Happy Day!

In approximately 7.5 hours I will be sitting down to my A&P II final for the semester. After that, freedom until August.
I do love school, don't get me wrong, I especially love what I'm doing now. But...it will be nice to be able to come home after work, not plan out three meals for the day at 630AM, and of course, attend to my apartment garden. Which by the way, is coming along quite nicely. The sunflowers are taking right off and I even have some chamomile popping up!
I planted some cress and chives over the weekend. The cress package was not lying when it said it was fast growing, the plants are an inch tall already!
E.S. Garden is also booming. The asparagus is growing like a weed! We have to pick it a few times a week! Boy do I love that asparagus...makes your pee smell funny though.
OK TMI, Jess.

Pics coming soon!

Til then, wish me luck!

Where in the world is the The Pale Gardener?

modeling for us is little Alf. he is the coolest dude ever. and the cutest.

So for all of you out there who read my blog you may notice that if you have it linked, it does not work. That is because I changed my url. In my extreme intelligence, at the time, I spelled a word incorrectly and it has been driving me crazy ever since. I've always been a lunatic about spelling, and grammar for that matter. (it's their banana, not there banana) grrr
...oh wait let me hop of this soapbox here...
So here's the new url to update your bookmarks:

http://thepalegardener.blogspot.com/


Because I know people are just bringing down the internet trying to find my blog.
Psshhh.

Jiffs V. Burps - Round Dos

Ah Spring is fully upon us here in Upstate NY. And it is lovely. Last weekend was way up in the 80's...a bit warm if you ask me. But it was a great weekend to play outside study for exams. Yes, that is plural. I had two exams in one week in one class. Gotta love it. But enough academics.

I am happy to say the seedlings are doing great! I did not mention yet that some of the seeds I planted, I planted on a whim hoping they'd germinate because...well...they are three years old. Which in seed years ehhh can go either way. The old haggards include: thyme, chamomile, and sweet marjoram. The sweet marjoram is doing great, the thyme is doing so-so and the chamomile is either taking its sweet time or it's a no-show.


From left to right:
Rows 1-2 - lavender - coming along slowly, but looking good.
Rows 3-4 - lobelia - sapphire trailing - exploding! I have to trim them back because there are far too many in each cell
Rows 5-6 - sweet marjoram - other than the sunflowers, these are doing the best! Who knew! Now I have to figure out some recipes using sweet marjoram...
Rows 7-8 - lobelia - crystal palace - also doing wonderfully. Will have to trim these back a bit too. Damn you teeny tiny seeds!
Row 9 - thyme - I'll be able to get a few plants out of these.

What you can't see on the end are the Mexican sunflowers, and the chamomile, which isn't even worth showing because it's not doing a damn thing.

Let's take a look at Burpee shall wee?





From left to right:

Row 1 - thyme - a few sprouts are up, still holding out it will fair well.
Row 2 - lobelia crystal palace - chugging right along. They're not getting leggy yet, which is nice.
Row 3-4 - sweet marjoram - man, I'm going to have a lot of this herb.
Row 5-6 - lavender - also not doing too great in this medium so I'm hoping it's just taking its time coming up.
Row 7 - lobelia - sapphire trailing - 2 thumbs up.
Row 8-9 - a picture of the chamomile not doing jack.
Row 10-11 - new plantings! I planted gaillardia in here. They are doing just great. Pretty perennials they are.
Row 12 - another row of Mexican sunflowers - we'll have a lot of these too!

OK, now that we've taken a look at our seedlings. Who's in the lead this week?
I would say Jiffs still has a good lead. Worth noting, however, is that though Jiffs is beating Burps, both are doing about as well, comparatively. That is, the lobelia in each are doing well, the chamomile in both are sucking, the sweet marjoram in both are doing well but are a bit leggy. And so on, so they are growing at a steady, constant pace as individual mediums. Aww, I've raised such independent seedlings!

I've updated Flickr with some more seedling photos.

Next on The Pale Gardener: updates on our repots! Who gets their own room first?

Jiffs V. Burps - Round 1

So, as luck would have it, I have about three weeks left in my semester which entails three exams in one class - two of which are next week. And what do I get? I get sick for the entire week prior to said exams. So here I am, day five of feeling like I got run over by truck, in a weird coma from NyQuil (I never could handle that stuff) and certainly not able to focus on anything in a textbook about the digestive system.
I can't do nothing even when my brain is about ten steps behind the rest of my body. So I thought I would try to handle this blog, it requires no foot movement, generally...

...left hand...right hand...space bar...


I am happy to say that our seedlings are doing just great, they survived their lonely weekend last week and we have a clear lead developing in our contest!















The cheaper, more traditional potting mix prevails so far! Since I planted so many different things in the same flat you can see there are many pods still void of green. They'll fill in soon. The missing pods are what you see on the right, the Mexican sunflower really took off! I already have some transplanted into tubs that are sitting on my porch now. Take a look.

And how did our coconut fiber friends fair?
So far...
























So unless ol' coconut makes quite a comeback, looks like Jiffy may just win!

Update on the E.S. Garden too!

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any parts of this that make absolutely no sense. I blame it on the drugs.

