How Could I Say No?

My parents visited this last weekend, and since it was raining on Friday, we decided to go to Menards so I could return some things. We were there for over three hours and I spent more money than I got back from the returns.

But... they had $2 quart perennials!!! How could I say no?

I got some great stuff. I even got some things that I have been meaning to try, and, of course, I got some things that I didn't even know I wanted; but $2, no reason not to.

Menards haul
$2 plants:
Dusseldorfer Stolz sea thrift (2)
foxglove (2)
Lucifer crocissima (2)
Ritz Blue pincushion
Amethyst Myst heuchera
Gold Dust basket of gold
Little Leo leopard's bane (2)
Pink Diamond pincushion
english daisy (2)
alpine forget me not (2)
Blue Clips carpathian harebell
candytuft
$4 plants:
June hosta (2)
Thundercloud sedum
Diane Claire pulmonaria

I also hit the Home Depot:
American Halo hosta
Paul's Glory hosta

And dad needed socks at Shopko:
Dream Queen hosta (got this one for $3.50!)

And the biggest treat of all...Funkie Gardens!

When we heard that Funkie Gardens was closing its doors for good last fall, we were devastated. Where would we go to get all our local grown funky plants?

I cried a little.

I pouted all winter.

Then a month ago we got the bestest news. It was purchased, moved to just north of Stillwater MN and it was opening again this spring! We even got a coupon for $10 off a $50 purchase, for being such good past customers. Here's what we got at Funkie Gardens:
Orange Custard daylily
Thunderbolt hosta
Holy Mouse Ears hosta
Autumn Delight/Beka sedum
Red Hawk iris
King's Randsom brunnera
Sagae hosta
Mahogany heuchera
Bath's Pink dianthus



And another thing that has kept me busy...

As my parents were leaving to go back home, the neighbor came over asking if I wanted baby squirrels. The mother had died and these little guys were looking for food and water. Even though those damn squirrels are always tearing up my garden (only last week I had to cayenne pepper my carrot bed AND put up fencing to keep the squirrels from belly-flopping into the bed and making dirt angels), how could I say no? I mean, look at them! We only had to keep them for a couple days while I searched for a rescue center. The nearest one was in Minnesota. That suited me just fine. I got to save baby squirrels AND get three squirrels out of my neighborhood -- WIN-WIN.

Morel Hunting

My husband and I got up early (because our son missed the bus -- thanks JD) and went to the woods near our house to see if we could find any morels near the place that I had found them last year. I know that the morels are fruiting here since they are going gangbusters in my backyard right now. I really wasn't expecting to find any, but within 20minutes in the woods we found seven medium sized morels!

There are only six pictured because we left one behind. It was in a precarious place, and I wanted to make sure to leave something to propagate more morels. I will be going back with some spores to spread around, too.
You can see which one my husband found. He is giving it the thumbs-up.

Hunting wild mushrooms can be an exciting, but risky endeavor. How do I know that they are morel mushrooms and not some dangerous look-alike?

First, there are not very many mushrooms that look like morels. In fact, there are only two: Gyromitra and Verpa bohemica. The first would only look like a morel if you were drunk. The second only resembles one kind of morel, the half-free morel, but is still easy to distinguish once it has been cut open -- which you should ALWAYS do before eating morels. By cutting the mushroom lengthwise, you can be 100% positive that the mushroom is a morel. If you aren't 100% positive that what you have is a morel - throw it out. The two look-alikes are not something you want to be eating. I used this website for great ID info.

Note the "brainy" look of the morel cap. The stem is smooth, firm and meaty.

Note the hollow stem and firmly attached cap. Although the interior of the stem may have minute bumps, it will have no filling/fibers. The cap and the stem are virtually continuous - no distinct separation. Only the half-morels have separation, and I would never feel 100% confident with those. Besides, I have read that the ones pictured here are the best tasting anyway, so why risk it?

Oh, and morels aren't something you want to be eating raw as they have a chemical in them that can cause intestinal issues. Heat breaks this chemical down, so be sure to cook them. Sauteed in butter is awesomeness.

Want to try growing your own? Well, you could wait and hope nature brings you some morel spore, try your luck with community compost (like I did), create your own morel spawn, or buy morel spawn. As far as what to do to ensure their happiness, I have no idea. I cuss my garden out a lot. You could try that.

Morel Madness

I love mushrooms, especially the kind you can eat. My favorite are the morels. One of my crazy dreams for my garden was that morel mushrooms would miraculously start growing in my garden. It was just a crazy dream, I knew. I mean, as you can probably see from many of my garden pictures, I live right in the city. And morels are notorious for being elusive woodland mushrooms. But a girl can dream, right?

Three springs ago I actually found a morel in my garden -- and it was HUGE!! It was already too ripe to eat, but I was very excited for the future.

Last year, I had two HUGE morel mushroom and a regular sized one. The two huge ones, ironically enough, were too ripe to eat by the time that we found them, but my son and I ate the other - and it was delicious!

