Wednesday, April 13, 2011

My Garden: Update 2

By now you know that I have planted a garden. I decided I wanted to do it, I impatiently waited (kind of) until I had the time to commit to daily monitoring, sweet-talking, and watering plants, and then I dragged myself out of bed at 8:00 on a Saturday morning to purchase my plants, pots, and soil.

So far I've succeeded in killing off one pot of plants:
This poor dude is (I think) cucumbers. I will take full responsibility for their death, but let me explain. See that tube on the left? You pour water into it, and the water collects underneath a shelf on the bottom. As the plant soaks up the water, the little stem-like indicator drops. Then you know you should add more water! It's really ingenious. Well, I didn't connect mine so well apparently, so I just kept pouring and pouring water into this pot and the water level never seemed to rise. I have not touched this plant in almost 2 weeks and the soil is STILL soaking wet. Poor little guy never stood a chance.

But everything else is budding and flowering and prospering beautifully!


Broccoli, day 1

Broccoli, April 13
It's hard to compare those 2 pictures - sorry about that. I will be better about my photography for comparison purposes. But I swear, those broccoli are growing like crazy! The little plant in there with them has seen better days, but if my brocs are growing that is all I really care about!



Peppers! Growing, budding, flowering peppers! I squealed when I walked outside and saw their little buds a few days ago. I am actually really surprised these are doing so well, because this is the one pot that doesn't have it's own fancy watering system. I must be a pretty good plant-mom, because these are still alive and quite kickin'. Grow little peppers!



Cabbage! Big, fluffy, growing cabbage. It's hard to notice a change in this bad boy. My patience is waning...



A demonstration of the water level indicators. In the first picture, I pushed the twig down. In the second picture, it popped up, indicating that the cabbage has plenty of water! My only complaint about these is the bright orange color...as if I can't find the water spicket in my 20" in diameter pot. Oh well, Ikea has it's faults too.


And my pretty flowers that I spontaneously just grabbed because I liked them. I kind of want to bring them inside, but I'm afraid they wouldn't survive so well. I should put them somewhere that I can actually enjoy them or SOMETHING. I really want to pick them and put them in a vase, but these are not that kind of flower. Bummer. But they make me smile when I water the rest of my garden!

So there you have it. I am thus far successful in my gardening attempts. I check on my plants about every other day, and most of the time I add water just in case. Heaven forbid they ever run out. I've now started pushing the spouts in just to make sure none of my other plants don't fall to the same death as the unfortunately over-watered cucumbers. Don't worry, I have a whole nother pot of the bad boys, which is why I'm not entirely heartbroken over my loss.

I'll keep ya'll posted on the plants progress next week! In my head I just compared my plant photos to baby bump pictures documenting the progress. I don't know which one is more exciting, considering the chances of me becoming the crazy plant lady are currently pretty high...

3 comments:

  1. looks awesome! we grow lots of stuff every year - tomatoes, basil, cucumbers, rosemary, mint, lavender, + oregano, to name a few. we also planted a peach tree last year that will hopefully start bearing fruit in a year or two. i can't wait to watch the progress of your new garden! =)

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  2. poor sad cucumbers! kidding. you're doing really well, especially if you've never had a garden before!

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  3. yay veggies! nice job keeping them alive!

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