I think my true plight is the "sow more" thing. It's square one, behind the eight ball, what's the point, lacking portion. Picking myself up NOW.

:)

Gardening, we've all been there when encouragement quickly descends down into discouragement :(

True, Frozebudd...but timing is such that we can carry on the delusion of brilliant success for at least another month or two. April is the month for all those tender, space hogging garden stalwarts to make a show in the potting arena. Bring on the zinnias, tithonias, cleomes...prod those dahlias into action and get right onboard the cuttings express.

The spring reckoning is always tinged with a sigh of relief that (some, or even most) germinations failed - because I am already going out of my mind wondering where to put the trays of survivors. I can't imagine Robin's Tennessee (?) garden is going to face any less of a blistering summer than here in grey Blighty, but for me, June onward marks the start of the long, drawn out torture of summer attrition when a single days forgetfulness means carefully nurtured, promising plants turn into withered toast. Or blown off the coping. Or eaten by the collie. And most heartbreaking of all, trampled to oblivion by my own size 5s.

But...the cyclical nature of gardening makes it difficult to brood on failure for long, when evidence of exuberant life is bursting out all over.

C'mon Rob...you know what you need to do - glad to see the picking up part is already in process.

I germinated far fewer this year, so I am not having trouble with where to put the "extras". And now I'm wondering why I didn't. I thought I was being judicious and keeping my naive juvenile exuberance of germination in check, but all I've done is look like someone who opens a gift ever so gently so as to be able to use the wrapping paper again, instead of torn into it willy-nilly, happiness flying here and there. What was I thinking? Same thing as the ding-dongs who keep the paper never to use it again. Ornamentals are meant to be showered with abandon. Live and learn!

So direct seed some of the unplanted seeds in well-marked areas that have space. I am too distracted or lazy to mess with pots and flats of plants and almost entirely direct seed any plants I can get away with.

Thanks, but no way I'd direct sow everything! Not enough control over the conditions :) There are some things that's just fine for, but not for others. I'd never worry about nicotiana, larkspur, verbena, nigella, phacelia... for that, but not a chance in heck I'd toss Actaea seeds randomly. I just bit the bullet and redid all I "couldn't live without". Heck, I even got motivated to write a list out for basal and tip cuttings, and divisions :)

I just bought 5 potted outdoor plants from my local nursery and when I got home I realized, where the heck am I going to store these when the nights are still below freezing out on my screen porch where I store my beauties till planting out time. Can't keep them inside until I'm sure there are no fungus gnats. So I ended up putting them in the closed up staircase with the light on during daytime. I should've waited a few weeks. But they looked so wonderful.

Oh well, they'll be out there soon enough.

I think of seeding things as a crapshoot, but it's something to keep me occupied while waiting for Spring to come!

Maybe it is different conditions, but Actaea selfsows in my garden, so at least here it doesn’t need any special treatment. And happily, the voles don’t seem to enjoy it.

lucky you!

At the moment, I'm feeling pretty good about the decisions I've made with seedlings this year. I hope I haven't just jinxed myself [g]. I seem to have finally got the right routine going to produce healthy seedlngs and I'm still working at hardening them off correctly. I get a little impatient, so I'm trying to restrain myself. I have trays sitting outside right now that I am debating whether to drag them in another night, they haven't been left out at night yet.

In past years, I've started seed too early and grew weary with watering and tending the seedlings. Worse yet, having to pot them up to the next size. That was quite a lot of work. This year, I didn't start a seed until after March 1st. Even tomatoes and peppers. Not sure how that is going to work out yet, but I don't need many and if they are too small, I can certainly buy a few locally. And I started less. I planned instead to direct seed more, I only need a few of everything started early really because in another week I'll be able to direct sow. I just put peas in a few days ago. And most years I don't grow onions because I don't want to start them from seed in January and care for them for 3 months. This year I splurged and bought onion plants that came the other day and are now safely planted.

It has been a lot less work so far. I only have 3 trays of seedlings all still in six packs, that all should be able to be planted next week. All except the peppers and tomatoes which don't need to go in the ground for another 3 weeks at least.

