Once upon a time, I had the best camera ever: the Canon PowerShot S5 IS. Then Canon came up with the next generation of big zooms: the Canon PowerShot SX30 IS. I immediately bought it and gave my S5 away to a friend. Sadly the SX30 is worthless. Yes, it has a big zoom. That's nice. On the other hand, it's nearly impossible to focus. The autofocus is bad, the macro doesn't work at all, and the manual focus not only can't be worked in cold weather, it also re-focuses to be out of focus every time. Supposedly you could stop it doing that by setting "Safety MF" to "off", but I did that and it's still doing it. I emailed Canon about it and they said thanks for the feedback, we will certainly work on it. And everyone else said the same thing. So when Canon issued the next model, it was... exactly identical. Oh, wait, no: it has a CMOS instead of a CCD processor. Other than that, it's exactly the same piece of worthless, unusable junk that everyone told them wasn't working.
At times I've considered buying a Canon DSLR, although it would be a waste of money and I don't feel like walking around with that much weight around my neck. But since they're obviously not interested in selling me a camera, I'm now in the market for anything but a Canon.
Anyway, the point of this long story is, I'm not getting any reasonable pictures of sprouts, because my camera can't focus. But that being said, here is what's happening in the garden.
You may remember that back in October, I had winterised my garden, thusly:
I wasn't sure when would be a good date to open it up, but the weather has been so warm this spring, I could probably have done it much earlier than May 4. The reason I did it that day is, it was a Saturday, it was warm, and my spring bulbs had been shipped.
So. Step 1, clear my living room floor.
Wow, I have a living room? Who knew?
Step 2: remove the tarp from the garden, spread it on the living room floor.
Step 3: remove all the batts and pile them neatly on the tarp. I was extremely please to find that both the batts and the cardboard were still in their original condition: no weathering, no mold, nothing. Perfectly preserved. Yay, me!
Step 4: fold up the tarp and use the same rope to tie it all up. It didn't pack down exactly as small as in the original packaging, but it's pretty compact, as used-batt-storage goes.
And yes, I did make a handle with the rope. Rope work is one of my many untapped talents, if I do say so myself. (Thank you Dad for all the summers on the ocean sailing Lasers!)
The result:
Ok, you can't see in the picture, but it's perfect. The two trees are still alive, they still have water, they are neither dry nor moldy. The Jungle is neither dry nor moldy. Everything performed exactly as planned. BOOYA!
Now, I need to set up my giant flowerbeds.
What the???? They don't have any bottoms! Aaaaaaaah! Well, that explains why they were so affordable. And it does give me some latitude in setting them up: as you can see in the bottom left corner, I can slide it so it's a rectangle instead of a square, thus giving me a little more room to walk around them.
I used 2" rigid to make a bottom. I'd have needed some rigid insulation underneath for the winter anyway. The only difference between this and having a bottom is, I won't be able to move them. I had been toying with the idea of moving to 707, because the 07s are one-bedrooms with the biggest balconies and the best exposure in the whole building. It would have been rather difficult to move these giant planters had they had a bottom; without a bottom, they'd have to be disassembled and the dirt wheelbarrowed over there, and I doubt I'd have that kind of ambition. Oh well; saves me a fortune on rent and prevents people inviting themselves to live in my house.
The insulation was donated by Drill Guy, who insisted on "helping" with this project. As if I needed help. I did need insulation though, and this is about $70 worth, which is nice. Except I don't like having a $70 obligation to some dude. But oh well.
The gap between the two sides is deliberate, for drainage purposes. Then as you can see, I put some mesh screen over the gap, to prevent the soil from washing away.
Then, I dumped the used soil from previous years, which I was keeping in a large garbage can, and all the planters. The ones you can see here, all root-bound, are the Wall of Insanity. Brutal, isn't it?
But as we know, I needed much, much more soil. Thusly:
I think I ended up with about 20 bags of soil and manure. And this is my very awesome Fnord minivan, which is excellent for hauling anything under the sun.
This is how much bonemeal it takes for one flowerbed. Finally, I'm making a dent in my inexhaustible supply of bonemeal.
The thing is, and I should have thought of it sooner, the pressure from the soil caused the free side to slide out, thus reducing my walking space, increasing the amount of soil needed, and leaving a gap between the insulation and the wall. So, I had to dig the soil away from the wall,
slide the wall back into place, and stabilize it with spacers made from the lumber of the dog's former lawn.
