The Old Guy's Garden Record

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Tuesday, February 3, 2026

Well, Punxsutawney Phil saw his shadow yesterday, so we're in for six more weeks of winter. Actually, our extended weather forecast suggests that we'll eventually melt off our heavy snow cover in a week or so. But it will still remain cold.

Aghast at the price our local grocery was extracting for a loaf of Vienna bread, I tried my hand at it again yesterday. I've done so several times before, using online recipes that didn't quite satisfy.

This time around, I adapted our family recipe for Grandma's Yeast Rolls with a few modifications. For the usual cup of warm water, I used half water and half milk. And I almost doubled the amount of yeast recommended for yeast rolls or most of the online bread recipes. I probably used a bit less flour that Grandma's recipe calls for.

The bread was delicious, just what I wanted. But...the tight roll of dough I began baking spread across a cookie sheet instead of going up. I have a cure for that on order...a long bread baking pan (13x5" interior).

We still have about a foot of snow on the ground. I've run my truck up and down the driveway several times to open it up.

Saturday, January 31, 2026

I made a trip to town today that was mostly uneventful. But on the way home on the backroads, I had to shift into four-wheel drive. While the roads had been plowed, snow had drifted across them leaving very slick spots. Our driveway was also a mess from the drifting snow.

A reward for my efforts was our local grocery having bone-in, skin-on chicken breasts on sale for a dollar a pound! I brought home two packages (nine breasts) to clean up, freeze the breast meat, and boil the skins and bones.

At a loss for a new supper idea, I browned some of the chicken tenders in paprika and added them to some tortellinis and alfredo sauce for a delicious meal.

Friday, January 30, 2026

During our cold snowy weather, I’ve been on a cooking kick. Yesterday’s effort was my first try at making Authentic Louisiana Red Beans and Rice from an allrecipes recipe. It was good, but not great. If I make it again, I'll use Eckrich Smoked Sausage instead of the Andouille Sausage recommended in the recipe. It was a bit too spicy for my tastes. The Jiffy Mix Cornbread may have been the star of the meal.

Previous recent cooking efforts included a batch of Asiago Cheese and Tortellini Soup, refried beans for beef tortellinis, rotisserie chicken with dressing and leftover vegetables, white sauce to go with some Chicken Cordon Blue Annie picked up at our local Sam's Club, and chicken salad for mini-sandwiches.

Interestingly, possibly the best thing I’ve made recently was the easiest. I browned some chicken chunks coated with paprika and garlic powder and added them to a pan of Buitoni Tortellinis covered with Bertoli Alfredo Sauce.

This is supposed to be a gardening site. But with a foot of snow on the ground that is not likely to melt soon, I've made Senior Gardening a bit of a cooking site.

Wednesday, January 28, 2026

I made it into town yesterday through the snow. The hardest part of the trip was getting back into our driveway.

I picked up a rotisserie chicken at a local grocery for supper. It was delicious. It was a second day bird, as the grocery marks down their old rotisserie chickens about $5. After trimming off some white meat, I boiled and boned the carcass and froze the chicken and broth outside on the arm of a glider. Our freezing weather can be an advantage sometimes when the kitchen freezer is full.

Considering that I used all old onion seed, we're getting a fairly nice stand of onions.

I just got two dianthus plants from a seeding. But I got lots of parsley starts from a same day seeding.

I'll probably re-seed another pot to Dianthus soon. After that, it will be celery and possibly spinach.

Monday, January 26, 2026

My estimate of a foot of snow was a bit off. When I stuck a yardstick in the ground, it only showed eight and a half inches of snow. Of course, as I headed back to the house, I stepped into a drift of some much deeper snow. Some reports from our area say fourteen inches of snow.

We started off today at around -3°F. Our extended forecast doesn't show any days above freezing until early next week. That same forecast doesn't show any more snow until a week from Wednesday.

I feel for the snow removal teams, postal workers, police and fire, and others who have to be on duty in these conditions.

I'm also praying for the people of Minneapolis who are experiencing terrible oppression at the hands of federal agents. Videos show that the administration is clearly lying about the murders of two citizens in Minneapolis at the hands of federal agents. We deserve better.

