Basement Garden Growing Obsession

My basement light garden as "gone hog wild", as a garden friend has put it. Truly, my grow-op overfloweth. I decided to actually take stock of what I'm growing down there, noting that the much anticipated world food shortage hasn't had too much impact on the ratio of vegetables to flowers. I do point out to resident-lawnmower-man that several of the flowers are edible, however. With great insight, he pointed out that perhaps we wouldn't last long eating just edible flowers. Hmmm. That RLM is quite a wise man.

Here's what's growing in my basement (and on a table in my bedroom):

Vegetable and herbs:

• Rosemary
• Italian Flatleaf Parsley
• Thyme
• Lemon basil
• Spicy globe basil (I really like this one. It's compact and easy to grow indoors.)
  
• Purple ruffles basil
• Cilantro
• Cherry tomato - Sweet Gold and Red Robin
• Italian Sweet Pepper
• Hybrid Broccoli Captain
• Strawberry Pikan
  

Perennials:

• Primula denticulata
• Primula saxatilis

• Euphorbia myrsinites
• Euphoriba variegata - I hope planting this isn't a mistake? Anyone have some comments?
• Arabis Spring charm
• Silene saxifraga
• Aquilegia flabellata nana
• Pansy light strawberry sundae
• Scabiosa japonica pink diamond
• Papaver miyabeanum Pacino
  

Annuals:

• Helitrope Dwarf Marine
• Osteospermum Passion Mix
• Dimorphotheca African Sun
• Impatiens Super Elfin Mix

• Nasturtium Alaska Majus
• Nemophila Baby Blue Eyes
• Lavatera Silver Cup
• Nierembergia Purple Robe
• Lobelia white cascade
• Cleome violet queen
• Helichrysum Summer Solstice
• Marigold Doubloon
• Salvia farinacea Blue bedder
• Portulaca Sundial mix
• Phacelia Tropical surf
• Godetia amoena tall single mix
• Milady aster (C. chinensis)

So is there a theme to my plantings? Not really. I am growing all sort of things, learning from what I grow, and always being prepared for a landscaping emergency. That's what happens when there's an unsightly gap in one's flowerbed. Horrors.

Worms, Glorious Worms

I am a proud mother to two thriving boxes of worms. Vermicomposting worms, that is. I think it's been a while since my last worm compost blog post, but I'm happy to say the worms are still doing well.

Remnants of vegetables from days past make gourmet food for worms:

I even know that they're happy. I know this because the worms are no longer clinging to the lid and dashing out of the box (as fast as a worm can dash) when I remove the lid. There were a few grim months in winter when I had to push them back into the box, telling them about the slow painful death they would face on the concrete floor of the garage.

Several generations of worms can be seen in every handful:


Here is one of the two blue compost boxes (outer container collects the liquid that drains out the bottom) and the green kitchen bin we use to transport compostable stuff to the compost box.

Remarkably, nearly our whole winter's bounty of kitchen waste went into my two worm bins. They are pretty full now, so soon I will spread some compost on the flower beds. I really wish those stickers on fruit and vegetables were compostable though, since those darn things never break down in the compost bin. Ideally, we could have ORGANIC compostable fruit stickers. I hope there's a university agriculture/chemistry department somewhere working on this.

Spring Clean-up and my First Alliums

My garden resembled a musty old attic until I cleaned up the rest of the plant debris in the raised beds today. I hacked and pulled at the Lamb's ears agressively, and after I was done, it looked like a woolly animal had been sheared in my rock garden. I once read that grey-colored plants have a tendency to steadily creep into new horizons, and that seems to be true for my Cerastium tomentosum (Snow in Summer) and Stachys byzantina (Lamb's ears).

Sloped flower bed -- notice there's not many flowers yet (we're not in Victoria anymore!)

The center of a large cluster of Lamb's ears always dies out, so it's good to just go crazy and pull pieces out of it like mad. Mine always ends up looking great in summer despite the springtime assault. I have three big bunches in the sloped flower bed (above).

The center raised bed has a few tulips, alliums, and other perennials just beginning to show.

I am quite excited about this Allium "Gladiator", which I thought was a bit of a gamble when I planted it in the fall. It is recommended for zones 4-8, which is a stretch for our zone 1b location.

A favourable microclimate in our yard (a bit elevated, next to a lake) may allow this plant to grow here, as most perennials in our yard are for zone 3 and they all do well. I hope the alliums bloom, because these bulbs were a bit expensive (though not so much as to stop me from buying more next fall).

Today was nice and sunny, distracting us from the fact that you could still go ice-fishing in the lake. Ha! These Pulsatilla vulgaris look cozy, with blooms wrapped in little hairy sweaters.