Springing Into Action

It's been a week and a half since we planted two trays of seeds in an effort to start our garden, and they are growing like gangbusters!  Many of the seeds started sprouting much earlier than their packaging suggested that they would, and we are delighted.  Not all of the seeds have sprouted yet, but there are more coming up every day.  See for yourself!

Weekend before last:

 

Tuesday this week:

 

Not bad, eh?  The bush beans are going like gangbusters.  And best of all, the Crossroads tomatoes are growing!

I also planted a number of herb seeds today.  Originally they were planted last week, but we had a bit of a setback.  While at our local grocery store last Friday, Nick found what looked like a nifty shelving setup for plant storage, one that could be placed indoors or out and enclosed with a variety of covers to promote heat and moisture retention (or even block out sunlight altogether).  We thought it would be a great way to use the various pots we'd accrued from our time as renters-with-a-patio, back when that was the only way we could grow things.  So we bought it and set it up, and it looked pretty good.

Neat, huh?  One little problem.  The joints on this thing are plastic, and not the most solidly made.  One snapped while Nick was putting it together.  "No problem", he said, and he used one of the various heavy-duty adhesives we have lying around to glue it back together.  He suggested I let it cure overnight before actually asking the structure to bear any weight.  So the next morning (with Nick out of town for 24 hours), as it was still standing and seemed solid, I loaded it up.  In hindsight, putting all of the pots on it at once instead of testing its strength gradually may have been a mistake (I bet you can see where this is going).  But when I was finished, it looked great, no question.

So I figured I was done, and went out to run some errands.  I came home a couple of hours later to find a minor catastrophe had taken place.

There were very nearly tears.  Instead I settled for a bunch of whiny, curse-word-filled text messages to my husband, who told me to just take the containers out and he would fix it when he got home.  Plus I was so mad I kicked (and broke) two clay pots. 

Thankfully, my husband is creative and resourceful, so he came up with a nifty and inexpensive cinder block-based fix this week.  And while I did have to replant nearly all of my herbs, in the long run it should still be fine (fingers crossed).  So far I have: rosemary, oregano, dill, basil, parsley, cilantro, chives, garlic chives, tarragon, thyme, and lavender.  Just bought spearmint seeds today (and baby bok choy, which is not an herb but is nonetheless exciting).  In theory, once these start to grow some of them will be transplanted to the garden beds, because a number of herbs act as natural pest repellants and help certain veggies grow.

I have also been working on my garden markers, so that once all of the veggies are in the garden, I can actually identify them.  This has been a fun project and it has hardly cost me anything.  Every time we go to Home Depot, I take home a handful of free wooden paint stirrers.  Has to be Home Depot because the Lowe's paint stirrers are some sort of foam composite, which is fine for stirring paint but not for this project.  I feel bad taking more than a few at a time, so it's taken me a couple of trips to get the quantity I wanted.  Then I spray about 2/3 of the length with a couple of coats of spay chalkboard paint (a few bucks).  I like the look of the chalkboard paint/ink, but didn't want to use actual chalk or chalk ink for this since it would wash off in the rain.  So I spent a few dollars on metallic Sharpie paint markers (love them!) and voila!

 

These still make me smile.  They're so cute!  I did not like the results with a white paint marker, so I used silver.  If there is more than one type of something, the variation is indicating in gold (ie. pickling versus slicing cucumbers).  And no, I can't erase and rewrite them, but all I have to do to make new ones is swing by Home Depot (where we regularly go anyway) and spend a few minutes in the garage with a can of spray paint.  Easy!