We’ve been enjoying a few days with our son, who comes home once in a while for the weekend. He is also very interested in gardening and we are working together on a variety of plants…

I’m sitting here at my dining room table, looking at a tray of 72 things he just planted in his “Jiffy Seed Starting Greenhouse Kit with Expanding Peat Pellets.” You add water to the peat moss round pellets, they gradually expand, then you plant the seeds. When you have a nice baby plant established, you can plant the whole thing wherever you like. I think it’s quite a nice kit. I generally am not a fan of using Peat Moss, due to the fact that it is a precious ecological resource, which often comes from wetland bogs in Canada. This kit claims the peat was “responsibly sourced,” whatever that means.

There are also a bunch of other planted thingys outside, I haven’t even looked at yet. My son just left for the west coast and I am in charge of all this stuff for the next 2 weeks. What happens to it all after that, who knows? I think he needs to buy a small farm. As for what’s in these magic growing peat discs, all I have right now is a map (kit comes with that too) identifying what he planted, some of which I cannot understand. This is what I can make out: sunflowers of different sizes, watermelon, cantaloupe, cucumber, various pumpkins, butternut squash, various beans, morning glories, moonflower, lavender, California poppy, foxglove, zinnia, hollyhock, aster…plus chive, sage, rosemary and thyme…like the song, but…not parsley. These seeds are leftovers from last year and also some in my collection that he took a liking to.

You may remember the exterior home project we did in the fall. Now we have the entire landscape to do, which was completely gutted. This is a rare opportunity to craft a landscape from scratch. I have never done this before and will be working with a professional, since there are a number of problems and types of plantings I am not well-versed in. We’ve got a lot of exciting ideas, which I hope will come to fruition. Some of my son’s flowers he just planted, will likely be incorporated into the landscape. We will be following the process here, complete with pics!

In the coming week, I will show you my son’s project and also a few other things….