Verdict on Growing Celery and Garlic

A verdict has been reached on two of the bigger experiments.

Experiment 1: Growing Celery from root end of store bought.

Pooka's picture of Celery 1 month in

While this did work, I think I may of killed it when I moved the cherry tomatoes back to give it more sun light. It was doing fine until then. There does seem to be some new growth on it as well, so I left it in there for now. I think next time I may need to A) research it first and see what it prefers B) Pot it a bit nicer instead of just kinda pushing it into the dirt and going "lets see what happens"

Garlic sprouts and loss of a plant

   Experiment 2: Growing Garlic from cloves that sprouted in the fridge.

Again, this worked really well. So far the garlic has been in the ground for 17 days. Its grown quite well in that time, and I am amazed a bit with how well. I don't know if I will get full bulbs of Garlic from it due to how late I planted it, but at least we can have Garlic scallions. Garlic will be planted in the ground come fall just to see what we get for the spring.

One last note. Some of you may remember the pepper plant that could. This is the one that fought so hard after being squished by Daddy and eaten by bugs. He lived next to these two garlic plants. I have seen no sign of him for a few days. So I think its safe to say we have lost that battle. RIP little sweet pepper plant. You gave it a good run

One of those moments

Today I had one of those moments I hope to remember forever.

We had company overnight, so Pooka and I went out to do our morning harvest later then we normally do. Pooka walked outside before I did and gasped "Mommy look." She had 3 little white butterflies in her broccoli.

 Now, up until now, we have only really seen wasps pollinating our garden. They aren't getting territorial or aggressive, so the wasps and I kinda agreed to leave each other to their jobs in peace.

So imagine my surprise as we saw 3 butterflies playing in her broccoli and the pablano peppers. Pooka just stood there as I raced for the camera to get a picture. Sadly butterflies don't pose well, but they made Pooka very happy. As we continued our walk, we found 2 more in her tomato plants. Again, they flew off before I could get a picture.

Now, while butterflies are nice, the part I want to remember is Pooka slowly walking up to her broccoli and holding out a finger. She told me she was going to stand super still so the butterfly would land on her finger. She stood there and stood there, quieter and stiller than I have ever seen her. She moved just an inch and it flew away. She would of stood there all day if we didn't have other things to do, but I loved that little look of wonder on her face.

Maybe next year we will raise butterflies to release into her garden. Talk about a great way to teach about ecosystems while doing her science experiments.

Pickles

This morning Pooka, Daddy and I made refrigerator pickles. Daddy did the slicing while Pooka and I made the brine. Pooka helped me put the herbs in the jars and pour the cooled brine. They will be ready in 7 days, but Pooka was just excited to be canning and using the stuff from her garden. She told me yet again today how much she loves her garden.

Pooka's picture of her pickles

We had run out of "store bought" pickles and I knew later this summer I will have cucumbers coming out of my ears, but I didn't want to buy another set of pickles when I can make them cheaper and the interwebs have recipes for free. Sadly, we didn't have enough cucumbers yet (so a quick trip to the store was involved), but we did use her new dill plant. And we made the refrigerator ones so we could eat them sooner. 


So now to wait 7 days and see if they taste like anything. Wish us luck. 

The paradox of me and gardening

I have finally hit that point. I am tired of the garden. I am tired of the waiting and the hoping and the "Did I water it? Did I not? What did I do wrong? When will I get something from the darn thing." This is when I get fed up and go "You know what, I am tired of waiting. Give me some instant gratification, now." while picturing beating the plants one by one.

Oh come on, tell me you have never visualize beating on the plants before.... Oh, you haven't... Forget I said that okay?

This is the reason I get fed up, that I get tired and stop caring for it. The waiting and the work for no real reward. Now Pooka, she still adores it (partially by having Mommy do all the boring work). She's out there having fun, picking a few strawberries, being amazed that her tomato plants are bigger than she is. Most of the strawberries are being eaten by Pooka, her brother and E (Pooka's friend).

I know what your saying, We have gotten a few cucumbers already, and strawberries, and like 3 green beans. So you have gotten something. And it is still early. Things don't appear over night. But right now, I want those nice big tomatoes I have been waiting for, I am still searching for the beginnings of a pepper on the pepper plants.

Do I think I did something wrong? Nope. Am I tired of waiting? OF COURSE. And I know the wait will be worth it, but this is the point where I get frustrated.

