The Lowly Earthworm

We are having a clearance sale, and I tell people the dirt alone is worth more than we are charging. That's because our dirt is full of earthworms!
There's nothing wrong with the plants we are selling dirt cheap. A few have been burnt either from not enough water or not enough warmth, and they look a little scruffy. Others propagate a little too happily and we have a lot of them; and still others just have proven not to sell well so we are not going to carry them anymore. All these pots have been with us a few years and have received several doses of fertilizer and daily waterings so the soil is rich and dark. And the earthworms love it!

I met quite a few of these wriggly, moist and squirmy creatures this morning, so thought I'd look them up. This is what I learned:
Earthworms live all over the world, where ever soil is found
They vary greatly in length, from several inches to up to 12 feet !
Depending on where you meet them, they can be pink, tan, brown, red, or even blue or green.
They have 5 hearts, both male and female reproductive organs, lay eggs, and taste through a body covering that senses chemicals in the soil. It's possible for an earthworm to regenerate its body after it's been severed, but not in all cases. It can regrow the tail portion if the severing occured after the 13th ring of the body. Something like that. I'm not a surgeon.
They are a good omen in a garden. Their burrows help roots grab hold in the soil, their worm poop is high in nutrition, and they help water and nutrients move down to reach the plant.
At the markets where customers might be lucky enough to purchase a few in our plants, we are set up on a brick courtyard. It gets so hot I have to put my shoes back on because my feet burn. I bring water for the plants, but several times we have noticed an earthworm exodus. The poor things get so hot in the soil that they feel they have to leave and find cooler ground. My daughter and I find them wriggling on the hot bricks, of course in a worse situation, so we scurry about collecting them, pouring water on them, and telling them it'll just be for a bit longer and to hang in there. Sometimes we just have to donate them to one of the large flower pots dotting the Lakeland streets.

June's Doings

I finally finished my project of sweeping the nursery and moving the pots. The dirt leeches out the holes at the bottoms of the plant pots, so we have a nice thick layer of dirt, earthworms, leaves and fertilizer to recompost.
This project took a while - I got to it in between volunteering at the school, vending at farmer's markets twice weekly, giving knitting lessons, and sometimes being plain lazy. But it looks good

Remember my rooster, Mo? Well, he's a father this season! Hedwig, our hen, hatched two eggs in May. The little dears romp around with their mother while Mo rules the roost in his psychopathic manner. I have him sort of trained. I'll call from the back door, "Mo, chook chook!" and he'll come scampering up the steps to fly on the railing and give a triumphant crow. I'll pick him up and carry him around for a bit, and then he leaves me alone.

These are some of the lovelies that customers have been enjoying at the market lately. The above photo shows a variegated form of Peacock Ginger. It's a shade-loving ground cover that makes these darling flowers in early summer.
Below is the bloom stalk of Red Yucca. It's possible for the stalk to reach 5 feet hight!


Jim set up a large L-shaped area in the back yard where we have drip irrigation for the 3gallon shrubs and trees. My next project is to weed in this jungle!

Winter, Then Spring

This photo shows a heap of dead plants to be recycled into compost dirt

On the calendar it's been spring for a day. Here in Florida, we knew Spring had sprung a while back, because even though plants remained in a dormant stage, weeds were growing quite happily.

It was a tough winter for north central Florida. We had the coldest winter on record for December. Maybe I'm wrong about the record; I just know it got really cold. Temperatures were in the low 20's around Christmas time and stayed that way for a few days. The irony was there was no dew! So it didn't look frosty, and my kids, who have little experience with snow, were disappointed. Those of you who live in other areas may be experiencing how tough our winter was when you see that prices on strawberries and oranges have risen.
What that winter caused for us at Ridge Plants was a lot of dead plants.
In this photo you can see how much space has opened up by removing the pots. We have new 3 gallons to fill those holes.

If you read through the older posts you'll notice I touted Bulbine as a great Florida Friendly plant. The winter of 2009 had a very cold March and Bulbine flourished. Well, the Winter of 2010 killed all the Bulbine!!


Now that it is March it was time to assess the damage and realize some plants just weren't going to come back. Jim sorted the dead from the living, and now we are hauling pots to empty on a compost heap, or spreading them in our vegetable garden. Maybe it's because of all the destruction in Japan and the violent unrest in Libya, but I see it as a mass grave. Yesterday I dropped 10 wagon loads of 10 3-gallon plants onto the heap. These would have retailed for $10 each. Very sad.

On the other hand, it is Spring. And spring is when plants wake up from dormancy are are ready to expend energy and releaf, flower, and reproduce.
Jim started some veggies and herbs from seed and they are eager little growers.


Our other perennials are now releafed and flowering, like the Orange Zest Cestrum. They shall welcome the bees to collect pollen and spread fertilization. Bulb plants like Iris and Amaryllis are also blooming. These will spread by the bulb producing another bulb, and also through seeds and cross pollenization.



The lesson is Life goes on!