What's That Saying About Losing Your Head if it Wasn't Attached to Your Neck?

Alright I'm just going to get it all out there...

Blogs will be few and far between the next few weeks. Many a things are taking up my life these days:

1) I moved.
2) I now live in a house so this blog's theme could get a little tricky.
3) I do not have a computer at my new home yet and who knows when that will happen. (I'm holding out for a Mac so we'll see when I can get myself one of those expensive little devices.)
4) I am going to be Aunt Jessica in t-minus any day now!
5) The above means I will be driving 2,000 miles across the country any day now.
6) The above two mean this here blog will be the least of my brain waves for a while! (Sorry Blog World)

What else?

Well as far as the Apartment Garden goes it is now taking up residence over at my new house, joining its friends in the E.S. Garden. My tomato plant ripened its first tomato! My big mouth was halfway into the delicious, little morsel when The Boy kindly asked if I wanted to document this occasion with a picture. It was too late. The tomato was heading towards its fate. I promise I will restrain myself the next time.
Everything else will be planted in the ground to enjoy the second half of its life being able to stretch their roots a bit more.
I'll do a round-up of the Apartment Garden successes and failures when I return from the land of...hmmm not sure quite yet. I'll let you know that one too.

Some (small) Rewards

A lobelia and mint bouquet grown in our own Apartment Garden!

I've said it a million times, I LOVE lobelia. Such a beautiful, fun, plant. Very unique shape and such a great color! Yes it is perfect. Certainly one of my favorites.

I hope everyone's holiday weekend was fun and exciting! It actually didn't rain here and I enjoyed some fireworks in the backyard of a friend's house. Couldn't have been better!

We can't be perfect all the time

Our first semi-disappointment with the Apartment Garden has come up involving the lettuce.

A few things are going on here:

- The lettuce will grow to about the length you see here in the picture: 3-4 inches and then just stop and then croak. Dead. Poor little lettuces.

- Obviously we've begun a crop of mushrooms in here. Implying dampness, perhaps?

So what's the deal, yo?

I consulted the wise Momma of mine, she has been gardening far longer than I've been on this planet. Here's her take:















You can see in the picture that the soil line is about four inches below the top of the pot. I didn't have a whole lot of dirt so I tried to be conservative and not use as much. Turns out that was a bad idea.


What my brilliant idea caused was a lack of air circulation around the seedlings. My Mom thought damping-off disease may have cropped-up causing the little leaflings to wither and die before they had a chance to grow up. This also explains the whole mushroom issue. The lack of air circulation caused a damper-than-ideal environment helping to grow the mushrooms, as well as the fungus causing damping-off disease.
I do remember the first week or so that I transplanted the seedlings, it wasn't very sunny and I'm sure that helped keep the soil nice and wet.
Any other ideas? Share away!

Luckily, I did not put all my lettuces in one basket.




I put many seedlings in their own pots, with sufficient soil, and they are doing quite fine. This one here, (and plenty more! As many as she wants, really), is waiting to go to its new home with Unspeakable Visions.






On a much happier note, the Apartment Garden is not down and out! Our radishes are doing so well! Much better than I had hoped! I'll be able to eat some in the next few days.
The lobelia is starting to poke out some beautiful purple buds, I just can't wait to enjoy that wonderful trailing plant!
I have already used tons of chives, cress and thyme. What a wonderful thing to have a grocery store on your porch!
Head over to Flickr to enjoy some more success stories!

Little green balls of yum!

While I was out planting some new seeds* on the Apartment Garden porch today, I noticed our tomato plant has signs of yummy deliciousness!


I was given this plant from the girl downstairs...originally I wasn't planning on having any tomatoes because the E.S. Garden has enough for an army. So I don't even know if these are cherry or if they'll get to be humugo. Hopefully the former because the plant grew in a bit sparse and probably wouldn't be able to stand up to any mammoth tomates.

It was a great weekend to garden here in upstate NY! The E.S. Garden got a good working out of me, although I forget to bring along a picture shooter so no updates on that end. But check Flickr because the Apartment Garden has a nice update!

*I'm venturing into uncharted territory now...I planted some pumpkins and cucumbers. I babied them hardcore with compost and organic fertilizer, my fingers are crossed! We'll see how they do growing in a pot on a porch!

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.