The Old Guy's Garden Record

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Saturday, February 1, 2025

I didn't do my usual end of the month posting yesterday. I was simply too bummed out with what is going on in our nation and world. Wars, plane crashes, and a president going wild. A near month of snow cover didn't help.

I re-seeded some of our egg carton petunias today that hadn't come up. Likewise, I also re-seeded the impatiens. Both plantings were from very old seed. I was fortunate that one variety of petunias from old seed did emerge.

A bright spot yesterday was getting a dozen jumbo eggs for $4.99. With tariffs apparently coming on from a misguided president, I suspect eggs and a lot of other stuff will get a lot more expensive in the coming weeks. (Sorry to be so political on a gardening site. But Trump's callous disregard for people in this country is unforgiveable. I pray each day that the Lord will give him wisdom and empathy.)

With the snow pretty much melted off, I'm feeding birds on our well cover. Annie had been giving them seed and leftover, old breakfast cereal on the back porch through the snows. A red bellied woodpecker is shown at right. We've been fortunate to enjoy seeing them since we've lived here. Generations of the birds have nested back by the pond, often scolding us as we walk to the barn and pond.

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.

Tuesday, February 4, 2025

I was a bit upset with myself as I didn't do any outdoor gardening yesterday during a beautiful, warm, February day. I did split some pots of geraniums that had multiple plants in them. I also re-seeded the few pots of geraniums that hadn't germinated. And using different seed than my first try, I re-seeded a couple of communal pots of snapdragons.

Doing only slightly better today, I got out and cut back our oregano in our herb bed. The oregano always attempts to take over at least one side of the bed each season. I still need to clean up the sage, thyme, and rosemary on the far side of the bed.

Saturday, February 15, 2025

It was time today to get some stuff started. I seeded parsley, rosemary, thyme, dill, dianthus, and some celery in communal pots. The new plantings joined a couple of pots of geraniums that haven't germinated yet in a tray over a soil heating mat.

One of the gloxinias I started in August is now coming into bloom. That's about what one should expect from gloxinias grown from seed. The begin blooming at about six months old, although we've had some in the past bloom at just five months from seeding.

It soon will be time to start broccoli, cauliflower, spinach, and lettuce.

Our weather remains a mess for gardening. It's either too cold and windy or cold and rainy like today to do any outdoor work. Our extended forecast shows more of the same for the next week or so.

I got busy on seeding this morning, as I felt bad that I hadn't done much gardening recently to write about here. I had this posting in the bag by early afternoon. Unfortunately, our internet service went down this morning. Frontier promised to have it fixed before midnight. That didn't happen and is typical of Frontier's poor service. But we're in one of those areas with only one internet and landline phone provider.

I do feel bad if anyone is actually out there trying to restore service in some heavy rain. But Frontier's terrible maintenance of their lines causes way too frequent outages.

So...I'll post this when our service is restored.

Sunday, February 16, 2025

We got heavy rains last night that eventually turned to snow. According to our forecast, we're in for some real winter weather for at least a week or so.

Without any gardening chores to do, I made chicken and noodles and Vienna bread to keep me occupied.

And our internet service is still down.

Monday, February 17, 2025

One of the things we enjoy on snowy winter days is watch bird at our shallow well. We put out bird seed early each day and a riot of birds are attracted.

Cardinals, bluejays, sparrows, blackbirds, and one red bellied woodpecker are regular visitors at the well. I occasionally put a swipe of peanut butter on the well cover that the woodpecker seems to enjoy.

A downside to the pleasure of watching the birds is that seed that isn't consumed falls on our herb garden and germinates. It creates some extra weeding.

Wednesday, February 19, 2025

Our snow cover keeps getting refreshed overnight. That fills in tracks in the snow and makes it easier to tell if our rural route postperson has been through. While it's still cold here (20°F), the strong winds we had have let up, lessening the wind chill.

The Wandering Jew (radescantia Zebrina) cuttings I took on New Years Day were ready today to be moved to hanging basket pots. I filled two ten inch hanging basket pots with a mix of potting soils. One plant will eventually replace the one currently in one of our our kitchen windows. The other plant will go under our back porch.

