Designing contingency plans gets me into the same trouble !
What kind of pelargoniums did you start ?
I did a pkt of those narrow petal ones.

Caroline, I have this "Appleblossom" variety -- hoping to grow it with a combo of blue and white bacopa.

https://parkseed.com/inspire-a...

Sounds like a pretty combination !
I started a pkt of Maverick Coral .
I have no idea what I will combine it with.
My containers get tossed together depending on what germinated and grew well for June.

My Pelargoniums are sprouting enthusiastically! Some of the onions are also popping up; not sure what kind of germination I'll get with those, being a year old. So far no Bacopa sprouts; the seeds are tiny and were "pelleted" in some sort of biodegradable material that looked like clear plastic. The pellet material has dissolved, leaving 9 tiny seeds together on the surface of the potting soil (I read that they need light to germinate, so didn't bury them). Tempted to separate the seeds - 9 of those little seeds right together are going to be pretty crowded if even half of them sprout.

And winter has returned with a large dump of snow.
Hibernating in between shovelling !

Ugh, I hope your snowstorm isn't heading our way, Caroline! I'm getting pretty tired of the low temps and looking forward to Sunday, when our lows are supposed to be staying above 0F and the highs are supposed to be in the 20s.

And, happy to say that my onion seeds are sprouting MUCH better than I expected... I planted them thicker than normal in the cell packs, thinking the year-old seeds wouldn't do that well, but I guess keeping them in the freezer for the past year was a good idea! Looks like I might be going from just buying sets instead of growing my onions from seed this year, to having plenty of plants and not needing the sets.

And starting any kind of seeds gets us through the rough winter times !
But we are getting all this snow, and thankful for it as the ground was so dry !

Somewhere, I have onion seeds, and should dig them out, and start them up too !

I have been tripping over my bale of ProMix thawing in the entryway to the house while I try to find energy and time at the same time so I can get started on my winter sown jugs. I have 47 packs of new seed for this year and easily that many of more saved from previous years. I haven't participated much on the forums this year as I have been babysitting my newest little garden buddy, my eight month old grand daughter. Hopefully I will be able to instill (indoctrinate) a love of gardening in her as I did with her older brother. At almost four years old he actually is a big help to me. He assures me he is a good helper because he is so strong. I tell him he is a good helper because he has a great big strong heart and a clever mind that is quick to learn new things.
I have a few different varieties of seeds I have never tried to winter sow this year, Coral Bells, Lady's Mantle and two varieties of clematis. I am also a wee bit anxious about some plants that I had winter sown the year before but never got into the ground. They all were in excellent shape when winter hit but some of them were borderline hardy for my area of the country.

That sounds like a busy life ! I have a four year old grandaughter who likes to plant too !
You are ambitious to start that many jugs !
Keep us posted on how it works out.

More snow on the way.
My little house buried in snow last week.










Still didn't keep me off my bike though.lol













My Santa Cruz begonias doing well.

Making the best of winter !

Snow seems to have been lacking since I started this thread.
We still need snow but I wish we had the temp. we had when I started this thread.

minus 24c with windchill, we are into those cold winter days but nice to see days getting longer...a sure sign spring will arrive....weedwacker, i noticed you indicated you grow geraniums from seed, i love geraniums but buy them as bedding plants and sometimes make cuttings of the ones i bought, if you live in upper pennisula mich we should be similar in temps/zone do your geraniums from seed actually grow into full plants by mid july?, never considered growing from seed but maybe will try

Greetings, fellow northerners! Winter has hit us quite suddenly over the past couple of days, with about 10 inches of sticky snow and the temp dropping from mid 30s to low single digits (F). (Before that we only had about 3" of snow on the ground and Lake Michigan is still pretty much wide open - very unusual year!)

Tomsud, I haven't been active here for a while now but happened to pop in to read an article about asparagus that was featured in the newsletter, and just happened to see your post about the geraniums... to answer your question, yes, the geraniums grow into nice plants, but the seeds do need to be started very early under lights; if I was growing them this year, I probably would have started them already (along with onions, which I started on Feb. 1st). Give them a try!

Sandy , good to see you back.
It is -5 F here right now but a glorious sunny day.
I wish I had some where to go, but cannot any way as with Sharon's new knee I have to be here and cannot leave for hours at a time.

I had thought of starting seeds indoors this year, I had not done that for close to 20 years but realized the basement temp. are not as warms they used to be due to a more efficient furnace that does not bleed heat; therefore heating the basement also nor does the dryer vent into the basement unrestricted so it is not as humid as it used to be (that was nice during cold dry weather).

Thanks, RpR - it WAS nice to see the sun today, wasn't it!

Thanks weedwhacker i will give them a try, I was too anxious last year to get started and planted my seeds too early and many got away from me and got leggy, I usually start my seeds indoors in March to early April and move them to the greenhouse around May 1st then out in the garden around May 24

It is now -8 with temp. dropping at 1:30 P.M.
Nice sunny day and as I was just out tending to the birdfeeder not bad at all out there.
We will be going to a Chinese joint for Valentines supper is an hour or so.
Sammy and Smokey both wander up stairs at night and sleep on the bed so in the morning as I help Sharon the boys lead the way.

Looking at the long range forecast for up here in Minn. it does not look like I will be planting early this year as night time lows average 20 some degrees at either garden.
May day looks to be earliest for putting in potatoes.
Happy Valentines.

We had a nice Valentine's Day visitor (thank goodness for something with color in the black&white winter world!)

I had one of those a couple of weeks ago; I have found that birds love pizza crust, but not so much micro-wave popcorn.
I/we bought four bags of bird food, yesterday, from high price to one floor from basement quality.
I put out suet squares but either they are not not disappearing like they did in November,
The suet cage is on the road to the bird feeder for squirrels and one day one chamber popped open and a square fell out, saw a squirrel trying to carry it away, BUT, it I deliberately break one into pieces and scatter it on the ground, it sits there for a lot of days some time.

It is odd, Sharon says she sees lots of birds, but when I look rarely is there more than a small gaggle, often crows and squirrels.