Danielle Blog

Germination!

On Monday, when I was off for Patriot’s Day, I ventured off to Target to buy flower seeds and fertilizer (along with the aforementioned nail polish).

You see, last spring, when I bought and planted annuals, I realized that I wasn’t able to buy little baby annuals of some of the flowers that I’d hoped to have in my yard and pots. You know, the ones that look so pretty in the home &/or gardening magazines when you peruse the magazines in the checkout aisles and start dreaming of days without snow and cold? And last year, when I realized that I couldn’t buy those flowers as annuals, I went to the store to buy seed for those flowers. When I was reading the seed directions, they pretty much all said to start the seeds indoors 5-7 weeks before the last frost. And since I wasn’t planting my annuals until after the last frost, I’d clearly missed my chance.

poop.

So, last year, after I gave up on the idea of having those flowers in my yard, and after I popped all of the annuals out of the surprisingly sturdy little pots, I decided to keep those little pots just in case the urge to grow flowers from seed struck me again. Except I forgot about the needing to start them in little pots. I just remembered that I was supposed to be growing them earlier than the last frost.

Well, the first warm weekend this year, I had my usual “Gee, it sure would be nice to have foxglove this year or some really hot flowers. Hey! I think we are still 4 weeks away from the last frost. I think I’m supposed to be growing seeds right now. Better go get some seeds and get those puppies in the ground outside.”

On my shopping excursion, I looked at all of the seed packets and dang if they didn’t all say to start them indoors.

“Surely one of these packets will say that I can plant the seeds in the ground before the last frost. Well, this one wildflower mix doesn’t say either way. Maybe since they are wild they can withstand the frost.”

“Oh, and I guess I could perhaps try to grow one type from seed on our sunporch. Maybe something that looks kind of hardy.”

“These look striking. Great hot pink color. Good for sunny areas.”

When I got home, I re-discovered those surprisingly sturdy little pots that I dumped in a corner. Of course, I had to clean them out. But hey, HB was out of town and didn’t need his bathtub anytime soon.

After the painting of the toes and the frustrating flat tire experience, I calmed down by setting out all of the little pots and planting the seeds. 5-6 per pot, with the idea that I’ll split them at some future point.

Water. Clear plastic shower curtain.

“On the table? or on the floor? hmmmm…. well, they probably won’t grow right in either place and this is all a totally futile effort. Might as well put them on the table.”

The package said 7-10 days to germination. So, I really didn’t expect much when I went to uncover them this morning and return the shower curtain to HB’s bathtub.

HA! fooled you.

I didn’t really steal his shower curtain.

It was an old one from my bathtub.

Anyway, I uncovered the pots and…

LOOKEEEEEEEEEEE!

And those 2 aren’t the only ones!

It’s only been 5 days! I was so excited!

I know they don’t look like much. But well, I really started thinking it had been too cold this week and that they were doomed. We had a couple of really hard frosts and while they were covered with plastic, they aren’t exactly indoors like the package says. They are kind of more in between doors.

But hey, I must’ve done SOMEthing right.

Cause they germinated!

And did you notice that the tree/bush out the window behind our sun porch has little baby green leaves on it? (scroll, scroll, “Oh yeah, Danielle, sure. Are you really excited about that too?” you are probably wondering.)

Well, yeah, ’cause pretty soon, it will have full leaves and flowers too.

And that’s when it will be warm enough that we can start having breakfast, lunch, and supper out on the porch on the weekends.

And by then, my zinnia’s will be taller. Maybe not blooming with hot pinkish purple flowers, but they’ll be at least a bit bigger.

All in all, a pretty good start, I’d say.