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!
