Roses and worms

The worms arrived today! The company told me last week that this was the day, but it was still exiting to open a padded envelope to find a sealed plastic bag with some soil, white root fragments and a few motionless red worms. Gently I turned the bag around to see if any of them was alive. They couldn't be all dead, could they? Suddenly one of them stretched out and pointed its head (?) to burrow from the light.

Ew!

The sight made me shudder, eventhough I regard myself as tough when it comes to yucky things. I put the bag aside and started drilling holes in the vermicompost to be. Forgotten were the earpains and the feebleness, at least untill the battery of the driller died. Sometimes I dearly wish for better tools than this cheap mailorder stuff.

In the meantime the roses started to bud on the balcony, and I paused ever so often to look at them. I've waited for these flowers for over a year. The vermicompost has been planed for less than a year, it's only fair that they shared my attention. Then I moisturised the vermicompost bedding and the time had come for breaking the bag.

Inside the lump of soil I found wriggling worm spagetthi. And again I shuddered, but why give in to basic reactions like these? (They serve a purpose, I'm sure.) I broke the lump and scattered it over the bedding to leave the worms to fend for themselves. It's a way to find dead worms. Those who haven't burrowed after an hour are dead.

What I though were white root fragments proved to be worm babies wiggling their tails, or shaking their heads perhaps, against the light. Compost worms don't like light. After an hour I could see that all worms were live and well, since the only thing left on surface was the tip of a tail. I treated my new multipet to a generous prune core and put the vermicompost beneath our stairs. My next project is to build a trap for fruitflies...



(I haven't added a CafePresslink today because of technical trouble. I'll return to the routine shortly, with the addition of highdefinition CClicensed picture downloads.)

Small blessings

The rosebuds on my balcony are starting open! I'll return shortly with a picture!

The campain for adopting a nursery

Photo "New Dawn", photografer "yamada*", you find his profile and more of his photos here.

In Uppsala there's a nursery called Rosendal (not to be mixed up with Rosendal in Stockholm). It was there when I moved to this town, and for a few years I had the peculiar habit of getting this yearning in spring. I wanted to go to Rosendal for no reason at all - and every time I got there they had started to sell their yearly breed of fuchsia cuttings. Sure, I love fuchsias, but they can't call to me over several kilometers (miles), can they?

Then a big gardening chain called Plantagen ("the Plantation") swept over Sweden, and among other places opened a big mall in Uppsala. Pretty soon Rosendal was bought by another gardening chain called Blomsterlandet ("the Flowerbed") and the assortement changed. Rosendal is now an gardening mall, were you find basic plants, garden furniture and outdoor grills. It's not all that bad. You can buy the most common plants to reasonable prices, and mostly you know enough about these to not need to ask anything about them (eventhough the employees may well know a lot about gardening). And I found borrowing a porch swing handy when the little one needed some comforting.

But the thing lost was the gardening joy. Old Rosendal was owned by someone who loved plants, and that made it's mark on everything. You could see it on the care for the place, you could see it in the displays and most of all you could see it in the choice of plants. Every time you went there you found the plants of the season with a little extra something - some plant that's grown in a too small amount to be profitable, but someone bought it and displayed it anyhow, just for the fun of it. I'm still disappointed that I didn't buy mini papyrus in container when they had it - just to mention one exemple.

Eventhough I enjoy a trip to Plantagen every now and then I can't help missing the old Rosendal. This day I talked my husband into buying the new plants for the balcony from Funbo Plantskola (Funbo nursery). I've heard about this nursery from friends, who's taken this as a new place to go since Blomsterlandet devoured our Rosendal. They have a good homepage (only in Swedish unfortunately), but look a bit dull when you pass it by, so I haven't got around to get there eariler. I had no idea about what to expect when I went inside the gates.

I entered their greenhouse and fell in love immediately. You have to fall in love when you see rows and rows of wellkept potted plants. And when I found a healthy wine heavy with grapes in the next greenhouse I was sold completely. Growing wine in Sweden is hard and considered very exotic. For a while I just walked around the plants and plantations with a happy smile on my face.

On the other hand I couldn't miss the fact that there were overgrown places and parts that could use a bit more care. Since some plants were spotless (I assume they sell well and that care is concentrated to them) it's not a question of classical neglect. Rather the nursery recieves less customers than it need to keep the economy up, ie. no money to hire enough gardeners. This reminded me of the paradox in gardening Sweden today; gardening is trendy right now, quite the go, and this means that nurseries like Funbo and old Rosendal are forced to close down (or join a bigger chain and loose their soul). Plantagen and Blomsterlandet are too strong competitors, not because of their assortment or competence, but because of their handy location that people never get the idea to go somewhere else.

We're loosing something in this process, namely the possibility to grow a garden with something special. Eventhough the assortment of Plantagen is big, it's also only the normal plants. Unless mini papyrus in container gets trendy, you wont find it there. Perhaps not the end of the world, but admit that life becomes a little bit more dull this way.

Swedes have a tendency to do just like anyone else - in Sweden. This means I can't really say if this phenomenon is international or just local. However I'm starting up the campain for adopting a nursery on Indoor Gardener too (it's very much needed in Sweden). Do like this; find a close by nursery not linked to a bigger chain, visit it and see if it's good. If it is, buy some plants and add a link to it on your blog in the same way I've done (look in the right margin). If the nursery don't have a homepage just display the adress and opening hours and add something about their assortment. Write a post about the nursery on your blog, and mention this on a commentary here at Indoor Gardener.

