dianaschnuth, Page 183 | Writing about everything and nothing since 2001

15 March 2017 bloom day 1 Comment

Garden Bloggers’ Bloom Day: March 2017

The mercury rose unseasonably high in February here in northwest Ohio, Zone 6, and I feared for some of my earliest risers. In what I’ve dubbed the Early Spring Border, where I can see muscari and daffodils and hyacinths and alliums from my kitchen window, things are definitely moving along earlier than usual — but, thankfully, in this border, only one very early blooming dwarf iris felt the wilty brunt of this week’s snow.

This is what it looked like on February 25. Today, it’s a sad, floppy thing.
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14 March 2017 dear connor Leave a comment

Dear Connor: Five-and-a-Half

I always write these in the second person — to you, Connor — with the intention of you reading them at some point in the future. Maybe when you’re old enough to understand what a blog is, or maybe when I assemble them into a print volume someday.

If I wanted to explain to you what a blog was, though, you could probably read most of this on your own right now, with not much help. (Although you’d get bored of reading so many words without pictures.)

You know about the internet a little. You know that we can buy things from the internet (Amazon), and you know that we can ask the internet questions (Google), and you know that I like to post pictures to Instagram, and that Pusheen the cat has an Instagram account. Someday, you’re going to need access to the internet for school, and your Dad and I are totally going to be those annoying parents who won’t let you have a Facebook page (or whatever the new hotness will be in the year 2020) and who will totally monitor your internet usage and your phone and everything.

But let’s not jump forward too fast. You’re already doing a good enough job of that.

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13 March 2017 status Leave a comment

Twitter Update: March 13, 2017 at 10:19PM

I found it quite satisfying tonight to watch Episode 1 of the Ken Burns documentary series Prohibition while enjoying a whiskey and Coke.

12 March 2017 gardening Leave a comment

Seed Starting Continued

The tomatoes and eggplants are going gangbusters, the sage and thyme and foxgloves and lemon balm are peeking up, and today was the basil’s turn.

Technically, today I started four varieties of basil, plus stevia, cinquefoil, and cosmos. Tomorrow (after a 24-hour soak), I’ll start the white coneflowers.

I put the new seeds under a humidity dome. I wish I’d gotten a shorter one, since I’d like to have my light closer to the seeds so they don’t get leggy, but I guess I’d have had to put the light that high to reach both trays, anyway.