Friday is Earth Day. So to mark the day, I’ve been trying to think of little things that I can do on my own.
There are a lot of suggestions you can find. There certainly is no shortage of litter around that can be cleaned up. I’m not sure where it all comes from. A former neighbour used to call the litter that accumulates over the winter as “winter dandelions”. Every year, as he cleaned up around his yard in the spring, he would tell me he was collecting winter dandelions. As much as I don’t like litter, I do like the term. So picking winter dandelions is definitely on my list.
There are probably other things I can do as well. Making sure an excess lights are turned off would be one. I try to do that on a regular basis, although it seems like a never ending chore. There are days we seem to chase each other around the house, turning on and turning off lights. But it gives me something to grumble about.
But then I came across one I really like. Planting milkweed seeds.
It was actually on the list of things that individuals can do for Earth Day. It helps encourage Monarch butterflies, since over the years, a lot of natural milkweed has been removed from the environment. And I just happen to have milkweed seeds.
I just sort of stumbled upon milkweed seeds. I was doing some shopping in a small local shop just before Christmas, chatting with the owner about various random things and the subject of milkweed came up. I have no idea how or why, but I mentioned that the idea of planting something to attract butterflies to the yard sounded interesting, and he said he had some seeds and would bring some in for me. So I have milkweed seeds.
But what do you do with milkweed seeds? How does one plant them?
If you’ve ever seen them, they’re a bit like dandelion seeds. Little bits of fluff with small seeds on one end. The person I got them from told me just to rake them into a area of the garden and let them do their stuff. But I couldn’t just do that. I had to look it up online.
There are a number of methods you can use to plant milkweed seeds. You can plant them in the fall, as long as you do so before the frost hits. Too late for that. You can start them indoors, but be careful they don’t get too spindly and fall over. You can take the individual seeds and clip the little ends to encourage them to sprout.
There are a lot of hints and tips. And since this plant has the word weed in the name, it will probably find a way to sprout and grow. Although I have experience with other plants I was warned to stay away from because they would take over my garden and I’d never get rid of them. And I’m still waiting for them to grow. I’m look at you, cilantro.
But the rake into the soil thing sounds most promising. They also mentioned that when planting them outside, the soil should be damp. That does not seem like a problem at the moment.
So to mark Earth Day, I’m going to try planting milkweed. If you hear someone singing “My milkweed brings the butterflies to my yard”, that will probably be me.
