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Down In It

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tagged: planting log [clear]

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Lupines transplanted

April 17, 2026

planting log, herbaceous | permalink

I transplanted all the lupines that I'd started in pots and put in the vegetable garden during the fall. I planted 60 seeds in 12 pots and about 45 came up, making a 75% germination rate, which is decent, I think. Most went in the mulched area right along the road close to the lawn, but I also put six in on the west side of the large tree stump on the terrace, and another eight within the fenced-in area of the southern woodland edge, near the serviceberry (which has started doing well now that the deer can't get to it). I also noticed while doing this that many that I directly sowed in the front mulched area in the fall have come up and have thus far survived. The tallest are about two inches tall, but most are closer to an inch.

Parsley, cilantro, and basil sown

April 4, 2026

herbs, parsley, cilantro, basil, planting log | permalink

I put one row of each of these in the front of the left bed, just in front of the two rows of beets I planted last week. First parsley, then cilantro, then basil. These rows were a bit closer than the rest of the bed - maybe 8" apart instead of 10 to 12. The parsley and cilantro were spaced two inches between each seed, while I did the basil every inch. Hopefully the heights work out as planned, with the basil somewhat shading the parsley and cilantro but with neither of those latter two shading the beets. However, thinking of it afterward, I shouldn't have put the basil in there but rather another row of cilantro probably, since the wildlife seem to mostly leave the basil alone aside from the infrequent nibble. (More than nibbling is the reason I'm moving the cilantro and parsley from the unprotected herb garden to the fenced-in vegetable garden this year.) There were only about a dozen basil seeds left in the packet, so I threw them in the garlic bed, along with a few cilantro for the hell of it. The cilantro seeds were those I'd saved from the herb garden in 2024, the basil I'd saved and packaged on Oct 3, 2025, and the parsley from a store-bought package from 2024.

Last potato and two more red osiers planted

April 1, 2026

potatoes, shrubs, planting log, vegetables | permalink

After giving me daughter ample opportunities to plant the second and last of her potatoes that we started inside, I decided it was time to put it in the ground. So now there are four along the back right side of the right raised bed. All are about a foot tall, and have good root systems.

I also pulled out two of the red osier dogwood cuttings that had roots on them from the jars on the windowsill and put them next to the other two I planted the other day at the edge of the mulched area in the front meadow. So far, deer have not touched the other two, though I won't really be surprised if they get around to eating them sometime soon. I just don't feel like putting up the caging.

As usual for this spring, I sprinkled some mycorrhizal fungi into the hole for each of these three plants before I put them in.

Rhubarb and red osier dogwoods planted

March 30, 2026

shrubs, vegetables, planting log, rhubarb | permalink

I picked up two rhubarb crowns from the expensive non-native garden center on my way back from dropping my daughter at pre-k today, and then planted them on the edge of where I'd spread yards of wood chips at the corner of the front meadow and the western woodland edge. Deer should leave them alone - supposedly - and they should spread. I'm hoping for a nice patch in a few years that I can maybe harvest enough to make some strawberry-rhubarb pies.

Just a few feet away from them, at the edge of the front meadow, I put in a couple of red osier dogwood cuttings. One was from MH's property, one from ours, and both had been sitting in water since mid February and developed some small roots.

Both were amended with a little bit of the mycorrhizal fungi I bought earlier this month.

Potatoes planted, blue violets moved

March 29, 2026

planting log, herbaceous, vegetables, potatoes | permalink

Three of the four potatoes my daughter and I started inside are now planted in the back right of the right raised bed. As I was doing that, I also weeded that bed, and moved about 20 blue violets to the front meadow. There, I removed another small piece of sod and put them in its place, then didn't feel like removing any more and so planted the rest on the edge between the grass and mulch. Now about half of that mulched area has a row of blue violets at its border, spaced about two or three inches apart. I hope they fill in well and help to keep back the grass.

Left raised bed mostly planted

March 28, 2026

vegetables, planting log, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, beets | permalink

In the back of the left bed, I have three rows of spinach, with space beyond them for a row of corn. Now, in front of the spinach, from back to front, I have:

  • 1 row of kale
  • 1 row of broccoli
  • 1 row of cauliflower
  • 3 rows of oxheart carrots
  • 2 rows of danvers 126 carrots
  • 1 row of detroit dark red beets

The rows are about 10 inches apart and the seeds are spaced 2 inches apart. I sprinkled mycorrhizal fungi into the little trenches I made before dropping the seeds in.

