Tommy toes

I had this post all typed and ready to publish last night and then the page (or browser) decided to be dickish and malfunction and lose everything I typed...lame.

So anyways, what I was posting about was that I have been getting really excited to get my indoor garden going.  The other night after work, I picked up some starter soil and seeds for short & sweet carrots and super sweet cherry tomatoes.  The other day, in my research, I read up on growing carrots.  I gathered information from a handful of websites, none of real significance since they all said basically the same things. So...

Carrots

What I do:
sew seeds directly, 1/2" deep (transplants don't grow properly)
thin the seedlings when they reach 2" tall (cut out, don't pull out) to 1" apart
keep soil moist but not soggy, lots of sunlight
harvest at 68-70 days

What I got: (aside from lovin')
seeds
starter soil

What I need:
bucket with drainage holes
moisture control soil
lights

So, unfortunately, I'm not quite equipped to get the carrots started...yet.

My tomatoes, on the other hand, will take about a week to start sprouting and then can wait a little longer before transplanting into buckets.  So I decided to plant a set of seeds yesterday.  I used shallow sour cream containers with 4 drainage holes poked in the bottom of each.  I put 2 segments of paper egg carton in each container and planted 2 seeds in each segment using my starter soil.  I didn't want to pour water directly into the containers so I've been periodically heavily misting the soil to keep it damp.  I also got a dome-lidded lasagna pan from the dollar store yesterday to keep them moist in.  I even decided to label them with toothpick, masking tape, and sharpie.

Tomatoes, Day 1:

Gearing up to Green it up!

So last night...and then all of today while I hung out with Sky and Jon's kiddos, I've been researching what kinds of plants I'd like to start growing in my apartment.  The kinds that I can grow year round inside but move them out to the deck in the summer for some good direct sunlight.

Now that I've done some research, I'm starting to formulate some plans.  I'm going to save some links here to refer back to once I get going.

Lemons
How to grow a lemon tree from a seed
How-to-grow-lemon-tree-from-seed
Lemon Tree from a seed

*Materials needed:
lemon seeds
potting soil
sprouting pot (topless milk carton with drainage holes)
resting pot (13" diameter, 10" height...old alocasia pot)
sunlamp (fluorescent ones from Jon)

*Shopping list:
a meyer lemon (preferably organic)
potting soil -a blend of peat, perlite, vermiculite, and organic fertilizer


Herbs
What is the Best mix of Herbs to grow together in a pot?
13 Tips for Planting an herb garden

New growth

I noticed today when I was watering my plants that I've got some new growth in an unexpected place....

Last summer, after my move from that rank garden apartment where I lived with my old, dear coworker Elizabeth, I lost 3 of my 5 potted alocasia plants.  I'm not sure why but they just rotted off their roots.  So I re-purposed one of the pots, dirt included, by re-potting one of my mom's plants that needed a pot upgrade.  Last week I sort of pruned the plant for the first time in a while and today I found a little baby alocasia sprouting out:

Also, in one of the surviving alocasia pots, I've been watching 2 other baby plants peek through:

The one on the right is barely there, but I'll keep watering and watching and it'll come back.  I got the original plant from Home Depot in college when I lived at the Western Ave apartment.  It came in a tiny porcelain dish, really, that had rocks over the roots.  I re-potted it and it took off.  Since then I've had at least one and up to five of the same kind of alocasia plant.  When I had my catastrophic plant loss last year I got a few plants of plants from my mom; the one above, a hanging succulent that was just trimmings from hers, and a weird little thing called a dieffenbachia.  I'm still trying to nurse the last one back to health as it was a little on the rough side when I re-potted it last fall.  I gave it a homemade banana peel and egg shell mulch and it's looking better.  I find it incredible that now, in the dead of winter, my house plants are thriving despite the gray skies and subzero temps outside.  I look forward to springtime when I can grow some more lovely plants on my deck.

I recently was looking back at old blog posts and my very first post had pics of my original alocasia plant's leaves close up: http://iamaseaman.blogspot.com/2009/08/my-very-first-blogyay-or-something.html

And this post has a picture from when the plant split in 2 the first time:
http://iamaseaman.blogspot.com/2009/08/studio.html