Almost the middle of November...

Thursday, 13 Nov 08 (posted about 1 months ago) Cloudy 5°C / 41°F

Rain, rain and heavy rain yesterday and the day before, and snow almost down to the township this morning, the trees all heavily covered. By mid-day it was 9C and the snow line had retreated way back up the mountain. It is like the tide coming in, forward and back, further forward and back again. The mild air was alive with tiny flying insects. The photos are of what is still blooming.

I also went to get fertilizer for the indoor plants and guess what…. the ONLY stuff our local hardware store had was Miracle Gro, which having taken about 8 years to get through the last box I was adamant that I would not use again but buy an organic fertilizer. Also I wanted some orchid fertilizer but the orchid is going to have to survive on MG, dammit. That’s the worst of living in a small town where the only remaining plant outlet of 3 that were here 5 years ago is seasonal.

Want to comment?

Cmagnus wrote:
Have you thought about setting up a worm bin for fertilizer? There are two of us and we got enough worm castings to hit the houseplants over the winter and set some aside for the bed in the spring (as well as having even more by the time spring rolled around). For more specific fertilizer needs (my bed needs potassium for next year) I actually ordered some organic stuff online because I couldn’t get it locally. I’m not sure that the environmental impact of shipping something straight to a person is particularly worse than shipping it to a store and having the customers drive to and from the store. Add in the cost of your time and gas and it covers the cost of shipping.

Posted on 14 Nov 08 (about 1 months ago)
Rainymountain wrote:
I have thought about setting up a worm bin but I don’t have a space to put it unfortunately. Happily this town is small enough that I can walk everywhere and so I don’t have a car. If I want to go further afield I go with a friend or by Greyhound. When I go to visit my daughter I have a 6 hour waitover in a larger town and I will probably be able to get some organic fertilizer there but that won’t be for a couple of months. Mail order is an option I hadn’t thought of. Thanks.

Posted on 14 Nov 08 (about 1 months ago)
Nax wrote:
rm it’s not just small towns. I’m in Chicago and there is no organic houseplant food in reasonably sized containers (they all seem to think we have huge greenhouses and only sell the organic stuff in giant bags or gallon jugs). I’m sure I could find it at a specialty shop, or one of the big suburban greenhouses, but then I have the problem cmagnus pointed out— what’s the point of buying organic if I have to drive a 60 mile round trip to get the stuff.

I’m still a little shy of worms, but I feed my houseplants with a rotating mix of coffee grounds, ground eggshells, and deadheaded leaves. Of course, my track record with houseplants is not stellar, but I generally try to blame it on the plants rather than my care of them.

Posted on 15 Nov 08 (about 1 months ago)