Sunday, January 25, 2026 - Snow

The snow began around two in the afternoon yesterday. It snowed all night and into today. It appears from the forecast that the snow may stop around four today. We appear to have almost a foot of snow on the ground. I didn't take a ruler out to measure the snow. But I can tell from the snow covering our landscape timbers and especially under our LP tank of how high the snow is.

I saw a pickup truck make it down our road, but travel today is probably a bad idea. Authorities are asking folks to stay off the roads.

We haven't had much snow in recent winters. This snow is the most we've gotten since 2014. I remember because that's when I bought my four-wheel drive truck.

Saturday, January 24, 2026

While today's splashshot doesn't show it, we're getting some snow accumulation on the ground this afternoon. By this time tomorrow, we'll probably have a foot of snow on the ground. And today's splashshot features Annie feeding the birds on our shallow well pump stand with Pepper watching.

My brother, Chet, just called to see how we're doing with the snow. We live way out in the country. But we switched to four-wheel drive vehicles years ago. If we need to get out, I'll drop the truck into four-wheel drive and work up the driveway. Of course, that's counting on the county to plow our road.

Chet lost his wife of sixty-one years two weeks ago. He's a bit lost, and I pray for him every day.

My only gardening chore today was trimming spent blooms off our collection of gloxinia plants on our dining room table. After doing so and bringing in a bottle of Quick Start fertilizer from the porch to thaw, I fertilized on gloxinias on our dining room table. While the plants were in glorious full bloom most of December, they've slowed down of late. But one older plant put on some nice double blooms.

Our gloxinias in early December. Since the plants are mostly older corms, I'm hoping a good shot of fertilizer will encourage them into another blooming cycle before they head for their annual required period of dormancy.

Friday, January 23, 2026

It's definitely winter now in west central Indiana. We're supposed to receive significant snow tomorrow and Sunday (maybe ten inches). And after that, the bottom drops out on temperatures. It is supposed to stay below freezing the rest of the month and into February. And of course, there are all sorts of weather advisories out about the coming snowstorm and cold spell.

And for a touch of humor. As I went out in the ten degree cold today, my lovely wife reminded me to pick up some ice cream cones/cups. She loves her sherbet cones.

I went to the basement yesterday to bring up our tray of onions for re-seeding. The tray stayed where is was, as the onions planted around ten days ago are continuing to germinate. I may yet get away with planting old onion seed.

Tuesday, January 20, 2026 - Getting Political

I try to avoid any political comments on this site. It's supposed to be about gardening, something I think we all love. But as I wrote our Indiana senators and House representative today, it's time.

It’s time. Really, it’s long past time to do something about our irresponsible President.

His wrongdoings are many, currently Greenland and the assault on the people of Minnesota. But the list is way too long to enumerate here. And likely, his horrible behavior and policies are just a smokescreen to prevent the release of the Epstein files.

It would be nice if there were a modern day Daniel Ellsberg to publish the files. But there isn’t. So it may be up to Congress to get the files out and rein in Trump.

Members of Congress like you need to stiffen your spine (or grow a pair) before Trump destroys our economy or gets us into a war.

Me?
I’m a retired elementary school teacher, regular and special ed. I’m a lifelong Democrat, although I voted for Richard Lugar every time I could.

You likely will never get my vote or a contribution. But somewhere in your soul, you must know what is going on now is wrong.

While I'm Ranting

Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance just cancelled our homeowners policy. I'd been a customer of theirs for forty-five years!

Our Sin

My lovely wife totaled our 2014 CRV while driving while intoxicated. We're working our way through the legal challenges of that. But she's been stone cold sober now for five months.

Farm Bureau responded by cancelling both her car and my truck insurance. And now, they've cancelled our homeowners. They've had claims from us for a new roof thirty years ago and some storm damage ten or so years ago. Over the years, our premiums have more than covered their costs.

So...if you're shopping for insurance, be cautious about dealing with Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance. I've found them to be a nasty bunch!

Saturday, January17, 2026

I started soaking dianthus seed last evening. I’m not sure the soaking is necessary, but I don’t think it can hurt.

