants whenever I see that something has been chewing on them. I can't say for sure that it's slugs because I have never had a real problem with them. *fingers crossed*

But I do have a terrible problem with pillbugs. Now some people say they won't eat living plants. That's a lie. At least in my garden. Last year they took down my Rudbeckia 'Autumn Colors' in a matter of days. The plant was covered in pillbugs. I bought it in bloom and it was over 18" tall. Two weeks after planting it, it was gone. The root ball was eaten too.

If you can't find the sheer curtains that BusyLizzy suggested, dig in and buy some shade covers. Not too expensive. So many uses - for shade when plants are newly transplanted, and will extend your growing season at the beginning and end of the season.

very useful!

If you have pill bugs it usually means that the soil is not draining well enough. They like it wet, they die if it dries out.

Here's some wonderful information on how keep those buggers from eating your garden!

Here is a link that might be useful: Gardens Alive

Thanks Nancy. I'm already planning to pick up a bag of DE from Lowes tomorrow. I'll spread a little out around each HOS as I plant.

Last year I created all these beds in a "lawn" area. Mostly I covered clover, ornamental strawberries, violets, and weeds. The pill bugs arrived in large numbers after a couple weeks of above normal rainfall for September. I thought we were in a drought. LOL.

Now I see them all over the yard. But they have turned that leaf mold and wood mulch into some really fantastic black gold. I just hope the cold weather has killed off the excess numbers I brought home from the landfill.

I have them too - I was also told years ago that they are harmless but that is SO not true. They eat holes in everything - I buy DE every year to help with ant problems, now I am buying more to solve the "pill bug" problem - or whatever those things are! :0)

Carrie

What is DE????

Prof, it's Diatomaceous Earth. I didn't know it's supposed to help with pillbugs. If it gets wet, it doesn't work, which makes it less useful than it could be.

Yes, it's funny how adamant people can be about knowing that pillbugs don't eat live plants, when it's just that the pillbugs never ate one of their plants. Or, they read this in a BOOK, so we must be imagining things! I try to be careful when I make statements, like "in my garden it happens this way"--because a lot of people defended pillbugs when it happened to me!

My soil drains well and dries out fast, so I have to use mulch. That's moist, which the pillbugs love. In my veggie garden, I have walkways of old leaves, then carpet, then straw on top for aesthetics (when I can) and the pillbugs like it there better. No more disappearing tomato seedlings!

Token, I read an interesting article where a gardener claimed that having the soil slightly alkaline killed all the slugs. He tossed his woodstove ashes around in the winter. I did that last winter, and I did see a lot fewer slugs. I think a person would have to be careful in clay soil, which seems to change pH more easily than sand.

To answer the original question, I think your perennial babies will be fine! Hardy annuals too. My Nigella is still green, and we got down to -10 or -15 this winter.

Busylizzy, that tip about sheer curtains is a good one!

The moon signs sound great but when it comes down to crunch time for me (planting out times seems to come at the same time for all the plants) and you have hundreds of jugs starting to fry in the sun, it is plunk and run regardless of the moon sign. I don't even have time to decide what goes with what it's just "get 'em in the ground". Maybe one day when I get over my obsession I will have time to plant by the signs.

I've read a couple of things that seem true in my yard.
Pillbugs need moisture. Water early in the day when possible, keep mulch a few inches from seedlings.
They eat damaged or dead organic matter. If you feed them lots of compost or other OM they'll be less likely to damage your good plants.
If they eat healthy looking plants chances are that damage was started by something else, like slugs.

Find out if you have slugs:
Put a damp board on your flower bed. Check under it late at night or early morning. Slugs will be on bottom of the board.
I have lots of slugs in spring when weather is wet. They become active at a soil temp of 40 degrees. They're controlled pretty well with Sluggo (iron phosphate). I try to treat all areas a couple of times before planting out.

Karen

For the next 4 days, they're not forecasting any temperatures below freezing. So I'm gonna remove the tops today so they can acclimate to the outdoors a little before they get planted tomorrow afternoon. I think I'll wait though until my coffee is done.

Can some one explain how to plant by the moon?
I looked up the site posted,my sign is Scorpo,said to plant tomatoes and ?, in NOVEMBER?
I don't get it?
cAROL

Carol,

There's an old train of reference from farmers that planting while the moon is in certain signs will yield a better crop. It comes from the time when we didn't have fancy calenders and weather forecasts. I used tomorrow's date in the calculator up there and found that the moon will be in Pisces. That's a water sign so planting done on that day should grow and produce well.

Here's the easiest way to do it. Farmer's Almanac.

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In the perennial bed:
â bee balm 'lemon mint'
â red coreopsis
â rudbeckia
â mountain bluet
â Virginia stock
â linaria 'flaming passion' - toadflax
â hollyhocks (yellow, double yellow, and Indian summer)
â sea holly
â salvia 'blue bedder'

In the moon garden:
â Shasta Daisy mix
â Lunaria (money plant)

In the potager:
â Borage

I gave everything a splash of fertilizer including the ones I planted out two weeks ago. While digging around in the perennial bed, I found some of the direct sown poppies have begun to sprout. Oh, and lots of acorns with 6" tap roots.

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