A Green Fire

I mentioned before that I started some lettuce in a hanging basket. It has come up wonderfully.

It is crowding the basket, so I thinned it down and planted nine of the strongest plants in my raised bed. I did have cucumber planted here, but an armadillo ate it. So, I bought chicken wire and put that over the plants hopefully to deter any intrepid armored mammalians.

The lettuce looks a little puny right now, but I hope once it soaks up some water, it will perk right up. Also, I expect my plants in the basket to grow bigger now that they have a little more space and less competition for nutrients.

My other plants are also doing very well. Here is my outside dill.

I don’t know what this is. It doesn’t die. I thought it was dead and threw it “away” twice and it came back. This year I broke the roots apart making four different plants. It is by far the most hardy plant I have ever had.

My flowers are doing ok, my ivy is growing beautifully and my inside dill gets bigger every day. Maybe this year, I will have some gardening success. I certainly hope so.

I have teensy tiny little shoots coming up!  Ever since I planted the seeds in the hanging basket on my porch, I have been peeking in there to see if anything was happening.  Last night when I got home from work, there they were!  Tiny little stems with tiny little leaves.  I am so excited. It is crazy how much joy growing my own food is bringing me.  If I had known raising veggies would be this much fun, I would have done this years ago.

My dill and rosemary seeds have not sprouted yet.  No stress, the packages say 7 to 10 days and 12-15 days respectively.  So, they still have plenty of time to sprout.

All my plants in the bed are doing ok.  Most have put on a tiny bit of new growth.  We are expecting a good bit of rain today, so they will get a good watering.  I hope we do not get any hail, b/c then they may get a good beating too.

One of the blogs I keep up with recommends a salad mix called Salad Leaves: Niche Oriental Mixed, but it is not lettuce, instead, it contains two kinds of mustard, two something I don’t know what, and arugula.  She swears it is some of the best stuff she had ever eaten.  I am intrigued.  However, I want to get some success with what I have planted so far before I start ordering seeds and planting stuff all willy-nilly.

I have grand plans for what I have planted thus far.  I found a great recipe for stuffed bell peppers.  I have a yellow bell pepper plant in the ground.  So, I’m thinking, use ground turkey or chicken for the meat, use a yellow bell instead of the more common green, and stay with the rest of the recipe.  It will be a few months before I get to try it, but I will let you know how it works out.

I finally got around to planting something in my raised bed.

Sunday I got dirt and plants from my local big box store.  I got two kinds of tomato, two cucumber plants (same variety), a flat leaf parsley, and a yellow bell pepper.   I also got dill and rosemary seeds, and lettuce seeds.  The lettuce I planted in a hanging basket.  I hope when it comes up, I will eventually be able to just go out on my porch, snip enough for a nightly salad and enjoy.

My mom looked at my raised bed and my plants and immediately recommended a covering of chicken wire to keep the rabbits out.  So, that may be my next project.  She also said I need to look at some poison to kill cutworms or I will lose my tomatoes.  Sigh.  I’m going to research a more natural method of pest control first.  This is my first attempt at gardening for myself, and I really hope to have it be as natural as possible all along the way.

I found a resource that showed how to use cardboard toilet paper tubes as a vessel for seed starting instead of peat pots.  I did that for my dill and rosemary seeds.  I have seeds left, and luckily I know I will have more tubes available.  I’m so happy I am recycling one more thing and not just tossing it into the landfill.