Seedlings Started in the Greenhouse

We started seedlings in our greenhouse mid-February, doing a few dozen of them every day.

The process has been to start them under the fluorescent lights with the blue heating mat warming them from below. Then as they germinate and establish their first true leaves, we'll move them to the South shelf which gets only natural sunlight and also has a blue warming mat underneath. Eventually when they get established enough, I'll move them to the upper shelf and remove the fluorescent lights.

We'll try to continue to post pictures as the seedling starting season continues. So far we've started veggies; tomatoes, celery, various melons, gourds, cucumbers and both annuals and perennials; several kinds of petunia, calibrachoa, celosia, coleus, salvia, various marigolds, and portulaca. Each shelf, two on the left (North side) and one on the right (South side) is about 11 feet long and I'm planning on filling them completely with happy little seedlings.

Seedling planting and germinating season moves quickly and we'll do our best to post updated pictures as our new plants emerge and start to grow. Have you started seeds this year? 

Follow us on Instagram

Link to Our Online Store

New Greenhouse Pictures

We're rapidly approaching Spring here at the homestead and seemingly getting busier by the minute. It has come to our attention that we haven't posted any pictures of the greenhouse - our huge garden project that we chronicled last year.

The greenhouse is in midst of its busy time of year. We spent last Fall and Winter getting a feel for the space and seeing how the temperature would change based on weather. In the picture above you can see the electrical plug (small white box on the middle left side) that runs to the outlet on the porch as well as the hose connection on the far left side of the greenhouse. This was one of the cool features of this design, it's "plug and play", one outside connection for power and water and the whole greenhouse is ready to go.

Even though the hose is attached to the greenhouse it's been too cold to leave it permanently connected. We attach the hose to the back porch connection, run water and then disconnect so the hose doesn't freeze solid.

There were a few things inside the greenhouse over the Winter. On the bottom left are three dianthus that were potted up when the greenhouse was installed. We didn't find a place to plant them before Winter, so they went into the greenhouse to serve as plant guinea pigs. In the middle are two longer white oval pots that were on the front porch last Summer. They have verbeena, calibrachoa, and petnuias. I brought them in to see if the would survive (they did) and how they would look the next Summer (to be determined).

We also set up some fluorescent strip lights to provide extra light during seed germination. Between the strip lights and seedling heating mats (the blue mat on the shelf under the seedlings) we're hoping for good germination and growth.

The greenhouse is a tight space, 8 foot by 12 foot, that doesn't lend itself to easy photographing, so this is the best we've got. This is one last picture from just outside the open greenhouse door.

We'll share some more photos of our seed starting setup in the future post!

Follow us on Instagram

Link to Our Online Store

 

Snow Day at the Homestead

We're having a snow day here at the homestead in Boise, Idaho. No it's not like the snow days in North Dakota where we'd get a foot or two of snow, sub zero temperatures and blizzard conditions. Here it's just a pleasant snowy day, a few inches of accumulation and some slushy footing for a little while.

The dogs aren't taking any chances though, and they're certainly not going to fret over trivial matters such as the amount of snow. They're just going to get all warm and snuggly under as many blankets as we can pile on top of them.

We'll rest up for now. There are some slushy and wet paws in our forecast this afternoon.  

Follow us on Instagram

Link to Our Online Store

 

New Dog Collars

Alycia had a convention in Orlando last Fall and spent some time at Universal Studios and Disneyworld. Naturally there was some gift store browsing.

Shadowfax got a cool new Star Wars collar.

 

Shaak Ti got a collar from Harry Potter World at Universal Studios. Alycia got it at the Magical Menagerie and it says "Magical Menagerie" on it.

I know, I know. It's all backwards, I know better than anyone. Shaak Ti is a character in the Star Wars universe and she absolutely should have the Star Wars collar...they just didn't have her size. But if there was ever a creature that belonged in a Magical Menagerie it's Shaak Ti. 

Follow us on Instagram

Link to Our Online Store

 

Shadowfax Approved

Shadowfax can easily be described as a heavy chewer, she's easily plowed through dog toys designated as "tough.

The green stick in the picture is her Goughnuts Dog Toy (Amazon link here). We don't endorse many products here, but this stick is really awesome, we've had it since 2014! We even wrote about it back in 2014. Five plus years is an eternity it Shadowfax toy-time. If you have a power chomping pup who destroys toys, you might consider a Goughnut for them this Christmas. 

Follow us on Instagram

Link to Our Online Store

 

Japanese Maple - Emmett's Pumpkin

We planted a couple of Japanese Maples (acer japonicum) in 2017 when we moved to the homestead. They took a year or so get fully acclimated and last fall they had some interesting colors. One variety that we planted, Emmett's Pumpkin, is an upright Japanese Maple that is closer to medium sized shrub than a small tree.

We really wanted this particular variety because it's main feature is turning bright orange in Fall, thus the name Emmett's Pumpkin. Last fall we weren't terribly impressed with the color but figured since it was the first year it might need more time to fully produce spectacular color.

This year it put on a terrific show of orangey-pumpkiny goodness. We look forward to many more years of fall foliage from Emmett's Pumpkin.

Follow us on Instagram

Link to Our Online Store

Evening Snuggles

Yesterday was pretty typical evening here at the Deaf Dogs and Benevolent Gnomes homestead. We snapped a quick photo of the dogs getting all snugly.

This pose lasts until feet or legs fall asleep and the people have to stand and get the blood flowing again. 

Follow us on Instagram

Link to Our Online Store

 

New Birds at the Homestead - Evening Grosbeak

Fall migration saw a new bird (new to us anyways) pass through our area. These evening grosbeaks stopped by intermittently for a few weeks for some snacks, likely on their journey south. We hopefully look forward to seeing them again in the Spring.

This is the evening grosbeak,they're pretty striking. We had rose breasted grosbeaks on a regular basis in North Dakota, but this was our first time seeing the evening grosbeak. 

Follow us on Instagram

Link to Our Online Store