- STEAM Garden
- Mar 31
Updated: Jun 3
Fortunately, my cold frames are full of very healthy perennial plants that are ready to be transplanted. In this photograph you can see pipevine, columbine, coreopsis, scabiosa, and sedum plants in 4” pots. This cold frame is made from stacked cinderblocks and either black shade-cloth or corrugated fiberglass, depending on the season and air temperature. We use a large sheet of thick plastic to cover the entire cold frame when temperatures remain below freezing for longer than 24 hours.
March 4
We have about 10 red feed tubs that we call our First Aid Center. Plants in these tubs need extra care and special attention. It is a great place to start cuttings or to plant seeds so they can be nurtured before transplanting them to 4” pots. Some years we have hundreds of seedlings to transplant from these tubs and we appreciate the helping hands of local students.
March 5
It is time to plant our 150 new pipevine plants. I started them from seeds in August of last year. They have made great progress in a cold frame over the winter. As you can see, I usually plant three per tub in a triangular pattern. We have a drip system that will provide a small amount of water centrally. This same planting method works well for pipevines planted in raised beds, too.
I’m still transplanting pipevine plants. You can see how well the tubers of these pipevines have developed since fall. They definitely need to be transplanted before their long roots become deformed. When we pot them, we used red drink cups that are longer than they are wide instead of the typical 4” pot. This provides the tubers with an extra inch of space to develop during the winter. Over the year, I will write a lot about Pipevines because they are a featured host plant in our STEAM garden.
Dog vomit slime mold (Fuligo septica) is also called scrambled egg slime mold. This can be found on mulch or decaying wood. It was once classified as fungi, but today it is an amoeboid Protista. It is not a plant, an animal, or a fungi. If you see this slime mold, note exactly where it is located. Check it again in a few days and see if it has ‘moved’. Slime molds can move over the ground by changing their shape.
Four-nerve daisy is one of my favorite pollinator plants. It is an evergreen perennial that flowers early in the growing season. The flowers are extended on long stems presenting themselves to the pollinators visiting our STEAM garden. These are well-established plants that produce lots of flowers. I’ll collect seeds from these plants to plant in the fall. I usually grow about fifty new plants a year.
The easily-identified Eastern Tiger Swallowtail (Papilio glaucus) is native to North America. It is an early visitor to our STEAM garden and will continue to be spotted until Fall. This is a large butterfly with a wingspan that can be over 5 inches! It is often seen as a solitary visitor to the STEAM garden instead of part of a kaleidoscope, or group of butterflies. They have a lifespan of about two months from egg until death.
When I was in elementary school my grandmother had hanging baskets of airplane plants on her front porch. Sixty-five years later, I am still propagating descendants of those plants. They have survived multiple relocations across Texas and one accompanied me to an apartment in New York City. Airplane plants form clumps of roots that can be divided to form new plants or the young plants growing on the ends of the long shoots can be cut and planted.
March 12
My goji berries are blooming! If you plant these, beware that they spread quickly. I eat about two tablespoons of the berries daily when I’m working in the garden. I seldom have extra to dry or freeze. I started these plants soon after my cancer diagnosis in 2006.
I can’t wait any longer. I’ve decided to plant the seedlings I potted in fall (pipevine, columbine, Brazos penstemon, and four-nerve daisies) in the new Nectar Patch tubs. We will get a couple of light freezes in the coming weeks, but they should be fine. We will see!
I decided to add flashing around the inside of the new Nectar Patches. This will allow us to make deeper beds which will provide more room for roots and earthworms. Luis used short screws to adhere the 12” wide metal flashing onto the black plastic pots. I don’t think I’ll add any plants in these middle beds until fall. In a few weeks, we will add earthworms from our vermicomposting bins and allow them to get established.
It is unseasonably hot and dry so I am going to add mulch to our new pots now instead of waiting until April. The surface soil needs to be covered immediately to slow evaporation because we can water only one day a week! We are supplementing with rain water we have harvested, but we need to conserve this water, too. Typically, I would add a layer of leaf litter in March before adding a thick layered of finely chopped cedar chips in May or June.
Look at the surface of the tubs without mulch. It makes me cringe to see the soil exposed to the heat of the sun. We buy mulch by the cubic yard or we obtain free mulch from tree-trimming companies that shred what they trim. At the end of a workday, these companies might welcome a close location to dump the chipped wood. It doesn’t hurt to ask.
This morning, I am re-mulching our original tubs in Nectar Patches 1 & 2. Additional mulch needs to be added once or twice a year. It works best when it covers the surface of the soil to a depth of at least 2”. Leave a narrow mulch-free area around the base of the plants. I use my garden bench to sit when I’m doing this task; it also flips to become a kneeling pad. You can see it in the photo.
Spiderwort plants were growing wild on our 1880s property when we bought it nearly 30 years ago. It blooms early in spring and it blooms early in the day! Each flower lasts only one day, so look for pollinator visitors early in the day when the flowers are at their peak. New flowers replace old flowers daily.
My Brazos penstemons and columbines have quickly grown into blooming plants! I raised nearly a hundred plants from seeds I planted in early fall of last year. They survived the winter in a plastic portable greenhouse, and now they are blooming in their first year! Once established, penstemon plants need little or no water, depending on your normal precipitation amounts, and they are deer-resistant.
Look who came to visit me today! This little guy was strolling up the street towards my house and gardens. When I approached him, he ran back down the street hopefully towards his home! He is very cute, but he is genetically programmed to dig, root, and wallow.