New Arrival

Welcome new addition!! I know its been a while since I've updated, but lately its been very hard and stressful hear on the family... my grandmother passed away just this Thursday and there has been much to care for, but I know my grandma loved to grow so here I am, back! This time I bring to the table some rather minor updates along with a brand new surprise.

First! The sunflower buds are the size of dollar coins now, and they are extremely leafy. I spent a while this morning picking all the dried leaves off it. I was sadly negligent of watering for the last day or two because of being so busy, but the only a few leaves suffered and they were groomed off and they are already perking up because of it. Also, the third plant has stayed only a few 7 inches and made a bloom, while the other two sunflowers are about 15 inches tall now and are quite impressive in my sill. I don't know just yet but I'd like to say by the end of next week they will begin their bloom.

The new pots of basil have begun to sprout and emerged rather well from their soil. To be honest I was worried they wouldn't even come out of the dirt because the cooling window, but it actually has popped out to my surprise. I planted one extra pot of compact basil and one of pistou basil, so hopefully the house will soon reek of basil and I love that!!! But speaking of sprouts, the cress certainly doesn't even look decent.... kind of sad and its not really full at all and I was thinking perhaps they might not make it, they need to have constant supervision.

Alright, on to the exciting news! There is a new addition thanks to Nicky. Her very fruitful and amazing tomato garden, which happens to be lined with flowers and such, has provided me with seeds! Nicky was ever so kind as to, at the end of the life of this very lovely flower, picked the seed pods and provided them to me. Welcome to the family, PURSLANE!!! Look at how tiny these seeds are! Its actually a kind of herb from the book and there are some nice uses for it. See now once it's grown you can use it to prevent heart attacks, and strengthen the immune system which will be great for Mik because HSP tends to thrive when his immune sstem is down, so another thing to add and attempt in the long run. Also its great in salads, soooooo lets hope for our new little buddy!

A Distinct Lack of Sun

yes that's right people, its become that time of year where my plants are starting to lose about an hour and a half of sun per day and let me tell you its certainly showing in the nasturtiums. Its very distracting to see my plants get more and more droop in their step because of the stupid coming winter. I'm either going to have to invest in some kind of plant light for the poor things or there must be some other way to convince them its not time to die. I will not give in!!!

Anyway this morning, after dealing with a prolonged sore throat (bleh!), I finally got around to sitting down with my ever enthusiastic sister to jar the dry basil. I must say, it was certainly a better location to dry them in the cool, dark closet rather than in the living room on my lamp. Sometimes I wonder just what I was thinking, but then again this is my less than green thumb we are talking about and its basically useless when it comes to the facts of tending to basil. And ever MORE ambitious me, actually got around to finally hanging the basil plant that had been reduced to a stand for the morning glory that never REALLY did anything bit wrap itself like a python around the poor thing. Distracting. So I finally hung that basil and chucked the morning glory and its awful clay pot into the dumpster in my parking lot. About time! I'm finally rid of clay pots. I think I have finally learned my lesson about them, they are only good for smashing.

I also, was inspired by my mother of all people, the one who complains that 'my yard' has gotten too big, asked me to plant some more basil. As you can tell, this is a house of basil. Its the one plant I have managed to never REALLY mess up despite my green thumb flaws. I'm still monitoring the cress and savory with a bit of zeal. I am really hoping they work, but I think that this cress is summer cress and its under the impression that I am trying to hoodwink it. The savory I bought was winter savory, so they take forever to grow, but they can deal with the winter weather as long as they are indoors. At least that's the impression I get from its name. Perhaps I should do some more reading in the great big book of herbs.

Oh and so that everyone knows the update on the flowers! The sunflower buds are actually getting on rather well. They are about the size of a nickel now and they still haven't opened yet. I have never grown the kind with traditional sunflower seeds, so this experience is new for me. The Teddy Bear Sunflowers, fuzzy and cute as they were, had not real seeds and their blooms never got bigger than about half the size of my palm, which I believe for sunflowers is rather small. These new sunnies are suppose to get full sized heads on their shoulders, so I'm waiting and measuring in anticipation.

