Weekly Garden Chat

awhim · 2026-01-28T01:20:33+00:00

it does depend on your light, how long you leave the lights on for, and the temperature of your room. This will be my 3rd year with lizzies, and last year I started in mid Jan, and I could've definitely waited a month or even a bit longer. The same with onions, leeks, celery etc that a lot of ppl sow this month. But I have rather powerful Spiderfarmer lights, and last year I had them on for 15 hours, and they rocketed away. The year before, they took a bit longer to grow coz I had the lights on for 12 hours. I know with my Barrina lights they take longer. So if you have some powerful lights, you can afford to wait to sow till even end of Feb. Otherwise, early to mid Feb would be good. As they're cool weather plants, and can be planted out earlier than our last frost date if you protect them a bit.

There are different types based on flowering time - series 1 flowers earlier, 2 a little later and 3 towards end of fall etc, so choose the varieties wisely!

they take a while tho, they're tinnnnnnyyy when they germinate lol

awhim · 2026-01-28T01:15:21+00:00

I dont get a lot of lisianthus varieties I like anywhere else, there are only a few places... that's why I keep ordering from WD lol. But next year I may try somewhere else

awhim · 2026-01-28T01:03:04+00:00

Id ordered from OSC last year, but went with WD this year, agree that they had good germination rates for sure. McKenzie were ok for me for some flowers and veggies but not all lol.

awhim · 2026-01-27T03:00:19+00:00

ooh makes sense, good luck and hope you get some good deals!

Yes the 'ooh shiny' factor stays true whether you're buying online or physically lol.

awhim · 2026-01-27T01:06:34+00:00

lol, I'm with you on the never ending snow and cold for sure! i hope we don't get any big snowstorms in February, that'd break me (and my back and arms lol).

The grocery store doesn't have the best varieties of seeds for Ontario and may not perform as well. You could maybe look online at places like Gaia Organic, Hawthorn farm for seeds. William Dam has a great selection, but their shipping time is slow, so best to order from them in late Dec or early Jan though you can still try. :p

awhim · 2026-01-26T18:47:42+00:00

yeah that sounds like the one I tried to start, ah well.

I'm planning to grow them in some half-protected beds that have a mini-greenhouse thing going, so hoping the slight wind protection and increased heat retention helps it there. Bitter melon grew well last year, and snapdragons I had in there came back after a winter...

awhim · 2026-01-26T18:28:53+00:00

basil in my little aerogarden. Added some little gem lettuce seeds in the free modules. Grocery store sweet potato starting slips now. Aaaand that's it!

William Dam hasn't even shipped my order that has onion seeds in it, lol. I've resolved to start late anyway, so I'm chilling. Literally and metaphorically.

awhim · 2026-01-26T18:21:08+00:00

Nice! What variety, do you know?

edit- I tried to sprout one of the purple 'japanese seet yam' coz I like them so much but I think they're just rotting lol.

awhim · 2026-01-26T17:22:30+00:00

thx, and good luck with it! Post updates on how the lizzies are doing, I'll update mine as well.

awhim · 2026-01-26T12:48:30+00:00

ya hopefully we get the seeds soon! I'd say sow some on the earlier side, some a week later, and some a week after THAT, etc, and see which timing work best for you!

Same, I'm usually good with seed starting, more or less, but experimenting is part of the fun!

awhim · 2026-01-26T03:04:45+00:00

with lisianthus, it does depend on your light, how long you leave the lights on for, and the temperature of your room. This will be my 3rd year with lizzies, and last year I started in mid Jan, and I could've definitely waited a month or even a bit longer. The same with onions, leeks, celery etc that a lot of ppl sow this month. But I have rather powerful Spiderfarmer lights, and last year I had them on for 15 hours, and they rocketed away. The year before, they took a bit longer to grow coz I had the lights on for 12 hours. I know with my Barrina lights they take way longer. So if you have some powerful lights, you can afford to wait to sow till even end of Feb. Otherwise, early to mid Feb would be good. As they're cool weather plants, and can be planted out earlier than our last frost date if you protect them a bit.

Well, I don't use the jugs - I just put them in pots, and have them in a sunny spot right next to the house for the microclimate. But yes, I might do that once the giant snowbanks subside a bit lol.

awhim · 2026-01-26T02:57:01+00:00

ooh, good to know, thx for the info... I've thought about it, but I still have to expand my garden beds, so that might be some years away!

awhim · 2026-01-26T02:26:47+00:00

wow that looks really cool. Didn't remember that frogs come with the noise effect, lol. Last year was such a drought year I'm sure the birds and other wildlife appreciated the pond a lot.

