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.

Cauliflower success!

So I haven't posted in forever because of health problems, but today I noticed something so exciting I couldn't stay away.
When I first decided to grow a few plants this winter, I was just going to try a few pots of kale. But then I saw cauliflower at the store and bought some on a whim. I wasn't sure what to do with it beyond keeping it watered, so I just decided to treat it like an experiment.
Apparently all that watering has payed off!

I have a vegetable. A tiny, adorable vegetable.

When dumping out excess water from the trays under the pots today, I noticed that one of my cauliflower pots has produced a little cauliflower. I'm so excited! I resisted eating it, so now I guess I'll just keep doing what I've been doing and wait for it to grow bigger.

Teaching Gardening at New York Schools

The New York Times had a really cool article the other day about New York City schools having rooftop or adjacent gardens. The students use them to learn about nature and green technology and growing food. Some teachers use them for art classes or to supplement science lessons. For some reason that really struck my fancy. Aside from being a fun way to engage students it's a great way to encourage a new generation of gardeners. I wish I had learned about growing things in school. Maybe then I'd be a little less lost every time one of my plant leaves looks slightly different!

Getting the hang of things

As I get more used to caring for my plants I'm settling into a routine. I only need to water them every few days. My favorite thing is plucking dead leaves from them. It makes me feel tidy. My least favorite chore is emptying the water from the trays under the pots. It's too much heavy lifting for me.
It's pretty exciting to see my plants doing well. They are all looking healthy and bigger than when I first got them. The growth I mentioned in this post is even bigger. Despite the fact that I am literally watching plants grow, it's pretty exciting to monitor their progress.

Grow little plant, grow!

Review: Rosemary & Thyme

I feel like any woman who is interested in any combination of gardening, mysteries or British television has had someone recommend they watch Rosemary & Thyme. Since I love all those things, I have watched some of it on Netflix. For anyone who is curious, maybe this can tell you if it's worth watching.
Basically it's the story of two female landscapers, Rosemary Boxer and Laura Thyme (see what they did there?) who manage to stumble upon a murder mystery at every location and always step in to help solve it. The show starts with Rosemary losing her job as a horticultural professor and Laura wanting a change as her husband recently left her for a much younger woman. The two meet, become friends, and put their shared love of gardening to use in a new career as landscapers. They also make use of a natural nosiness and Laura's family police connections to keep in check the many murderers prowling the English countryside.

Obviously this is not my picture.
Rosemary (left) and Laura.

I have two problems with the show. The first is that the plots can sort of run together if you watch it a lot. I guess it's sort of hard to keep coming up with new ideas for mysteries that can be solved with horticultural knowledge. The other is that there are several jokes that rely on people thinking they are lesbians and the pair being horribly offended, and I just don't find homophobia amusing.

That said, if you like procedural crime shows and find British accents soothing, you may enjoy Rosemary & Thyme as a nice accompaniment to hot tea and a warm blanket on a cold, rainy day. 

Quick update

My plants are looking a lot better. As I watered them today I noticed that the ones with dry leaves were still growing pretty fast. And the droopiness in the others seems to be gone. I think the extra soil really helped.

Plants still alive ... for now

Today I was supposed to water my plants, but yesterday we had a pretty decent rainfall so they didn't need it. Instead I took care of a couple other tasks. I picked off a couple of dead leaves and dumped the water from the bottom trays (important for preventing root rot). I had also noticed that when they were watered or when there was wind or rain, some of my plants, particularly the kale, would sort of tip over and that they were starting to grow at odd angles. So I grabbed my leftover potting soil and my trowel and scooped three to four extra shovels of dirt into the pots of the plants that seemed unstable. I didn't water them after, like I would if I were potting them, because I didn't want to flood them out after the rain. Instead I just patted the dirt down, and I'll have to wait until the next watering to see if it worked.

I'm a little worried about some of my plants. A couple have leaves that look sort of dry and damaged. My first thought was too much sun, but they are already North-facing and shaded for most of the day.

What is wrong with you, plant?

 A few others look sort of droopy and I'm not sure why. A Google search tells me that can be caused by too much sun (but again, they are already in a shady spot), too much heat (but it has been pleasantly cool/mild lately), too much cold (but we haven't had a freeze yet) or not enough water (but it rained yesterday). I'm pretty much at a loss. Maybe next time I water I'll add fertilizer, but in the meantime I'm just hoping for the best. If they start doing worse I'll try getting in contact with someone from the county extension office.