Miss Jackson If You're Nasty

Greetings! This is my third post for the Seed GROW Project, organized by Mr. Brown Thumb, with nasturtium seeds (Tropaeolum majus 'Spitfire') donated by Renee's Garden.

Well, I'm sorry to report that the two nasturtiums above are all I have left. I winter-sowed six in a flat and five in a milk jug. The one on the left is the only one that came up in the milk jug and the one on the right is the only one that survived in the flat. Michigan has fickle weather. It warmed up early this year — everything is about a month ahead of schedule. But then it still got freezing at night and even though I covered the flats, all but one nasty succumbed to frost, turning kind of gooey. A few other seedlings were affected in a similar way.

Breaking News: May 3, Ann Arbor: A second nasty in the milk jug has sprouted!

I've sown tons of nasturtiums (particularly for the Cobblestone Farm historic fountain garden) and never had a problem. I'm certain it had nothing to do with the seed quality, but with environmental conditions. I normally would have winter-sown them by February, and I did these in early March. If the seed coat needed softening for the seeds to sprout, perhaps there wasn't a long enough moist period in the flats. And frost sometimes kills even protected plants.

I'm going to be planting the nasties along my privacy screen, along with the hops and some morning glories (which also had low germination, also very unusual).

I still have a lot of nasty seeds left over and will spring sow them soon, as I do love the plants.

Well, since I'm still here and you're still here, let's look at some other winter-sown plants.

Most everyone has their set of true leaves and could be planted out... but I like the tomatoes to get a lot bigger first, and I need to figure out where all the rest can go. Corn (circled in orange to the right) wants you to know it can be winter-sown!

Some seedlings were big enough to plant out, like radishes and baby carrots in their final containers. (The spinach and chard are from Lowe's, and just sown between them are mustard greens. Yum!)

Two kind of beets here, Detroit Dark Red and Chioggia (thanks, LaManda! Shout-outs for other seeds are in the previous post.). I grow them in containers because I have limited beds with full sun exposure and can tuck the containers into sunny spots throughout the garden.

Turnips are looking good.

I also planted out two kinds of peas, beans, stock, and baby blue eyes 'Pennie Black' in this tiny patch of lawn that gets pretty good sun. The beauty berry was the only thing previously there. I did a run (um, slow walk) around the garden, gathering any and all kinds of supports I could find and felt pretty resourceful. Later it dawned on me it might look a little hillbilly, but I don't think we're ready for an #uglygardens redux, are we?!

Sundries Sunday*

Because I still seem to be posting and you still seem to be reading, let me meander further. Remember earlier this year I made my first plastic model, a DC-3 aeroplane, under the tutelage of my friend, Peter? He recently completed this stunning plastic model of the USS Constitution. The deck has all sorts of wonderful colors and details and the whole things just blows me away (you can click to enlarge). And check out the flags! He made them curl like that; that wasn't part of the kit. As one of his friends remarked, he da man!

Finally, because the photo of Fiona (aka Bizi) in the last post looked a little, um, Sopranos, here is a contrasting shot where she looks like a sweet fuzzy widdle baby kitten. (Trust me, this is rare. She even let me put the cat snack on her forehead!) Noogie!

*It's not just Mish-Mash Monday (I'm tickled to see how many of you have adopted the term)! If you'd like to borrow titles for willy-nilly posts for other days, go here.