Back after holidays

Last week, I was having some issues with watering.  A few of the plants were bogged with water for a week after their last watering.  I'm not too sure what really happened, but these were some of the bigger plants so I was surprised they wouldn't be able to soak up the water, and I was even surprised the water didn't just evaporate out over that course of time.

Also, I saw a few plants growing extremely fast.  One of them was positioned just so that it had about one inch of clearance to grow, so I moved it to where it had about 3", thinking that it could stay there for a day or two before I find a good spot for it.  Later that day, the clearance was almost all gone, so I moved it to give it another few inches.  At the end of the day, I happened to look at it again and the clearance had been taken up again.

Because of these two factors, I scratched my plan to water them on Friday evening before leaving town for a few days.  At the start of the week, I had added some fertilizer to about half the plants, but not given them as much water as usual.

This is what I came home to last night:

I placed a hockey stick in the background, which is a little taller than 5'.  The plants are getting pretty close to maturity.

Impressive root growth.  (As always, click to see full size photo)

This was the last one I planted.  All of a sudden last week there were 5 shoots, and then this week, there is a little sixth one and these plants probably grew the most of any while I was gone the last few days.

I am hoping in the next week to plant some seeds for Venus Fly Trap and a banana plant.  I am also going to move a few of the lilies into 12" pots so they can expand a bit.  I was looking at a lot of the plants' containers and saw lots of good root growth.  Not all of them were quite as impressive as the one pictured above, but they were mostly in great shape. 

Fertilizing

I have been thinking a lot this week about fertilizing the plants.  Using a sterile potting soil is great for keeping out pathogens that could harm the plants, but at the same time you're getting nutrient-deficient soil.  That is why you'll always read in the directions for caring for your plants that they require fertilizer frequently.

I'm thinking a lot about what you're getting with fertilizer, and I'm now really intent on going beyond the standard N-P-K solutions.  Later in the week, when the plants require their next watering I am going to add in a new fertilizer with micronutrients:  calcium, magnesium, manganese, copper, etc. that are required in small amounts to add various benefits to the plant structure.  In a natural setting, these elements are present in the soil structure and will be transferred to the plants by various microbes, provided the soil is healthy.  In a pot, the plants cannot access these micronutrients, so as these lilies grow bigger and bigger, I tend to believe it becomes more and more important to ensure they are getting a broad-spectrum fertilizer instead of just basic NPK.

I may take a few comparably-sized plants and run a test for a few weeks, giving one regular NPK fertilizer and the other plant a broad-spectrum fertilizer so that I can compare results to see if there is a difference. 

As a sidenote, I make a habit of throwing rusty nails, bolts and other junk metals into my compost pile.  As they are corroded away, iron, copper, and other beneficial elements will be introduced into the end-product as they are soaked up by bacteria and fungi that will ultimately make them available for plants.  Of course, introducing a variety of kitchen scraps and plant trimmings ensures other micronutrients like calcium, potassium and sulfur will be in the end-product compost.

Once I have things set up outside, I think I will be able to run a compost tea brewer that will provide me with fertilizer so that I'm not using up my wholesale fertilizer that I would like to keep in stock.

Cover has arrived

Finally got my greenhouse cover delivered.  I got it from Northern Greenhouse Sales in Manitoba.  I'm really hapy with the speed and accuracy of executing my order, and I really like the support materials they sent and that are up on their website.  I would be working a lot harder to figure things out if it weren't for the easy access to information they provided for free.

That plastic band is not part of the packaging.  It is a roll of Cinchstrap--plastic lath to secure the cover to the frame.  It is very cost-effective and would save me a lot of time versus collecting, painting and fitting together scraps of wood to hold the cover down.

There are 3 rolls of poly in the box.  The one on top is the biggest, for the roof and rear wall.  Two others underneath are for the sides.

The poly cover is similar to a tarp, with some material differences to make it suitable for its purpose.  It is equipped with UV inhibitors to prevent wear from the sun, and is woven strong to prevent damage from birds, hail, ice, falling branches, etc.  It should last 5 years in a location like I am placing the greenhouse, and could last considerably longer if I either removed the cover for the summer or placed the greenhouse somewhere that it would get shade in the summer. 