Winter 2025/6

March 21, 2026

seasonal review, planting log, herbaceous, trees, shrubs, fruit | permalink

This winter was the least busy season I've had gardening since moving into the house, which comes down to two things: 1) it being winter and also a particularly snowy one (though that did mean some shoveling) 2) not trying to start any plants inside (aside from a few for the vegetable garden), unlike last year.

Here's a list of the things I did do:

Peas sown

March 15, 2026

planting log, vegetables, peas | permalink

I sowed Wando peas in the back half of the right bed, with rows 18" apart and 2" between each pea, amounting to about 100 in total. I left space along the right side for a row of potatoes. I still have to put in something for them to climb on. Last year I used twine tied from the furring strips on top and anchored into the soil with short sticks, but whatever animal got in made a giant mess of it so I'm not going to do that this year. I think instead I'm going to use bamboo. So, I guess, need to add that to the list.

Updates:

  • March 31: Saw a bunch of seedlings coming up today as I was dumping the compost.

Blue violets and lupines planted

March 10, 2026

gardening, planting log, herbaceous | permalink

While preparing the right raised vegetable bed for planting, I dug up about 10 blue violets. I only noticed them because of the long, dense root system, which I became familiar with last year as I dug them out of the same place when they had lots of leaves. No leaves on them this time of year, just little stubby stems with the very beginning of green shoots. I also noticed that something was starting to emerge from what I'd planted into pots in the fall and placed between the two beds. I picked up one pot and it was labeled as three lupines and, as luck would have it, it had three seedlings coming up. I didn't do a thorough evaluation of how everything was doing, though in some pots there's nothing yet and in others there were more lupines.

Off both sets of plants went to the roadside meadow. After removing a chunk of grass along the mulched area, I put the blue violets on the border with the (cursed) lawn and the lupines a few inches in. I looked around for any sign of the lupines that I planted there, but didn't see any. That area gets much less sun than where the pots in the vegetable garden are, so hopefully it's just a matter of soil temperature and later germination/growth rather not growing or deer eating them. In any case, I'm going to let the other lupines stay in their pots to get a bit bigger before I move them, in the hope that the deer won't eat them after a certain size.

A now-empty small plastic pot with blue painters tape on its face sits on the ground where the lupines were planted. The violets were just in front of it.

Spinach seeds sown

March 8, 2026

planting log, vegetables, spinach | permalink

Three rows in the back of the left bed, with space for a row of corn behind them.

A dozen more elderberry cuttings planted

March 7, 2026

fruit, shrubs, planting log | permalink

Last year, I ordered and planted a dozen elderberry cuttings from Rivers Hills Harvest. It was moderately successful - I think seven or eight have survived - and so I decided to do it again. I planted the first one on February 20, but then life - mostly snow - got in the way and I planted six on March 1, four on March 5, and the last one on March 7. About half of them went in between the others on the western woodland edge, one went on the south hill among a bunch of red osier cuttings I planted, and the remaining four went together in a circle (saved a bunch of fencing work) at the southern woodland edge, in front of the white oak. The four at the southern woodland edge and one on the other side got a dose of mycorrhizal fungi. The intention is for those on the woodland edges I'm creating to be part of a hedge, partly for wildlife and partly for blocking the view of the road.

Red osier cuttings planted

February 19, 2026

shrubs, planting log | permalink

The other day I took some small cuttings off the red osier dogwoods (Cornus sericea) I planted last spring and then I realized that MH had much bigger ones and asked if he could spare a few stems. He brought some over last night and then I cut them into 8 to 10" pieces. Today I put them into the ground, first using a thin rod from something or other to make the hole, then pushed them in up to 6" deep. I put about 6 over by the black cherry, 10 near the existing one on the south hill, and 5 on the other side of the driveway. The latter I put a cage around - I put them close enough to fit in one of the cages meant for tree protection I still have. I think I'm going to leave the ones on the hill unprotected, but soon I'll make a big cage to put around the ones by the black cherry. I still have 20 cuttings sitting in about two inches of water; I want to see if they'll root so I'm going hang on to them for a week or so.

