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Garden journal entry

 

as you can see, spiders find their way into my stash of recycled pots...
March 03, 2012. OK, so it's been a disgracefully long time since I've written here. I was going to post an update after the freak Halloween snowstorm hit and took out large parts of our curly willows (among other things) – but the photos were on Amy's camera, and I never got around to pulling them over. That event pretty much spelled the end of the season: whatever outside time was available in November was taken up by lopping off the destroyed branches (using a newly acquired electric chainsaw), chopping the bigger bits up into firewood and kindling, and clearing out all of the other storm debris. Somehow, a fitting end to a gardening season that started to go south from July onward. As a result of the generally cool and wet conditions in late summer and fall, I didn't get around to much seed collecting – which in turn meant I did hardly any seed trading. Without the enticement of lots of new varieties to try, my seed-starting season got off to a slow start, but I'm glad to report that by now it has kicked into gear. Following shipments from the HPS/MAG and NARGS seed exchanges (with lots more coming soon from the NARGS surplus round!), I have six shoplights in action to keep the various seedlings happy and growing. The rest of them will go into service soon.
So let's start off this year's round of journaling with my traditional seedling picture. In this case, seedlings of Amphicarpaea bracteata, whose enticing common name is American hog peanut. This is one of those plants that I've managed to grow from seed successfully on several occasions, but have never grown to maturity. A common problem with vines, for me: they don't belong in my nursery area (where there is nothing to climb), so I set the seedlings out in various other garden areas, usually out of the way, where I won't remember to give them some water in times of drought, or make sure that they grow clear of their rapidly growing neighbors once the busy time of late spring comes around. But I'm going to do my best this year to follow the progress of the hog peanut sisters. They are native to moist woods of the northeastern United States, where they show off their clusters of pretty pale pink flowers. My garden doesn't much resemble moist woods, but I'm going to try to keep them happy as best I can.


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