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Spring planting, with White-out
Mar. 23rd, 2006 04:21 pmI finally got around to putting in the first set of indoor seeds (destined for outdoors eventually, of course). I haven't decided yet how to proceed with the "Eye of the Tiger" violas, which I've tried unsuccessfully in the past, but it seems that may be because I haven't read the planting instructions carefully: this year I noticed that they want to be planted in a cool place, about 60°F, whereas just about everything else wants to be at 70-75°. I suppose I could put them in the basement, but keeping them watered and watched would be a nuisance. Also, I don't know if they need light to germinate (in general, if seeds want darkness the packet will say so), and we don't have a source of imitation daylight in the basement. I may just wait a bit and plant them outside.
So, who here is old enough to remember White-out? (For those of you who are not, this is a white liquid that comes in a small bottle with an applicator brush in the cap, which we used to use to paint over errors made while using a typewriter, since it produced an opaque more-or-less typeable surface. Other brands existed, such as Liquid Paper. In fact, after I had finished typing this entry, I went and looked at the bottle, and what I actually own is Liquid Paper, and now I think of it the other brand was probably spelled "Wite-out".)
(Those of you not old enough to know what a "typewriter" is can just shut up.)
Anyway, this is not the non sequitur it appears to be. I still own a bottle of the stuff, which is an integral part of my indoor-planting ritual. Once the seeds are in the dirt, it's kind of difficult to tell them apart, so I label each one by sticking half of a tongue depressor in the corner of each container with a coded pattern of dots painted on it in LP. (The first time I thought of doing this I used a ball-point pen, which became unreadable once capillary action had brought the water from the dirt up the length of the tongue depressor. Hence the White-out, or whatever.) As I'm doing this, I transcribe the code (and its meaning) onto a sheet of paper.
Some year soon, I'm going to run out of the stuff, and I don't know if it's still possible to acquire it. (![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
jwg says "Sure it is.") I was also a little careless when putting one of the freshly-painted stakes in this year, and got a stripe of Liquid Paper on my right thumb. That stuff sets really fast! Immediate application of soap and water had no visible effect. When I was all finished with the planting, I tried nail-polish remover (yes, this house contains nail-polish remover, despite a complete absence of nail polish), which sort of works. So now I have a very faint white stripe on my right thumb.
And that's how i know it's really springtime.
So, who here is old enough to remember White-out? (For those of you who are not, this is a white liquid that comes in a small bottle with an applicator brush in the cap, which we used to use to paint over errors made while using a typewriter, since it produced an opaque more-or-less typeable surface. Other brands existed, such as Liquid Paper. In fact, after I had finished typing this entry, I went and looked at the bottle, and what I actually own is Liquid Paper, and now I think of it the other brand was probably spelled "Wite-out".)
(Those of you not old enough to know what a "typewriter" is can just shut up.)
Anyway, this is not the non sequitur it appears to be. I still own a bottle of the stuff, which is an integral part of my indoor-planting ritual. Once the seeds are in the dirt, it's kind of difficult to tell them apart, so I label each one by sticking half of a tongue depressor in the corner of each container with a coded pattern of dots painted on it in LP. (The first time I thought of doing this I used a ball-point pen, which became unreadable once capillary action had brought the water from the dirt up the length of the tongue depressor. Hence the White-out, or whatever.) As I'm doing this, I transcribe the code (and its meaning) onto a sheet of paper.
Some year soon, I'm going to run out of the stuff, and I don't know if it's still possible to acquire it. (
jwg says "Sure it is.") I was also a little careless when putting one of the freshly-painted stakes in this year, and got a stripe of Liquid Paper on my right thumb. That stuff sets really fast! Immediate application of soap and water had no visible effect. When I was all finished with the planting, I tried nail-polish remover (yes, this house contains nail-polish remover, despite a complete absence of nail polish), which sort of works. So now I have a very faint white stripe on my right thumb.And that's how i know it's really springtime.