Mystery plant is growing quite well. I spoke with my greener half the other day (Nicky, my cousin with the garden of greatness), and she was talking about how she also would like to attempt sunflowers and I narrowly talked her into Mammoth Russians. Though she has decided that she would like to try, instead, something smaller first, and might attempt the Autumn Beauty variety that I was attempting earlier this year. They were far too big for my window. Speaking of! I had a Autumn Beauty, growing in the Dwarf Incredible pot that I had been working on so I had to pull it. I have discovered though, thanks to curiosity, that my rabbit, Pebble, thinks that are fairly tasty sprouts and she was snuffling about for more of them after I'd given her a small bowlful. Sometimes sprouts are just meant for a bunny mouth.

Alright, time for some relaxing yoga and a compress for my chest so that I can maybe breath later on today. Stupid cold!

Sunny!

Well ladies and gentleman, the three headed hydra that is my pot of Dwarf Incredible Sunflowers over this last weekend, finally each created their own buds on top their perfectly bright green heads. Its very exciting, and over these past few days the buds have grown bigger and bigger, but no color yet, and I'm waiting patiently by them daily for the first sign of petals emerging. On a side note, mystery plant is getting tall!!!

Compost

So today was composting day. I finally took the long passed Baby Blue Eyes to the dirt bag to let their roots free, as well as the remaining dirt from the basil pot that we recently cut and hung. It reminded me that I need to check on the basil to see how it was drying. Its doing quite well. I mean its not quite dry yet, but the leaves have mostly all begun to droop and the use of my closet, dark and cool as it is, has kept the scent and flavor of the herb well contained within the leaves, just like the book said to do.

It was a very inactive day today for the plants, but they did get their necessary sunlight. I discovered the reason the Blue Eyes didn't make it is because the pot wasn't properly draining and indeed drowned the poor things. We should try again with them later, but I think we might wait until the nasturtiums have passed so that there aren't too many flowering plants in the house. I think I need a new method instead of using the pebbles in the pot to keep it from flooding, if anyone else has any suggestions I might be able to use?

Anyway I thought I might pass this on since I was reading last night and came across a particularly interesting and very useful tip for those of you like me. If anyone else has read "Romancing the Ordinary," their section for September is quite revealing about sleeping issues cured easily by herb packets! Sounds perfect for me and I think this weekend I might go about gathering some lavender for just the job. Make a pouch and hang it over your bed is suppose to help you stay asleep at night and always relaxes muscles enough to relieve leg cramps that you might have in the night. Very useful tip. And one I will be using shortly as I wander off to bed.

The Mystery Plant!!!

That's right ladies and gentlemen, we have a mystery plant. Whilst weeding this morning I discovered in my sprout box, a plant which I haven't the faintest idea what it is! Personally it could be anything, but I've planted so many kinds of seeds in the sprout box that it be one of oh so many things that finally decided to sprout. At first I was under the impression the fairly large sprout might be a coreopsis, or perhaps a daisy of some kind since those two types of plants had been planted first in this sprout box. But then I checked the other labels on the box, discovering (that firstly, my organizational skills leave something to be desired), but that it could also possibly be a pansy, a shasta daisy, or even a Livingston daisy. I mean there are far too many possibilities. This also leads me to believe that if this single plant, all on its own managed out of the rubble left over dirt in my now empty sprout box, that it was MEANT for me to find it! I am meant to nurture this partially squid like plant and discover its true origin. Anyone with information on this plants DNA donors is more than welcome to let me know, here is its baby picture!

Buds of joy!!!

First of all lets all give a big round of applause, the plants did indeed make it to the window yesterday despite me forgetting them on the counter. Secondly, today is simply an update on my plants which have me in a fantastic mood this fine and amorous morning. The shortest of the Dwarf Incredible Sunflowers has officially made its very first bud! At 8 inches tall this sunflower is the most stocky and sturdy I have ever produced. It doesn't even need support! But its enjoying a wonderful tiny bud atop its mound of leaves, resembling what I think is a palm tree. Kind of hilarious looking but all the more amazing.

