Accepting the world

Try as I might, I think I have finally lost the battle for the cilantro plants. They have flowered pretty heavily, and I am going to let them go to seed and then harvest the coriander.

Flowering cilantro

It was time to start growing some replacement plants. That means more pots that I start over again. Yesterday that was our only goal.

Back to filling pots

This time, I wanted to make sure to try restarting the pak choi. Something is loving it int he bed and the seedlings are having a hard time, so I will restart it and hopefully move it. We are also trying a new kind of cilantro from Seeds for Change. Hopefully we can actually get the saved seeds to work next year.

Seeds ready to go in the dirt

In the end, we planted 2 of each type of cilantro and 2 pak choi. Now to wait for it to grow so we can see how different the two forms of cilantro are.

Now to wait.

Starting over

The green onions have looked better, in fact, I think they have died off. They were potted from sets and we just harvested them too much. I never realized how much we would eat something like this when it was just sitting there and we needed onion for eggs, or anything that matter.

Looking pretty sad

However, our nursery still had a few onion sets in stock. Pooka and I picked up a few to start fresh with. I admit it is nice to walk out of the nursery with a total of less then $0.50.

Onion sets

We grabbed this planter that had spinach in it. We had harvested a bit too much and it bolted, so it was free to be reused. We planted the new sets in it and are awaiting more green onions.

Reusing a ready to go pot

Meanwhile  the bok choi had not only flowered but also formed seeds. They were past rescuing sadly.

 

It is done.

I had mentioned this to Daddy, but I hadn't had a chance to deal with it yet. Daddy swooped in one night while I was at work, and cleared them out for me. I added a few of our Pak Choi seeds back to the bed and am hoping the rains we have been having will help us get some more Bok Choy. It seems the kids and Daddy really love having it mixed into things.

 

Reseeded and ready to go

 

Flowers

In some cases, we are just starting to get flowers, like the mystery squash, the pepper plants and this eggplant.

eggplant flower buds

 

 In other places, we have too many flowers. Some spinach has bolted. the cilantro and I are arguing on if it can go to seed, and well, I think I may of lost the bok choy. Apparently they don't like being transplanted. Good to know, I am thinking of ripping them out and replanting some new seeds there.

Flowering bok choy

Here is to hoping for good flowers and not bad ones.

Finally something in the ground

Even with all the insanity of late, we have finally started to get plants in the ground.

First was the tomatoes that were getting too big for their pots. Those went in last week before we even had the beds finished.


Tomatoes

On Monday before we had to leave to deal with family matters, a pot of broccoli fell and the terra cotta pot broke. I grabbed the plant up and got him into the ground.  Not the way you want to plant, but it worked well enough.

Broccoli

But Wednesday Pooka and I finally got a chance to get some real planting done. The weather was nice, the lows were going to be in the 50s, we decided to take a chance. First we started by gathering all the sunflowers in the front yard. It didn't seem like that many when I counted them

Sunflowers all gathered up

Then I had Pooka put the pots where the plants were going to go. There is no rhyme or reason, this was how Pooka wanted to plant them. I did go out and write down on a piece of paper which variety was which so we would know.

Ready for a new home

Next came lots and lots of planting. I don't have pictures since I was getting a tad dirty and moving the rocks to plant was a bit of pain. I will say the rocks have helped with the weeds in this bed. But I am going to be watching it to make sure they stay that way. Once they were all in the ground, this is what they looked like.

Welcome to your new homes Sunflowers

Sadly, the sunflowers due to rocks and weeds took a bit longer then I had expected and we had to leave to do some other things. However, after we were home with Kiddo and Daddy started to make dinner, Pooka and I got the Pak Choi in the ground. They were a tad wilted that day due to the heat, but their new home is in bit shader place which should help. They perked right up after we watered them.

Pak Choi (Bok Choy) that can grow 4 in a square foot

Hopefully this means over the next few days Pooka and I can really get to work getting things in the ground. I know Daddy would like to be able to walk on the deck again, let alone sit down in a chair. Lets all hope the rain holds off until its too late in the evening to do much for the next few days.

OUTSIDE... Finally

Yesterday I spent a good chunk of time taking most of the plants outside. It is finally warm enough that I plan to let them stay outside for a few days.  It was nice to know they finally had enough sun.

