Seed Surprises

 

     Last summer (2019) my in-laws in rural Saskatchewan made the decision to leave the family farm and move to town. While cleaning up the property over an arduous week in July I decided to keep the bag of seeds that were kept in the garage. So many of us prairie people keep seeds of things we like or people give us, my mom also has a seed collection that stretches from the 70's to now and while the seeds I keep aren't quite that old I also have a bunch tucked away to be planted some day in the future. Since we were in the middle of pandemic panic I decided I would try to  grow all the seeds from my mom-in-law as who knew what was going to be available by May?  Turned out this was a good decision as plant supplies were hit and miss everywhere!

My trusty greenhouse aids in growing and starting almost anything in our nuts climate.

One of the poppies that were loose seeds in the bottom of a bag.

and some more, once they got going it was a great show!

Shoo-Fly Plant Nicandra physalodes is also called "Apple of Peru" and I'll bet it is known by that last moniker in rural circles!

These Scarlet Runner Beans were over 20 years old but easily grew. In a fun pairing that I did not plan the Lychnis or Maltese Cross also came from the farm many years ago. Now it is an homage in orange flowers to Saskatchewan!

Shoo-Fly plant is a fairly large annual growing to almost 5 feet in my yard. The flowers open in the day and close at night, the papery husks are reminiscent of tomatillo. I have grown this plant before and did have an inkling of what they were, that they were familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it until they bloomed, Oh yeah!!! That's what they are! Fun stuff, I haven't seen these in many years and will grow them again!

Only a few seeds did not grow namely Lavatera and Hollyhock, they could be too old or not sown in the right conditions or will grow next year after a whole season in situ. We will see. I did manage to sprout the Lupine seeds too, in situ ( in the ground) but other plants took them over so we will see if they survive, they are extremely hardy plants so I will be excited to see if they come back next year.

2020 The Year Of Storms

 

     Spring 2020 was rolling along very nicely with warm days becoming hot by June that had us all saying we haven't had such nice weather in years! As with all things in this stupid year that was all about to change! June and July are usually quite stormy here with some of the most expensive hail damage in the country, I am always on alert for hail storms and is why I grow so many things in pots, they can be moved undercover. In mid June we had a surprise storm pop up, I believe the folks at Environment Canada dropped the ball as well our local news, for some reason no one saw this storm develop, they say it just popped up and then it was too late. This was terrible timing for hail, so early in the year, just as everything is getting some growth going, I lost my vegetable garden (twice) but I did not lose my windows or car or any of the other damage that affected areas further North of me. It would turn out that we would suffer around 7 or so more hail storms of varying intensity. By the time we got to July I was well trained in hauling all the plants into the garage, the house, under the roof and getting the bed sheets out, all the time cursing at the top of my lungs, sorry neighbours! It has taken me almost until now to get over it, one time I said "I wish it was winter!!!" the stress of these storms was making me insane but I'm nice now, believe me!

The storm of June 13th, 2020, hail and torrential rainfall, note the water pouring off my roof.

The hail in my area was small but relentless.

Some stats from local weather, this storm was way worse for NE Calgary where it caused flooding, destroyed siding, destroyed cars and smashed the windows of cars and houses prompting residents to ask for federal and provincial disaster aid. As a side note just remember that the Federal government turned the City of Calgary down for disaster funding for the "snowmageddon" event that saw us lose a huge portion of our tree canopy a few years ago. 

Some images from TV, destroyed siding on a NE Calgary home.

Cars submerged on Deerfoot trail, because the Province and the City have to work together to fix this problem nothing has been done and this did happen again a few weeks later and will probably happen again in the future!

My local schoolyard, basketball anyone? This puddle is so big it attracts geese, ducks and seagulls!

My vegetable boxes completely destroyed in a few minutes. I planted after this only to have more hail and torrential rainfall ruin the new seedlings again! By the time I got a few sprouts of lettuce and Swiss Chard the sparrows were busily feasting on these micro greens, let the swearing begin again!!!!

My backdeck during a storm June 24th, the pot to the right had a cherry tomato that managed to grow back and bear fruit by September! Guess I shouldn't be so negative? Nah, it's too much fun!

And now a collection of the various storms that blew thru here until around the end of July, most of them outstanding in appearance.

This one spawned a tornado a few miles East of here, you could see this cloud rotating but for once mostly missed us.

And another.....

 

and another....

This one caught the light in a special way!

and here, with many shades of blue

This was a really big one that did NOT affect us but gave us quite a show as it passed to the South.

For once, not a storm in our quadrant, it gave my mom some hail for the first and only time all year!

As this one passed the setting sun really set it off, imagine if I had a better view!

Another hail storm with hail getting into the house from the open backdoor.

This hail came from the North, the first really big one was from the South, so many variables to hail storms that spawn destruction in different ways every time!

And some torrential rain of course!

Near the end of storm season a giant system 50 miles north of the City August 3rd wrecked havoc and devastated crops in the area.

