[Gossamer's Scrapbook] The Ethereal Canyon I

[Abashai]

I am pretty certain I could happily live on your deck.

[Malia]

Wow, all of that looks awesome! Your gardening obsession amazes me every time I read of/see it. I know someone irl who grows lots of pot plants in their apartment and on the balcony, but nobody with the land to plant flower beds and such. I imagine your home must be a paradise... makes me want to visit even more.

And the Pacific Crest Trail! I'm dreaming of hiking the US up and down one day. The landscape must be a lot wider and freer than here in Austria. Riding with a horse must be even more awesome... I'd totally do that too if I was into horses a little more. ^^;

[Gossamer]

. Growing Petunia's Is Hard Work! Okay, one last scrap before I get back to the real world. I wanted to talk about growing petunias! Petunias are one of my favorite flowers. They have an unassuming name, but they come in every color in the rainbow. You can get solid black ones, variegated, every shade of pink, peach, cream, red, white, blue, purple and more. Some of my favorite are the trailing and wave petunias. But holy cow, they are incredibly difficult to grow! Most growers order whats called 'plug flats' where nurseries send them baby petunia's to divide up around Feb to start growing for the big planter season. I decided to grow my own. So... how do you do this? You take a flat and fill it with plastic then use a 'soil free growing mixture' made up of spangum moss, shredded coconut husk, and perlite and vermiculite. You mix this all together and keep it really wet. Then you sprinkle seeds that are half the size of poppy seeds across the top and keep them damp for thirty days. You also shrink wrap them after each watering to keep the humidity up. Then, if you are lucky the babies sprout and start growing. The lower flat in the picture above is my nursery flat. You probably cant see it but its filled with tiny green sprouts of all different colored petunias. Then, because conditions vary, the petunia's grow at varied rates. I had huge ones in with teeny tiny ones. I planted about a thousand seeds in this one flat. There's probably five hundred tiny sprouts all over the flat. Then, there are what I call the monster growers. These guys grow at twice the rate. So Saturday I sat down at my picnic table, filled a ton of 'starter pots' with actual real soil, and using a pair of tweezers gently teased the baby petunias out of the sea of tiny ones and repotted them in larger pots. This took a good hour because it was like surgery. I think I got about 39-40 from this latest batch, and its not my first one. There's other 'monster' ones coming on you can see in the nursery flat that will be moved probably next weekend. I didn't want to move them too soon, and I can't wait too long because the big plants will shade the tiny babies. If you wait too long on the big ones too you can let them be susceptible to 'dampening off' which is a fungus that attacks the stems and they basically starve because they stop using energy from their seeds and start taking it from the soil. So if they aren't growing in soil... the little guys are doomed. So we need to transplant them into soil! So, the timing has to be perfect and you have to be vigilant. No skipping days of watering. And on the watering issue, that's a killer too. They can't be 'watered' like normal flowers can. A single drop can devastate a tiny barely seen seedling. So you have to mist them gently with a misting nozzle. This means you need to stand there for a long long time dampening the soil-less mixture until the seedlings are happy. Now. Am I crazy to do this? Sure... maybe. But I'm loving every minute of it. I don't have kids, and these plants have quickly turned into my babies. I talk to them, I fuss over them, then I beam with pride when they bloom. You should see my herb collection and my sea of squash and sunflowers. I have fushias and blue bacherlor buttons and baby cosmos that are about to come out of the greenhouse. I have snapdragons that have doubled in size in the last two days and will probably be blooming in a month. I'm just thrilled - totally thrilled with my green house. I even have a meyer lemon tree that has tiny little lemons growing on it from this last round of blooms. I squealed like a fangirl and ran into the house to drag gillar out to show him when I first saw the initial baby lemon. Anyhow, other than the Coleus' I'm growing, everything else is coming out in the next month or so... so stay tuned here for pics and stuff. I post more on Facebok than I do here, but I'll try to keep this one up as well. Here's a shot of my greenhouse, but its not updated. Currently there's trays of corn, tall tall sunflowers, a huge lemon tree, and a ton of butterfly bushes down the middle. Anyhow, back to the petunias. This is what these little guys will look like in a few months. I don't have any shots of my own baskets because none of them are big enough yet. I started in April which is a few months too late for gargantuan baskets this size yet. But I will post mine when they get there. Trust me! This image I borrowed off the net and has verbena (hot pink) in it too... those are the multifloret flowers. The petunia's are the singles that are more red than pink.

[Gossamer]

. Disgustingly Sick At first I thought I had food poisoning, because I was throwing up like a champion. Now, though, I'm not so sure. I hate throwing up. I hate it worse when you get the shakes and feel weak after doing so for long enough. I even dragged my ass to work only to be sent home after we realized nothing wsa going on. Sick in the morning. A break for a noon nap. Sick all afternoon. A break for an evening respite. I'm surviving on ginger ale and the only reasons I'm doing that is to keep from dry heaving. It's been two days. WTF? I mean seriously. So if you don't see me around as much or are waiting on help desk tickets or posts or anything from me - don't wait too impatiently. The porcelain throne is demanding my attention first and foremost. I'll get back to the rest of you when my tummy calms down. Hopefully its soon. I'm starting to think this is actual flu and not food poisoning too, even though its onslaught was violent and sudden. .

[Irriari]

Feel better!

[Sharth]

Get well soon! Or if you're a fan of Dimitri Martin, "Get well now!" Hope you feel better and Miz will hold down the fort.

P.S. I'm secretly hoping it's morning sickness that lasts all day courtesy of a deal we made.

Just kidding.

But seriously.

Tyler

[Abashai]

Hope you get to feeling better my friend. *hugs*

[Colombina]

Oh my gosh, food poisoning or stomach flu. Single worst things to get (that aren't terminal). You poor, poor thing. Have Matt make you a little "den" in the powder room. Hope you feel better soon.

[Cayenne]

Feel better!

[Kelpie]

Get better Jenbabe, I hope matt gives you plenty of massages and nomnoms.