|
| I am a new gardener with a new garden. Last year I planted a whole bunch of perennials, but I'd read about direct sowing and thought it sounded great. I pulled up all the mulch I had and put it in bags and then direct sowed poppies and love-in-a-mist in late fall. Now I'm having huge regrets however, since I probably sowed hundreds of seeds- am I going to have to be out there, down on my knees in the spring plucking up 200 seedlings? Can I just leave them to fight it out? |
Follow-Up Postings:
|
- Posted by susanzone5 z5NY (My Page) on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 16:27
| Lessons learned! Welcome to gardening. You may have to start over with the poppies unless you want a mess of scraggly plants fighting for nutrients, space, air, water, sun, etc. Even the most experienced gardeners are always learning. Do a lot of reading on gardening basics this winter. Educate yourself and have fun with it. PS: IF the poppies are annuals, you could let them fight it out and see what happens, pulling the plants you don't want, as they grow, and throwing them on the compost. In any case, chalk it up to a gardener's mistake. (I allow myself one stupid mistake a day, like pulling up a perennial I thought was a weed, and I've been at this for 35 years.) So go easy on yourself. If the poppies are perennials, then scrape them all up because perennial poppies are forever once they get their taproot down! |
This post was edited by susanzone5 on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 16:53
|
| Yes there are certain plants that it is better to direct sew these are cucurbits (Pumpkins, melons, watermelon, gourds, squash, and cucumbers,) Corn, Beans, carrots, and spinach. Most others you might want to start inside. Although I plant half a row worth of cabbage, broccoli, cauliflower, lettuce, and celery inside and direct sew the other half I direct sew, so I'll have a spread out crop after harvesting I plant more. Now about making mistakes, my friends always wonder how I'm so good at gardening, I always tell them I make mistakes. I've been gardening for 4 years now making mistakes. I agree with susanzone5 you may want to restart. |
|
| "am I going to have to be out there, down on my knees in the spring plucking up 200 seedlings?" If you are going to be a gardener, then you are going to be out there on your knees an awful lot of the time anyway. With little experience, and Chicago weather, there is no telling what you will have in spring, could be they won't come up at all, could be you will have to thin them out. Half the fun of it all is finding out what works. - Good luck with it! |
|
- Posted by SouthCountryGuy SE BC 5 (My Page) on Thu, Feb 6, 14 at 18:46
| Since you pulled all the mulch up you could either lay newspaper or cardboard on the ground then place your mulch on top of it. This should hinder almost anything from coming up. You could also do the same after you see germination and just leave spaces in the cardboard and mulch for the plants you want. I grow lots of poppies and for them to do well they need to be thinned as they tend to not like competition. Do you know what poppies you sowed? |
|
| Thanks for the advice! They were annual poppies- shirley poppies I think? |
|
- Posted by SouthCountryGuy SE BC 5 (My Page) on Fri, Feb 7, 14 at 12:36
| Those are a great variety. I guess I should have been more clear above when I stated they don't like competition and should be thinned. This is only if you want them to get to maximum height and flower size. If they are planted en mass, not thinned and left to fight for themselves they will be considerably smaller in both height and flower size, yet still have a dramatic effect. Good luck with them :) SCG |
|
| Thank you so much SCG! That is exactly what I was hoping! :) |
Please Note: Only registered members are able to post messages to this forum. If you are a member, please log in. If you aren't yet a member, join now!
Return to the Growing from Seed Forum
Information about Posting
- You must be logged in to post a message. Once you are logged in, a posting window will appear at the bottom of the messages. If you are not a member, please register for an account.
- Posting is a two-step process. Once you have composed your message, you will be taken to the preview page. You will then have a chance to review your post, make changes and upload photos.
- After posting your message, you may need to refresh the forum page in order to see it.
- Before posting copyrighted material, please read about Copyright and Fair Use.
- We have a strict no-advertising policy!
- If you would like to practice posting or uploading photos, please visit our Test forum.
- If you need assistance, please Contact Us and we will be happy to help.
Learn more about in-text links on this page here