Stone border added along road

January 11, 2026

planting log, herbaceous | permalink

Following some advice on the fediverse after voicing frustration about people driving their vehicles through landscaping where I'd recently mulched and planted a bunch of native seeds, I added a border of large stones every six feet or so just inside the curb. The biggest probably weighs 100 lbs or more, but most were like 30 or 40, some less. I scavenged them from elsewhere on the property - some were along the edge of the patio, some I'd used to make a border around the herb garden, two I'd put in front of apple trees I planted on the eastern hillside, and the last was one I'd previously moved from the very back of the yard to the edge between the grass and the various shrubs behind the bird feeder on the terrace. It amounted to 11 of them in all. Around them I planted hemp dogbane (Apocynum cannabinum) seeds, which I'd collected from the back of the terrace in November.

Fall 2025

January 11, 2026

planting log, trees, herbaceous, seed collection, wildlife, seasonal review | permalink

Fall was busy, but that's starting to be a refrain. Every season is busy. I feel like there is a lot of work to do, and I want to get as much of it done as soon as possible so there's more time for things to grow. To get bigger, to spread, to produce fruit, to begin to crowd out the grass, to block the view of the road and the gigantic increase in traffic due to a stop sign being put at one end of it (seriously, somewhere between 50% and more than 100% increase, the exact number depending on getting some raw data from the township for a recent count they conducted). I wrote very little about my activities, so much to catch up on here. I may later go back and add posts for a few of these things, mainly so I can link back to them from future posts and the rough map I'm making.

The biggest project of the season was cutting down the Japanese Maple in the front and planting two Eastern Redbuds (Cercis canadensis) in its place.

I planted two additional trees, both of which came free of charge from the township's shade commission: a White Oak (Quercus ruba), in the southern woodland edge, and a Black Tupelo (Nyssa sylvatica), in the northern woodland edge.

A few existing trees have become tall enough that I'm no longer worried about the deer topping them, and so cages were removed. However, there's still the risk of rubbing. So I did some research on a way to protect the trunks with natural materials (rather than, say, plastic guards), and found the suggestion of burlap. I bought a 35-foot roll of 3-foot-wide burlap from a local hardware store, then cut sections of about 3 or 4 feet long. I then placed these around the trunks, pushing open small holes between the threads to put limbs through where I could, and tied the ends together with some twine. It seems to have been a successful - only one showed a little rubbing, but no further after an adjustment. On the other hand, the serviceberry near the road that I planted either the first fall or spring after moving in needed more protection. Deer have been keeping it trimmed, so I finally put a taller cage around it.

Transplanted somewhere around 50 to 75 common blue violets from my vegetable garden, most to front meadow along road but also a few between the tulip tree sapling and elderberry in western woodland edge. I also collected a fair number of their seed pods and spread the seeds in the same area. American plantains and yellow wood sorrel were also moved from the vegetable garden to the same places, though not nearly as many.

Another big project (maybe 15 hours over a few weeks) was planting literally thousands of native seeds, mostly herbaceous but also some shrubs/small trees. I have no idea the exact number, but somewhere between three and five thousand. The vast majority were tiny tiny seeds that you just strew on the open surface (and hope for the best), but many others were ones that I planted into the soil (and hoped for the best). My plan is to do this every fall, for at least the next few years. Most of them I bought, but some I had collected from existing plants in my garden. Here are the species, with the collected ones indicated with an asterisk, along with location:

