Growing Impatiens for Spring

Thank you all for your kind comments on yesterday's post concerning our frightening little episode. I am pretty sore today after singlehandedly pulling the range around the kitchen after it caught fire yesterday, our island is a very heavy piece of furniture and I moved it too. I must have breathed in a considerable amount of smoke and the fumes from the fire extinguisher because I coughed all night, which is another reason for the soreness. Thankfully that has pretty much subsided.

Today was a major cleaning day in the kitchen. How in the world does all that junk and gunk get behind and underneath appliances? YUCK! We've decide to get a new floor put down before we get another range. This home was a builder spec, so we had no choices in the building process. They put in the cheapest WHITE vinyl flooring and I have hated it with a passion. A golden retriever and a gardener do not need a white kitchen floor, really, who does? They're coming tomorrow to measure for the new floor and I've been clearing the pantry and laundry room floors and scrubbing the smoky dust off everything. I had been spending way too much time on Blotanical and things were quite dusty. :)

While working I kept reminding myself that I needed to take care of the impatiens today. I had great germination success with both the purchased seeds and the ones I collected and saved. They already had the second set of leaves and were getting very crowded in their little peat pots. They had to be thinned.

This is the hardest part of the whole growing process for me. I hate to thin plants and then throw perfectly good little plants away. I have a tendency to put off this painful process at the peril of all the seedlings. I attempt to spare as many plants as possible while thinning. Last year the impatiens that were transplanted didn't fare as well as those that stayed undisturbed in the peat pots. I still have to try though.

I soaked the containers, that were saved from plants I purchased last year, in a bleach and water solution to make sure they were disease and pest free. I then filled them with a sterile seed starting mix and transplanted the impatiens with the most roots attached. I had a perfect sized box that I put into a trash bag to make it water proof. It isn't pretty but it's economical. Hopefully, these little transplants will do better than last years. I still had to throw away so many though. I wonder if I'll ever get used to that.

I am growing impatient for spring.