Since I’ve saved dianthus seed for years, I started soaking seed from all of our saved seed packets going back well over ten years. Our original start of dianthus was a packet of Carpet Series Snowfire. I had to hunt a bit to find the photos at right of the original series. Surprisingly, seed saved from the Snowfires produced quite a variety of bloom colors.

Dianthus is typically a biennial that blooms in its first and second year. Occasionally plants will last into a third year. The plants are compact, running about ten inches tall and wide.

The seed went onto sterilized soil in a communal pot. Since dianthus seed needs light to germinate, I didn’t cover the seed.

Our trailing petunia seed didn’t germinate, so I re-seeded the egg carton with Celebrity petunia seed. Petunias are another variety that need light to germinate. Since the Celebrity seed was pelletized, I used a syringe to drip hot water over the seeds to melt the seed coating and to wash the seed into the top of the soil.

The dianthus and re-seeded egg carton of petunias joined the parsley I seeded yesterday over a soil heating mat that is running at around 75-78°F. That's at or a little over most recommendations for germinating those seed varieties. We'll see how that turns out.

Friday, January16, 2026

I ran across an old posting from 2024 that helped guide my plantings that year.

A little out of order, I started soaking some parsley seed yesterday. Our jar of dried, saved parsley is almost empty. I soaked Giant of Italy (Seed Savers Exchange - 2022), Big Italy (Burpee - 2024), and Plain Leaf Italian (Turtle Tree Seed Initiative - 2024) seed.

Obviously, our seed is a little old. Having kept it frozen and now soaking it I hope will aid germination. And parsley seed takes a long time to germinate.

Today, the soaked parsley seed went into small, communal pots and got covered with vermiculite. The pots went over a soil heating mat set to 75°F.

We had good parsley starts last season, but they never got into the ground. I wasn’t able to work up the spot for them due to weather conditions.

We already have good starts of vinca, and geraniums up. A flat of onions has one or two sprouts showing. Our petunias for hanging baskets have failed to germinate.

I hope to start some dianthus tomorrow.

Monday, January12, 2026

Our copy of the annual Seed Savers Exchange Yearbook arrived in the mail today. It's not an exciting read, as it is a listing of what SSE members have saved and are offering in seed. I was a bit disappointed to see the numbers of listers, unique varieties, and listings down this year, although the numbers are still fairly strong.

If you have a favorite open pollinated vegetable variety you grow and save seed from, let me urge you to offer and list the variety on The Exchange.

I started four rows of onion seeds today in a standard seed flat (with holes) in a solid Permanest flat. Since standard seed flats are sort of flimsy and don’t do well with a full load of wet potting soil, the Permanest was necessary to hold water and give strength to the standard 1040 flat.

I seeded single rows of Walla Walla, Yellow of Parma, a mixed row of Rossa di Milano, and Red Creole, and some very old Red Zeppelin seed.

A Burpee Red Creole description says, “A short-day, mid-sized heirloom onion especially suited for southern climes.” Growing the variety here in our long day region produces small, early onions for us.

Sunday, January 11, 2026

I've sort of immersed myself in watching college and professional football of late. I loved seeing Indiana University move on to the college finals. I attended IUPUI for a year, getting good bit of my history major done there. As it turned out when IU took over things in Indy, my credits ended up in West Lafayette, so I guess I was really a Purdue student. But I still can root for IU.

The vinca and geraniums I seeded last week have germinated wonderfully...around 80-90%. I got them off their soil heating mats which will allow me to start some onions in the next few days.

A favorite, but always late, seed catalog came in the Saturday mail. I like the Southern Exposure Seed Exchange for some incredible seed varieties they offer. Among them are Abundant Bloomsdale spinach, Crimson Sweet, Virginia Select watermelon, Hungarian Paprika Pepper, South Anna Butternut Squash, and Yellow of Parma onion. I recommend them all.

Tuesday, January 6, 2026 - Computer Problems

As I was watching a football game Friday or Saturday, I thought I heard a smoke alarm going off upstairs. It turned out to be the alarm on a backup power supply unit. We use two backup power supplies, and it was the older one that experienced battery failure. It was one I got used and replaced its battery a long time ago. That put my office computers out of service for several days until I waded through all the dust buildup under our computer table to get everything plugged in and working again on the newer backup unit.