Amaryllis went out front.

I put the amaryllis Pooka got over the holiday on the front porch. They are looking rather sad after I think a cat started chewing on a few leaves. I am trying to figure out what to do with the darn things. Can I cut them off now and then have them rebloom later this summer? Any ideas from people who have done this before?

Picture one

Getting all the plants on the back deck in one picture was not going to happen if we still wanted access to the yard and the grill. Instead, I have 3 pictures. Here is the blueberries, strawberries, lilac, potatoes and veggies is all I am going with in the little pots.

Picture 2

Here you can see the last of the plants on the deck itself. The spinach and lettuce is in the back right corner. I finally moved them out of the garage yesterday and some have already taken root. Hopefully I will be cutting myself a salad in no time. The some of the tomatoes are on the strawberry tables. I forgot to bring these in last night, but they seemed okay at first glance.

Picture 3

Here is the plants on the table. I didn't have much rhyme or reason to where things went. I just kinda shoved things places, but I wanted to make sure the roasters of "seedlings" were up a bit higher to keep them safer from the dog. Now not everything looked very healthy and in some cases it was just pots of dirt, but I am hoping to pull out the seeds today and restart some of them. Fortunatly for me they are easy to restart plants like broccoli, pak choi, lettuce, beans and herbs.  Hopefully all of these being outside will help with the gnat issue that killed so many plants this year.

 

Tomates, egg flowers, scallions and mystery

I left some of the more tender plants inside. The egg flowers don't look like they are doing so well since I kinda forgot to water them for a bit. The scallions were growing great, and we actually trimmed them for dinner. We put the cut ends back into the water to see if they regrow. I forgot to get pictures since I was more then a tad melted when Daddy asked to cut them. The tomatoes I am hoping to transplant some of them this weekend. I know they were a bit dry yesterday and I was afraid to put them out when they do not have a whole lot of dirt to hold water.

Surprise peppers

These peppers are still in the front room. I know they are having an issue with mold. Something this kind of tray seems prone to, and no, I do not plan on reusing this kind next year. I am going to keep these guys and hopefully replant them as well soon so I can strengthen them to get them outside. Maybe spring will start staying. However, I haven't taken the tables down, I think that would be testing fate.

Hello Peas and friends

Now that all the seeds were started, I realized that the pea plants were going to need more then a pellet fairly soon.  If you remember, it was already 8" tall in 6 days. Well by the time we transplanted it, it was closer to 10" tall.



8" tall in a few days

Well, I knew the pea plant wasn't going to last in that pellet much longer, especially since it was more then likely going to fall over and not get back up. So Pooka and I got some potting soil and decided to plant.












Clearance pots are good


 Earlier in the week we had been out and found these brown pots at Meijers for $1 each. I knew I would need some this size for that akward stage when the plant is bigger then a seedling, but not quite ready for the garden (especially if the winter continues to linger). Now it is true that I have pots very very similar to these in the shed, but remember, the shed is still snowed in currently.



 

Add a coffee filter


Add our signature coffe filter to the bottom of the pot. I am not 100% sure it works, but it has seemed to do really well for us, I don't have many problems of losing dirt, and I know they decompose into the soil, making a bit more compost with a reason.

A bit of potting soil.

Add a bit of dirt to keep them fed....

The bigger pea plant

Finally, we added the pea plants in 2 pots,                            

2 bok choy plants

The bok choy in 2 pots. They look a tad worse for the wear, but I did just water them with the spray bottle.

Lettuce anyone

and the 2 grow um's lettuce into pots. Now I do admit the lettuce and bok choy (once we had started to transplant them, turned out to not be as ready as we thought. However, they are still alive, so I am counting it as something.





The 2 pea plants also got a nice bamboo stick to crawl up. And how is the larger of the pea plants doing, well look for yourself. Here it is, over 12" tall and reaching for the stars. I think I need to get a meter stick.









Sunflowers awaiting their turn

 

What is next you ask... Well I think next the sunflowers will need a similar treatment as the pea plants. I think Green Thumb has returned from her vacation is is ready to be back at work.  But more about the sunflowers in another post.










Talk about confusing

Like many people, we have been hit with late winter storms. In fact, if you look out the back door right now, you will see well at least 4+ inches of snow. That doesn't count the ice that came before it.

