This winter has been brutal. The record cold temperatures we had in December and January and several major snowstorms (the last one – the historic Blizzard of ’26 – just yesterday) make me long for spring. My seedlings have all sprouted. First was the thyme, followed by leeks, snapdragons, sage and peppers. The marigolds I sowed on February 20 are also sprouting, and this morning, I saw the first kale seedling (also sown on February 20) making its appearance.
I started my first seedlings today – leeks, sage, thyme, snapdragons and two kinds of hot peppers (Thai and Tennessee Spice, the latter was a freebie from Sand Hill Preservation Center, and I have no idea what that pepper even is). The leeks and hot peppers are for myself, the snapdragons (mostly) for the communal flowerbeds, and the sage and thyme are for the new community garden at the Mildred Haley Housing Development in Jackson Square. They are currently undergoing a redevelopment, which will include creating community gardening spaces, and I will start seedlings (flowers and herbs) this spring for the borders of that garden.
This afternoon, while the biggest snow storm in four years was howling outside, I cozied up inside with tea and seed catalogs and made plans for the upcoming gardening season. I ordered seeds for disease-resistant tomato varieties from both Territorial Seeds (Galahad and Purple Zebra) and High Mowing (Marmalade, Caiman, and Mountain Sunrise), and shallot sets from Fedco (Roderique). I still need to place my order for herbs, flowers and some vegetable seeds with Sand Hill Preservation Center, which needs to happen soon, as in mid-February, I will need to start my first seedlings. Dreaming of spring 🙂
PS. The Baker Creek catalog is a piece of art. Such a pleasure to browse.
Update: On January 28, I placed my Sand Hill Preservation Center order via snail mail. I ordered Tuscan kale, Altaglobe radishes, herbs (sage, thyme, lemon basil), and flowers (Petite Mix marigolds, snapdragons mix, Alaska mix nasturtium, Iceland mix poppies plus Polar Bear and Oriole zinnias).
It was time to make the calendula salve. I gathered the ingredients – homemade calendula oil, beeswax, unrefined shea butter, and essential lavender oil. I also needed a water bath, a spatula and tins for the finished product.
I started by weighing out the beeswax and the shea butter. The recipe calls for 1 oz. beeswax and 0.5 oz. of shea butter for every 8 oz. of oil. I had 12 oz. of oil and adjusted the amounts of the other ingredients accordingly. I melted the beeswax and the shea butter in a water bath and then added the calendula oil.
Once it was all melted – taking care not to heat the oil too much so it would retain its medicinal qualities – I added a few drops (around 8) of lavender oil for fragrance and filled four 4 oz. tins.
I left the tins undisturbed for the salve to harden and settle and added labels.
Voila! My first-ever batch of calendula salve.
The next step in my calendula salve project was to make the calendula oil. I needed dried calendula flowers, a carrier oil (I used 500 ml of sweet almond oil) and glass jars. It is a simple process: Fill the glass jars with the flowers (about 2/3 to 3/4 full) and top them with the oil. There should not be much room between the oil surface and the lid as contact with air can make the oil rancid.
I initially used non-standard jars that held a bit more than a cup each. But I miscalculated the volume and ended up having to switch to smaller jars half-way in the process to make the oil fill all the way to the top (to minimize exposure to air). As I had already covered the flowers in the initial jars with oil, in the end, my jars held more flowers than intended. This will make the oil more potent, but also potentially will yield less oil as some of it will be absorbed by the flowers.
I let the oil infuse for about 6 weeks in a warm, dark place (under a cardboard box next to the radiator in my dining room), turning the jars every couple of days.
After those six weeks, I strained the oil using a sieve lined with one layer of cheese cloth. I tried to squeeze out as much of the flowers as I could.
In total, infusing the flowers with just under 16 oz. of almond oil yielded 12 oz. of calendula oil. As expected, some of the oil (a surprising amount, actually) had been absorbed by the flower petals and the cheese cloth. I then stored the oil in a dark bottle in a dark corner of my cool bedroom for a few days. The oil can be stored this way until the original expiration date of the carrier oil. Onto the next step: calendula salve.
I did terrible with storing dahlias last winter. I only had three surviving, sprouting tubers – a dwarf variety, a white one (pictured above) and a purple one. All the other ones were shriveled and/or rotted. I am pretty sure I dug them up too soon and also neglected to take good care of them over the winter. Plus, our basement is too warm. This time, I want to make sure I divide them correctly and store them properly. We had a “killing” frost on November 18, so the foliage of the dahlias started to turn black. I cut down the stalks to about 4 to 5 inches and left them in the soil for a few days so the tubers could cure a little. I then dug them up (on November 30), rinsed the soil off the tubers and let them dry for two days (one day would have been enough).
Today, I divided them. I made sure, each piece was intact and had at least one “eye”. I discarded the “mother tuber”. With a Sharpie, I put a number on each tuber that corresponded to the number on the twist tie: 1 for the dwarf variety, 2 for the white dahlia and 3 for the purple one.
I then dusted them in sulfur powder to prevent fungal disease.
Then, the tubers were wrapped in plastic wrap. Not the most environmentally friendly way, but a dahlia expert I spoke to swears by it. Plus, my previous system of storing them in a box filled with vermiculite and spritzing them with water every once in a while did not work last year, so I am trying something new. I wrapped them in packages of three to four tubers making sure each individual tuber was fully wrapped. This way, I am saving plastic wrap, but I can still inspect each individual tuber for rot.
The wrapped tubers will be stored in the back hallway, the coolest spot in the house (the basement is too warm), and I will check on them every two to four weeks. Fingers crossed.
Things are waking up in my containers. The radishes and arugula I sowed on March 10 sprouted, and the 20 flower bulbs I had planted in my large flower container in early November are beginning to emerge. The bulbs are a mix of White Splendour Anemone, Siberian Squill (Scilla siberica), King of the Striped Crocus and Blue Grape Hyacinth. I am so excited for some color on my back porch soon!
Today, I started more seedlings: Sweet Italian basil, Thai basil, and flowers (gomphrena, strawflower and two types of sweet alyssum). Together, they are taking up almost an entire flat of six-packs. I covered the flat with a lid and placed it on a heat mat. Fingers crossed. In two or three weeks, I will start tomatoes and Swiss chard. The kale and Thai peppers I sowed a couple of weeks ago sprouted nicely, 6/6 for the kale and 5/6 for the Thai pepper, which is not bad considering that the pepper seeds were from 2023. I also just spotted my first ginger shoots, yay!
Today, I excavated the grow lights and heat mat from the gardening stash in the basement, cleaned them, checked if they still work, and set them up. I still have to find a lid to cover the tray. I started six plants each of Thai hot peppers and Meadowlark kale.
The Thai peppers will go in a large container on my back porch, but I might add a plant or two in the plot. I really only need 2 or 3 plants, but the seeds are two years old, and I want to be on the safe side. For me, peppers and eggplants grown in containers have always been doing much better than those grown in the plot. I think it is because the soil gets much hotter in a container, which those plants seem to love. It can’t be the sunlight exposure as such, as my plot is full sun, and my porch faces south/southwest.
It is my first time growing Meadowlark kale. High Mowing tells me it is a “German specialty with impressive frost-tolerance”, and it is apparently very pretty. All sounds good to me.