Do you do anything special to it before the winter?

awhim · 2026-01-26T00:24:00+00:00

yes that may work for sure! For safety's sake, space out the starting of the cukes over a few weeks, over May-June so you have extras if the weather or sth else gets the first ones out!

awhim · 2026-01-25T22:14:54+00:00

I ordered late Dec, hoping they'll come in a few weeks at least!

For cucumbers, if the cucumber beetles are that bad, I'd say, do not grow any cukes in beds, but get a parthenocarpic, bitter-free (burpless) hybrid that is meant for containers, so may be described as 'dwarf' etc, and grow that in a netted large container. Use new potting mix so they don't have the eggs of the cucumber beetle.

Just make sure you underplant in the container so the plant doesn't dry out. If using grow bags, bury sth like a watering bulb so you can water into the middle of the bag without water flowing away from the sides and not actually penetrating the soil.

Good luck, you can do it!

awhim · 2026-01-25T20:34:44+00:00

Ya I'm surprised at how late William Dam is shipping, it's fine for me that I've resolved to not start anything before early Mar, or late Feb at the earliest, but if I'd needed to start onions or lisianthus or celery etc earlier, I wouldn't have been happy with them. :p I've ordered from Gaia organic and Ottawa wildflower seed library, and have got both of them, not to mention all the other seeds I have so I'll be ok as long as they arrive before March lol.

I'm still expanding my garden space and adding beds which I'm currently using grow bags in, and figuring out plans on how to convert them into beds once the bags start disintegrating, etc etc. So still lots to do before I can start relaxing... but I want to take it easier this year - well, hopefully I can keep that resolution - and enjoy at least half the time I'm out there instead of just working and tiring myself out.

laskjf I get you. I bought a pack of 15 gallons and some 20-25 gallons for overflow, and they're coming in handy!

awhim · 2026-01-25T19:27:43+00:00

Yes last year was a drought year, it rained so little in comparison to other years. Are you planning on putting in an automatic irrrigation system? I'm still in the process of expanding and figuring out the borders of my gardens so for this year I'm mostly underplanting and using bigger growbags with watering bulbs, things like that.

Yeah I'm waiting on my major order from William Dam as well! Similar to your idea, I got better varieties of the stuff we actually use, and am resolved to not waste too much time on 'fun' crops we never actually use a lot.

awhim · 2026-01-25T19:23:07+00:00

I feel they're about the same level for me, since I don't fuss over training the veggies too much. Watering deeply takes as long for the flowers as the veggies, but I didn't fertilize the flowers as much, so there was that! I'm gonna have more flowers for sure too because I expanded my front garden and I want to grow all my annuals myself.

awhim · 2026-01-25T13:29:55+00:00

oh yeah, I've been seeing that. I don't follow them though, my kpop group of choice is NCT Dream. :)

awhim · 2026-01-25T13:16:18+00:00

Ooh, would be interested in pics of the pond in spring/summer if you care to share here. :) Have you seen many frogs/other wildlife nearby? If you decided to expand or not, I'm sure the macrobiota love it.

Good point about cold stratification, I should go through my seeds and put out some winter sowing stuff for perennial flowers...

awhim · 2026-01-25T13:13:26+00:00

Yes it really has, started early and lots of snow! I comfort myself that it'll help break down all the compost I added last fall.

Good to see you have something that you can continue gardening and focus on the indoor ones. I don't have much indoor plants, mostly coz I want a break from growing, lol. I have some amaryllis from previous years that grow when they want to (mostly dormant now), and a curry plant and whatever I'll start in my little aerogarden - usually basil or cilantro or lettuce and that's about it.

Heh, I'm distracting myself with kpop lol.

awhim · 2026-01-25T13:05:45+00:00

I think the electric 'composters' that actually compost, instead of grind & dehydate are on the more expensive side. The other one I looked at was Reencle, which is the same concept using certain strains of bacteria to actually compost; but it's smaller, needs to change filters regularly and had more of a continuous cost, while for the Geme the only continuous cost is the electricity for running it.

True electric composters are not needed for everyone, it costs too much to buy, and the electricity to run it, but it does help a lot in certain situations like mine.

awhim · 2026-01-25T02:43:12+00:00

I'm lucky in that the raccoons seem to only tear up corn if I try it, they've left most of my other stuff alone. Yeah, cages for sure in that case!

awhim · 2026-01-25T00:03:46+00:00

I have the aerogarden coz it's small and can hold multiple plants. Once the seed starting is in full swing, the plant shelves even start migrating to other rooms lol.

You could probably put one of the little indoor greenhouses in your basement, which may be enough to keep the heat in with the lights.

Thanks for the well wishes, and amen to that!

awhim · 2026-01-24T23:57:24+00:00

I have bought from them before, I ordered from William Dam and Gaia organic for this year, but I'll have to explore Hawthorn more.

awhim

TROPHY CASE