Lemons and more lemons

On quick glance at the lemon tree shows some signs of life. Enough signs in fact that I am hoping soon I can take the lemon tree outside during the day. I do worry the tree itself is not doing its best in here, but if it can hold on a few more weeks, we may just get it to perk back up outside.

Cave the Lemon tree looking a bit beat up after winter

The other day I noticed some small lemons on the lemon tree, well those lemons have gotten bigger and bigger. They have grown quickly and seem to be doing quite well. Even if I feel as if I am deflowering that tree almost daily.

I see lemons

I am hoping with a bit of luck, these lemons will grow larger and turn yellow before it takes 6 months. If not, well, I will be happy with whatever we get and maybe I will finally get around to re potting the lime tree. Maybe. 

Pooka's lemon tree sits on her desk next to her art supplies.

Dino Plant

A while back, I took Pooka and Brother to Toys R Us to get some toys with christmas money. Well, low and behold, Pooka found a plant in there. That girl can sniff out a plant at 200 yards. The weirder thing was it was NOT in the clearance rack I took her to. 

The Dino plant.

Needless to say, Pooka finally asked to open that box a few days ago. Its a really interesting set up and it had a nice little blurb on the back about the plant and how it survives and that it can handle Mom forgetting to water it (They know me so well). It even talked about it use to grow GIANT size for the dinos, but after the ice age, it tended to be smaller. 

Story on the back for Pooka

 Pooka opened her box with a few more directions, this is what she found, two bags and a bowl. I will  be honest when I say I had to tell Pooka to back off for a moment so I could get a picture.

Contents of the box

 The rocks form a circle in the middle of the bowl for the plant to rest on. Pooka was very interested when the directions said these were volcanic rocks, so I explained how that meant they were rocks out of a volcano.

A circle by Pooka

 Then you add the plant which is this weird little root ball and some water and wait. Now, I will say the directions did not say how much water, so we kinda guessed.

Now we wait

 I think I spent an hour trying to keep Pooka from checking it every 30 seconds. I finally convinced her that in 3 hours like the box said, it would look great, and it did. Even if that 3 hours was really the next morning. Pooka loves it and is reminding me to water it. Then we will let it dry out eventually and it will shrivel back up. Once that happens, we will give it some time before doing it again. I am sure this will be on of Pooka's favorite winter plants.

A full dino plant. 

Good to know

Well, I think I killed the amaryllis from last year. At the end of last summer I cut them back like I had seen done on the internet. We placed them in the garage to get cold and go dormant.

The amaryllis when I brought them in the house. 

We brought them in a month or more ago. We watered them and set them in a warm sunny spot. Hoping that maybe we would get some color out of them. We waited, and waited and waited and I am finally calling it. We have not seen a bit of change in any of them. Pooka is more then a bit upset, but I knew it was maybe 50-50 if this would work. Well, at least we tried. Next year, we will just have to make sure Pooka gets a new one to replace these.

The amaryllis now. 

A Garden birthday

Pooka asked for another garden party this year, and while we did make it a more hippie tye dye party, it still had to have a garden in it somewhere. Below is a few things Pooka got to help her with the garden this year. I did get quite a few questions on what to get a Pooka, and I told them money to a garden center or garden stuff. Pooka did walk away with 2 gift cards to the local home center, that I am sure she will put to use in her new bed if she doesn't decide to use them for a new berry bush.

Pooka's birthday gifts

Pooka received this book from Daddy and I called the little gardener's guide. She has since read it multiple times and enjoys flipping through it. Next to it are 2 little "mod pots" that connect together and are seed starters for a tomato plant and a cucumber plant. Anyone shocked to see more seeds in a Pooka's birthday haul?

DINO PLANT

For her birthday, Pooka was also given money to Toys R Us. Leave it to my little scientist gardener to find the one plant in the entire store, especially one that is science related. I am sure this will be pulled out any day to be re-animated and when we do it, I promise to take pictures for all of you.

