Brrrrr .....

It’s zero degrees this morning here in the shire, and even the houseplants are shivering. This is the darkest part of the year, both literally and figuratively, for those of us whose passion is gardening. How do you get through the winter months? I try some of this and some of that, but it's a long, cold slog until spring, for sure.

There’s the seed catalogs, of course, and the dreaming and planning for this year’s garden. I make lists from the different seed companies, but usually the bulk of my order ends up being from Fedco, with Johnny’s in second place. Last year I was terribly disappointed in some Burpee cosmos seeds, but I still like to try something new from them and several other seed companies.

Late in the fall, I planted some spinach in the unheated greenhouse. It sprouted and grew to the one-true-pair stage before the very cold winter temperatures sent it into a dormant state; it should resume growing in a month or so, I’m hoping, and we’ll have fresh spinach not long after that. It cheers me whenever I go into the greenhouse and look at those green leaves, but the resident chipmunks seem to be nibbling away at the edges too. Chicken wire over the top keeps the cat out, but not the little critters.

Two weeks ago, after making my seed inventory, I made a mixture of lettuce seeds and sowed them into a tray of potting mix, setting that under a plain 24” fluorescent shop light in our furnace room, where the temperature stays at a pretty reliable 60-70 degrees. They’ve sprouted nicely, are getting misted with a weak solution of fish fertilizer, and we might just get a few salads out of it in several weeks. If I can get myself organized enough, I should seed another tray this week. Baby lettuces only take a month or so before they can be harvested.

And then there’s the houseplants. Last fall I came across a wonderfully informative book, How to Grow Fresh Air: 50 Plants that Purify Your Home or Office, by Dr. B.C. Wolverton. I’ve always had a few houseplants around, but this book was inspiring – to the point that we now have a great many, of different types, all proven to improve the indoor air that we breathe. There’s a learning curve, as with anything, and as we creep through these dark winter months I am consulting houseplant books, learning which need that south window and which can sit back in the shade, why the leaves on that one have turned blah (it needed to be moved to a warmer room), how to propagate from larger plants. It helps to satisfy that urge to work with things that grow. And look at that Gerbera daisy at the top of the post! – who would have thought it was an air purifier as well?

Last February, we took our favorite granddaughter to Magic Wings Butterfly Conservatory, a wonderfully warm, humid, sunny large greenhouse-type building full of tropical blossoms and bright-winged butterflies … a lovely break from the chill of winter. Now, if we could build a smaller version of that right onto the side of our house ….