Thursday, March 26, 2009
Does it Really Matter? Apparently Not
Earlier this month I posted about my experience last year with using cheap potting soil for my seed sowing. I had pampered a stinging nettle for months without realizing it until I went to plant it. I had never seen one before and had no clue what it was until I gripped it and felt a terrible burning and stinging on my hand. It was so painful!
This year I was more careful with my sowing medium, because I didn't want to nurture weeds. For some of my seeds I used a sterile soil mix and for others I used the little pellets. I had planted impatiens seeds and was excited to see them germinate and begin to grow. One of them was growing faster than the others. Today when I was watering, I realized that it wasn't impatiens after all. It is another stinging nettle! How did that happen? Believe me, this one is being handled very carefully...I won't make that mistake twice!
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10 comments:
Oh my goodness, Robin, how could that have happened???? Is your home being invaded by stinging nettle? Does it wait in the corners to drop into fresh potting mix or jiffy pots when your back is turned? At least now you know what it is, knowledge is power! :-)
Frances
Robin, You must be a nettle magnet! Wow! At least you were more careful this time.
What bad luck. At least the soil could give you a less painful weed.
Could the seeds you planted been contaminated with weed seeds? I wouldn't think that peat pellets would have weed seeds in them, but of course I could be wrong! :)
I've had contaminated seeds before...and a friend's dad planted seeds that all turned out to be weed seeds. gail
It's the Twilight Zone! Eerie. 2yrs in a row!
No way! Maddening and nuts. That is scary and expensive Those darn weeds grow well and you've given it a perfect situation. Not your fault at all. I'll keep an eye on my seeds and hopefully not put my bare hands on one. I know that hurt.
Well, they are edible when they are young! Nettles are painful though.
I had a nettle grow in a pot outside last year. At first, I thought it was a volunteer salvia of some kind. At some point, I began to suspect it may be nettles, and got the confirmation when I took hold of the stem. It was not a smart thing to do.
After it got put on the compost pile, I think I read there is a caterpillar of some kind that feeds on nettles. It's too bad you have those, but check out which caterpillar it is, and maybe you can plant yours in an out of the way spot, and you'll see more butterflies.
I just found a link. It's from Washington, but if you have red admirals and I think, commas, they eat nettles. Here's where I found that information:
http://users.sitestar.net/butterfly/bfgardening/EAT.HTM
Take care, and I hope things go well at your parents'.
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