I transplanted everything that was ready to go out, but it didn't lend itself to much photography. I had tulip bulbs in the fridge. The tulip bulbs in the Jungle got too much moisture and were all squishy; I threw them out. Peng Dehuai and Liu Shao-ch'i are wide awake. Deng Xiaoping, sadly, died. Funny that the two that were outside lived and the one inside died, but I'm not surprised. It broke dormancy and then got too much water, or some such problem. Anyway, it's dead as a doornail. I'll have to find something else to name after Deng Xiaoping. Also my two pear trees. Oh yeah, I only have two pear trees left, because the other two got so badly infested with spider mites, I cut them off and put them in the garbage. Sorry, little dudes. Natural selection didn't select you.
What else... My peony, but more on that later. My flax / dogwood / cotoneaster experiment, which is displeasing me considerably. And my old lilies: the orange one that was supposed to be black, the two that never flowered that were supposed to be black, and the Stargazer from last year, which hasn't shown any sign of life since being moved in with the other lilies.
Two days later, my spring bulbs arrived. Yay, spring bulbs! A big box, too. Ooooooooh, exciting!
This is my $40 Celebrity peony. As you can see, it's wide awake. The downside is, I have absolutely no idea which side is up and which side is down. Hmmmm... Think think think. I ended up burying the whole thing. If I know anything about plants, it's that they have excellent proprioception. A few days later, I worried that this was the wrong thing to do, so I dug back to my peony root, and found that it had grabbed on to the soil and was sending upwards growth. Booya!
My other peony, the $13 Shirley Temple one, came in the fall and had no growth on it at all. It shouldn't, of course. Fall bulbs are supposed to be dormant. So I had it in a planter all winter, and it never did anything, and I assumed it was dead. But when I set up the garden, I dug it up, and found the roots were starting to produce some downward growths. Rhizomes, maybe. I don't pretend to know the difference between a root, a bulb, a rhizome, or all the other disturbing things plants do under the ground. I do, however, know the difference between alive and dead, and both my peony roots were very much alive as of two weeks ago. They're still not growing above ground, but I looked at other people's established in-ground peonies, and they're not doing anything above ground yet either.
And this is my J.P. Connell rose. J.P. Connell is one of the hardy Explorer roses, developped by Agriculture Canada for our climate. Back when the Canadian government actually did things for people. Here, J.P. Connell is soaking, along with some anemone bulbs. And as you can see, it too is still alive, with green growth already showing on the canes. At least I don't have to guess what's up and what's down on this one.
These creepy things are toad lilies. There is supposed to be one purple, one orange, and one pink.
There were also three double oriental lilies in the package, which I didn't photograph. If they succeed, they will be absolutely spectacular.
As for the anemones, they're not supposed to go out until after last frost, and I was in a hurry, so I dumped them into something that had soil and nothing growing, put some dirt over top, and forgot about it for a few days. Then white mold got at them and ate about half of them. Boohoohoohoohoo... How sad. But then again, maybe I shouldn't have bought anemones. They're not even the ones I really wanted. Now the survivors are sprouting. We'll see.
Then, I also seeded everything I could think of: jacks-in-the-pulpit, dodecatheon, all the pansies, hollyhock, columbine, California poppies, regular grass, cat grass... That's all I can think of. And I can't quite remember what I put where. I know where the poppies and hollyhocks are, and more or less the jacks and dodecatheons. For the rest... it will be a surprise, I guess.
Voila. This was the summer garden as of 10:14 on May 12.
This is J.P. Connell today. As you can see, it's wide awake. I'm taking it as a bellwether for the health of the roots that have no above-ground component yet. If the rose is doing ok, so must they. Right? I hope so.
And this is one of the double oriental lilies. Took about eight tries to get the camera to focus on it. Again, if this one is alive, that must mean conditions are adequate for the other ones underground, right? And as you can see, the grass is starting to sprout. There are some other seeds sprouting, but since I forgot what I put where, and the whole thing is riddled with old seeds from the last three years, it could be anything.
This morning the weather being ridiculously warm and comfortable, I also transplanted the dicentra. I bought it from the hardware store a while back. As you may recall, the hardware store has a habit of carrying bulbs in little baggies. It's a horribly unhealthy thing to do to a bulb; they come on a truck from who knows where, and then sit in the store for days or weeks waiting to be bought by someone who doesn't know better. That's how I got my Stargazer. And this particular dicentra looked very healthy for all that, and what's more, it's a white one. Dicentra is commonly known as "bleeding heart" and I don't really like the pink ones. I didn't even know it came in white. So I took it home, put it in some dirt, immediately it grew and flowered. I could have sworn I took pictures of the flowers, but I'm not finding them. Anyway, it's very pretty. But now it's just putting out leaves and no more flowers. Anyway, I didn't want to put it out in the cold wind too soon, but this morning I found it a spot outside. Now I just got to do the anemones, and then I won't have anything left to plant.
