Spring Activities!

Today consisted of transplanting, and planting. I had some "hens & chicks" my Mom gave me last year and they were in a large styrofoam box. Well the chickens nicely cleaned up half the box, you would think that they would know better but apparently not. Today I broke them up and planted them in a few different spots around the yard. It's an ugly container but I'm sure the chicks will overgrow it and you won't see it anymore.



I also transplanted some fairly root bound houseplants. A jasmine plant, which had a bad case of spider mites awhile ago and is now doing great, was desperately calling my name. This poor plant was given to me a couple of years ago and it's had a rather rough start. Jevan has knocked it off the table twice when it was just a little bitty thing, another friend accidently crashed it to the floor as well, and it's had spider mites a few times... it's a wonder the thing has survived at all. I generously spray it with a soap and water solution and that takes care of the mites, and then within a week it has buds all over it and when the flowers bloom it smells heavenly.

Another plant that was transplanted today is an Aloe Vera. I bought this at Zellers about 3 or 4 years ago and it was just a tiny thing, probably about 4 inches high. Look at it now! I took the babies off of it last year, I think there was about six of them but only two survived. I'm not sure what I did wrong there.

I was shocked to see some of the Sub Arctic Plenty tomatoes coming up... well only two but it's a start ;) I planted them last Tuesday, only four days ago! These tomatoes are new to me, they were developed in Alberta for Prairie climates and will set fruit even under cold conditions. I also planted three other kinds and hope to see them soon.

Well I finally did it! I have been trying to grow Radar Love Clematis by seed for over three years now and I've been having a heck of a time. The first year it did okay until the chickens scratched the heck out of them. I had planted the seed directly in the ground and they had just barely come up when I planted a bunch of other stuff near them and chickens love freshly dug dirt. The second year same thing but they actually grew quite a bit before the chickens got to them, I had them fenced and I guess I took the fencing down too soon. Last year I planted three seeds (the only ones I had left) in three small pots. These guys take 30-40 days to germinate. When they came up I let them grow a bit and transplanted them into one pot. I then set the pot in my flower garden all summer, I wasn't going to disturb any dirt or the chickens would have got them again. When it started to get cold out I brought the pot in the house and treated it like any other houseplant all winter. The thing did really well and has just recently started to look not so good (I think it's too hot in my house). So today I planted it outside, and in the picture you can see the fencing all around it... darn chickens won't be getting them this year!

For the first time in my life I planted catnip. I'm not sure if it's going to grow because I planted it by seed, but I do know that it does grow in our area, or at least across the river where we used to live, the stuff was all over the fields there. I just hope it doesn't attract all the cats on the ranch! I guess we'll see. I have no idea if it's a good time to be transplanting but today was a good day. Along with all the other plants, I even did a christmas cactus and one other plant that I have no idea what it's called. I'll have to surf around and see what the name of it is. How was your weekend? :)