Wow, PM2! You are at least a month ahead of me. My veggie garden has only just emerged from the snow in the last couple of days, and we still have areas with quite a bit of snow, and even some areas where the soil is still too frozen to drain well.

You're welcome to come down and work in my vegetable garden with me. lol I have raised beds, with a heavy leaf mulch all winter, but as soon as I raked that away they warmed up quite well and they dry out faster too. I am able to walk around the pathways without a problem, but I'm still avoiding walking in my perennial beds and the lawn. They are thawed, but not sure they are dried out enough everywhere.

I live on a small lot and the neighbors have a lot of trees, that are now giving me more and more shade to deal with. I used to be able to grow tomatoes in the back yard fine, but now I only have a 15x20 bed in front that gets full sun and a couple of years ago, I planted the same variety in my veg bed in back and in that front bed. It was amazing that I barely got a dozen tomatoes from the one in back and the front tomato was prolific and about 3x the size. I thought I was getting 6 hrs in the back, but, I guess it's less now.

So this year, I've decided to try to focus on crops that are happy with those conditions and I'm growing a lot of greens, lettuces, brassicas. I've done alright with peppers in the back, but they take a long time to produce a good size fruit and they don't ripen the same as the front. And I've about given up on squashes. I have trellises for peas then beans and cucumbers that do fine too.

So that is what my seedlings consist of - a couple of six packs of tomatoes and peppers for the front, but lettuces, mustards, brassicas for the back. I'm sure we are going to still get some cold nights, but I think they can tolerate it with some row covers over them. And I bought some pop up protectors for tomatoes this year to try to get them out a little earlier.

Pop Up Tomato Protector

Ha ha - reminded me, PM, of the seasonal cloche storms which infest my (very open and windy) allotment. I don't bother with any pop-up covers anymore, but other allotmenteers still live in hope that their covers are going to stay pinned in place rather than flying about the plot.

My first time trying them, so we'll see. We're not always dealing wtih wind here, so fingers crossed. [g] Oh, plus if I put the tomatoes in place inside their wrought iron cage, maybe that will help hold it in place. I'll have to come back and report on how it does.

O, I am sure yours will be fine, PM...but watching flying polythene skittering across the plot is almost a spectator sport. A peculiarity of having an open field, surrounded on all sides by 6-7 storey building,creates some interesting (and ferocious) wind-tunnels. Less amusing is when an entire polytunnel (mine) decide to go for a maiden flight, finally coming to rest in a crumpled heap against the boundary fence

The UK is convulsed with rage at present because of property developer's rampant use of netting to deter nesting birds in trees...whilst I am rubbing my hands together, wondering where to buy a giant tree sized net for myself (I WILL have cherries this year

That reminds me of a screenhouse we had, years ago, that during a hurricane, went up and over our garage and landed in the driveway from the back yard. [g] I can see the entertainment in watching what the wind was whipping up from one day to the next.

Not really understanding why birds nesting in trees is a bad thing, or why developers would care, but I can see needing protection for your cherries. I need some for blueberries.

We have laws which protect nesting birds, so trees or hedges cannot be trimmed, and certainly not cut down during nesting season...an inconvenience property developers are unprepared to wait around for, (and which often has tragic results for birds which get caught up in them). Widescale netting seems to be a faitry recent thing though...and the bird loving public are not amused.

Weather flucuation can really get you down. Yesterday was a sunny 76F and today it a rainy 52F. Tonight it's supposed to drop to 25F. Guess I'll go cover some of the perennials which awoke too early,

Campanula, we often watch a mystery series set in England and while I'm sure they play a soundtrack of birds singing [g], still, I always get that impression that the birds are always singing more there than they do here. And now that you tell me that they've had a law to prevent people from going near their nesting spots while they are nesting, maybe it's true that you do have more birds singing there. lol

It doesn't make sense to fight nature for the sake of inconvenience when we are the losers in the end. It's very short sighted. I'm surprised, because I thought the trend was toward more native plantings, meaning shrubs and trees, that are left casual and allow for habitat.

geoforce - It's sunny and cold and windy here this morning. Glad my bulbs are late coming up, I would not want to be running around covering everything. Been there, done that. Hope we'll all be in the clear in another week.