          While 2020 has been a piece of shit for all of us I will hopefully remember that even if nature throws its full fury at us we can persevere like so many plants. Hailstorms often allow us to get philosophical about life and death but goddamnit after this disaster of a year I really don't want to live here anymore! I need a much better and calmer climate to garden in! Someone in Victoria BC once said to me "Calgary? that must be like gardening in hell!" while this is a typically arrogant and rude remark from a West Coaster there is some truth to that! Gardening in hell however either makes us crazy or heroes though, don't try me! :)

Spring 2020, Gardening in a Pandemic!

     So, Pandemic hey? Who saw that coming? Actually many experts warned us for many years, who knew all that international travel would lead to something like this? Just several Science Fiction movies, the modern version of Planet of the Apes comes to mind or the big budget film Contagion parallels our current situation quite well except in that movie the US President went into hiding and in the real world we should be so lucky!!! Anyway enough of all that, what to do when everything is closed and the availability of plant material is in question? I decided I was not going to buy anything this year and grow everything from seed myself! I have a fair sized stockpile already and I did order a few seeds online before I declared this, who knew the seeds would take almost 6 weeks to arrive because of the pandemic? I also saved my Mother-in Laws collection of seeds as we cleared out the farmhouse for a move to town last summer. Some of these seeds were from the 90's, some collected from a neighbour in envelopes, some from only 7 or so years ago. Most of these have grown including Scarlet Runner Beans, Lupine (which I scratched with sandpaper and soaked overnight before planting) and some loose poppy seeds at the bottom of the paper bag they were all in! There will be some surprises!

Some of the old seed collection from my mom in law

I also got into growing several seed trays which I haven't done in years! 20 years ago I had a lot more energy for running multiple trays in and out of the house as the weather dictates but in recent times I had relied on retail plants. With the addition of a small temporary greenhouse ordered online last year the task of growing several trays of plants has become slightly easier. I must have learned about using a heating mat to germinate seeds some time ago but was out of time to order one online and with the pandemic everything was taking weeks to get delivered so after reading a little on the old internet machine I learned that people were using Christmas lights as a heat source for seeds. You need the old incandescent type as I don't think LED generate heat. It actually worked very well! Speeding up germination by several days and at the time we were having an unprecedented cold and cloudy few weeks, I usually rely on sun to heat my trays but the lights were better, I did find out the hard way that seedlings must be removed from the heat source or, like Nicotiana, will damp off, turn to mush and die. Most of these seedlings were saved thankfully after I realized.

The cheap and homemade way to make a heating mat out of old Christmas lights.

You can order a small affordable greenhouse online

     Some images from the Pandemic panic gripping us this spring. It has nothing to do with plants but reminds us of the mood of the early spring which was pretty gloomy like our weather!

Lots of this homemade well wishing, also "Thanks to Essential Care Workers" was popular.

My neighbour banging a pot at 7pm in honour of Essential Health Care workers.

A funny take on the repeated message of don't touch your face!

Most parks were very busy as people had nothing to do but this day walking around Inglewood and the Zoo was suspiciously empty of crowds, nice!

This was on TV and it still makes me laugh! Do they mean "Sanitization"? Or "Sanitation"? I pronounce what they have here as San-it-a-sa-shun Station. Yes I am amused by very stupid things!

When it got warm enough to put some of my indoor plants outside they looked terrible! We were laughing that this looks like an abandoned flower shop like a scene out of The Walking Dead or any such post-apocalyptic story, very fitting for our times!

A rescued orchid blooms in the early spring in my kitchen window, it's all about consistency of care.

Some species tulips and crocus in April

Nice to see, Fritillaria blooms after several years of being decimated by the Red Lily Beetle. Maybe all our terrible weather over the last few seasons affected the beetle?

Hepatica, one of the earliest of flowers, tiny but adorable!

Some Siberian Squill in the early spring.

     After a very mild winter we suffered a serious and long cold snap thru most of March and into April, it made for a very depressing and gloomy Social Isolation period, however, April turned around and became very mild. I kept thinking that since we have banned most air travel, going to work or really travelling anywhere we have cleared the atmosphere. We have seen images of crystal clear Los Angeles, views of the Himalayas, the Taj Mahal all because air pollution levels have seriously decreased and I believe it is making our weather better. This year has been so lovely, so warm, with insanely blue skies, it's the weather we had when I was a boy in the 1970's. It really made the Pandemic a lot easier, can you imagine if we had one of those cold and dreary springs with snow into May and cold well into June? Now so many people are working from home I don't think anyone wants to go back to some office somewhere? I hope that humanity rethinks a lot of it's recent decadence that got us all into this in the first place! Do we need to consume every resource on the planet to fill our empty lives? Or should we take it easy? Consume less, stay closer to home, use less oil? The planet and air are already thanking us for this extended break, you can see the evidence everyday, I swear the skies are bluer than they have ever been in my life!