the miserable gardener

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and hear to bring you the latest news from our garden, using the cleverest post titles imaginable. You may remember me from such other clever posts as “Slush Fun” and “Below Average”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a highly uncharacteristic pose. This was taken looking into the sun, of course, but that scarcely detracts from its charm, don’t you think? Say you wanted a biscuit, and needed to know how to look utterly pathetic and sad, well, this is this place to learn how to do that. Wouldn’t you feel the need to give this poor creature a biscuit? Of course you would. I got a biscuit, as you would expect. Thanks to the antibiotic, I am feeling totally excellent, by the way.

Mostly, the guy I live with has been obsessing about seeds. This post might be a tad didactic, which is why there are two cute pictures of me to make the whole thing worthwhile.

The cactus seeds he sowed on November 25th are coming up.These will be added to the few already in the house. I don’t know why he grows all these cactus from seed. He just does, I guess.

There are some agaves grown from seed, too. This is Agave toumeyana var. bella. This is one of the few agaves that people say are hardy here that is actually hardy, though not one hundred percent so. Some winters can damage it.Agaves are really easy from seed, so this isn’t as big a deal as you might think. This, however, is a big deal. (For the guy I live with.) Some old tulip seed came in the mail.This is pretty exciting, and he’ll be sowing this old tulip seed fairly soon. (This, of course, was originally from Jim and Jenny Archibald.)

The guy I live with even has a book on tulips.Denver’s climate is very similar to that where many of the world’s tulips grow, and we both often wonder why there aren’t tulips here. Maybe there were at one time.

Also in the same package were some old seeds of oncocyclus iris. Yes, again. You might be able to see that this is forty-six-year-old seed. He says he’ll know within a month or so if the seed is viable. First it gets soaked in a solution of bleach and water. (The bleach is chlorine-free and says non-toxic, but the tap water has chlorine in it. The disinfecting process is for the outer coat of the seed, which can have bacteria on it.) The seeds are put in a coffee filter to make them easier to retrieve.Then after about fifteen minutes, the filter is removed, and rinsed a lot, then the seeds are removed from the filter and put into one of those salt shakers he bought a while ago, and left to soak in water for a couple of days. The salt shaker makes it easier to shake out the water, so the water can be changed every day.

Then the seed is cut (we’ll show you that, later), and put into a damp filter, in a freezer bag, and left in the vegetable drawer for about a month. Here’s a picture. I know this looks like underwear, but it’s a coffee filter.The bags go into a plastic box, but they’re wrapped with that towel to prevent them from freezing. That probably wouldn’t hurt, but the guy I live with likes preventing stuff.

Well, that’s the end of the didactic part of today’s post. I hope you enjoyed it. If you didn’t, here’s a picture of me, in a very casual pose, waiting to be helped up onto the ramp, to come inside. I can usually do that by myself, but, you know, not always.

Until next time, then.

Greetings and salutations, everyone; yes, once again it is I, Chess the purebred border collie, filling in for the guy I live with, and here to bring you the latest news from our garden, even if it isn’t all that interesting to me. You may remember me from such posts as “Bright White” and “Drip Drop Drip Drop”, among so many, many others.

Here I am in a characteristic pose. That cardboard box behind me is the source of all the excitement today. Not on my part, of course. You may have noticed that I haven’t posted for a while. The reason is that I’ve been really sick (this hasn’t been my year, has it?), and the guy I live with even went out in the dark to get me an antibiotic, but now I’m all better and things are pretty much back to normal. It was just a flare-up of the thing I have, with my tummy and so forth.

Well, anyway, since the cardboard box was set on our front doorstep, by what looked like a not very happy delivery guy (the label on the box said “heavy“), the guy I live with sprang into action. Of course it took him hours to spring, but eventually he sprang. This was in the box.He said he was going to screen it, but I noticed he didn’t, and I understand that it isn’t all that important, but he said he might screen some later.

Seeds were sown. These were old seeds of acantholimons that he was given. You know, acantholimons?They’re pretty prickly, and one of their common names is “spikethrift”, because of their prickliness. They make these huge domes which look kind of odd in the garden.

The first thing that was done was pots were filled with the mix he made, and then soaked in a dishpan full of warm water, and left outside overnight. That’s why he has all the dishpans. Then the seeds were sprinkled on top. (I know, this is a different dishpan.) You’ll notice that some pots have a few seeds, while others have a bunch. This is because they’re old seeds, and each pot represents a different packet of seeds. And even, in most cases, a different species, though acantholimons do all look a lot alike.Then the pots were “top dressed” with the granite. Those are B.E.F. Grower’s Pots, which you can’t get any more, and which have remained outside for twenty-five years.Then the pots went into a frame, where they’ll stay until next spring. The ideal would be for a bunch of snow to be piled on them, but we don’t have any snow here right now.

(Those green tufts in the lower right are Lilium candidum.)There was even a crocus flowering today. Crocus tournefourtii. The reason for the cage is that rabbits like to eat the crocus foliage, and that makes the guy I live with, um, hopping mad. I think I’ve said that before, but it’s still funny. In other news, after the guy I live with looked at the instructions for germinating the old oncocyclus iris seed he got, the seeds began to germinate in earnest. He’s fairly obsessed with this. You may wonder what’s up with all the ancient seed here, well, he got a lot, that’s what, and he’s been sowing it. The seed with an impervious coat is more likely to still be viable (like the irises), he says, but he’s going to sow everything, because you never know. He spends so much time fiddling with the irises that sometimes I wonder if he likes them better than he likes me. I know that can’t be true, though, because of all the cuddles I get, and the irises don’t get cuddles. 

Until next time, then.