However, today I found a way past this. This afternoon, I decided to go get some lettuce for my lunch at work. I walked out there with a trusty pair of scissors, a bowl and  Pooka. We harvested the tops of some of the lettuce. (It shouldn't kill it). It's still young and while it wasn't enough for an entire salad, it was SOMETHING, (besides the strawberries the girls ate). I know by the time fall comes, I will be making ENTIRE salads out of the garden, but today, I was ready to eat something we grew. And today I will be.

Containing the madness

Well, yesterday I did it. I contained the tomato madness. It's not pretty, it is definitely function over form, but it seems to be holding back the madness of the tomatoes and it actually looks alot less like a passing child might be eaten by it.

During lunch yesterday, I went out in the back yard with a few more poles. They are just cheap plant stakes (The plastic coated ones) and some zip ties. Daddy had done some work previously with the same poles and string, but since he has that whole Eagle Scout knowledge base, he knew what he was doing. I was doing what I seem to be doing with all this gardening stuff. Throwing stuff at the wall and seeing what sticks.


Anyway, we made one really big cage for the tomatoes and cherry tomatoes. The poles overlap and are either tied or zip tied (hey, they were reuseable zip ties, so it was green) to the verticle poles. It is holding pretty well and it has some supports either by triangles or just plain rope to keep it from falling outward by holding it to the trellis.  

The end was too long for one of the stakes without cutting it (And since my time frame for this was while the kids were eating lunch, I didn't have time to cut much). So instead I strung the Kite string I found between the trellis under the deck and the steaks. Again, not pretty, but its allowing the celery some sunlight. Something it hasn't had much of since the cherry tomatoes over-ran his area. 




Talking of the celery here is a current picture. It has grown some, but not as big an explosion as say the tomatoes. I think alot of that is that he is being overshadowed by said tomatoes. That and I need to check if he's a cool weather plant. (Anyone want to save me a trip to Google and know the answer to that one?) 

2 more additions

So after going to the store to buy a tiny package of rosemary to make a pest repellent, I remembered why I hate buying herbs at the store. For what I paid for that overpriced little pouch, I could of gotten at least seeds, if not the plant.

Fast forward to this morning and my decision that IF this works, and even if it didn't, I refused to buy more rosemary at the store. So I packed up the kids and off to Lowe's we went. We needed stakes for the tomatoes and a few other odds and ends, but a cute little Purple Basil jumped out at us and into the cart. It didn't help that one of Pooka's favorite colors is purple and that she really wanted to try a new food. (The trying new foods I really don't want to discourage since she will try ANYTHING).

Can you guess which is the basil? 

Now we have Rosemary and a second Basil plant. I am wondering how much the flavor is different in the purple. I suppose I should be more like a Pooka and just try it.

Tomorrow I will try to get the pictures up of my afternoon's work. Custom made tomato containment that is functional if not pretty and news on how the tomatoes are fairing.

One day I will learn....

...that after about Father's day to stop letting Pooka go look at plants at Lowe's, or a nursery, or well anywhere. Especially after she makes a decent argument about how we need something. In this case, it was Dill. She wanted dill so we could make dill pickles. Oh and then I remembered I use dill in my garlic herb bread, and then I thought about the other places we use dill, and while Daddy looked at us funny and brother complained that he just wanted to go home (in brother's defense, he had just finished a baseball game, on the tail end of a super busy weekend where bedtime never happened).  We went to Lowe's, and bought a register vent, some blue tape for the kids to make spider webs with and a dill plant, and a container for the dill plant (since I am kinda running out of pots).  So welcome to the party Mr. Dill. We hope you like your new home between Ms. Oregano and the Cilantro clan. Oh and don't mind Ms. Flossweed, shes a quiet one.

In other news, we realized that my supposed chives pot doesn't have chives in it. We don't know what it is, however, 3 sad little chive seedlings have popped out to say Hi. Now we need to decide what we should do with them. Do I try and weed the other seedlings out of that pot, do I just say forget it and go buy chives (and risk another nursery run), or do I just let science take it's course and wonder? It will probably be let science take its course and pull the non chive things as they get bigger.

The one thing I realized today, no yesterday, it was one of those days that ends in y, I need to get out there to weed and stake up the cherry tomatoes and put another set or 2 of supports on the big tomatoes. Maybe I will get that done today, or maybe tomorrow. First I need to see how many stakes I have left to build with. That may be the limiting factor.  Well, besides the fact that they are too big and a bit too close for traditional cages. which means more experiments for all of us in engineering. (And Pooka has said before "I'm smart, I'm an engineer." Granted she turned a shoe string, a door knob and a trash can into a ballista, but that's another story and topic entirely).