As for my other plants! I have found that the first pot of savory I planted is coming in nice and strong, 5 in one pot, which means I'll be thinning them over the next week, and the second pot of savory is still yet to come in. I am a bit concerned about that pot because I placed only two seeds in it and for the most part I always over sow my seeds, but wind up with tons of plants, so this time around I attempted just two of them. Hopefully the sun brings them out of their dirt this afternoon. The cress I planted almost two weeks ago is finally coming back from being thinned and now has four leaves on each which to me is impressive because I was under the impression that they were a bit like chives and needed to be planted with tons in a tiny space, but it doesn't appear that way on the seed package. Anyway both pots are doing fairly well now and I'll wait another week before thinning them again like the book indicates.

My basil plants, two of the three, have managed to do quite well so far, but the third one is looking as though it might not make it. I'm hoping it manages because we've had this issue before and well... they came out looking like the best plants that there were, so this time around we are hoping for a little bit of a pick me up, slowly but surely. I'm still not sure on the nasturtiums, but I never really liked that plant to begin with so I'm not too interested in what its about to do or not do for that matter, its too wily for my sill and makes a habit of wrapping around whatever poor little plant happens to be in its way. Oh well.

In regards to the Baby Blue Eyes... may they rest in peace. They started out quite promising, but it seems a forced year round garden doesn't always work out for some plants. They had their attempt, it was good to see the sprouts before the end of their time. Alls fair in gardening though, I hope that the next set of plants potted will have a better run. But have no fear, these buds of glory will pick up where you guys couldn't make it... all the best wishes in my compost heap.

The Day of Labor

A day to be celebrated, I'm sure, so I will be doing so at work. Yes, that's right, I'm updating from work. Though I am rather disappointed in myself for having forgotten to take my plants out to their window sill this morning and am now in a desperate frenzy to contact the celebrating masses to please move them so that they might get all the sunlight they deserve. There should be some kind of punishment for people who forget to move their plants, like if they can't have food, neither can I! Hopefully though this won't be a rule until later because I am one hungry bunny. I wish I knew a proper herb I could use to reduce hunger cravings, but sadly no, I do not, so we'll have to continue the onward struggle to grow great smelling plants without eating constantly.

Anyway, since I'm at work this morning I thought it would be nice to instead of updating on my poor sun deprived plants, instead show you all something fancy that I did with my house dwellers the other day. This goes to prove that you don't have to have living plants to make fancy arrangements.


All you need for this little number is!: A fancy pants wine glass, or in this case something from the dollar store will do quite nicely, and two dried sunflowers. That's it! Now in this case they are teddy-bear sunflowers grown from the beginning of April until late last month. They were a lovely little addition to my garden and I was sad to see them depart their vibrant yellows and puffy bumble bee like fluff, but in this case, they are beautiful even in death. The sunflowers are averaged to grow to only 24 inches, but anyone who has seen my apartment knows that that is too big, but luckily! They only grew to approx. 8 to 12, with very nice twin blooms on both sides. I had two pots of them, and one of the pots followed the seed packets averages perfectly, twin blooms and mature length, but the other had some kind of strange mutation. It was growing blooms directly from the stem and there were at least four at a time just off the stem never even branching out at all. Anyway, they certainly were beautiful. After I dried them though, they certainly made some interesting photographs and has made me proud to say that these flowers did their duty by me to make me smile even after departing from my window sill.

Basil Tea

When life gives you lemons... go out to walmart at 2 in the morning and buy some fresh basil. Yeah, I know, not really a great catchy term, but I figure that since life has decided that for not one evening can I get along with my family, that I should return here to my happy place. It seems that every time you try to branch out, there's a weed pulling you back down. That's alright though, I have fresh basil, and what could be better?

Anyway, I'm not always the most intelligent person, and for the most part can't always remember what it is that I have said or done, but! I hung the last of the first basil plants that I planted last night and thus leaving me with only baby plants to work with in the terms of fresh and undried basil. So I went about googling, looking for a nice basil tea since I've heard such great things about it. To speak plainly, I don't really know if its working because I just finished stirring in half a teaspoon of honey since without it it just doesn't taste like tea to me. I will say though, next time I'll follow a recipe, since this time around all I did was read a few and take the general idea from all of them. It's certainly different, but its suppose to to settle my stomach after that round I went with the weeds not too long ago. Hopefully it works out, if it does I'll try again and jot down the recipe for all. It looks nice if that's any conciliation, and in THREE, TWO, ONE!

