CityDiggity

A green space for urban gardeners

Archive for wildflower Texas bluebonnet

Gather ye seed pods while ye may. But after that, what?

DSC01066DSC00813DSC01079I’ve learned a lot from other garden bloggers. At the very least I’ve been inspired to seek out new learning.

So a few months back when a fellow tomato fancier asked if I’d be interested in trading seeds with her, my curiosity was peaked.

(You see, for several years now I’ve been growing heirloom tomatoes using seeds purchased from a catalog. They’re cheap — less than $3.00 a packet — so paying for new ones every season seemed a minimal, yet high-yield investment.)

Eager to learn, I quickly acquiesced. Of course, I had no idea how to get the seeds from the tomatoes to swap. She assured me it was easy peasy.

That was in the spring and I hadn’t thought about Read the rest of this entry »

Blue review: undeclared flower seedlings show true colors

DSC00648

DSC00646My plan was to strike a certain color balance in the garden this year. Blue was to be dominant, followed by yellow, then pops of red-orange and pale greens.

After buying numerous seeds, and supplementing those with online plant orders, I became a little concerned that I might wind up with blue overload. Well, leave it to happenstance to alter the landscape…

Some of the blue seeds that I planted in the peat pellets never sprouted, and I had a couple that sprouted, but later the seedlings dried up. Suddenly, I was facing the prospect of possibly having much less blue than I’d wanted.

Then, after the unusually cold spring and early summer — not to mention my unique challenges Read the rest of this entry »