Hey Hooollllyyyyy??? (timidly raising hand) - I would be happy to pay postage and give some of your Cape honeysuckles a good home once they're ready. Anything that hummers like...I like...LOL
Seed starting 2008 part 2
I had the same good luck with overwintering caladiums!
The once dormant pot is now jammed full of life :)
HollyAnn I like the idea you have separate switches for your lights. Mine are all connected to the one on/off switch on the surge protector strip. Also, you are so lucky your lantana sprouted! I didn't have any luck with any of the seeds I had here for lantana.
I can't read all your trapping talk.....I can't even kill a flea...and I always think of the babies that never get fed and die if the parents get relocated. It is hard though to accept killed and beheaded plants as the alternative! I had mice in my first apartment away from home and I was beside myself ~ resorted to using glue traps. I remember taking one of the poor victims (trap and all) to the front desk and demanded they let me break my lease! lol it was awful, the place had roaches too. I was shocked because it was a lovely building, it overlooked a park and river. ewwww the memories I would like to forget! Actually we have mice here too. A real pain, and have poison in the crawl spaces in the house which I hate to have to do.
good luck critter with your 'critters'!
I do release rabbits if they look like they might be nursing does... Critters have to be pretty destructive before I take lethal measures. I'm not willing to let a mouse bite the heads off all my pepper seedlings, though. But I'm sure not trying to offend anybody by discussing it -- sorry!
Chantell, If I can get them grown up I will send you some. Maybe I'd be able to get a few plants to the swap even though I won't be there.
Wind, It does have some nice features the man that built it put a lot of effort into it and so did Ric when he rebuilt it. The lights are boxed in, the inside of the box is painted white to reflect more light and the way the lights are mounted with the long wooden sides helps direct the light downward. The top of one light box is the bottom of the tray above it. That way it gets some bottom heat and there is a galvanized metal tray that fits in. You don't have to worry about spilling water. Each section has its own switch but then they are all plugged into one box with a timer. If the shelves weren't so hard to move up and down I would probably love it. Plus the long wooden sides you almost have to put the plants up inside the box to get them really close and then stack things under the flat to keep it there. Then you have to work from the bottom pulling out whatever you put under the flat so you can lower the flat to check it. As a result I never have my plants as close to the light as I think they should be and I think that's why they get a little leggy. I have an idea for next year that may work better for me.
critter, I wasn't offended ;)
I'm just a whimp when it comes to pest control measures... on one of the other threads they are discussing the damage voles can do....omg...thankful I haven't had them yet!
as far as seed starting goes I still have more seeds I would like to start believe it or not. Maybe this weekend I'll get them going.
Holly,
Herbie also has posted pictures on how he has to elevate his flats to be closer to the lights. he uses those white, Styrofoam blocks used for packaging to set his trays on. As they grow--he removes one... or two....
I may catch 2 or 3 mice in my house in a year too. Mostly they come up behind the stove where all the gas lines and such go down to the basement. So, I set my traps under the lift-up cover of the range. I use Peanut Butter as bait.
I have also caught one downstairs in the club room underneath the sink behind the bar. The walls are not finished there.
I use the plastic traps that open like a "clothespin". You pinch one end shut--and the trap is set. When you catch a mouse--you close the end again (cause now it is open) and the dead mouse just drops out. Easy! HD sells them--2pack for $3.47.
I feel that the sticky traps are inhumane and such a slow death for the mouse....UGH!
Three of my Caladiums are sprouting too. I expect, in time, they all will.
Gita
kudrick,
Forgot to mention.....Please come to Becky's Plant Swap on may 24th. It isn't all that far. I am sure you will enjoy meeting us all here, and I bet you have some interesting plantlings to trade.
I have something you may not have.........teee...heee...How about a "Pregnant Onion"?
I have lots of babies....That is why it is called the PREGNANT Onion!!!!
Gita
Gita, I share your feelings on glue traps... but this mouse stole peanut butter, cheeze whiz, melted chocolate chip, every bait I could think of he nibbled out of the trap without setting it off! I use the same plastic traps that you describe, and they're so sensitive I can barely set them down on the floor without having them snap shut. I have a very sneaky mouse!
oh, if the glue trap disappears, the mouse might have just caught one appendage on it and still been able to move it.
If anybody feels too sorry for the mice, come help my 88 yr old mother with hers.
If I ever have to resort to them again, I'm getting the big rat-sized glue traps. By the way, the glue now has some sort of anaesthetic added to it... but I'd still check the traps regularly rather than leaving a stuck mouse to die slowly.
Have you ever tried to set an old fashioned wood and wire rat trap? Major OMG!!! I bought one justfor the heck of it. or maybe I wanted to hurt the groundhog. Scares the total daylights out of me to try and set it. I don't know how trappers dealt with the real leghold traps for even bigger animals.
