Sunday, April 4, 2010

Early April Update

Sorry for the delay, out-of-town visitors took priority over blogging there for a few weeks.

What I've learned so far:
One packet of tomato seeds will produce enough plants for you, your grandmother, your friends, random strangers, and leave enough plants left over to nicely supplement your compost pile. 

Young carrot plants are often mistaken for parsley by visiting family and friends.  

 
Carrot seed packs come with way more seeds than you can dream of planting if you only have planters and a ~100 sq ft deck.
There is no need to plant more than one carrot seed per hole.  They will all grow.
Weeding out carrots because there are too many planted in one spot is bad for this gardener's morale.

Garlic planted from an old garlic clove will grow.  A pepper seed pod from from a store bought pepper may not grow (I'm on attempt #2 at the moment).
You can kill thyme by either planting too much of it in a small pot, or by over watering it (the jury is still out deciding the exact verdict)

 Transplanting tomatoes can be hazardous to their health.

 Yesterday, I bought 200 Red Wiggler worms, and put the in my compost bin.  I'm still really feeling my way around this compost thing.  As you can see, our cat, Ophelia, is quite eager to help...

  Here's the whole gang!  (plus Ophelia, of course)  Sorry, its a bit hard to see everything.  Roughly speaking, from top to bottom, we have tomatoes, garlic, thyme, basil, hopefully pepper, onions, carrots, and our philodendron plant.  I just clipped off the tip of one the philodendron vines, and placed it in a mug of water.  I'm hoping to propagate some new growth and spread the plant around the apartment.

And, finally, this is the latest addition to our deck!  A lovely bistro set from my parents-in-law, which we got as an early 1st anniversary gift!  As with our other possessions, Ophelia is very adept to helping herself to its use.  Between the new bistro set, and having all the planters outside (once it warms up just a bit more), I believe I'll be spending a large amount of my free time out on the deck.  Such a lovely thought.


This is where things stand at the moment.  Now that our weather is getting more spring-like, I'll be moving the planters outside soon.  I'm hoping to get a few more things planted as well, I'll update as that happens.

Til next time, The second-story gardener

5 comments:

  1. You can also kill thyme by playing tennis. Har, har!

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  2. Looks like most of your garden is growing quite well, Philip, the compost should prosper with the addition of the wrigglers, and the bistro set looks very inviting. I look forward to further updates~

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  3. Wow, this is looking great! I can't wait to see it! I should start posting pics of our garden progress, too. We planted some lentils (from the store), and they sprouted, so we'll see how they do! Isn't it fun to start seeds from store-bought produce? FYI, some things like garlic and potatoes may not sprout because they've been sprayed with an anti-growth chemical. Bah. And peppers, I believe, need a lot of heat to germinate (75-80 degrees or thereabouts?), so that may be why they haven't popped up yet. I'm jealous of your tomatoes--they're huge!

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  4. By the way, I was starting to look through Andrea's storage cupboard in the bedroom of her childhood and came across, of all things, a pocket guide to container gardening. I do believe that I shall have to ship it your way in the very near future...

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