Snow Day and Flowers

Today we woke up to a 4:45 AM phone call from the school saying yet again it was too cold and nasty to send the kids to school. No problem, I could use a snow day. And Pooka and Brother were happy with it too. Granted it is too cold to play outside, but kids always find something to do. I think Pooka is planning to make plans for the garden.

Signs of life when it is just too cold.

In all the cold and the snow, Pooka was so happy to see a small sign of spring. Her paperwhite bulbs had finally flowered and the front room smelled wonderful. Pooka was so happy to see signs of life when the outside world is frozen over. Although it has made Pooka more in interested than ever in what she wants to grow for spring. Good thing a couple of new seed catalogs came in the mail and have her complete attention. 

Lemon oh lemon....

Cave Johnson finally produced a lemon, it just took 6 months. This is the same lemon that our lemon tree started in the early part of the summer.

Lemon oh lemon, how we have awaited thee.

It turned out to be decent sized, big enough to make our small tree start to lean to one side. It was very nice to see the warm yellow of the lemon against the snow of the polar vortex.

Leaning tree. 

During the "I left the camera somewhere" stint, we did cut into the lemon and ate it with dinner. It had a wonderful lemon flavor without being as acidic tasting as most lemons. Pooka is already dreaming of multiple lemons to make fresh lemonade with. I will be happy if we get a lemon every so often. Now to see how hard it is to keep the lemon and lime trees alive through a winter. 

Paperwhite things...

A few days after Christmas, Pooka and I were at Target and we found these paperwhite bulbs on clearance for 75% off. Seeing as Pooka's birthday had just passed, we grabbed it so she could have some sort of plant in the house.

Sadly, I don't have any pictures since this was during the stint where I left the camera at Grandma's house, but Pooka was so happy to rehydrate the dirt and plant all these little bulbs. She just kept telling me "I am finally getting dirty. I am a happy girl. Spring needs to come soon. "

Pooka's Paperwhites. 

My poor girl was born in the wrong season. She loves spring and summer and planting and getting dirty for her birthday. Simple things make her happy.

She has been watching the progress of the flowers carefully and this is what they look like today. Now if I can remember to bring in Pooka's amaryllis from last year we will see if we can regrow them. At the end of the summer, we cut the plants back to the bulb. Hopefully they will work when I bring them in the house soon. But thats a job for another day. Until then Pooka is happy with the plant she has.

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.

One small problem solved

It is fairly well known with as long as this spring is taking to get here, we are having a minor space issue, okay a major space issue. It is very hard to live in a kitchen space and let a dog out when you have 2 kitchen tables in your kitchen and along the back door. One for eating/homework/daily life and the other holding plants.

The plants are taking over.

Well, the other day at Target, I managed to find something on clearance that has helped solve a bit of the issue. Clearance is my friend. If they happen to have more next time I go, I am going to grab another one.

50% off even. I will take that

Daddy and our friend Uncle M got this put together after Brother's party. Now we have more room to let the dog out, and it even holds more plants. Sadly, its been a bit cold outside for the potatoes, so even they had to come in. In the next week or so, I hope to have most things outside during the day.

A tower of plants.

Lots and lots of updates

In the last few weeks, we have had alot of projects start, but I think its time to tell you how they are going.

A couple of weeks ago, we had cut the ends off some green onions to see if we could regrow them. While we did have to get rid of some that didn't look so good, we did have a couple of green onion cuttings that are growing like mad. Pooka is so excited that they are doing so well.  So maybe that is one internet rumor that works. I did cut a few more ends off another set, so those got droppped in the cup too. The more the merrier at this point and all are showing signs of growth.

The green onion experiment

In Febuary Pooka and I stumbled across a clearance herb kit. It was a nice kit and grew nicely at first, then the dampening off/gnat problem got to them. They seemed to do okay until I stopped watering them to combat the dampening, and then the rest of the plants really took off, and I kinda forgot about them. This probably would of worked if I had not forgotten about them. Black thumb scored there. However, I am going to retry putting seeds in this container in a few days after I get some of these plants outside of my house.