Jill,
The plastic traps "set" if you point the open/baited end upwards. Something or other just "falls in place" when they are in that position. They do not "set" too well if you keep them level. Try that!
Even on these traps--the mouse can get caught in a non-killing grip. That happened to me one night a couple of years ago. I was sound asleep, and the snap of the trap under the stove cover woke me up. So--I hear all this thrashing (hard plastic trap against all the metal under the burners of the stove) for a long time. The it stopped---and I thought, OK! Now it is dead.
After a while--there it goes again--clash/bang/thrash/bang.....Now I am thinking...this mouse sure is taking it's time to die!
In the morning I went to see. I lifted up the cover to the range-top and, sure enough, there was a mouse in my trap, except the trap had traveled half way across the undersides of all the burners and had gotten wedged between two of them. I carefully picked up the trap, and almost freaked out! The mouse was still breathing!!!!! Pant...pant...pant....The trap had snapped over it's shoulder and, partially, the skin on the side of it's neck--NOT killing it.
WHAT DO I DO NOW??????????? Freaking out! Do I kill it? HOW? Do I flush it down? Aggh! NO! So, I took the poor, half- dead mouse, outside and dropped it off under my back yard neighbor's HUGE Holly bush. I kind of "threw" it out of the trap. It caught a limb and hung on it for dear life for a moment-- then fell to the leaf-covered undergrowth and staggered off to who knows where. PHEW!!!
I THINK I am strong and mean and not all that sensitive--and I COULD HAVE just stomped on the mouse and ended it's misery, but--NO! Couldn't do any of it! SEE? I AM a softy at the heart..... I would rather have them DEAD in the traps--NOT panting away for dear life.............I want my black snake back that honored me with it's residence for ONE Summer. Kept all the chipmunks in check!
Never know where it went off to, but it has never returned....
Here--it is not too happy to see me this close--camera in hand.....
Great snake! :-)
I figure if I injure an animal but don't kill it (whether hunting or trapping mice), it's my responsibility to finish the job humanely. I liked Sally's suggestion of using the freezer. My mother learned decades ago not to unwrap "mystery" packets in my freezer (she found a winter-killed bird I was saving so an ornithologist friend could teach me how to make a "study skin").
I have started digging up all that lovely vinca I got from Gita and others last year for my folks... I've been growing it in a nursery bed area, and I only hope I'm getting it all out of there, LOL. So far, I've got 77 four inch pots of the green (looks like another 45 pots worth remaining), plus 3 trade gallons and 4 four inch pots with clumps of the variegated V. major. I don't even want to think about what we'd pay for that much vinca at the nursery! I've also got some V. minor that looks pretty good out in my perennial bed, around my "Bubby Bush" from Sally. Thanks, everybody!
Er ... uh ... sooooo, how are those seedlings coming along, everyone? =)
I'm home sick with a bad cold or flue or something, but I was hoping to start planting out some of my hardier plants this weekend if I'm feeling up to it. The garden is really coming alive at the moment, even the lilac that I planted three years ago is blooming now for the first time.
Gita, I have some of styrofoam blocks but not near enough and they are only half the length of the flats so I need two for each layer. That was kind of what I was thinking. Getting sheet styrofoam that's about 4 - 6 inches thick and cutting it the same size as my flats.
How about using some spare flat-rate boxes from the post office (the shirt box shaped ones)? They're not waterproof like the stryofoam, but they hold up pretty well.
Good idea, I have some shipping boxes I'm using now, might zip down to the PO and pick up some.
The coleus on the left are starting to show color and the 36 tomato seedings are looking pretty good (9 Better Boy, 9 Brandywine, 18 Jubilee)
- Brent
This picture has peppers on the left, vinca in the middle, petunia and impatient on the left.
I would say that my kids seedlings are beating the pants off mine...I need to get some tips from the kids!
- Brent
Brent: Those are gorgeeeous. Good work on the kids' part!
My first bloom from my 2008 seed starting.
Impatiens Peach Butterfly
I was going to start hardening off but it is so windy today and there is a chill in the air I hate to risk it.
Petunia Avalanche Cherry is really getting big.
Digitalis Pam's Choice is coming along great. Has this year to grow before blooms in 2009.
Nicotiana Marshmellow. I did not get good germination so the few I have growing will be pampered for a while.
Very nice!! I can't get over how much more vigorous those "wave" type petunia seedlings are than others.
Jill, those petunia seedlings went in leaps and bounds when I potted them up to 4 inch pots. I use MG moisture control potting soil. Now should I put 2/3 in one hanging basket?