#los-plantalones

Got some garden work done this week! ‍

The violas, strawberries, and parsley all survived the winter and look pretty damn good.

The chamomile re-seeded itself EVERYWHERE, so a lot of time was spent either pulling, composting, or transplanting it. I let one of last year’s kale plants flower (mild winter = kale kept growing, is only now bolting) so hopefully I’ll have some seeds soon.

Planted early crops of romaine lettuce, butter lettuce, and spinach earlier in the year. The past few weeks they’ve been growing like champs and are ENORMOUS and delicious.

This week I transplanted seedlings to the main garden and container garden. Main has beefsteak tomatoes, vine cucumbers, and bell peppers. Containers have cherry tomatoes, bush cucumbers, and various herbs/greens.

New this year are onions and carrots!

✿forget-me-not✿

I’m quarantining at my gf’s place, so my Dad has been charged with babysitting my plants. He sends me weekly video/photo updates and we Facetime for watering and maintenance questions. I think he’s doing a pretty good job! ‍

Best friends share pictures of dirt and worms. #justgirlythings

Cycads are ridiculous and cool

My gf and I went on a roadtrip around the midwest and parts of the mid-Atlantic.

I have LOTS of pix from the Missouri Botanical Gardens, which I will share soon, but I mainly want to talk about…

… My experiment leaving some succulents outside when the temperatures drop near freezing. I knew I was going to be gone for a while, so I brought all of my cacti and my most favorite and rare succulents inside.

I left some echeveria, bryophyllum/kalanchoe, and all graptopetalum outside in a nook next to the house, which was partially covered.

WELL.

All of the graptopetalum (which are alpine succs) were good, minus a leaf or two. The one graptoveria lost two rosettes, but the ones facing the house were fine. Topsy turvy echeveria was perfectly fine, the Blue Frills doesn’t look happy but might escape with only some damage. I also had a small pot of mixed sedeveria / graptoveria / pachyveria – the sedeveria melted, but the others seem fine.

The kalanchoe did NOT like the cold. I had to cut back the k. millotii like 80%. Same with the k. tomentosa. K. luciae looks like a total goner. :(

Bryophyllum was also a mixed bag. B. daigremontianum turned to mush, b. delagoensis was completely fine, and b. fedtschenkoi had to be cut back about 50%.

I also left a pot of aloiampelos cilaris and crassula perforata outside by mistake. I had to cut back the c. perforata about 60%, and the a. cilaris about 30%. Pleasantly surprised as both of those are South Africa natives and I would never expect them to survive repeated frost/freezing.

All in all, not too bad. Only lost two beyond repair. If I’d actually been home the damage would’ve been less BUT since I’m running out of room it’s probably for the best! ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Good and fat.

A family can be a sandbox of cactaceae, asphodelaceae, and euphorbiaceae.

My girlfriend was working in San Jose for a month and she knew EXACTLY what to send me to make my heart less sad