Oops, they got forgotten

Pooka's Easter bunny egg flowers are doing okay. So far only the two snap dragons and a pansy have sprouted, but we are watching the others closely to see if they do okay. Pooka found a red watering can at Target in the dollar section that we are going to transplant the flowers (or just regular seeds) into once they get a bit bigger. She is so excited to just have flowers, something I don't share. If I am going to do the work, I want to EAT the darn things. However, it makes her happy and it is not going to take up much space.

Pooka's flowers

Finally, the peas, oh the peas. How I am not sure what to tell you. I planted the plants outside, and they didn't keep dying, but they haven't really seemed to come back. Add to it the last couple days of rain and pretty harsh winds, and its just there. Monday, Pooka and I saw our first sprouts from the Pea seeds we put in there. Maybe there is hope for them yet.

Can you play spot the Pea sprouts?

It is a Jungle in here

The novelty of all the plants is wearing off. I swear, it was neat at first, but now, I am tired of having my house torn up so we can have plants at all the windows. I mean really it is getting old right now.

Pooka's desk in front of the plants

Every window on the first floor is at least 3 rows deep with plants. I never said I liked plants for the sake of plants, and right now I want to get some food out of these guys. Not to mention, I am afraid we may not get any peppers at all, and we eat and are planning to use a TON of peppers.

The plants blocking the dogs window.

At the same time, I know this is just me having a bit of spring fever. It is finally really nice outside, and Pooka and I are coming up with excuses to be outside more. Now to start getting plants out and into sunlight more often so they really take off.

The longer table in front of the other window.

Not to mention I need to free up my windows. The dog is rather unhappy she can't look out the ones in the front to see who is here, and Pooka's desk in our computer room is in the middle of the room so the plants can go behind it. Although Pook has claimed the corner between her desk and the plants as her "private space." It is giving me a use for my new $15 3 tier plant stand. For now, I will just be happy to clear off the extra table in my kitchen.

A second table with our new plant stand.

 Hurry up last frost date. I want my house back.

Our little seeds are growing up

This week we have been super busy here at the science garden. We have started to seriously transplant the larger plants into 6" pots to "hold them over" until they can go outside. Some I am hoping to get outside sooner rather then later, others well, they will need to wait a bit longer.

Peas, beans and sunflowers..oh my..

As you can see, we have been transplanting alot. This table shows all the sunflowers, Pooka's saved seeds from last year as well as the commercial "mammoth" sunflowers.  The differences between them is another post.  This also has our pea plants as well as some of the green beans. I am hoping in the next week or so it will get warm enough I can start taking some of them outside to get better light.

Snowing on the peas

I tried briefly on Wednesday to put plants outside. I had the newly transplanted sunflowers and the peas outside to get some of the precious sunlight. I had noticed it was clouding over so I pulled the sunflowers in. Not 5 minutes after I had put the sunflowers in the house we got snow, in MID MARCH. At least he peas didn't seem to mind.

Green beans with the seed starters

This is the front room. It is a bit crowded currently with seed starters still floating around and the green beans that are living on that table. We had 8 green beans that were ready for tranplant out of 9. I noticed yesterday it looks like the 9th is starting to sprout as well.

More transplants withs the tomato and pepper seeds

Here is the third table we had to put up this week. We were running out of horizontal surface in front of windows. In front you see the tomato and pepper seeds, but in the pots are the Growum's tomatoes and half of the cilantro starters from Growum's. All seem to have taken to their transplant well, but I do worry they may not be getting enough sun there. Come on warm weather so we can move some things outside.


