Garden starters

[gs_silva]

I started some lettuce seeds in a tray, and stuck it on the living room windowsill because there's still snow on the ground. While I was at it, I stuck some overgrown potato eyes in the other tray - I waited too long, however, and they're looking pretty ratty, so that might be a fail. No matter. Unfortunately, I only have the two trays until I'm able to get into the shed to grab more, so that was it for today. I may only have to wait a couple of days - we're expecting temperatures as high as 22°C this week.

(I know both F and C scales, but C is easier so I still use it by default even though I moved back into the US. But I'm not very good at converting between them. Anyway, there are conversion apps built right into our browsers; it's not easier for me to do it than for you to do it.)

I really want some spicebush to replace the forsythia with, but that's a whole project unto itself, and I already have more gardening plans than my body or my bank account can handle. First the buckthorn, because it's mixed with invasive bittersweet so that's a two-for-one. And that's where the spotted lanternflies are hanging out, so I can hopefully start eliminating them without insecticides.

I need to make a whole to-do list, and DW is a much better place to do that than FB. The only problem is photos. I'd like to transfer my gardening photo album to my to-do list, but that's just too much effort...

Comments

[moth2fic]

It's always a relief when people use C and I don't have to convert! What are spotted lantern flies and what do they do to make it necessary to get rid of them?

[gs_silva]

They're a recently arrived invasive species that love fruit trees. My region has a lot of commercial orchards, so the state government is pushing pretty hard for citizen efforts to control their population - which is really hard, because they reproduce very quickly! They're big, bigger than deerflies, and very pretty. They look like moths. But they act like flies. So hard to swat, and not very easy to kill with a regular flyswatter because of their size. They're thriving in my neighborhood - I saw probably about 50 of them in my garden last fall.

[moth2fic]

I googled them and can see the problem! We don't have any here yet but it's probably only a matter of time!