My office computer system is an ancient mess. I do most of my web writing on a 2018 Mac Mini running the Mojave operating system. Being cheap, I use it because I still have full, paid versions of Adobe CS 5.5 (Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Acrobat, etc.) and Microsoft Office. Another Mac Mini, a 2010 version, still runs Appleworks 6 which I use for garden charts and 2006 Quicken for record keeping of my checkbook.

Seed Catalogs

Two more seed catalogs have arrived. On Monday, one was from Pinetree Garden Seeds. I must say that they are persistent. I haven't ordered anything from them since 2015 when I ordered alfalfa seed from them. Today, a John Scheeper's Kitchen Garden Seeds catalog came in. Even longer than Pinetree, my last Scheepers order was in 2013! But they both get links here in appreciation for their lovely catalogs.

Starting Geraniums

Long ago, I realized I couldn't afford buying geranium plants from various garden stores. I like to have geraniums at the corners of three of our raised beds, one in a planter over our cistern cover, and a few along the edges of our raised beds. I give the full skinny on my geranium efforts in our feature story, Growing Geraniums from Seed.

Today, I filled fourteen three inch pots with sterile potting soil for the planting. I watered the soil with very hot water to let the soil mix absorb the water. After waiting a bit for the soil to cool, I made a depression with my finger in the center of each pot and filled it with vermiculite.

I had just enough seed left over from a True Leaf Market order from last year to put a seed in each pot, plus an extra seed here and there. I seeded seven pots to Maverick Red and seven more to Pinto Salmon geraniums. The seed went onto the surface of the vermiculite, as I've found geranium seed germinates a little better with a little light. I used an old syringe to sprinkle hot water over the seeds. (Once upon a time, I had to give my wife monthly B12 shots. I saved the old syringes for jobs such as this one.)

The geranium pots went over soil eating mats set to 78°F.

With the clear cover off of one of the soil heating mat/trays, I was pleased to see that three vinca, seeded on Saturday, had come up!

I still have packets of onion seed out, as that will be my next early planting.

Friday, January 2, 2026 - When to Start Seeds

When we start our herb, flower, and vegetable transplants from seed is based somewhat on past experience. I also rely on a very helpful interactive tool from Johnny's Selected Seeds, their Seed-Starting Date Calculator. Entering an average frost free date obtained from Dave's Garden, the seed-starting calculator yields a long list of vegetables and flowers with date ranges of when to start them. Do note that the calculator only lists seed types that Johnny's sells. Also note that seed prices on Johnny's have gone a bit nuts. But they're not alone in that. (See later)

Getting Started

Yesterday, I seeded an egg carton to Supercascade petunia seed. These plants make lovely hanging basket plants for our back porch. Today, I seeded another egg carton to Cora Cascade and Pacifica vincas.

I tell about seeding to egg cartons in our how-to, Egg Carton Petunias.

I am almost out of Cora Cascade seed. But when I went to Park Seed, I found that the price of the seed had skyrocketed. Likewise, prices for lettuce and carrot seed have gone through the roof on Johnny's Selected Seeds. Because of their seed quality, Johnny's will still get a limited order for carrot seed.

When I trimmed spent blossoms today off our gloxinia plants, we ended up with only eight blooms. I'm hoping the older plants with larger corms will enter another blooming cycle.

Other

Bored and with time on my hands, I made a pineapple upside down cake on Wednesday, closely following the online Betty Crocker recipe. Then yesterday, I was craving green bean casserole. Again pretty much following the Campbell's recipe I made some. I added Worcestershire sauce to the batch and some white mushroom chunks.

I'm still very slowly working through our annual seed inventory.

Two more seed catalogs arrived in today's mail. Catalogs from the Turtle Tree Seed Initiative and Fedco Seeds arrived. Turtle Tree grew out some Earlirouge and Quinte seed we gave them years ago and offers them for sale.

FTC Required Disclosure Statement: Botanical Interests, High Mowing Organic Seeds, Park Seed, and True Leaf Market are some of our Senior Gardening affiliate advertisers. Clicking through one of our ads or text links and making a purchase will produce a small commission for us from the sale. We're also a consumer member of the Fedco Seeds Cooperative.

Contact Steve Wood, the at Senior Gardening