Flowers

Remember the flower Pooka got from her birthday from her Great Aunt. Well it flowered this week, giving us a very pretty red bloom. Pooka loves that it is red since red is one of her top 2 favorite colors (purple being the other one). I swear its a red, even if the picture makes it more orange looking. It has been nice to have a real spark of spring while we wait for the real spring to come.

Back to waiting

While things here are finally looking more green, at least inside the house, today we had to say goodbye to the flowers on Pooka's amaryllis.

Pooka's flower taken Feb 19th

They were a nice spot of color, especially now when the world has decided to snow for 4 days in a row. It may not all be heavy or accumulating, but I want to know if winter didn't get the memo about it being MARCH. Now that the world is coated in 4+ inches of snow, I could use some color.

Poor really really dead flowers

However, Pooka's flower was done. Pooka wanted to save it to possibly put outside this summer.  I love that girl, but she is taking to this garden thing and doesn't think about making sure she has room to play. I agreed to let her keep her flowers and see what they do. Nothing else, maybe my black thumb will help keep Green Thumb in check. I had to do some reading on what to do next with it, since I know NOTHING about flowers, so off to see my friend google. Google found this article that goes into TONS of detail about the silly plant. It however, told me what to do next.

Snip and done

To the cold garage I went and grabbed my not really pruning shears, but they work. They were actually a gift from my Grandmother and are meant for opening plastic packaging, but I find they work great for gardening as well (and I can generally find them). I cut the flower stem off about 2 inches from the root ball end. This also freed up the bamboo stick that was holding it up. Now to wait and see what happens. Supposedly I can put the thing outside this summer, maybe in the same pot and just let mother nature do her thing. I doubt it will bloom, but who knows. This wouldn't be the first time I was proven wrong.

I still miss the color, but behind one plant, the amaryllis Pooka got from her Great Aunt may actually be doing something. Maybe the color I am missing isn't so far off.  Maybe this next one is red.

6 days growth?? What is in that pellet?

Where am I going to put the bamboo stick now? This little pea plant from the Grow Um's may need some support soon. Considering it only sprouted 6 days ago, it seems to be doing quite well with a tendril that helps it reach 8" tall. I am starting to wonder what they put in those Grow Um's. Pooka and I went out to get potting/garden soil so I can put it SOMEWHERE until the ground thaws enough to put it outside.

Daddy has already begun reminding Pooka that if anything says "Feed me" he is taking a blow torch to the lot of it. He is also telling strangers... I don't think we actually own one, but knowing Daddy that wouldn't stop him.

Pooka's are lucky lucky creatures

A few weeks ago, we went to our local Lowe's for a kids building day. Pooka and Brother have been doing these for years and about 4 or 5 months ago, Brother finally broke the 100 projects completed mark. As a result, we end up at Lowe's every other week.

Anyway, while we were at Lowe's we needed something... I don't even remember what, but we of course stopped to look at clearance. And what happened to be on the clearance rack? An herb starter kit and a Pooka saw it. For over half off, we decided to give it a try and see what happens.

For half off, we will take a worse for wear kit.

It took a couple of days before we had a chance to get the setup together. Its a standard "Mix dirt stuff with water to rehydrate set and then plant the seeds" set.

What you need... Laundry basket optional.

Once we opened the kit, we saw why it was probably on clearance. The seed packs and the metal containers were showing signs of water damage. I am not as concerned about the rust in the container. These seeds may end up in the front herb bed depending on how they do and how well they hold up between now and the end of the snow/frost.

A bit of water damage

The seed packs looked alot worse for wear. I have had some concerns on if the on on the right would even grow. The paper was gone in places. The plastic holding the seeds wasn't.

Thats more water damage

After following the directions we sprinkled the seeds and now await the results. I will say it seems that they both got a bit more water then they needed, but that may again be due to the earlier water damage. 

I forgot to write down which is which, oops.

 Its been a few weeks since we did this, and the results are surprising. I am hoping to do a post later this week on how all our seeds are doing, and how the seed starting is going. Keep an eye out for it.