ZoeLand

Today i went to ZoeLand to plant some milkweed seeds that i collected this fall. I haven't seen any milkweed growing on the lab, so hopefully some of these take. We've had a few warmer days, so i thought maybe i would be able to get some seeds into the dirt. It was pretty easy to shovel an opening where there was a good layer of snow. Most of the places where the snow had melted had ground that was frozen. I planted a lot of them by shovel and scattered some over the surface of the snow too. We're due for some more snow soon, so they will be covered and can work their way into the soil by spring (if they aren't eaten first).

Made another visit to ZoeLand. This time to scatter some mullein seeds. There were only a couple of mullein growing in or nearby, so i thought i'd bring in some seeds.

The first photo is of the box of mullein seed heads i had collected at the abbey. I'm sure i accidentally planted some of these on the walk over, too.

The second photo is me knocking the mullein against the box to disperse the seed. I quickly decided that the drum-like noise was disturbing the peace of the meadow. I opted instead for knocking the stalks against each other. It worked to spread the seed and was much quieter. The snow over much of ZoeLand was knee deep. I hadn't yet dug my snowshoes out of storage, so i made do. The benefit of the snow was that my tracks showed me very clearly where i had spread seeds and where not.

The third photo is of some small little specks in the snow...mullein seed. Hopefully some will take and there will be more mullein growing here next year.

We were harvesting logs in the area and waiting on the tractor so I stepped over to check out Zoe Land. (Apologies for the poor quality of my camera setup, one of those phone quasi-luddite holdouts.)

I looked for signs of last year's plantings. Still seems a bit early for activity up this high...

Update on plantings from fall 22

Stopped by to say hi..

Doing some boot work before the PTJ starts, I took a tour of the lab tonight and stopped at ZoeLand to check up on things...

Making garden bed outline

Saying goodbye to the lab after the PTJ, I did some quick guerilla gardening at Zoeland. I had saved a dozen cherry pits and apple cores during the event and soaked them for a couple of days knowing I wouldn't be able to water them after planting. They are spread around the area behind the bench. Hopefully soon to be a minefield of fruit tree sprouts, each with a snowball's chance in a very hot place, but any survivor is sure to be hardy and drought-proof...

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