Nasturtium dilemma (seeds v. seedlings)

ByElizabeth

It has been too cold for the nasturtium seeds I sowed a few weeks ago to germinate.  By the time they germinate and grow, it will be too hot for the plants to thrive.  (As a landscaper neighbor and friend of mine said of this dilemma this morning:  “welcome to spring in Washington”).  Nasturtiums love cool weather and really only do well in my garden until June.

The solution:  I bought a few seedlings.  I planted the seedlings where I sowed the seeds.  By the time the seedlings have long since flowered and are starting to get leggy, the seeds will have germinated, and I’ll get nasturtiums for an extra few weeks at the end when it starts to get hot.

This combination of sowing seeds and planting seedlings also works well for me with annual herbs such as basil, dill,  and parsley.  The seedlings give me a few weeks head start; the seeds give me plentiful, inexpensive new plants when the plants that started in my garden as seedlings are starting to bolt.

I do only seeds for greens — kale, chard, mache, arugula, spinach, cilantro and beets.  I can sow them in March and by now they are starting to feed me.  I do only seedlings for tomatoes and peppers (I don’t have the facilities to get strong seedlings and starting with seedlings extends my growing season up 6-8 weeks).

It would be wonderful to garden entirely from seeds (swapped or harvested from last year), but the reality is that I am not a full-time gardener, but want to have a garden full-time.

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    Loops and Spirals and the Still Point at the Center (NYC, Vt, Long Island, DC)

    ByElizabeth

    My trip to the Anusara Grand Gathering was some loop of a trip, spiraling and pulsing between urban and rural, quiet time and enthusiastic gathering, old places and new scenery.  Last Saturday, I took a morning train to Manhattan, where I went to the Rubin Museum–one of my favorite spaces in the City, walked to see the Ai Weiwei sculptures in front of the Plaza, and ate good food.  On Sunday morning, I got back on the train, this time heading north to Saratoga Springs.  Just north of Croton-on-Hudson, I saw soaring over the river a raptor with an enormous wing span, white head, and brown body and wings — most likely a bald eagle.

    My friend Suzanne picked me up at the Amtrak Station in Saratoga Springs.  We went back to her house for lunch.  Before driving to Stratton Mountain for the Anusara Grand Gathering, she showed me her studio, which is a wonderful space; I look forward to visiting again.  And then we were in Vermont with John Friend, the scholars, the certified teachers leading the break out sessions and assisting, the musicians, the outdoor art, and a few hundred committed yogis.  (See previous four posts for my thoughts o the Grand Gathering).

    On Wednesday afternoon, I rode back to New York with a fellow yogi and teacher I have long admired.  I decided on pure impulse, since we were getting to the City a couple of hours early, to visit my parents.  We were able to spend the evening and morning talking, and then my mother and I went to Old Westbury Gardens (check out the new Facebook profile picture my mother took in the rose garden on my personal page and please “like” my public page, if you haven’t already).

    I caught the Long Island Railroad to Penn Station and then Amtrak back to DC.  The next morning (Friday), I worked a full day, returning to quite a slew of emails.  In the evening I had a massage and went into the garden to reground myself.  Went up to Takoma on Saturday to teach, circling immediately back into the rhythm of home.

    The photo montage below gives an idea of the wide variety and quantity of input into mind and senses.  There was actually much quiet time in this whirlwind.  I spent all the time on the train listening to teleseminars, studying, writing in my journal, watching the scenery, contemplating, and napping.  More important than the quiet space of the train rides, every day of the trip, I sat, as I do each day wherever I am, for meditation morning and evening.  While on the road, my meditation gave me a space that was home; when I came home, it helped get me settled and able to carry forward the openings and shifts from going on vacation into my at home routine.

    A steady practice gives us a still point, a space that stays steady and nourishing.  The more consistent we are, the easier it is to access this space (hridaya), no matter how much life seems to whirl and spiral around us.

     

     

    Photos are in order of travel:  Manhattan, Upstate New York, Vermont, Anusara Grand Gathering, Old Westbury Gardens, points on route, and back home with offerings from the garden on my kitchen counter (welcome home).

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    What’s Blooming Inside Right Now for Me (is it “forcing” or inviting?)

    ByElizabeth

    I’ve been living with blooms from bulbs since just before Christmas.  The amaryllis in the vase is the third bloom from a bulb I bought at the beginning of January; the third stem got too tall, so I put it in a vase, so it would not topple over.  The orchid I have had since it was about half this size and have been tending it by bringing inside and out with the seasons for over a decade.  It has bloomed every February without fail.  The paperwhites were a gift.  I enjoy a little of the scent, but find the usual presentation of several flowers simultaneously overwhelming.  I have brought them to flower one at a time.  As soon as the bulb flowers (and inevitably needs to be propped up somehow), I have cut the flowers to put in a vase and started the next bulb.  By the time the flowers in the vase have faded, the next bulb is budding.

    The cherry blossoms — this is why I dreamed of cherries blossoming; I had them in my bedroom.  In a previous post, I showed the nearly bare branches from a tree that had fallen in the blizzard.  Although gardeners would call bringing the branches inside “forcing,” I wonder whether I really “forced” these blooms.  What I did was take branches that would have gone to a landfill, brought them into an auspicious environment and invited them to bloom.  This seems to me, not unlike using props in yoga:  I might not be able to experience the full opening of a pose myself, but if I properly use props, I can expand what I can experience.  It is not the same as doing it on my own, but it still gives me a different sense of the beauty that can be experienced, just like bringing in branches that otherwise would have fallen or need to be pruned into the house to reveal their glory in advance of the spring blooming outside.

    The last photo is of dogwood and cherry that were on the side of the street two days ago (cherry tree down at the Japanese War Memorial); dogwood in a pile on the north side of the street in the 300 or 400 block of D Street, NE.  Start your own blooms, there is more winter in the forecast.  I am fairly certain from my previous experiment that the cherries will start blooming in a couple of weeks, but it remains to be seen whether the dogwood will want to open.


One Comment

  1. Um – Question: What time of year did you do plant the nasturtium seedlings in

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