  • Hickory - at end of driveway, in northern woodland edge; these were given to me by MH, via a friend of his
  • Lupinus perennis subsp perennis (Sundial Lupines) - front meadow along road
  • Antennaria plantaginifolia (Pussytoes) - western woodland edge, in wood chips between rock wall I built and bald cypress; on eastern hillside
  • Rhus aromatica (Fragrant Sumac), which first needed to be hot-water stratified and soaked - western woodland edge mostly, but also some by new white oak in southern woodland edge and some by new brushpile on terrace
  • Conoclinium coelestinum (Mistflower) - front meadow, in mulched area in front of butterfly milkweeds
  • Penstemon hirsutus (Hairy Beardtongue) - southern woodland edge
  • *Apocynum cannabinum (Hemp Dogbane) - front meadow, right at edge of road; in front of blueberries on terrace; in front of blackberries and raspberries on terrace
  • *Lepidium virginicum (Virginia pepperweed) - front meadow, along road
  • *Plantago rugelii (American plaintain) - front meadow, along road
  • Geranium maculatum (Wild Geranium) - front meadow, along road
  • Iris versicolor (Northern Blue Flag) - front meadow, along road
  • Amsonia tabernaemontana (Eastern Bluestar) - front meadow, along road
  • Tradescantia ohiensis (Ohio Spiderwort) - front meadow, along road
  • Solidago odora (Sweet Goldenrod) - front meadow, along road
  • Cornus amomum subsp. obliqua (Silky Dogwood) - southern hillside
  • Packera aurea (Golden Ragwort) - at corner of front of house
  • Hibiscus moscheutos (Swamp Rose Mallow) - southern hillside, around existing red osier (that's a wet area and both like wet feet)
  • Amorpha fruticosa (False Indigo) - I mistakenly bought a ton of these seeds so they went just about everyone in heavy doses: northern woodland edge, along border of brushpile on terrace, along the log border in middle of terrace, front meadow in grass next to roadside mulched area, at end of driveway, probably other places
  • Viola pedata (Bird's Foot Violet) - around new white oak in southern woodland edge
  • Clematis occidentalis var. occidentalis (Purple Clematis) - beneath red or black oak in western woodland edge
  • Clematis Virginia (Virgin's Bower) - around lamppost in front meadow and pole on front porch
  • *a tall goldenrod, either Solidago altissima or Solidago canadensis
  • *asters - on terrace
  • Carex eburnea (Ivory Sedge) - in backyard, beneath playset after desodding it
  • Asclepias incarnata (Swamp or Rose Milkweed) - southern hillside, terrace

I also planted a few things in pots and put them in my fenced-in vegetable garden for some protection from being dug up, like the eastern redbuds I mentioned above:

  • Hickories - ones from friend of MH and also ones given to me by a contractor that did work on our house
  • Symphyotrichum novae-angliae (New England Aster)
  • Physocarpus opulifolius (Prairie Ninebark)
  • Staphylea trifolia (Bladdernut)
  • Swamp Milkweed
  • Sundial Lupines
  • Silky Dogwood
  • Cornus Florida (Flowering Dogwood)

Stored some seeds I collected paper packets:

  • Asters
  • Goldenrod
  • Eastern Redbud
  • American Plantain
  • Hemp Dogbane

I finished making the birdbath stump that I'd started in summer, or at least enough for now. Two-thirds of the top is chiseled out. Maybe I'll do the other third sometime. At first I thought it wasn't working, because the first time I filled it, it was empty about 30 minutes later. But it just needs to get water-logged and then it will hold water for a while - possibly a couple days (which is great, because I don't want stagnant water to be around for mosquitoes to lay eggs in, and perhaps it drying out is a good trap for them). Idea came from National Wildlife Federation, David Mizejewski, Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife, 2nd edition, 2019 (p. 73).

Other things:

Garlic year three planted

October 10, 2025

garlic, planting log | permalink

This afternoon I planted 64 cloves from the biggest heads harvested mid-summer, timing it to coincide with the advice my mom was handed down to plant during the waning phase of the moon. There are still a few basil plants in the bed that I'm letting go to seed, but thankfully they all happened to not line up with the rows, so I think I got the garlic evenly spaced out. I planted a little shallower than last year, thinking that maybe the failure rate was higher this past year than the year before because I'd planted deeper. We'll see. Once they were in, I covered the bed with a thick layer of dried grass clippings. Weather-wise, it's been cool the last few days - nearly 60 during the day and mid 40s or low 50s at night. Mostly that way for the next week, though will be almost 70 tomorrow. Looks like a good chance of rain for a couple days in the week ahead, so that's good.

Mountain laurel planted

October 3, 2025

shrubs, planting log | permalink

My excellent wife got me a gift card for Direct Native Plants earlier this year and I finally used it to buy a mountain laurel (Kalmia latifolia). The timing of its delivery worked out well: it hadn't been long after I finished preparing the site that it arrived and I put it in the ground. Looking forward to having Pennsylvania's state flower blocking part of the view to the road. Many more things will need to go in to fully block the view, but it's a start.

View from a few feet from the mountain laurel, which is surrounded by a column of chicken wire with a top on it.
View from further back, showing its placement among other plantings in the lawn, like a bur oak and a chestnut. In the background is an old stone gazebo and a house.

