Busy busy busy

With the wonderful 70 degree weather, we have been super busy around here. As a result, I didn't have time today to give details. I promise a better post will go up tommorrow, for now, it is time to clean up some kids, clean up some parents and all go collapse so we can move on tommorrow.

Welcome spring, now stick around awhile so I can keep this new found energy for me and Pooka moving.

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.

Time to start getting plants outside.

On Monday, I was getting slightly concerned that our pea plants were not doing as well as I would of liked. They were starting to look a bit sad. The only thing I was able to think of is that pea plants produce nitrogen (which is why they make a great rotator plant). I had been silly and planted our pea plants in potting soil that has nitrogen in it. This was a case of me not thinking real clearly and I was afraid they were dying from nitrogen overdose.

I decided Monday to hedge my bets a bit and Pooka and I had to go out to the store anyway, so we picked up some sugar snap pea seeds. We planted our seeds in the bed Monday. Turns out, after I did some reading that pea plants can handle temps being 20 degrees or warmer. (I have since learned to research a bit better before I go throwing seeds in things. At least till tomorrow).

Pea seeds have been planted.

So the pea seeds Pooka and I threw in the ground Monday and watered. It was nice to be able to work in the actual beds even if it was a bit muddy.

On Wednesday I decided to move the pea plants themselves outside. It was so nice to empty a pot for once. While digging our holes, we found a few worms. Pooka asked that I be very careful because she didn't want the worm to get hurt because he is good for our soil. She even went as far to say "Thank you Mr. Worm for all your work in my garden." She even asked if I could make sure I put the worms back into the ground gingerly so they would be safe.

Hello wormy.

After protecting Pooka's wormy friends, we put the pea plants in the dirt. They did look sad and I am not at all sure they will make it. I took a bit of insurance and put a few pea seeds in the hole with them. Now to wait and see what happens. Pooka really likes eating sugar snap peas so I hope she at least gets a good snack out of them.

Everything in the ground

Potato, Potato

A day or 2 before Easter, we were at Walmart, and Brother noticed the potato growing bags. Out of nowhere he asked if we could grow blue potatoes. We talked about it briefly last fall and part of the winter, but Daddy and I had made a decision awhile ago that we were starting to feel overwhelmed, and did we really want to add another plant.

A bag for growing potatoes

If it had been Pooka asking, we would of just brushed over it, and move on. But this is Brother, who doesn't garden. Who I don't think cares what goes on out there. Brother asked specifically for his blue potato. A potato we asked if he would eat it (since he doesn't always like potatoes unless they are made into fries). He said he would. He was even thinking of making it into mashed potatoes.

Daddy and I thought about it, we talked about it. Multiple days later, Brother was still asking about blue potatoes. We gave in. I went to the nursery today and got 6 Adirondack Blue seed potatoes. Once I got home and read the bag I bought at Walmart today, apparently 6 is twice what we need for one bag. However, they only sold them in 6 packs, so you go with what you got.

Brother's blue potatoes

Pooka is trying to argue that they are actually purple, but I told her to not say that to Brother (who was in school when I bought the box). These are for him, so we will call them blue.

When I picked Brother up from school, we were walking towards home, and still on school property and he stopped dead in his tracks, got this HUGE smile on his face and said "THANK THANK YOU MOM, You are the best mom ever." He then about knocked me over when he went to hug me. Yep, thats why I do this. I told him flat out that this means he has to take care of them, so once we got home, we read the directions on what we need to do to grow them.

Potatoes ready to sit in the sun and grow some more.

It says the first step is to leave the potatoes in a sunny spot (since I have so many of those left) to induce sprouting. Considering they came out of the bag already sprouted, I can say we are good there. Brother got to put them all in the tins. We did lose a root or 2 getting it out of the bag, but for the most part he was super gentle. I wanted to make sure the potatoes didn't get lost, so we put them in the muffin tin that use to hold grow ums.

Wanted: Sunny window space.

I managed to find a bit of space by using a shelf divider to hold some plants on top of the potatoes. but space continues to be at a premium. Anyone got a window or 4 I can borrow?

Easter Bunny left PLANTS?

Another holiday and more new ways for Pooka to think and learn about science. The Easter Bunny came on Sunday and left Pooka with a bug viewer, a bug house, a Pooka sized wheel barrow ("becuase we need to move mulch around Mommy") and 5 ceramic eggs. Brother even recieved an egg.


Surprise More plants... Just what Daddy wanted.