I kind of like the idea of a controlled biosphere, to prevent a lot of wildlife activity around my plants, so I would probably not remove the cover for the summer.  On the other hand, I would consider lining the frame with a screen of chickenwire, snowfence, or something else in order to open it up for the summer.

From what I've read, I have an idea of how much of a temperature boost the cover will give me, with the quonset shape I am constructing.  Based on anecdotal readings, I should be able to achieve a temperature of about 25°C when outdoor temperature is freezing.  I do have concerns about whether or not the greenhouse is viable in February if temperatures are -20°, but only a few seeds need to be planted before March 1st anyways.  I may also introduce alternative heating to the greenhouse in January and February when it is really cold.  I haven't decided what the source will be.  I could take a risk with a small fire in my little patio fire cauldron, and I think it would probably work fine, or I could look to a heater.

I like this picture because it shows the new leaves opening up and I think the cannas have really interesting shapes to them as they grow.  These lilies give you something to look at long before they reach their mature size or the flowers begin to bloom.

These are my three best plants.  At the very left, you can see the leaf that was opening up on the picture above has now emerged most of the way, and is only curling at the bottom now.  And the other shoot from the same bulb is now half-opened.  The two pictures were taken about 3 days apart.  On the far right, I have a plant that is producing two great shoots and a new leaf should emerge sometime around the weekend.  The smaller shoot has a new leaf just creeping up so we'll see it opening up in about a week or so I suspect.  These plants are about one-third their mature size, minus the flowers that will sprout atop the leaves.

As for the lilies, the bulk of the plants that had small shoots have now opened their first leaves.  A couple of the plants that were first to grow, the ones that continued to grow through the shoots where they were cut down, have slowed down and are wilting.  I'm not really sure what this means, but I'm curious to see if new shoots will sprout up, if the plants will recover, or what is going to happen with them.

I'm still waiting on my second seed order.  I haven't gotten the seeds from Thompson-Morgan yet and hope to soon.  I'm also thinking of a third order, because I was looking through a third catalogue on the weekend where I was able to find some purple salvia and some mixed celosia that I really enjoyed planting last year.  Unfortunately I could only find salvia in red from Veseys and Thompson-Morgan, and only red and yellow celosia.  If I go ahead with ordering some trailing and climbing plants, I will order from Stokes and pick up the salvia and celosia as well.

Orders and Shipments

I completed my seed orders today for flowers.  Many seeds will be ready for planting within the next two weeks, and most of the others will be planted after New Year's.

I also received the first of my shipments in for the greenhouse.  My Vesey's order came in this morning with a lot of seed packets, the automatic vents for the greenhouse, and some seed trays.  Unfortunately, I don't think the seed trays will be versatile enough to work with the majority of the seeds.  They should be good for a lot of the vegetables, and a few of my perennials such as the hostas and daylilies.  I purchased them because they were the most cost-effective, and I wanted to see how versatile they would be.  Unfortunately I will have to buy bigger trays to grow most of the flowers and first-planted vegetables.

My second order was with Thompson Morgan, where I was able to pick up more exotic plants and supplant whatever standards that I wasn't able to find at Vesey's.

I also have to pick up my door for the greenhouse and am waiting on delivery of the covering.  The covering may have arrived already as I missed a delivery from Canada Post this morning, but I have an Ebay order also coming soon, so I'm not sure which one I will be getting tomorrow.

Final note on seeds:  I may be getting some more flowers, namely climbing and trailing vines.  The demand for vines in the past hasn't been huge.  I have planted a number of standard perennial vines like Honeysuckle, but haven't had many requests, nor suggested vines often.  I'm considering picking up a few and maybe testing the waters next Spring to see if anyone is interested.  As for trailing plants, I figure they might come in handy if I try to sell some of the exotic plants in planters.  I am also looking into planting bags, similar to the way the Topsy-Turvy vegetable/berry planters work, that can be used to hang off deck railings, fences, etc. where trailing annuals would be useful.  Again, because I don't have a history of selling container plants, I'm not sure how much interest I would get.  Based on the containers I see, I suspect it is worth the gamble of picking up some of these plants.