This year, I really do believe that dreams can come true. I found 15 morels! They jumped the 20 feet from the white pine shade garden to my main garden and the move really agreed with them! Most were huge again, but there were a few small ones. They mostly took up spots under shrubs, but I found a few out in the open, basking in the sun. When I find them, I keep them well watered. We have even enjoyed a few morels for snacks. Most are going to be left to spore and hopefully take over my garden.

A girl can dream, can't she?

Seed Starting With Recyclables

So I have lots of seeds - and I mean LOTS of seed (see previous post). I decided that I should probably try to do something with them.

I tried to plant them in starter mix re-fill cells and peat pellets. Neither of these was working very well. I even had the fancy humidity domes. Not much luck.

What did work were the following techniques:

Milk jug starters:
I learned about using milk jugs for winter sowing while reading blogs. I even saved a bunch over the fall and winter months just for winter sowing. AND...
I never got around to it. But I thought that if they worked well for that, they might make great greenhouses for starting things like my nightshades.

They were!

Brandy Wine tomatoes

Listada de Gandia eggplant

I cut the jugs three inches from their bottoms, filled the bottoms with starter mix, planted the seeds, taped the jug back together using packaging tape, then watered with filtered water in a spray bottle. I placed them in a window and in a couple of weeks I got these beautiful little seedlings. I now have them potted up.

Other humidity domes: Humidity domes are great for getting seeds and seedlings the constant moisture that they need. Here are a couple other items that I have used.

Mmmmm...hot fudge sundaes!

Rotisserie chicken. These containers even come with vents. All rotisserie containers are not the same. I found that some are really brittle - the best ones come from Sam's Club. And their chicken is really good too!

Pre-sprouting in coffee cake containers:
I saved these coffee cake containers because I thought that they might make nice peat pellet humidity domes. Instead, I found that they make great seed sprouters. There are two ways that I sprout. The first is the technique that I used last year: mass sprouting. I used Viva paper towels, sprinkle the seeds over one half, fold the other half over the seeds, spray with water, closed container.

Beets are easy to space when they are pre-sprouted. They also come up faster.

This year, I had more seeds that I wanted to try sprouting, but I didn't need a whole tray of them. So, I made toilet paper packets that I could label. All these seeds shown here I also tried to start in starter mix with absolutely no luck.

But this worked - really well! I planted the sprout, tp and all, into starter cells.

Most seeds germinate faster using this method, and some seeds only germinated for me using this method.

Why stop at plastics?
I buy these fantastic sweet onions during the winter, but I almost always end up not using them all before they get to this point. It's happened to you too, I know it. I have planted green onions and shallots into the garden to refresh them in the past, so why not sweet onions?

I stripped the onion to find the separate baby bulbs. I cut through the rooty base making sure to leave roots on each bulb.

They are now planted and should give me onions in a few of months. Hopefully they will be the same yummy, sweet gourmet flavor that I love.

And of course, the best part of all this is that it saves money and stretches the usefulness of things. Gotta love that!

My Amazing Seed Box

I really do have a problem.

Bleeding Hearts Are Blooming

Obsessive Gardener Index - TULIPS!!

I finally inventoried all my tulips and created an index representing all the tulips that I currently have in my garden. That index can be found HERE. I will also be putting a link in my sidebar.

Although I knew I had a lot of different tulips I was still surprised to find that I currently have at least 49 varieties! There are 5 others that I am either still trying to figure out their variety or decide if they are present. A rough count of the tulip bulbs I did this spring came to around 1600 tulip bulbs. I buy about 300+ every year, and most do perennialize for me. In fact, I still have tulips from my very first planting that still bloom like mad!

With all those bulbs in the ground, I had to come up with a different way to plant them. It is far too difficult to see what is what and where in the fall when the bulbs are virtually invisible. That is how I came up with the brilliant plan to overwinter my new arrivals in pots and plant in the spring after everything is visible again. It works beautifully! I even get regular blooms out of the tulips that spring.

Tulips are definitely my favorite flower. I have already begun my tulip list for the fall. :)

Of Course You Want More...

Blue Gem Formal name: Tulipa humilis "alba coerulea oculata" - thanks to May Dreams Garden for the formal ID on this.	Tubergen's Gem Formal name: clusiana var. chrysantha
Aladdin lily tulip	Aladdin lily tulip
Gavota tulip I get more people stopping to ask about these than any other tulip.	Salome daffodil I planted these about 8 years ago and they only bloomed these last two years!
Sweetheart tulips I just LOVE these!!	White Emperor tulips with Sunrise tulips in the background
Sunrise peony tulips These have definitely multiplied.	Sunrise peony tulips Notice the red edging.
Supposed to be Margarita peony tulip. Not. They are still pretty though. I think they might be Passionale.	Thalia daffodils These are my favorite daffodils.
Fringed Elegance fringed tulip New to the garden this year. I really like them. These are a little floppy most likely because I just transplanted them from the pots I was growing them in.	Claudia lily tulip