Rosemary, Lavender, Audrey's empty pot

Basically, our dog loves it, Pooka went out and played in it this morning for a few minutes before deciding it was cold.  I am okay with it, (but I desperatly need a snow day), but it reminds us that winter is not yet over. Although one would think heading into March we would be past most of it. The rosemary in that small red pot is pretty much dead, the lavender in the green pot may come back and the stuff in the tan pot was the dirt from Audrey, so I have nothing to worry about in it.

On the flip side you walk into the house, and you see spring everywhere. Pooka's Grow um seeds are very busy sprouting left and right. Daily I go through and turn them 90 degrees since they are reaching for the sun outside.  Here you see the lettuce, bok choy, Peas, broccolli, cilantro all fairly well established. The basil is just starting to really grow.

Half the grow ums.

At the other end of the table you will see the rest of the Grow ums.  The oregano has tiny tiny sprouts. I didn't see them but Pooka did since she takes her magnifying glass to them daily to watch for changes. This is her favorite part, she loves planting the seeds on top so she can watch the roots come out and go into the dirt. I also placed the clearanced herbs here so they are all in the same spot.

Rest of the grow ums and clearanced herbs

We have been very busy around here. We also got most of our veggies seeds started. I was worrying that the peppers would take too long to germinate, so I wanted them done early. Pooka and I did it very rushed on a Saturday night in those 16 cell starters. Those are an interesting contraption and I will get a post up on them later.

Seeds seeds at least they are started.

Then I realized I was well into the window to start tomatoes. Except I didn't realize till after I started to hydrate the pellets, did I realized I grabbed the 72 cell starter instead of the tomato starter, so Pooka and I just went with it and spent an entire afternoon on Monday starting the tomatoes, sunflowers, and well everything else. Now we wait. I still need to start the snapdragons, and most of our herbs, but those will go into peat pots probably this weekend. Right now, Pooka is having plenty of fun watching her plants change and grow, and I am running out of places to put seeds. Plus, I think if I have to use a third card table, Daddy may have something to say about it.

Grow ums

I have other posts I mean to put up today, but this afternoon, I went over to let the dog out (the seeds we have started are next to the back door) and low and behold, we found a surprise...

Lettuce sprouts

The lettuce and the bok choy from Pooka's Grow um's kit were growing.

Bok Choy sprouts

What are Grow um's you ask. Well, they are a little like combining gardening with the interwebz.  They give the kids and animated character of each plant, so the children can see what the food will look like once its grown. The kits Pooka got for her birthday did not come with a pan to hold the seeds. The directions said to use a pie pan, but we are using muffin tins since I didn't view the videos before I picked up the supplies. Plus, I could make the arguement that this way they are less likely to be mixed up.

Pooka recieved the Taco garden, the Herb garden, the Stir fry garden and the Ratattouille garden

They come in these little kits that contains 4 types of seeds, 8 dirt pellets, and the tags (although our herb set was missing the tags) and you plant them. However, to get the directions on how to do this, you have to go online and it has animated videos with the vegetables talking to the kids about how to care for them.

The contents of one grow ums kit

Pooka loves watching the videos and while she knows what they are doing, it is important to her to keep up on the directions. (In fact, she just came back and told me none of our seeds had any water at the bottom like Tomas Tomato said they needed).  The directions are fairly good, although I did have to go through a BUNCH of different areas (luckily they let you look ahead if you so desire) to find out what kind of spacing each plant needs, how much sunlight and other information you would normally find on a seed packet. They were very easy to plant (well as easy as most seeds are) although when doing 4 kits with 8 seed pellets per, it took a bit of time. Pooka had a very late night that day.

The first set done, we ended up with 6 muffin pans

I will say as of right now, they are giving Pooka a ton of fun. She is enjoying them and has already taken her magnifying glass to the new sprouts to see them up close. I suggested her microscope, and she was afraid she might damage the sprouts, so we decided to wait until later.  

Science anyone?

Hopefully the rest of these do well. I know Daddy is all excited since one of the gardens comes with Bok choy, something I didn't know he liked, and he is hoping to make stir fry out of it. If not, well even the grow ums say sometimes seeds don't start and to try again.