Hmmmmmm...
Ok, so what do I do with the rest of the summer? Grow pumpkins, I guess. But that's for another post.
At times I've considered buying a Canon DSLR, although it would be a waste of money and I don't feel like walking around with that much weight around my neck. But since they're obviously not interested in selling me a camera, I'm now in the market for anything but a Canon.
Anyway, the point of this long story is, I'm not getting any reasonable pictures of sprouts, because my camera can't focus. But that being said, here is what's happening in the garden.
You may remember that back in October, I had winterised my garden, thusly:
I wasn't sure when would be a good date to open it up, but the weather has been so warm this spring, I could probably have done it much earlier than May 4. The reason I did it that day is, it was a Saturday, it was warm, and my spring bulbs had been shipped.
So. Step 1, clear my living room floor.
Wow, I have a living room? Who knew?
Step 2: remove the tarp from the garden, spread it on the living room floor.
Step 3: remove all the batts and pile them neatly on the tarp. I was extremely please to find that both the batts and the cardboard were still in their original condition: no weathering, no mold, nothing. Perfectly preserved. Yay, me!
Step 4: fold up the tarp and use the same rope to tie it all up. It didn't pack down exactly as small as in the original packaging, but it's pretty compact, as used-batt-storage goes.
And yes, I did make a handle with the rope. Rope work is one of my many untapped talents, if I do say so myself. (Thank you Dad for all the summers on the ocean sailing Lasers!)
The result:
Ok, you can't see in the picture, but it's perfect. The two trees are still alive, they still have water, they are neither dry nor moldy. The Jungle is neither dry nor moldy. Everything performed exactly as planned. BOOYA!
Now, I need to set up my giant flowerbeds.
What the???? They don't have any bottoms! Aaaaaaaah! Well, that explains why they were so affordable. And it does give me some latitude in setting them up: as you can see in the bottom left corner, I can slide it so it's a rectangle instead of a square, thus giving me a little more room to walk around them.
I used 2" rigid to make a bottom. I'd have needed some rigid insulation underneath for the winter anyway. The only difference between this and having a bottom is, I won't be able to move them. I had been toying with the idea of moving to 707, because the 07s are one-bedrooms with the biggest balconies and the best exposure in the whole building. It would have been rather difficult to move these giant planters had they had a bottom; without a bottom, they'd have to be disassembled and the dirt wheelbarrowed over there, and I doubt I'd have that kind of ambition. Oh well; saves me a fortune on rent and prevents people inviting themselves to live in my house.
The insulation was donated by Drill Guy, who insisted on "helping" with this project. As if I needed help. I did need insulation though, and this is about $70 worth, which is nice. Except I don't like having a $70 obligation to some dude. But oh well.
The gap between the two sides is deliberate, for drainage purposes. Then as you can see, I put some mesh screen over the gap, to prevent the soil from washing away.
Then, I dumped the used soil from previous years, which I was keeping in a large garbage can, and all the planters. The ones you can see here, all root-bound, are the Wall of Insanity. Brutal, isn't it?
But as we know, I needed much, much more soil. Thusly:
I think I ended up with about 20 bags of soil and manure. And this is my very awesome Fnord minivan, which is excellent for hauling anything under the sun.
This is how much bonemeal it takes for one flowerbed. Finally, I'm making a dent in my inexhaustible supply of bonemeal.
The thing is, and I should have thought of it sooner, the pressure from the soil caused the free side to slide out, thus reducing my walking space, increasing the amount of soil needed, and leaving a gap between the insulation and the wall. So, I had to dig the soil away from the wall,
slide the wall back into place, and stabilize it with spacers made from the lumber of the dog's former lawn.
I transplanted everything that was ready to go out, but it didn't lend itself to much photography. I had tulip bulbs in the fridge. The tulip bulbs in the Jungle got too much moisture and were all squishy; I threw them out. Peng Dehuai and Liu Shao-ch'i are wide awake. Deng Xiaoping, sadly, died. Funny that the two that were outside lived and the one inside died, but I'm not surprised. It broke dormancy and then got too much water, or some such problem. Anyway, it's dead as a doornail. I'll have to find something else to name after Deng Xiaoping. Also my two pear trees. Oh yeah, I only have two pear trees left, because the other two got so badly infested with spider mites, I cut them off and put them in the garbage. Sorry, little dudes. Natural selection didn't select you.