After some closer inspection from Pooka, we learned the eggs came with seeds inside them. They were set up to grow seeds straight inside these eggs. Pooka was so excited, but we waited until Monday to plant them. Pooka and I were way too worn out Sunday to try.


Seed filled eggs

Monday afternoon Pooka and I sat down and read the directions. Fortunatly, it was easy as knock the top off the egg, water and set in a sunny place. I love easy directions like this. It did say you may need to replant them once they get bigger, but it is a start.

Now missing the top

I will say getting the tops broken off was a bit harder then I originally thought it would be. We did kill one of the eggs in such a way it no longer held its contents and it got dumped into the grow um's muffin pans. Then you get to pull little bits of ceramic out of the egg so the seeds can grow.

Time to clean out the egg.

 Next you water it. It didn't say how much to water it, so it was a bit of a guessing game and it wasn't easy. In retrospect, I should of used a turkey baster instead of a glass. It worked, if a bit messy.

Egg has now been watered

For now, I have the eggs in the muffin tin (the extra egg got put in another tin). The tin of eggs I then put in one of our very full windows. Fortunatly, I had a shelf stander in one, and they fit on the bottom of the shelf which means they are not taking up too much space. But if it means Pooka and Brother get more snapdragons (The yellow eggs), and pansy (purple eggs) and marigolds (the blue eggs) then its worth it. Maybe I will let the 2 of them have one big pot to plant it all in. If we can find space for another pot. But that is an issue for another day.

Now to see if they grow

Another Experiment

Last week for dinner we need scallions. They were going into a crock pot meal, which smelled good, if our crock pot hadn't decided to die and just not turn on. However, we still had the scallion roots.

Pooka and I have seen all over the internet that scallions can be regrown from their roots. Maybe it is true. Maybe it is another way the internet lies. But the celery regrew last year (until something ate it), so it was worth trying if for nothing more then giggles. Pooka loved the idea, but she loves anything that lets her try new things, I mean she is trying to learn Chinese, sign language and spanish right now on top of the garden.

Scallions anyone?

Pooka dropped them into a glass of water. Getting them arranged so only a few were fully summerged was a bit of a trick, especially since when I cut the roots off, I didn't plan on doing this, so I cut a few kinda small. I ended up using toothpicks to kind prop them up. It didn't work all that well, but it was something. Pooka thought we should drop the whole box in, but I am not sure that would do any good either. 

Proping up the onions.

The scallions sat on my counter for a week. They are doing something, although most of them were getting kinda nasty looking, so we threw those away.

So far its working.

It looks like it works. Pooka was so excited she wanted to call Daddy and tell him the good news that her onions were growing after she called brother in to look from the other room. I am not saying I will keep a cup of roots on my counters just yet. The celery looked good for awhile before it died. But compared to how my seeded spring onion/scallions are doing, it may be our only hope of getting onions. Unless I go buy sets from the nursery. Maybe I should just stop trying scallions, I just don't know.

The spring onion seedlings didn't survive transplant.

New friends

One of the wonderful Christmas presents Pooka recieved was a butterfly garden kit. Pooka loved the idea but has waited (mostly) patiently until I told her we could order the caterpillars due to it being too cold.

The gift Pooka had to wait to open

Last Monday, I finally gave in and opened the box to see what I had to do to get the caterpillars. It seems you have to go to their website and after a $5 shipping fee, our little friends were on the way.

Pooka has been so excited for the butterflies after having her Black swallowtails last fall. On Saturday she recieved a little box in the mail. Even with the fact I told Daddy what I ordered, he was a bit leery of a box that says "live insects".

Mail Call for Pooka.

Inside was a little cup with some directions. Turns out, her little caterpillar friends will spend their entire caterpillar lives in the cup. Once they form their crysallis, then we can remove them from said cup and put them in the butterfly house.

Caterpillar A, Pooka named them all, but I don't know which is which

Our little cup had 4 bigger caterpillars and one very tiny little guy. It is nice to not have to feed these guys. These are suppose to be Painted Lady butterflies. So they will look nothing like our little black swallowtail friends. Now we wait and see how long it takes before they get into their sleeping bags.

The other 4 caterpillars, but they don't photograph well in the cup

Pooka did recieve a bug viewer from the Easter Bunny. I wonder how long before she asks to see her friends in it. She also found the "Other live insects we offer" paperwork in the box. Now she wants lady bugs and other bugs. At least the lady bugs would be good for the garden...