butterfly

butterfly
summer 2013

Saturday, September 12, 2020

Pollinator garden 2020

Update on my pollinator garden .  My husband, Mike, was able to till a very swampy section of lawn in front of our riding ring.  The spring was soggy, we sometimes had a small pond out front. 








I had winter sown some perennials and annuals and purchased a butterfly/humming bird mix of seed from Johnny's Seeds in Maine.


With the soggy Spring and brutal hot Summer (over 30 days straight of upper 90's)  Things are looking up. 









Saturday, February 8, 2020

Winter sowing and prep work


Welcome to :


Uganda
Yemen
Cyprus
British Indian Ocean Territory
Zimbabwe
Myanmar (Burma)
Nigeria
Kazakhstan
Tunisia
Solomon Islands
Turkmenistan 
Brunei and last but not least a place called "unknown region."  lol


119 countries watching my garden in Maryland.  Crazy.




My goal this year is to plant a HUGE  pollinator garden at our 32 acre farm in Thurmont, Maryland.  Here is the thing.  If we kill off our bugs, we don't have food.  Period.  No fruit, vegetable, coffee, even chocolate.  98 percent of  our insects are just fine.  When we use pesticides to manage insect pests, we have the potential to do harm to the other 98 percent.

At my home, my small 1/3 acre yard is a certified Monarch Way station,  Bay Wise certified (That is the Chesapeake Bay) and my yard has been inspected and approved to be called "Pollinator Friendly."





I have ordered a pound of seed from Johnny's Seeds in Maine.  I chose the bird and butterfly mix.  I have also started a lot of native perennials and annuals that attract pollinators.  I will also be planting host plants for Monarchs and the Baltimore Checkerspot butterflies.   Milkweeds and Chelone Glabra, turtlehead plant.


We have heavy equipment at the farm, so my plan is to have my husband do a shallow till in the front of the horse ring and in front of our front pasture.  I do not want the horses to reach the plants because of possible poisoning.  After the first till, I will wait a few weeks to see what weed seeds germinate.  I will hand cultivate ( also shallowly) to kill the young weeds.  After danger of frost,  I will mix the seed mix with sand and hand scatter the prepared beds.  I have decided to use a hand tamper, as the seeds may stick to the roller we own.  It depends on the moisture level in the soil, so we will see.

Also, by then the plants I have started, both winter sowing and inside starts, will be planted, along with other annual seeds (sunflowers, zinnias, cosmos.)




Winter Sowing!

You take milk cartons, and containers you can make little greenhouses out of,  plant seeds then put them outside.  They will germinate when they are good and ready.  A lot of our natives need stratification to germinate. That is being exposed to cold weather, just as mother nature would handle it. You will notice that the planted milk jugs do not keep their caps on.  Today's batch of milk jugs I tried something different.  I used my soldering iron I use for stain glass soldering.  I poked several holes in the bottom very quickly.  Next time, I am doing it outside. Worked great, but the smell and fumes are awful.















Funny, 32 acres. This is the only safe area away from our horses.






Friday, January 17, 2020

POLLINATOR GARDEN COMING SOON!

I have decided to plant a large pollinator garden this spring at our farm. I will be starting perennials this month with a method  called winter sowing.  This involves taking plastic gallon jugs and turning them into mini greenhouses.

Echinacea, Monarda, Shasta daisy, Milkweed, swamp and tuberosa. Just to name a few.

Snow and ice tomorrow.  Maybe Sunday I will start.  I will post pictures as I go.

So excited.

laura