After my total failure as a gardener, I was cleaning the kitchen, and discovered this head of garlic. As if to mock me, and show how brain dead simple it is to get things to grow, this garlic that I simply left out on the counter decided to sprout. Taking this as some sort of sign that I had simply been trying to grow the wrong things, I immediately took it out to the yard and planted it. I did a little reading on the web, and you're supposed to plant garlic in the fall, so I don't expect much out of it, but at least it can't be any worse than the sprouts.
May 28, 2007
May 17, 2007
RIP Sprouts 3/25/07 - 5/5/07
Well it appears I'm not very good at this. Remember when I mentioned that I thought my sprouts needed some sun? Well, it was finally warming up, so I put them out in the sun. One and a half hot days later, they had completely shrivelled up. Damn.
Looks like I'm going to be planting seedlings again this year.
May 09, 2007
Pepper Sprouts
Some progress on the garden front, the pepper plants have sprouted, and look pretty healthy. The mint and rosemary are the only holdouts now. The big problem at this point, though, is that nothing seems to be progressing beyond the sprout stage. The tomato and basil haven't grown much in the past couple weeks. It's been cold here, and I don't have any very sunny windows, so I'm guessing that lack of sunlight is the problem. It's finally starting to warm up outside, so I'll try putting them outdoors whenever possible to see if that gives them a boost. If not, I might try to find a light for them indoors. It sure is a lot more complicated starting with seeds than it is buying the seedlings at the hardware store!
April 07, 2007
Ebay success, sort of
My first mix of seeds sold this week on ebay. Congratulations auctiongal86! I have mixed feelings about this sale. On the one hand, I'm glad it sold. On the other hand, it sold for $1.30. Between the original cost of the seeds, the time and effort I put into bagging and labeling them, and the nice little handout I made with all the planting instructions, it's hard to say I really made anything on the deal. Hopefully I'm spreading the joy of gardening at least. I have a few more packets of seeds ready to go, and I just put them up on ebay, here's hoping they make it about $2!
April 06, 2007
The Seeds are Sprouting
Here's a snapshot about 10 days after I planted my seeds. So far, the tomato, basil, marigold, and cilantro have sprouted. The different varieties of pepper, rosemary, and mint are still germinating away. This is roughly in line with the information listed on the back of the package, so I'm pretty satisfied so far. The weather here in Pittsburgh went from 77F on Tuesday down to 25F on Thursday, so I'm glad I started them indoors and didn't subject them to the frost. I'll try to give them a little sunshine if it ever warms up, though.
March 30, 2007
Be like me, for a price...
It seemed like a shame to waste the leftover seeds after I planted all my seedlings, so I'm packaging them up and selling them on ebay. So if you read this and want a garden just like mine, head on over and buy one cheap!
March 29, 2007
The Garden Strikes Back
Time to start this year's garden. I've decided to be a little more ambitious this year, and instead of waiting until mid summer and then buying mature seedlings at the nursery, I'm going to do it up right this year. I purchased all the seeds, and I'm starting the seedlings all by myself. It doesn't look like much yet, but here's my garden! I'm also trying to stay organic this year, so I got the organic potting soil. Six of the ten packets of seeds were listed as organic as well. I also weeded the garden bed before they got out of control, and staked down some of that weed barrier cloth until I am ready to plant.
August 10, 2006
The first harvest
I took a few pictures the other day to show that our garden was making some real progress, and kept meaning to post them. Apparently the garden didn't want to wait, and so last night, a few of the tomatoes separated themselves from the vine. No big storm or anything I know of, but I woke up this morning and saw a few tomatoes on the ground. I couldn't think of any better sign that it was time to do some harvesting, so I gathered up the four tomatoes (they should ripen perfectly in a day or two), some cayenne peppers, and one big jalepeno. There's a bell pepper that looks about ready, but I'm waiting till I'm ready to cook it up, maybe this weekend.
August 07, 2006
My Garden
We planted a small garden this summer. It went in around Memorial Day, and most of it was planted from seedlings. We planted a few types of tomatoes, zucchini, bell peppers, some hot peppers, rosemary, basil and cilantro. Here's a few pictures taken around mid July of the progress. I've got some more recent pictures that I'll try to post soon!
