Good news, everyone

First the small victory: I'm growing barley grass for my dog to eat and the seeds have sprouted and are growing really fast. They are still under plastic wrap right now, but tomorrow I'll probably have to take that off. The directions said it would take 8-10 days but it's been much shorter than that.

A tasty dog treat, apparently. 

Now the bad news: I think the aloe plant I'm trying to nurse back to health is getting worse. I accidentally left it out in the rain and I think it got too much water. It's inside now, so hopefully after a while it will recover. 

And the very good news: I'm trying direct sewing with seeds this year. I had no idea if it would work, but I wanted to try an experiment. Then the rain started. It's been stormy and wet, and I've tried very hard to keep the soil in my containers from getting waterlogged. But I was worried it was too wet for them and too windy and that the seeds wouldn't go anywhere and I'd have to just buy seedlings.

Then today I went to dump out their water trays and I noticed tiny shoots about to break out of the top of the soil in the green bean pots. So I looked into the basil pot and, so small I would have missed it otherwise, was a tiny little stalk with two leaves. My mint looks the same, so I haven't killed that yet. This season is off to a decent start. 

And just a fun aside: I've been hungrily browsing gardening boards on Pinterest lately, and I found a fun craft the other day. My sister had given me these cute wooden garden markers that look like little houses, but now I have more plants than markers. So I made more using pain pens on landscape rocks. Then I painted more rocks to look like lady bugs just for decoration. I haven't put them out yet, but they turned out well. 

I left one blank in case I buy a plant unexpectedly.

Potting my first plants

After returning home with my veggie plants and gardening gear, my next goal was to re-pot my plants into bigger containers without killing them. Well, it's been a few days and my plants are in bigger pots now and still green and perky. I happened to have a friend over that afternoon, so she chatted with me and held my dog's leash while I worked. Some people probably enjoy gardening as a chance to feel quiet and commune with nature, but I also found it fun to have someone to talk to. One container at a time, I scooped soil from the bag into the pot until it was at a reasonable-looking height, then dug a little hole with my hand and propped a plant in. I filled the soil to just above the roots, patted out the air pockets and moved onto the next one. When I was done, I watered them, letting a half inch or so of standing water sink in several times to make sure the dirt settled and the roots were nice and wet. On the last round of watering I mixed a powdered fertilizer into the watering can. Then I spent the next couple of days trying to figure out the plants' sunlight requirements. I heard part shade for both of them. I know kale doesn't like to get too hot, and even though it's November, the Florida sun can still be pretty warm. They started out on the outdoor landing of my front stairs, but I worried they weren't getting enough light to photosynthesize well. So I moved them to my back deck/balcony area, which is pretty sunny. The next day they looked a little dry so I compromised by leaving them on the back deck, but close to the railings so they were somewhat sheltered from the sun. 

The current placement of my pots.
If the sun gets too much I'll move them back to the front stairs.

I guess one of the benefits of container gardening is that you can frequently tweak your microclimate until it's just right for each plant. I have continued to water them almost daily, but I haven't fertilized again, because I read that it's better to under-fertilize than over-fertilize; if you see your plants aren't getting enough nutrients, you can always add some, but if you burn them there's nothing you can do. Today, instead of watering, I checked the trays under the pots. There was standing water, so I dumped them to prevent root rot. Tomorrow they'll probably need more watering, but in the meantime they still appear to be alive. Wish me luck!