Today I took my three Tanichthys albonubes, white cloud mountain fish, from the indoor aquarium in which they overwinter, and put them in my outdoor fish pond.  It's just a round rubber horse trough, probably only about 15 gallons, but they thrive in there all summer eating mosquito larvae.  These three fish are the survivors of about a dozen that I bought about eight years ago.  They much prefer life outdoors, getting fat and sassy from all that live food..  I won't see much of them until the fall, when I drain the tub to find them and bring them in.

There are many, many mosquitoes in the yard, so those fish will not go hungry. 

Posted by gail_heineman at 11:54 AM YDT

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I'm back from out of town.  Today I planted carrots, lettuce and spinach.  My transplants that I put in on May 22nd have survived being outside, although the Black Jack zucchini are suffering.  But then zucchini never like transplanting anyway.

The plants inside still in pots inside are still ok, except that the tomatoes that I plan to put outside are really leggy.   It's still too cold for them so they'll have to wait.  The tomatoes in the greenhouse (bump windows) are in their permanent pots and look happy, from 1 to 3 feet tall.

There is no sign of aphids in the house yet.  Last year they came in on some plants I bought, and they really hurt my greenhouse tomato production.  So far, so good.

Posted by gail_heineman at 11:49 AM YDT

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I'm about to leave for 10 days and it's a late spring.  What to do?  Put my too-big transplants in the garden and hope it doesn't freeze, or leave them in the greenhouse where they'll get too leggy?

I compromise and plant only the biggest ones, Red Sun sunflower, Galego Greens (collards from Spain), kale, vitamin green.  After I left, my husband put in the leeks a friend had given me.  

In the past several years, the weather was warm enough by May 15 to transplant, and plant seeds.  Not this year!  When the birch leaves are opening, that's when it's time. 

Posted by gail_heineman at 11:45 AM YDT

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 Winter solstice is past and the days are getting a little bit lighter every day.  But still the blooms of my Amaryllis planted at Christmas are a welcome sight.  A week ago I pulled hyacinth bulbs from my refrigerator crisper where I stashed them last fall, and put them in a clear glass jar on top of colored marbles, with water just touching the base of the bulbs.  The roots grow almost fast enough to watch!

I also planted tulips and daffodil bulbs that I had stored in the same crisper bin.  These I planted shallowly in potting soil.  Ideally I would have had them potted in the frig all this time, but my husband considers food a higher priority than flower pots in the frig for some strange reason.   

Posted by gail_heineman at 8:40 PM YST

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In Spring 2006 I hung a bird house in the Hungarian lilac.  I did this because some chickadees had moved into the swallow house above our kitchen window that had been used by tree swallows for many years.  When the tree swallows arrived, and saw that the house was in use, I was distraught.

Turns out that the swallows did not nest in our yard that year or this.  But the chickadees successfully fledged from the swallow house in 2006, and the house in the Hungarian Lilac in 2007.  In midsummer 2007 I found the Hungarian Lilac house on the ground - it had fallen partially apart.  

So finally I put the house back together and hung it today.  I figure they might be able to use it for shelter this winter.

Incidentally, the next in the swallow house was made entirely of moss, like something in a fairy tale.  This year the next was made of moss in the lowest layer, but then on top was gray cat hair (from the neighbor cat fights) and bits of yellow fiberglass.  Not as charming, but functional apparently. 

Posted by gail_heineman at 9:57 AM YST

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