I'll do a weekly wrap up, linking to your nursery posts. It's permissible to adopt a nursery already 'taken'. Do spread the campain to garden bloggers I haven't reached. (Heh. I realise this means you can save a nursery and do some shopping in the same time - if only all good deeds were this fun :-) )

Unfortunately I didn't bring the camera to Funbo Plantskola this time, you'll have to wait a couple of times for my reportage. This time I bought the rose "New Dawn" which will replace my old rose on the balcony - and some extra strawberries for the kiddo.

What's in a rose...

Oh, waily, waily! My dearest Polstjärnan is dying. What I thought was the result of drying out seems to be the result of bugs, deseases or a pot too small. No matter how I fertilize or water branches and buds are withering away. There are almost nothing left on it that lives. I regret that I planted some pansies (johny jump-ups) around it, because they are so cute. Do I really need to dig them up just to plant a new rose? Definately. I hesitate on it, and tell myself that we really can't afford a rose right now.

Ah well, a rose won't cost me more than eight dollars, but who thinks I can go to a nursery and buy just a rose?

Stuck in life, stuck in reality

My rose almost dried out, but the pansies (Johnny Jump-Ups) do very well.

I haven't been posting here for a long time. It's because I've got Other Things To Do In My Life (tm). A full time job steals a lot of time from the hours you thought you had for your hobbies; cooking, cleaning, caring for children and laundry, everything are supposed to fit into the few hours you have left. My flowers have suffered from it, and some of my home made selfwatering pots are a sad sight to see. But I'm not ready to give up on the project. A fulltime job is a reality for most of us, and I want indoor gardening to be a possibility for all of us. The problems I'm pondering most on right now are how to fit in the gardening into the Real Life.

An other thing that keeps me going are all those nice comments you've written on my posts. Thanks to everyone who tried to save my basil and sage with various recipes and suggestions on freezing the surplus. The thing with indoor gardening is, though, that you'll (hopefully) have access to the plants all the time. If you start saving the surplus you'll soon drown. I'll plant new herbgardens, and when I do I'll plant sage and basil in an amount more fit to our needs. And I'll add chives, dill and parsley - herbs used in the kitchen by my grandma and quite the ordinary stuff in Sweden. Exotic herbs are fun to grow, but in the end I don't know what to do with them, so I've learnt the hard way to stick to the 'boring' common routine.

Little things...

Today has been a Big and Serious Study day (tm), which means I haven't been able to do much with my garden. The good thing about studies is that you have to move around every now and then to prevent falling to sleep over the keybord. This is a the ultimate incentive to, for exemple, clean up the balcony after the winter. Our two HOL benches bought at IKEA last year have started to disintegrate, so I finished the process quickly and put the remnants inside to dry (I'm planning to make toy storage out of them for my son - I guess I have to start a new blog recording my interior design projects). I checked the roses and put the stuff I've stored in the HOL benches into plastic boxes instead.

The shelf for the added light is up, did it meself - mostly. It's become the perfect place for my geraniums. The garden geranium that was given to me when we moved here needed some water and general care, as well as the cuttings from my "Avatar of Roses" - a scented geranium I like much. They had formed roots pretty nice and should have been planted in soil long ago. Very long ago. In fact several months ago. The pot was filled with muck and the surface of the water had started to mold. So I cut the tips of the cuttings and placed them individually in new pots. Their leaves were light green with darker nerves, and I suspect they've lost their "body fat" (or whatever it's called on a plant) due to their long time in water. As an experiment I added two drops of liquid fertilizer to two of the pots. This will probably make some algae happy, but I hope the nourishment will be of benefit for the cuttings too.


A tip from Colleen made me remove the plastic from my little kitchen garden. Turned out that eventhough purslane and turnip had put up their little leaves the carrot still stays under the surface. Note to self; sow carrot in a separate container from now on. Let's see if this round grows anyhow. In other case, well, I prefer turnip to carrot every time...

In the beginning

One of the good things about gardening is that you get so many beginnings. I just took a peak into my box with purslane, turnip and carrot, and they all had put up little leaves above the soil. It's only two days since I sowed them. This time I did exactly as one should (instead of "this will do"...) and apparently this payed off. I have to look up if there are any instructions on when I should remove the transparent plastic, else I will be very nervous. What if I remove the plastic too early? Or worse, to late so the tender plants get mouldy. I'll watch this poor plants almost as close as I watch over my son...

The balcony season is beginning too. I'm writing this with my feet in a bath (aaaaaaaah) and the door open to the balcony. I can see the rose "Polstjärnan" ("polaris"). It's hardy up to swedish zone 7 (approx. US zone 4) and it will be interesting to see if it survives my recklessness. I have a feeling that roses should be covered in the spring to prevent them from budding early and then freeze in an late frost attac. This doesn't mean that I've got my acts together and actually done so. The other rose is a read hybrid rose I bought on an impuls because it was red. Unfortunately it doesn't smell right, so I wont shed any tears if it dies. I'll already decided to replace it with a "Dubbel kanelros" ("doubble cinnamon rose") in that case...

Most of my lavendar plants seems to have died. They were hybrids with the wrong smell too, so I'm not that sorry. Last, but not least; my strawberries and the cherry tree have survived! Yippeee!