Tastes pretty darn good. I mean I love the smell of basil to begin with, though some people tend to compare it to a certain illicit herb. To be honest I don't smell the similarities they are talking about, but it doesn't matter, this basil infused with honey tastes great as a tea. And should settle my stomach without the aid of some other random pharmaceutical. This gardener has never done well with those kinds of remedies, so its nice to actually try something from my own garden to save me from the battle of belly way. I wonder if savory can be turned into a tea...

Oh well. Now on to the reasons behind this wonderful tea. I mean the reasons that everyone else should try it. I myself started looking into it since I read a stint in my giant book of herbs that it does the following: sedate gastric spasms, expectorant, and can allay mental fatigue. Three very good things for my currently sick Sunflower. See, Sunflower is sick with an autoimmune disease known as Henoch Schonlein Purpura and let me tell you his stomach is not always the easiest to settle, but there is no harm in trying the easy little home remedies. Anyway when I started reading my herb book, The Complete Herb Book by: Jekka McVicar and noting all these medicinal properties, it was fascinating. My sister's of the litter's mate for life also has a pretty bad stomach problem which finds him unable to eat as well as she'd like and they've been trying what they can to fix his problems, so it'd be nice if anyone has any suggestions for the tea so that I can try them out on the pain of Sunflower's belly problems.

Any suggestions are appreciated!

A Little Something New

Alright everyone. I suppose that its time that I did something different than sitting around and trying to make things change by simply complaining about them, so I've decided that first I am starting here. This first step is one in the right direction. Its not healthy to try being something you aren't and its certainly not the way to go about things by saying absolutely nothing at all, so! I'm here to take a healthy step in the right direction. Yeah my life is hectic, but who's insist in their own way, so why dwell on that when you can use those experiences that attack you like a fierce lion to move on and grow stronger. Better yet, just find your happy place and let that help you towards moving to better places. So I am going to make this my happy place numero uno!

My unconventional garden. Sure I'm living in a tiny little apartment, but that isn't stopping me from the one that thing that keeps my sanity from the evil clutches of what I will now simply call, WEEDS! I mean my garden is indoors, so its hard for there to be weeds except for those people that live outside my tiny little four walled bedroom and attempt to drain my nutrients.

I'm not that green thumbed, in fact, its more like a pasty white since I never see daylight, but its getting there as I slowly get further with my plants. All my friends, they have their own individual names, and for a little anonymity, they are referred to as different kinds of bunny rabbits. But! of course the one that matters most in my life, is my sunflower! He's someone special and amazing, despite my random obsessions he still supports me in everything that I do. So to him a salute *SALUTES* and I dedicate my love. All of that of course which is not going into my tiny little apartment garden.

But now onto the most important part. The garden!! The thing that makes me happy here. Its a small garden right now, consisting primarily of several pots of rather lush looking basil, newly planted savory, and a few flowers such as 6 dwarf incredible sunflowers, and dwarf nasturtiums. Yeah, you guessed it, I'm an herb gardener. Or at very least its something I enjoy doing. Herbs smell good, simple as that. There is nothing better than a good smell: basil, thyme, or something even more simple, the smell of a good cologne. Which by the way I am still to remember just what my sunflower's favorite happens to be. He seems to like the smell of basil, or at least I think he does, but I am really excited about getting a chance to smell those wonderful things I've heard about from my herb book.

I'm also interested in the medicinal properties of my herbs too. I've heard great things and can't wait to try them out myself. Tonight I hung the last of my first season of growing basil. They were a bountiful crop and I hung them just as it says, in a dark cool place in order to keep the flavor in. I've been looking for several different things to do with them. I've kept dried leaves in an air tight container and they are perfect! I've used them in sauces and its truly liberating to use something I grew in the food that I am cooking. Makes you feel much more at ease when you don't need to ask for other people's help, but of course the fact that I like people for the most part keeps me from actually limiting my contact with others, but as far as the food and planting goes, this is my kingdom!
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Anyway, this is the reason I'm doing this, its a very nice and relaxing passion of mine and obviously I can chatter about it for a while. But step one is to begin and I am very ready. Thanks for those that have kept up and thanks even more to those that might be watching because I love the input and even more I like the idea that I've made someone else think better.

The Baggy Bunny,
The Unconventional Gardener