Summer 2025

September 29, 2025

trees, shrubs, herbaceous, vegetables, fruit, lepidoptera, seasonal review, planting log | permalink

On the tree front, I transplanted a few small saplings (4 or 5 inches tall at a maximum) from one place to another: I found a small eastern redbud (cercis canadensis) growing between two of my blueberry bushes, and moved it near the picnic table on the terrace, for eventual shade. I attempted to move a black walnut out of the yard and to the western treeline, but it did not survive. Similar thing with an oak, but on the other side of the driveway. But then I was successful, after being more careful with the roots and more frequent watering, with moving two other oaks out of the yard to the same place. I attempted to graft a few cuttings from the apple tree at my mom's house, whose apples I learned to juggle with. Neither survived. Did not help that it was not the correct season for it. I will try again either late this fall or early next spring. I identified, with the help of MH, three black walnuts. (I was worried they were the non-native alanthus altissima, "tree of heaven".) Two are good where they are, but the third is in the herb garden and so that will have to be moved once we get closer to winter. Removed the fencing on a couple, but then protected with burlap in mid September to protect from deer rubbing.

In shrubs, I found a great laurel (Rhododendron maximum) naturally root layering while visiting my mom, and I think it has successfully taken to my place on the western edge, although growth is slow. Of the 12 elderberries I planted in February, the range of success is pretty wide: of the nine that survived, one is about 4 feet tall (with a new shoot from the ground the same height), another is nearly 3', a couple are close to 2', and the rest are between 1 and 2'. The ones doing the best I had to put bigger cages around, twice. I'm starting to have fencing on hand when I need it, which is convenient and no further expense.

Perhaps the biggest effort of the season was at the herbaceous layer, namely removing the crabgrass that had taken over the four-foot-wide strip of mulch next to the road that I put in last year. That little patch - what I'm trying to make into a "roadside meadow" - has been a bit of a pain in the ass. First I heavily mulched it to kill the grass. A fair amount of weeding grass that survived was done a number of times. Twice I tried to start a holly hedge, and both times it failed. I spent a lot of time planting lupine and blue vervain seeds in it this spring, and mostly they were eaten by the deer. And then the fucking crabgrass. It took a good five or six hours worth of work to remove it all, and then an hour getting and spreading mulch, and then the occasional 15 minutes of weeding here and there to get what survived. After that, beginning in late August, I spent several mornings every week digging up and transplanting blue violets, and the occasional spotted spurge, from my vegetable garden. In all, it ended up being about 40 or 45 of them. I planted them right at the edge of the grass, every six inches or so, hoping they will help to keep it out. The spurge went further in, toward the road. I really like those two plants together. At times I found seed pods from the blue violets and tucked them into the mulch beyond the spurge. I also started a little patch of yellow wood sorrel on the other end, also dug up from my vegetable garden. A couple American plantains got transplanted on that side as well, and some of their seeds spread. Little bluestem seeds sown at the corner with the driveway, but no germination and probably wrong time of year (going to try again in spring).

In other places, non-native thistle was removed, native pokeweed was frustratingly removed by the spouse, grapevines removed from azaleas (I'm actually not sure of nativity of either of those, come to think of it, nor if the vines are really grapevines). Various things trimmed around the AC units. Bricks and rocks moved from one place to another. Got (self-)certified with National Wildlife Foundation, and put up a sign.

The herb and vegetable gardens were good, in addition to being a source of blue violets and yellow wood sorrel. Tons of tomatoes. Cherokee corn, but I need to learn how to harvest/cook it properly if I try it again. Damn groundhog ate the green beans a number of times, resulting in not many harvested. Peas got thrashed by deer, I think, just as they were beginning to first ripen (they ate the tops of the plants, not the pods, damaging the whole plant anyway). I gave up after the second time it happened and the plants didn't seem like they would recover. That was also a disheartening moment. Decent garlic harvest.

The backyard orchard: peaches grew, but I either waited too long to harvest or the trees are just too young (or some other reason that caused them to be dried up and molding when I checked on them in July). Of the seven apples on the apple trees I counted in May, there are three still left on the Arkansas black. Not sure what happened with the two other trees, but the one missing from the black is from me trying it way too early. Have since read up and discovered that it won't ripen until probably November and with perhaps three months of storage after that.

In addition to the black walnut (and redbud), I also identified:

Finally, I read Attracting Birds, Butterflies, and Other Backyard Wildlife by David Mizejewski/The National Wildlife Federation (2nd ed., 2019).