Sometimes it amazes me how quickly time flies. Are we making the most of our lives? Are we making time for the things we love to do? Learn the things we find interesting and fascinating? Between the book, shows, and classes, I had some trouble deciding what to work on for needle lace. I have decided I'd work on designing jewelry until the end of April. Then I will switch back to full gear on the intermediate book.
My newest hobby is organic gardening. This has always been something I have interest in. A couple of years ago I grew some basil, but they died in my boyfriend's neglect when I went to visit my folks in San Francisco. These days, there is a new technology called hydroponics or aquaponics. It reduces how often you need to water your plants, and with grow lights, there's no reason you can't have an indoor vegetable garden.
Space is premium in the city. One of the perks of condo living is the fact that it's bug free as long as you keep windows and doors closed. I always hate the idea of reaching for my plants and running from a bee, having a spider crawl on my hand, or those little flies that grow in the dirt. with peat moss or coconut coirs, that's no longer an issue.
My biggest mistake with my first varietal vegetable garden was believing that it's foolproof. My balmoral squash did so well I thought everything would start sprouting up. In the process, I could not get my broccoli seeds to germinate, and lost two of my green bean plants, and a strawberry sapling.
I received my eggplant, tomatoes, and bell pepper, hot pepper seedlings later than my strawberry and squash, so I actually started those about a week later. I did some reading and learned that these summer vegetables love germinating in warm conditions so I put them over a heater in the home. Sure enough, one of the peppers started to emerge from their seed coat. In the process my strawberry sapling and green beans died. Afraid to overheat or cook my seedlings, I decided to restart the plants I couldn't get to germinate.
The most important thing I learned was to be a bit more patient. As much as I'd like to see everything pop up like my squash after three days, the smaller seeds are much more difficult to cultivate. I did some poking around with a toothpick because I wasn't sure which seeds were in which pod.
This time around I labeled them with initials:
SB - Strawberry
B- Broccoli
T- Tomatoes
K - Kale
EG - Eggplants
BP - Bell Peppers
My eggplants and peppers are making progress to sapling. I'll be creating a diary of their progress here. I also decided to use mason jars to hold my plants to reduce how much plastic they are in contact with. It's also a bit more sturdy than the boxes my aggressively organic plants came with. I plan to use those boxes to give away plants if I get better at having a green thumb. With some luck, I hope to see my tomato plants emerge.
It's tricky dealing with a bunch of different plants in one go. It also requires reading about each one on your own to learn more about their preferences. If you're interested in gardening indoors, click here: Aggressively Organics!
Balmoral squash plants are in the jars, my newly labeled plants, and the strawberry seedling that died ;_;