I broke a rule for growing gloxinias yesterday. We have a bunch of gloxinias that should have broken dormancy by now, but have not. When gloxinias go dormant, you're supposed to put them in a dark spot and not water or fertilize them until the corms put up new growth. But I top watered the plants with some dilute fertilizer water anyway. I’m hoping to encourage corms still alive to begin growth. But I fear that I have a bunch of dead corms that I’ll have to dump.

Thursday, February 20, 2025

Our tray of onions grown from seed were ready for their first "haircut" today. The onion plants get tall and begin to fall over if not trimmed several times before transplanting.

Our half row each of Red Zeppelin and Rossa di Milano from packets of year old seed germinated really well. Some "fresh" Red Carpet seed not so well. And our yellow onions, Yellow of Parma and Walla Walla, came up well and probably are the most vigorous of the types seeded.

I also have a rather spotty row of Walla Wallas planted last fall in one of our raised garden beds.

Our internet from Frontier Communications is still down. So I'm writing these posts and will put them up when our service is restored.

Saturday, February 22, 2025

As you can see from today's splashshot, things are warming up a bit here. We're just above freezing today, but the sun has done its work on a lot of our snow cover. And our extended weather forecast has several upcoming days with highs in the low 50s.

We got our internet service restored yesterday. Instead of the usual line work to fix things, two Frontier techs worked outside and inside to get us going. And…we’re supposed to get a boost in speed.

I did a little re-seeding of our egg carton petunias this morning. Then I moved on to making a batch of Asiago Cheese & Tortellini Soup. I had chicken and broth in the fridge from a sale on skin on, bone in chicken breasts this week. And we're now flush with frozen chicken breast fillets. Changes for this batch of soup were that I used a combination of Rana and Buitoni tortellinis. I also increased the grated Asiago cheese from a cup to a cup and a half.

In the process of writing this posting, I ran across an interesting review by Lisa Kaminski on Taste of Home: We Tried 6 Tortellini to Find the Perfect Pasta.

Monday, February 24, 2025

It's a bit of a gray day out, but it's a lot warmer than in previous days. Our extended weather forecast suggests we just might be past the worst of our winter weather.

When I took today's splashshot, I didn't put on a coat. Then I got a very pleasant surprise. I thought I saw that some garlic plants had emerged. Sure enough, almost the whole row of our elephant garlic is up. There's even a couple of the regular garlics putting up shoots.

I planted our garlic on November 9. It's not uncommon for garlic to emerge a bit early. In northern areas where the soil freezes too early and too deep to fall plant garlic, spring planting with a late fall harvest is possible. Actually, it's possible elsewhere. And since I've never spring planted garlic, I'll just give you a couple of links from folks who do know something about it.

• Savvy Gardening: How to grow big bulbs from spring-planted garlic by Niki Jabbour
• Hello Homestead: How to plant garlic in the spring by Sam Schipani

Garlic is one of the easiest, most trouble free and productive crops one can grow in a home garden. Our how-to, Growing Garlic, tells all about how we grow our garlic from planting to harvest to storage.

Friday, February 28, 2025 - February Wrap-up

Today, February 28, is supposed to be a no shopping Friday at national retailers like Walmart, Amazon, etc.. I had some bills to mail today. After that, I stopped by our local garden store and stocked up on potting soil and compost/peat. I used a gift certificate my wife had given to me for my birthday in July. I overspent the $75 gift certificate but used cash to make up the difference. I didn’t want a credit card to know I’d shopped even locally on the blackout day.

While the potting mix will be used for starting plants, one bag of the compost/peat will go around our one rosebush. The other bag will go onto our raised asparagus bed (once I get the bed cleared of last year’s growth).

I noticed as I drove past our local Walmart that its lot was full. I guess the shopping blackout doesn't count for much in Sullivan, Indiana.

Ah yes, gardening in February.

I actually was pretty lazy this month. I did get some outdoor stuff done like cutting back the sage and other stuff in our herb garden. I also started some parsley, rosemary, thyme, dill, dianthus, and celery in communal pots.

The Wandering Jew (radescantia Zebrina) cuttings I took on New Years Day got moved to hanging basket pots. And I trimmed our onions, although they look today to be ready for another "haircut."

Contact Steve Wood, the at Senior Gardening