The Great Backyard Bird Count is Here!!

Welcome back to my blog.  So is everyone ready for the GBBC which starts tomorrow?

www.birdsource.org

Below is an instructional video:

Or follow these step by step directions:




You can also refer to my previous post on February 7, 2014 for more information:
https://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7818050104445836783#editor/target=post;postID=1668912589834662466;onPublishedMenu=posts;onClosedMenu=posts;postNum=2;src=postname


Wanted to share some more bird photos, thanks to my son and his patience for capturing the following shots:

Blue Jay

Blue Jay

Finally, wanted to share this inspirational photo (by Gordon Matson) and caption:

A cardinal is a representative of a loved one who has passed. When you see one, it means they are visiting you. They usually show up when you most need them or miss them. They also make an appearance during times of  celebration as well as despair to let you know they will always be with you. Look for them, they'll appear.

Until next time.

Planting Herbs/More Bird Photos

Today I replanted some herbs since my plants were about two years old, and not very healthy anymore. I threw out the old plants, discarded the soil, and washed the pots.

Then I re-filled the pots with fresh potting soil and replanted.  Today I planted chives and basil.  Parsley to follow once I buy more seeds.  We decided to plant two pots each of basil and parsley since those are the herbs we tend to use most often.

Once planted, I covered the pots with plastic wrap secured with a rubber band.  The pots were then placed in a warm room that gets a few hours of sun each day, in this case underneath the Boston fern in the dining room (south facing window).

It was a good weekend for bird watching as the foot of snow we got on Wednesday brought them out in force:

Dark-eyed Junco

American Tree Sparrow

European Starlings

Tufted Titmouse

Until next time.

The Great Backyard Bird Count is One Week Away!

Welcome back fellow bird watchers.  Dust off your binoculars, cameras and bird identification skills.  See how many different species you and your family can observe over a four day period.  Teach your children all about birds.  The possibilities are endless.  It can all be done in as little as fifteen minutes.

The Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC) starts on Friday, February 14th and runs through Monday, February 17th.  It is sponsored by The Cornell Lab of Ornithology and Adubon.  Following is a link to get you started plus a screen shot of the web page.

http://gbbc.birdcount.org/get-started/    

There are three easy steps to get started.  There are even mobile apps that can be installed and used on your smartphone to record your data.  The complete instructions can be found using the above link. There is an online bird guide to help you identify the more difficult species.

There is also a photo contest so you can have fun capturing photos of your favorite birds.

You may be thinking that you don't have enough time to participate.  If you can spare 15 minutes on any one of the four days, that is all you will need.  The minimum observation time is 15 minutes. You can do multiple observations each day if you want and submit a checklist for each observation. Observe at home in your backyard, or at your favorite park, or anywhere in the world.

Snowy Owl. (Photo by Ian H. Neilson, Alberta, CA, GBBC 2013)

You also may wonder how to count the birds when they are in constant motion and how to ensure you don't count the same bird twice.  Again, no worry since you count the maximum number of a species that you see at any one time during your observation period.  So if you see two chickadees at 9 AM and four at 9:15 AM, then your count for chickadees would be four, assuming you did a fifteen minute observation.

The GBBC was launched in 1998 and was the first citizen-science project which collects data on wild birds. "In 2013, Great Backyard Bird Count participants in 111 countries counted 33,464,616 birds on 137,998 checklists, documenting 4,258 species—more than one-third of the world’s bird species!"

So join the fun.  Until next time.

Winter Sowing

Winter sowing is a technique used to plant seeds outside during the winter,  Yes, you did read it correctly!
So why would you want to do that, and does it really work?

There are several advantages to winter sowing,  First of all, it doesn't take up space inside your house. Secondly, once the seeds are planted, they require very little or no maintenance.  Lastly the plants that grow are very healthy and hardy as they are already used to outdoor conditions.  They don't need to be hardened off.

Will it work for all seeds?  The short answer is no.

Winter sowing works best for cold hardy vegetables such as spinach, radishes, lettuce, onions, and leeks. Even tomatoes and peppers will germinate outdoors, but I found they sprout too late in the spring (later than the lettuce, etc.) to reach maturity during the summer.  Those will work better indoors to give them an earlier start.  I had really good luck last year with lettuce, onions, and leeks.  This technique will also work with cold hardy annual flowers and perennial flowers.

So what type of planting container should you use?  I found the best thing to use is a one gallon milk jug. Other containers will work also as long as they are transparent, have a lid,, and have enough room for 3 or 4 inches of soil and 3 to 4 inch seedlings.

To prepare the milk jug first wash it.  There is no need to sterilize it.  Next cut the jug roughly in half far enough up so that three or four inches of potting soil can be added.  Be sure to leave about two inches uncut to form a hinge.

Now poke or drill four holes in the bottom of the container for drainage.  This is very important since it will be outside in the rain and snow.  The top will be left off the top also to allow moisture in and also to prevent the plastic container from getting too warm.

Next add about three inches of potting soil or seed starting mix to the container.  Be sure not to use too heavy a soil as it will hold two much moisture.  Never use garden soil from your garden for starting seeds as it most likely contains bacteria and fungus etc. that could interfere with germination.

Add some water to "settle" the soil before planting.  Lightly pat the soil to form a level planting surface. Now you are ready to add the seeds.

Add seeds evenly but not too thick as to allow some space between the seedlings when they sprout. Cover the seeds according the planting depth suggested on the seed packet.  Lightly water again (I usually use a spray bottle).  Below is a photo showing Romaine lettuce seeds before covering.

Finally, tape the top onto the bottom of the container using clear tape if possible or a thin strip of duct tape. Using too much duct tape could block out too much light and affect germination.  Be sure to label with what you planted and the date.

