Nov. 25, 2012 - The Living Room Garden

The temperatures are now too cold for the house plants to stay outside.  They did really well outside and now need a home on the table in the Dining Room with the southern exposure to the sun.

All the leaves have fallen from the trees and that means gutter cleaning time.  I will climb on the roof and clean out the gutters while Evan mows the lawn to mulch the leaves. 

2012 - July 15

One cool looking Mammoth Sunflower opening in midway, looks like it has teeth and whiskers.

Our Brussels Sprouts are sprouting!  Look at all the little buds on the stalk.

I pulled the first Spaghetti Squash.  Pixie and Panda check it out with a few sniffs.

I found my frog that guarded the Living Room Garden in the Winter and placed him on the Squash to watch over it until the it cures.  That will be sometime at the end of July.

2012 - The Living Room Garden - Update

With so much focus on the Raised Garden, the Living Room Garden has gone neglected.  The Cilantro and Dill did not survive the lack of attention, while the Basil and Parsley struggles to hang in there.  I may take what I have extras of (what needs to be thinned out) in the Raised Garden to plant in these pots to have easy access to herbs.

This one lone basil survivor is fighting for it's right to live.  I will forget to water and it leans with major wilt and then I hurry to water and it picks right back up.  The only bad thing is that it does not get the proper amount of sunlight and that is why it is so leggy.  It's stem length is not right.  Those leaves should be almost touching the dirt.  It's fight for survival has caused it to grow super long to reach the sun's rays.  The Parsley is fighting too, but the basil is more interesting for some reason.

While the Living Room Garden faces South, the light is limited since it sits on the table several feet away and I dare not open the blinds all the way.  My only neighbor has his window RIGHT across from ours.  Great planning and he leaves his window wide open all day, all night.  Next Spring, I will try to figure a contraption that will have the plants sit on the window sill with some sort of privacy shade to keep the peeping eyes out if they try to look in while the plants get all their beloved sunshine.

2012 - The Living Room Garden - Friends

The Garden Grows and Grows.  New critters have arrived.  A lady bug climbs up the parsley pot and peaks at the newly arrived first leaves, while the green frog stands guard.

A curious snail admires the new growth on the cilantro.

The basil begins it's new leaves as the dill struggles to stand up and uses the basil for support.

The snail hides in the shadow of the pots to keep safe from the intense rays from the lamp.

2012 - The Living Room Garden - All Sprouted Out

Twelve days later and the Parsley emerged.  They popped out in half the time the package suggested!  I think the light and the bottle created the perfect growing environment.

Left: Parsley.  Top: Cilantro.  Right: Basil.  Front: Dill.  I thinned out the Dill since it is supposed to be a bigger plant.  The rest will need to be thinned out later.

2012 - The Living Room Garden - More Sprouts

And on the seventh day, the dill and cilantro arrived as promised!


Amazing!



The dill shown here on the left is already an inch tall for just sprouting.

While the cilantro is still emerging, it is all so neat to watch these guys go!

2012 - The Living Room Garden - Basil Sprouts

  


We have BASIL!!!  Five days after sowing the seeds on Monday, the seeds sprouted on Saturday.  I can't believe it!  


The house is fairly cool.  We keep the thermostat at 67 to keep the cost down.  Fortunately we have been lucky with mild temperatures this winter with a few bursts of blustery cold temps.














 
That being said, the greenhouse effect was not occurring with just the sunlight hitting it during the day and I don't believe the soil I purchased is the best at retaining water either.  


In came a clamp light that I found to help heat the bottles up and create some humidity in there to boost the environment for promoting growth.


All-in-all, I was super excited to see the little guys growing!  


Now I anxiously await the next two, cilantro and dill, to sprout on day 7.  The parsley should break ground on day 21.

2012 The Living Room Garden

I'm taking a break from all the historical mumbo-jumbo stuff about when Evan and I moved with a little mid-winter gardening.

I found four small terracotta pots that were hiding in the garage that sparked an idea for putting some seeds in. I believe they were in a kit to grow herbs. Bingo! I wanted some fresh herbs for our winter meals. So, off to Lowe's we went to get some dirt and seeds to fill my pots!

I picked up Dill, Basil, Cilantro, and Parsley.

Next, I found a pretty dish to house our four pots to sit in. I picked out a round flat one my mom purchased at her local Asian store for my birthday last year. This dish makes it easy if I ever wanted to take them outside or move them easily off the dining room table where it will sit for the majority of time in the southern exposure. The dish was a little too skinny at the base for the four pots to sit in evenly. Fortunately, I had a vase of flat cat eye marbles not in use and spread a layer out to lift up the pots. It worked out nicely.

Once I filled the pots with the new moist dirt and sowed my seeds, I figured a bottom of a used water bottle would create a nice greenhouse effect for the germinating seeds. Can you say, 'Re-Use it!"? Yes! I cut the top off and pushed the bottle in slightly to secure the bottle. Using the extra remaining flat marbles, I set them around the pots on the outside of the bottle to give it that extra hold and decorative center piece, finished look.

Lastly, I used some metal chopsticks I picked up at our local Korean store that can easily be washed and reused for food use later. I will make some better marker signs later. Maybe. It depends. In the meantime, masking tape works just fine. I marked each seed variety and when the germinating seeds should emerge on each chop stick and marked my calendar.

Now, I sit and wait to see if my little idea will grow. It is early for starting seeds for the garden, but with the weather outside lately, I feel like we should have leaves on the trees already. Temperatures in the 50s and 60s have been the norm lately this past December and January. I wish I had started a cold weather garden in the fall to have lettuce and other hardy winter garden plants going. They would have done amazingly this winter. My mom's lettuce from her garden was so tasty and fresh for a December sandwich. I loved the peppery crisp to it and long for more, hoping that I will have that this year in my backyard garden.