A SWEET SUCCESS STORY QUITE BY ACCIDENT!

If you watched my video last week when I took you along on my morning walk, you would have heard me nattering away about the rose clipping that I stuck in water, pretty much forgot about until the water became murky, then planted and is now growing happily in a pot.

Here it is... proof of my madness.

I am so happy about this little accident, as every thing I have read and seen up to this moment, has told me that in order to root a rose from a cutting you must first treat the root end with rooting hormone.    Now, this may yet die - who knows, but I don't think it will.  This growth looks pretty robust to me, and there is a daily change in this growth, so I think this rose might just make it.  I only wish I knew the variety of this rose - I do know that this one was taken from a bush that has deep pink flowers.  I took more cuttings from other plants on the weekend, and they are now soaking in water, so perhaps I will be able to duplicate this with a different variety again.    Fingers crossed.

Here are some of the other plants I have growing up in my studio under lights.  

I lost 2 geraniums, but I still have 26 healthy plants, colours: red, pink and orange.  I will be giving a lot of these away, so if you need geraniums - come and see me.

I just potted these tomatoes up on the weekend.  There are a few more plants still down in my green house in the dining room.

Pansies - these are such slow growers... but they are getting there.  Think they will be much happier when they can be out in the garden.

Yes - a pine tree.  I picked up a few pine cones, shook out the seeds and planted them.  I planted 10 seeds and have 7 trees this size ( so far).

Sweet Peas - I have a bunch of these started, and I will also direct sew.  Yes - they are planted in toilet paper rolls - they like to form deep long roots, and they don't like their roots to be disturbed, so I will plant them in the rolls right into the garden just as soon as I can.  I let them get 3 leaves and then I pinch off the tops, to encourage them to form more branches on the stem... and it works.

The table is filling up.  I still have peppers to pot up and move to this table, as well as ground cherries, and herbs.  I might have to squeeze things closer to get it all on the table.

I don't think I showed you my little greenhouse - purchased for 29.99 a few weeks ago.  My original idea was to get it to use when I transfer things outside to harden up before planting.  I thought I could just leave things outside under the plastic, even if it got cool overnight - instead of my usual hauling everything back and forth every night.

But then I decided to see if it worked as a propagator - and wow - does it ever.  I have it set up in my south facing window and seeds are germinating in record time now that I am using the little greenhouse.  So it was a fantastic buy for 29.99.

Here it is...  It has four shelves and a zipper door which can be rolled up, during the day, as it is now, and then lowered and closed during the night to keep the heat and humidity in.  A believe me it is very warm and humid inside that little space.

I just seeded three types of Zinnia's, Cosmos, and Teddy Bear Sunflowers.

There are still a few plants that I want to start but those will be done towards the end of April, as they are fast growing - things like Cucumbers, Melons, Squash.  

It might seem excessive to some who don't plant a large vegetable garden, but starting my own seeds gives me the opportunity to get a jump-start on having earlier crops, and earlier blossoms in the case of flowers, but more importantly it allows me to grow varieties that may not be available in the store greenhouses, and most importantly - it saves me a lot of money by not having to pay for plants in a greenhouse.

And getting my fingers in soil when the weather is still cold and wintery - really doesn't hurt at all either!