A Week After The Move

So it's been a long week. Moved Monday and been busy all week unpacking and getting ready for the housewarming party. We had a few friends over for the afternoon. 

Mmmmmm... Gluten-free Snacks!

Tonight I've come back to the old place to share pizza and super hero shows.  First thing I did when I got here was the weed the garden of course. :)

There's lots of the little keys sprouting around the edges but guess what! There's also plenty of stuff I actually plantedc growing too. 

Yay!

Winter Indoor Plant Update

Since winter is officially here as the calender and first snow of the season insist I figured an update on the indoor plants was appropriate. The aloe has recovered well away from the direct light and is enjoying it's time on the stereo. Last weekend I gave it's baby/shoot to a friend. She's named it Medusa and says it's doing well.

The window plants have various levels of success. The lavender seems to be doing fine in it's peanut butter jar. I wrapped a tea towel around the jar holding the paperwhites because the water was going green and I was worried the extra light and heat was slowing root growth. Seems my instincts there were solid because shortly after wrapping it the roots went all over in the jar and the tops started growing. Just two days ago the flowers started blooming. They smell very strongly and similarly to wisteria.

Winter arrived on schedule.

Pretty little white flowers.

The chives in the tower seemed to be getting too much light beside the mirror and some shriveled up. Ironically, to get them away from the strong light I turned them to the window. The rest of the plants seem to be hovering in sprout stage and neither growing nor wilting. I'm not really sure what to do with that.

How are your plants doing?

Updates on Indoor Plants.

The sprouts seem to be paused as they grow roots.

Lavender's doing well. The bulb is working on roots.

I wrapped the jar because it was starting to go green.

The aloe had to be moved out of the window.

It seems to be getting sunburned on a few tips.

Let There Be (more) Light!

Put a mirror behind the planter to help the lil sprouts grow strong.

Oregano

Chamomile

Callendula (Pot Marigold)

Chives

Sage

As you can see, most of the sprouts are starting on their first set of true leaves. The chives don't grow like most and the sage is a slow starter. I'm hoping to have everything well established before I have to start the seeds for the garden.

Sharing and Caring

These lovely plants are ready to go to work with me tomorrow.
I had a few too many so I'm giving them to my boss for her garden.

Bell pepper, cucumber, and cherry tomato.

And now that I've finally found a supplier of slips... the last ditch effort that hadn't been thrown out yet,
started sprouting. I suppose we'll have to find a home for it now. :)

Two big ones here and a smaller one just started on the other side.

Speaking of homes, we still haven't found the owner of this new stray in the neighbourhood. If you are in London Ontario and missing a (mostly) black cat, please let me know.

I didn't actually make it out back today before the sun went down but John watered earlier today so it'll hold til tomorrow. Our water barrel is helping greatly but it only has 1/2 usable capacity right now due to being flat on the ground. John's planning on building a platform so we can use that other 25 gallons between rains.

Patchwork Garden

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3

5

7

2

4

6

8

Okay I admit this looks a bit off, but hear me out.

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John took all these pretty pictures today and I just had to use them to show you how the garden's growing.

Anxious

• I'm awaiting word on sweetpotato slips from a seller since I can't seem to sprout my own
• I'm waiting for my mom to call so I know when I see her tomorrow(she lives 1 1/2 hrs away)
• I'm waiting for all the little green things in the garden to get big enough to ID as food or weed
• I'm waiting for someone to claim the stray cat that showed up in our neighbourhood last week
• I'm waiting for the salad greens to mature and start to look like leaves not sprouts.
• I'm waiting for various job posters to call me about my resume
• I'm waiting for the day's to get longer and warmer so I can get more into the garden

Tomato Plants Smell Good

Seriously.. I have no clue what they smell like but it's a good smell.

Peppers and tomatoes living in harmony.

Warm & Wet

There was a thunderstorm last night. Filled the rain barrel with overflow so everything should start sprouting if this weekend is as warm as they say.

Kinda cloudy and drizly today.

Behind the Broccoli, the peas are doing well.

The trellis mesh will have to go on the bars this weekend so the peas have something to climb.

I am hoping this is kale. Won't know for sure til it's bigger.

These are parsnips or carrots.

These are the baby salad greens,

and these are the chives, finally sprouted.

What's started in your garden?

Getting into the Swing of Spring

I got plenty of weeds pulled this weekend and a bunch more seeds started. (see calendar for details)

Tree sprouts from a neighbor's box elder.

Don't know what these are but I didn't plant them.

Procrastination and Progress

As  you can see from the Garden Planner page... I'm tending to drift. :)

The day's I've been planting the seeds were supposed to be exactly a week apart (every Tuesday) I just got this Tuesday's batch planted today (Friday). I think I'm going to start planting the Sunday before because I'm just to lazy after work.

Even though I've been a bit lax in my discipline, the sprouts seem to be doing mostly well.

The first Seedling pack is doing very well. (Broccoli, cabbage and cauliflower)

I've even up-potted some broccoli that were getting too big for those little slots.

In this pack left & center column parsley, right column top to bottom: lavender, echinacea, lavender. I think the top left and bottom right seeds rotted instead of sprouting. :(

And last but not least, This pack has a cabbage sprout and the four seeds from today.

Last weekend, John and I got the wood from the tree cutting out of the garden and all the small stuff cut to bundle length. We forgot to get twine so it's been sitting on the patio all week waiting to get bundled up.(Planning to get that done tomorrow)

From this...

To this!

The beds have been roughly marked out by the carpet paths we lay down last weekend. Each bed will get turned over, sifted and mixed with manure etc this weekend.

Since the ground never really had a chance to freeze deep this winter, the soil's been loose and dig-able every time the temps go up to 10°C so the high of 15° on Sunday should be perfect.

Updates from December / January

• Started a paper route with the intention of earning extra money during this slow period at work.
• The compost pile actually got warm enough one day to melt the snow off it(kinda impressive for something that size). We're working on building it properly so when spring comes there will be a good pile ready for the worms and microbes to do their stuff.
• I got to visit with my mom & lil sis for a week and get mom's opinion on what to plant in the canning bed(since she's getting half). Turns out peas don't can well so there was some rearranging done.
• The sprouts in the containers are gone They didn't wilt or wither away... they just disappeared. I'm blaming the cats.
• The big tree branch that was blocking a lot of sun and tugging on the phone lines has been professionally removed. We now have a whole lot of wood for summer fires that needs to be cleared off the garden before any amendments or planting can be done.
• I quit the paper route because it was way too much work for the money offered.
• The seeds were bought with one minor change. We hadn't actually tried Swiss chard yet so we swapped it out for jalapeno peppers with the agreement that we'd get some chard soon and if it was liked, order the seeds later.
• We're changing our eating habits to focus more on real food like meat, veg, and homemade baking instead of prepackaged convenience "food"s

Is it just me, or is this taking forever?

Tub A - Lettuce & Green Onion

Tub B - Lettuce, Radishes & Carrots

Tub C - Lettuce and Carrots

Mint. If you look REALLY close you can see tiny sprouts.

Leek. Growing new roots and more leaf.

Maybe it's just me but I kinda figured the sprouts would have stopped looking like sprouts and started looking like plants by now.

About the new addition, I was chopping some leeks to put in an omelet and I left a nice big chunk with the root end to see if I could sprout some new roots. Since the mint didn't seem to be sprouting I figured I'd just plant it in that tub... well now the mint's showing activity and I don't want to disturb it so... I need to find another tub I guess. :)