Greenhouse Supplies and Flower Seeds

I have gone ahead and ordered the covering for the greenhouse and the automatic, temperature-activated pistons that will open and close my vents.  Initially, when I considered a greenhouse, I was really worried about having to bundle up in the middle of January and February and trudge through snow to go out and open and close vents, and also about problems that could arise if I wanted to get out of town for 2-3 days with the prospect of overheating.  These pistons should make this project a much less stressful endeavor.

As for plants, I ordered about 35 different seed packages of popular annual flowers and a few biennials and perennials.  One of the issues that gave me problems was the number of changes I made to the order from my rough draft.  I had a number of automatic flowers to order just based on what I know are in high demand every year:  begonias, geraniums, impatiens, portulacas, coleus, and a few others.  But I need to have a wide variety of plants to suit different people's preferences and since I don't read minds, it took a lot of effort to really make sure there was a good deal of variety in the order.  There is also an inclination to order lots of fancy stuff that people might not be used to seeing.  I did pick up a number of interesting plants, but it's important to remember I already have a pretty good handle on the basic flowers from years of experience working with them, there's no need to complicate things for myself trying to become an expert on exotic plants.

I am planning to make an order of some interesting tropical plants like Birds of Paradise and banana plants, but mainly for container use on a small scale.

Birds of Paradise

Black Elephant Ear

It's hard to believe, but a lot of these annuals will need to be planted in a couple weeks around the holidays.  In order for them to be looking good and ready for transplanting by Mother's Day or May 24 weekend, mid-December to mid-January is standard planting time.

Vegetables are planted in March to April, so luckily I don't have to worry about them just yet.

Three Leaves & Three Shoots

This week was particularly rough on the lilies.  Since I posted last weekend, only Monday was reasonably sunny and the plants didn't shoot up too much.  I do have a few prizewinners and a few runts.

This is the bathroom lily which was close to touching the ceiling last weekend.  It was pushing against the ceiling when I got home Friday afternoon, so now it is sitting on the floor.

These are the lilies I separated from the big container where they were all crammed together.  the one on the left is the first to open three leaves, which it did Friday evening.

The bottom container has one of the more interesting bulbs, even though there is under 6" of growth.  You can see that the bulb is sprouting three shoots.  They are closely packed together, so I would be surprised if I don't cut one off later in order to let it grow and start a new bulb.

This is a close-up of the cluster of shoots.

This is the other one that is sending up three sprouts.  These are a little better spaced, and I hope they can call grow tall in one cluster.

My new group of bathroom lilies.

You can see I have a handful of good plants as well as some that are barely sprouting.  I have moved three big ones to the bottom shelf.  The one on the left was pressing against the ceiling when I went to check on them this morning.  The other two big ones came off the second shelf.  I figured they are tall enough to catch sunlight from the lower shelf, so I put the struggling plants on the middle and top shelves where they will get better exposure.

I did not bother to snap a picture of the other shelf unti beside this one.  All the lilies there are 6" sprouts or less.  Certainly some healthy looking plants among them, and a few that haven't shot up at all.  I think if the forecast holds up and we get a few sunny days this week, we'll see good growth.

Lastly, I have put a couple rose cuttings into the containers on top just to see what would happen.  I haven't taken any effort to care for them, other than to give the lilies in the containers water.  One of them looks moderately healthy, but that doesn't mean much.

My routine for care is basically to spritz the leaves with water once every couple days, especially if I expect sunlight, and to give them about 1" of water every week, and a little top-up during the week for some of the bigger ones.  As of now, I am alternating between fertilizer and plain water.  I fertilized when I planted and again this weekend; last weekend I just gave them clear water.  The roots are looking good.  I have pulled out a few of the containers to look for roots pressing against the clear plastic.  In a lot of cases, I'm seeing that the roots are dominating the space and that bodes well for continued growth.  Again, if we can get some good rays this week, I expect to see a surge in many of the plants.