We Have Lift-off!

Seeds have been planted! Actually, I planted them about a week ago, so I speak the truth when I say some are already pokin' their green goodness out of the soil. But I had this whole plan of doing a little science experiment aand using two types of mediums to grow the same plants and seeing which grew better and it was going to be great!
Well I did do it, I'm just behind on blogging about it. So we're going to pretend it's a week ago.

OK, so, la la, it is April 11th and here we go with Jessica's Science Experiment to the Stars!

I bought two different seed starting kits:




Jiffy seed starter - $5.89
Burpee seed starter - $7.99








So what I did was plant the same seed in both both starter kits, at the same time, and I'll compare both to see which one grows better plants.

So far this is my synopsis of the two:

Burpee:
I was very excited about this because it was different than other seed starting kits I've seen. This is a coconut fiber-based medium. The box touts its ability to drain well, preventing root rot and such.

Pros:
+ It came with plastic tags so I could label each cell group.
+ Relatively mess-free. I live in a small apartment, without a yard, so mess-free is the way to be!
+ The coconut comes in a compact sphere and it expands in seconds when water is poured on it.

Cons:
- The cells are very deep so I can see it being a pain trying to get them out when the time comes.
- Although the fiber expanded quickly it didn't expand evenly and it took me a while to break up all the bits.


Jiffy:
Pretty standard mix. Comes in netting.

Pros:
+ The netting will make transfer very easy.
+ Expanded quickly and evenly.

Cons:
- Doesn't come with tags. I made homemade ones...out of cardboard...they were soaked quickly...not my brightest move.
- A little messier than the coconut because the pods don't sit in any container, so the dirt spilled out a bit.

So what did we plant!


- Two varieties of lobelia
- Mexican sunflower
- lavender
- thyme
- chamomile
- sweet marjoram

I have a few more I still need to plant, but it's a bit early and I don't feel like transplanting things 8 times before I can bring them outside.



As you can see, I don't have any veggies. I will plant a lettuce mix, but I'm going to plant it right into the soil. The rest will be grown at the ol' p-rents house and I will share all that goodness as well.

Next week on The Pale Gardener - I'll let you all know which medium had the first sprouts! ooooo the suspense! I'll also post some pictures of the E.S. Garden (my new name for the parent's place) it's coming along wonderfully!

Keep your fingers crossed the seeds survive the weekend.
The boy is turning 25 tomorrow (Happy Birthday Nick!) and we're going out to visit my bro for the weekend. So I hope when Sunday rolls around I don't come home to poor little dead seedlings.

As a side...I mean dessert...well, could be a side too

If you have not yet gathered by the: blog title, big picture of a crazy bead plant, or the rambles of a sleep-deprived individual about plants and dirt and messy times, that this is a blog about gardening...

Well, there was your introduction.


I will occasionally post other interesting tid-bitties of info. about things not concerning gardening. Cause hey, I have other interests too! Like this and this and studying for this and also this delicious hobby.

So consider this my first off-topic post!

Delicious Soft Chocolate Chip Cookies

4 1/2 cups flour
2 teaspoons baking soda
2 cups butter (oh yeah)
1 1/2 cups brown sugar
1/2 cup sugar
4 eggs
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 (3.4 oz) packages instant pudding
4 cups chocolate chips

Do the normal stuff, mix dry ingredients first. Separately beat the wet ingredients, blah blah like normal cookies. But after you cream the butter and sugars add the pudding and then move along with the rest. Mix the dry and wet together. Bake at 350 for 9-12 minutes.

A few things I've noticed:
Now I know any baker would want to strangle me for saying this, but sometimes I am not really specific about measurements. The big stuff, yeah, but little piddly things like vanilla and what not, I do what I want yo! So the pudding situation. The recipe says 2-3.4 oz packs. Well, I've made these twice. The first time I had one package of chocolate pudding that was 4.6 oz. and I only made a half batch because damn, half a batch is plenty enough for two people. They came out wonderfully. The second time I had 2 packages of vanilla pudding coming in at 3 oz. each, and again I made only a half batch. They also came out delicious. So yeah, the pudding amount is debatable from my point of view. Also worth noting, at least the second time I didn't get instant pudding and still, yum-o (yeah OK Rachael Ray).

These cookies remind me of Freihofer chocolate chip cookies. So for those of you who have been graced with the Freihofer Taste of Heaven, then get ready because they are homemade now!




By the way, the knitting cat above. I actually hate cats, I like knitting though. Just thought I'd point that out in case you thought that cats were an interest of mine. They certainly are not. Well, unless they are someone else's cat and they just need a petting from me. I can do a petting.
Also, you know how hard it was to find a good picture of a nurse that wasn't a sexy nurse?

What's that smell?

Sweet article on urban composting. I have not tried it in my apartment yet. I keep some food scraps and bring them to my parent's compost pile during the warmer months. Scraps are so hard to store for long periods, though, so it would be smart to start my own smelly decomposing pile of fruit and veggie leftovers.

Give it to the worms!

P.S. A real post is coming soon. I promise. I have an exam today so that has been priority. But I have a neat little experiment in store for you all. Get ready!