Let's give this another go

So I got very busy with graduate school and work and let my last plants die and didn't have the energy to plant anything more. But this semester I was determined to do some more gardening experiments. My partner and dog and I went to the botanical gardens on Valentine's Day, which further inspired me.
Since I live in Florida and the weather here is warming up nicely, today I took a trip to the garden center and bought some seeds and soil. I also bought a chocolate mint plant on a whim. I love how reasonably priced gardening can be!
When I got home, I cleaned out my old pots and left them in the sun to disinfect. I also re-potted an aloe plant that I'd let get even more dry than is good for aloe. I potted the chocolate mint and only ate two leaves.
 

Sorry for the poor image quality,
but this is the mint and the aloe.

Soon I'll start seeds for my other plants.I bought seeds for basil, green beans, a container variety of carrots, lettuce and sunflowers (for the microgreens). Later in the season I'll go back to the store and buy a tomato plant and maybe either blueberries or strawberries. I'd like to branch out into fruit.
It feels really good to get back into gardening. Just cleaning out the pots and feeling the sun on my skin made me feel cheerful and productive. After I'd done that, I felt ready to tackle my homework.

Back to blogging: Killing plants and starting seeds

I haven't had much to say about gardening in a while, so I've been maintaining radio silence. I've been keeping up with watering and basic tasks like that, but nothing really new or exciting was going on. But now I'm back on a domesticity kick and part of that is preparing for my next round of planting.
First the sad news: I killed a cauliflower plant. Unfortunately it was the only one producing a vegetable, so I'm disappointed about that. I'm being pretty philosophical about it, though. I am pretty sure that I didn't clear out the tray under the pot quickly enough after rain and it succumbed to root rot, so at least I can learn from it and move on. I figure this was my practice garden anyway! Still, I'll be sad to not have home-grown cauliflower to eat.

Bear witness to the shame of my empty pot!

The good news is that my kale is getting huge! I don't actually know when I can eat it, but I guess now? Anyway, it's very pretty and I'm quite proud of it.

I guess this is edible now?

Now that it's almost spring (at least in Florida), I'm starting to plan my spring garden. I want to grow tomatoes, some sort of fruit and some herbs. I poked around the plant section of my hardware store today to get a feel for what they have, and I am getting excited about planting. One thing I found were lavender seeds. Lavender is my favorite herb, and I got an herb-drying rack for the holidays, so I bought it and am going to try to start them from seed. We'll see how that goes.
To practice seed starting (and also experience near-instant gratification) I am sprouting some arugula in soil. I read about microgreens and was rather taken with the idea of not having to wait long for them, so I grabbed some arugula seeds and a cheap little clay pot and threw it all together. Then I moved it to my south-facing balcony because the package said it needs full sun. Now I just have to wait and see. In the meantime I'll be figuring out how to sprout my lavender.

Doesn't look like much now, but hopefully soon
this will be filled with green.

Too much of a good thing

Now that my plants are potted and fertilized, I'm keeping a close eye on them. Yesterday I had emptied the standing water in the trays under the pots to prevent root rot. Having done that I expected to need to water today. I filled my watering can and went out onto the deck, but when I pressed my fingers about an inch into the soil, it was still nice and damp. I left the water out there for tomorrow. Luckily it's cooling down in my area. I like it because it makes my dog more cuddly, and my kale likes it because it hates the heat.

What I believe to be sun damage on a kale plant.

My only concern is that some of my kale plants have a white/yellow spot on a leaf, and part of the leaf on one of my cauliflowers is dry and white and crunchy. My book tells me that this is a sign of too much sun exposure, so I spend a little while moving my plants back to the shadier front steps. I'm not very strong, so as I was lugging big pots of dirt around I was glad I'd chosen plastic pots. The lighter weight is good for me while I'm still trying to get my microclimate just right. Hopefully the shadier front steps will treat them better.

Soon I'll figure out a more aesthetically pleasing arrangement for them.

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!