The containers are now ready to be paced outside.  Choose a location preferably on the south side of your house so they will be protected from the prevailing wind and also exposed to the warm sun.  They can be placed on the ground, on a table, or really anywhere.  I have a small stone wall that I place mine on.

Until next time.

Veggies 101-Onions

Each season I usually plant 3 or 4 varieties of onions.  Scallions are a staple in my garden every year.  I normally start these from seed indoors in late February or early March, and then transplant into the garden in mid May.  There are quite a few different scallions available, but I haven't found significant differences in them. Most are white but there a few red types.  I will discuss indoor seed starting as the time get closer.

Scallion Seed Packet Example

Next on my list is another staple, yellow onions (Stuttgarter type).  These are widely available as onion sets in many stores. These onions always grow very well and are an excellent onion to store over the winter (another future blog topic).

Yellow Onion Sets

Some years I also grow red onions which are also available as onion sets.

Red Onion Sets

Finally, my favorite onion I grow is the Spanish Sweet Yellow onion.  These are not available as sets so I normally start these from seed also.  Sometimes you can find these as plants but not every year at least in my area.  These onions can get very large and are very mild.  They store fairly well also.

Yellow Sweet Spanish Onions

Until next time.

Veggies 101-Lettuce/Spinach/Radishes/Swiss Chard

I currently have two vegetable gardens in my yard.  The first, which I call the "lower" garden, is about 20 feet wide and 30 feet long and is situated very close to our pond.  I also have an "upper" garden which is about 30 feet by 12 feet.  A ten foot wide section of lawn separates the two:

Lower Garden

Upper Garden

These photos were taken last spring about mid May.  Nothing was planted in the lower garden until later in the month when I put in potatoes.  In the upper garden, you can see spinach, radishes and lettuce growing along with some onions.   This year these will be in the lower garden as I rotate them every year, essentially switching the lower and upper gardens each year.

These gardens were not always this large.  When we moved hear in 1992, there was only a very small part of the lower garden still being used, and the upper had completely grown over with grass.  Each year I expanded a little more (which is initially a lot of work).  I probably should start downsizing at this point but haven't given in to that yet.

The vegetables that I plant in mid May are only the ones that can take the early season cool ground and temperatures:

In 2014, I will start the season planting Swiss chard, spinach, and radishes.  As far as Swiss chard, the varieties may have different color stems, but the leaves are what is used so the edible result is pretty much the same for all of them.  Quite of few varieties of spinach exist also, but I haven't found too much difference in them  Some (such as the Bloomsdale Long Standing which I chose) are slower to bolt in hot weather which can be helpful.

Radishes come in different colors and shapes but most of the differences are cosmetic.  Radishes make a great spicy addition to a salad or are tasty as a snack.

Next on my early planting list is lettuce.  There are so many different choices when it comes to lettuce that it be overwhelming to chose what to plant.  In recent years I have been planting the following types:

Loose leaf mixture:

These are several mixtures I found at the Christmas Tree Shoppe (The Lake Valley Seed Company).

Next I will plant a Romaine variety also from the Lake Valley Seed Co.:

Finally, I will plant a Mesclun mix.  So exactly what is Mesclun?  It is a mixture of not only lettuces but of different salad greens that may include arugula, endive, and mustard greens among many others.  There are numerous mixtures available.  If you like your salad a little on the spicy side, I think you will enjoy Mesclun.
Below is an example of a Mesclun mixture:

In my next post I will discuss onions, which is another vegetable that can be planted early.  I have several varieties which I like and usually plant each year.

In a previous post I talked briefly about Winter Sowing.  I hope to start my Winter Sowing this coming weekend and will also do a post on that.  I plan on planting some lettuce using this method.  I think you will enjoy Winter Sowing.

Until next time.

Sorting Through the Vegetable Seeds/Out With the Old in With the New

One of my annual rituals in the vegetable gardening process is to sort through what seeds I have and to decide what to keep, what to throw out, and what I will need to buy for this year's garden. So how do I go about this?

As I mentioned in a previous post, my general rule of thumb in deciding which seeds are still good is this:  I discard any seeds more than one calendar year old.  So for this year's garden I will keep any seeds dated 2013 or newer, and discard any older than that.  I have found this to work well for me even though you will find different ideas of seed expiration dates out there.  Some seeds can last well beyond a year, however I want to make sure that the seeds I'm planting are definitely viable.  After all, it is a lot of work to prepare and to plant and I try to minimize replanting if possible.

So where should you buy your seeds?  I use a combination of seeds catalogs and local stores.  For the most part I now find myself buying most of them locally since I find the prices better.  The catalogs are great if you want a particular variety you can't find locally, such as heirloom tomatoes.  It's fun just to browse through the seed catalogs for ideas and pointers.  They are really more than just a catalog since they contain lots information on how to plant and take care of the many different vegetables. Also, information on which varieties are best for your area of the country can be found.

A few photos of my seed "collection" for 2014 to give you an idea of what I have planned this year:

The last photo shows how I store my seeds.  It's important to store them properly.  As you can see, I store them in a plastic container with a lid and keep them in a cool dry place out of the sun.  Any partial packets I put inside a Ziploc bag and also inside the container.  This prevents the seeds in the opened packets from drying out.

This weekend was also another good birding weekend.  We had a visit from a male cardinal for the first time this winter along with many of our usual species:

Stay tuned.  In my next post I will go over in depth  which vegetables I will grow this year and which I plan on starting ahead indoors.  Also, there are some I start outside in the winter cold using a technique called winter sowing...and it really works!