Recovering

Alright! So today was not my best day, but that doesn't mean I can't think of something to make the day better and guess what... I have just the thing to do it. This morning was not one of my better moments and I think I have dishonored myself in the face of my employers for it, but hopefully, because they are such great people, they won't hold it against me. Either way, in an effort to drag myself from this ridiculous rut I decided that it was time I went to Nicky's and did some gardening. Her garden is less mine and more of just a relaxing place to sit while I planted sunflowers into the seed plugs she gave be for my birthday. 2 rows of Sunspots, 2 rows Dwarf Incredible, 2 rows Teddy Bears, AND 2 rows of Mammoth Russians. That's a lot more sunflowers than I should be allowed to even touch in one day, but I have already plugged them and as of tomorrow we will be on the look out for the babies so they can be put in the garden and Chris and Kelly's. I do love sunflowers. I wish I was one. I also trimmed the chives, which will soon go in the book! Found the lavender from last year has sprouted and begun making flowers, and transplanted basil and the mystery plant that I had in one of the seed plugs. Butterflies were making their appearance today as well. I think in an effort to feel better, tomorrow i will document all the photos down and make a photo entry to show how bright the world is. I have to say, he made everything beautiful. I just have to look out my window.

Fury!

Can you believe it!? All those days of tending to those basil vigilantly and they produced flowers right out from under my nose! How am I suppose to turn them into basil oil if the basil can't be used because it was flowering! I'm so made I could just.... BAH! My fury will be unleashed!

Oh and for the record, those gorgeous sunflowers, despite my best effort, wouldn't pollinate and thus have come to the end of their road. The insides have dried up and the pretty yellow petals didn't last too long after. But they were beautiful while they lasted and I will cherish them just like I did the teddy bear sunflowers even after death. The savories didn't make it either and the lack of sun from the oncoming fall days and winter on the verge has sent them into a downward spiral. The baby basils are the only ones left of the babies. The savory didn't survive and nor did the baby sunflowers, but perhaps ts for the best. I don't want to have to force them into thinking they aren't in the warmth and happiness where they belong.

Oh well, if anyone has any basil oil recipes, lemme know!

Hello Oxygen!

For those of you who don't know, I have been battling with a rather nasty chest virus lately and this afternoon I finally met with my old and dearest friend OXYGEN! The family and I, after our glorious soccer game, traveled to Starved Rock State Park, it was extremely amazing to have all that oxygen provided by all our wonderful trees. Very nice to finally be able to breath like a normal person again.

Anyway, on to the big news!!! The Dwarf Incredibles... have blossomed!! That's right after leaving them in window to soak up as much sun as possible after the sun decided to start rising too early to get them out for their normal doses. It was great! It is great! Look at the little petals and its first tiny stamen things are extruding pollen. Its greatness!!! They are beautiful. Now you should also know that I am going on vacation starting Monday afternoon (can't miss Sunday night football), and heading to my brother's house for the week. I do enjoy those visits, but sadly it means that while I am gone I must leave the glorious garden in the care of Emma and her mother. They are good gardeners, I get my own slightly greenish tinted thumb from her, but she also doesn't have much time in the morning to be taking them out all the time. Hopefully the sunflowers continue to release their little stamen things and get even bigger. So far there is 2 blooms, hopefully with will get the last third one.

Also, the lack of sun has claimed another life, the savory is has passed on as well as the nasturtiums. They just couldn't be coaxed into surviving, but there is one more of the nasturtium plants left and its quite healthy. We'll try new savory after Christmas is over. Mom says anything that dies before Christmas can't be replaced because the table I've been using for the garden is the table we use for the tree. Our apartment being so tiny and everything. Anyway, time to baby my babies and prepare them for the night, wash the sill so they can go back out there and then wash there indoor trays so they are ready for their mommy's vacation.

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!

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.