What else... My peony, but more on that later. My flax / dogwood / cotoneaster experiment, which is displeasing me considerably. And my old lilies: the orange one that was supposed to be black, the two that never flowered that were supposed to be black, and the Stargazer from last year, which hasn't shown any sign of life since being moved in with the other lilies.
Two days later, my spring bulbs arrived. Yay, spring bulbs! A big box, too. Ooooooooh, exciting!
This is my $40 Celebrity peony. As you can see, it's wide awake. The downside is, I have absolutely no idea which side is up and which side is down. Hmmmm... Think think think. I ended up burying the whole thing. If I know anything about plants, it's that they have excellent proprioception. A few days later, I worried that this was the wrong thing to do, so I dug back to my peony root, and found that it had grabbed on to the soil and was sending upwards growth. Booya!
My other peony, the $13 Shirley Temple one, came in the fall and had no growth on it at all. It shouldn't, of course. Fall bulbs are supposed to be dormant. So I had it in a planter all winter, and it never did anything, and I assumed it was dead. But when I set up the garden, I dug it up, and found the roots were starting to produce some downward growths. Rhizomes, maybe. I don't pretend to know the difference between a root, a bulb, a rhizome, or all the other disturbing things plants do under the ground. I do, however, know the difference between alive and dead, and both my peony roots were very much alive as of two weeks ago. They're still not growing above ground, but I looked at other people's established in-ground peonies, and they're not doing anything above ground yet either.
And this is my J.P. Connell rose. J.P. Connell is one of the hardy Explorer roses, developped by Agriculture Canada for our climate. Back when the Canadian government actually did things for people. Here, J.P. Connell is soaking, along with some anemone bulbs. And as you can see, it too is still alive, with green growth already showing on the canes. At least I don't have to guess what's up and what's down on this one.
These creepy things are toad lilies. There is supposed to be one purple, one orange, and one pink.
There were also three double oriental lilies in the package, which I didn't photograph. If they succeed, they will be absolutely spectacular.
As for the anemones, they're not supposed to go out until after last frost, and I was in a hurry, so I dumped them into something that had soil and nothing growing, put some dirt over top, and forgot about it for a few days. Then white mold got at them and ate about half of them. Boohoohoohoohoo... How sad. But then again, maybe I shouldn't have bought anemones. They're not even the ones I really wanted. Now the survivors are sprouting. We'll see.
Then, I also seeded everything I could think of: jacks-in-the-pulpit, dodecatheon, all the pansies, hollyhock, columbine, California poppies, regular grass, cat grass... That's all I can think of. And I can't quite remember what I put where. I know where the poppies and hollyhocks are, and more or less the jacks and dodecatheons. For the rest... it will be a surprise, I guess.
Voila. This was the summer garden as of 10:14 on May 12.
This is J.P. Connell today. As you can see, it's wide awake. I'm taking it as a bellwether for the health of the roots that have no above-ground component yet. If the rose is doing ok, so must they. Right? I hope so.
And this is one of the double oriental lilies. Took about eight tries to get the camera to focus on it. Again, if this one is alive, that must mean conditions are adequate for the other ones underground, right? And as you can see, the grass is starting to sprout. There are some other seeds sprouting, but since I forgot what I put where, and the whole thing is riddled with old seeds from the last three years, it could be anything.
This morning the weather being ridiculously warm and comfortable, I also transplanted the dicentra. I bought it from the hardware store a while back. As you may recall, the hardware store has a habit of carrying bulbs in little baggies. It's a horribly unhealthy thing to do to a bulb; they come on a truck from who knows where, and then sit in the store for days or weeks waiting to be bought by someone who doesn't know better. That's how I got my Stargazer. And this particular dicentra looked very healthy for all that, and what's more, it's a white one. Dicentra is commonly known as "bleeding heart" and I don't really like the pink ones. I didn't even know it came in white. So I took it home, put it in some dirt, immediately it grew and flowered. I could have sworn I took pictures of the flowers, but I'm not finding them. Anyway, it's very pretty. But now it's just putting out leaves and no more flowers. Anyway, I didn't want to put it out in the cold wind too soon, but this morning I found it a spot outside. Now I just got to do the anemones, and then I won't have anything left to plant.
Hmmmmmm...
Ok, so what do I do with the rest of the summer? Grow pumpkins, I guess. But that's for another post.
