On:
In: Garden
Tagged:

Well, the weather outside might not agree, but spring is coming and it is time to plant seeds so I can have happy, healthy seedlings to put out.  My goal is to grow a majority, if not all, of my plants from seeds this year, rather than buying plants, so I’ve been carefully studying charts and weather/climate ratings for my area to find the best time to plant.  I’ve also been using Smart Gardener to get a basic garden layout so I have an idea of how many seeds to plant so I don’t have extra or I’m not short.  Though I’m using Smart GardenerRead More →

On:
In: Garden
Tagged:

I mentioned before that I planted two pellets with parsley nearly three weeks ago.  Parsley has a germination period of 7 to 14 days, and the first pellet came up after 13 days, showing two little seedlings. The other didn’t come up within the germination period.  I decided to give it a little more time because I’ve heard that parsley can be especially difficult to germinate.  After more than three weeks of nothing growing, I finally gave up and when I was starting other seeds, I put some new parsley seeds into the pellet. The very next day, I was checking the water level andRead More →

On:
In: Garden
Tagged: ,

This awesome book I have been reading, The 20-30 Something Garden Guide; A no-fuss, down and dirty Gardening 101 for anyone who wants to grow stuff has a brilliant suggestion to grow a “salad bowl” with lettuce in a container.  When I was at the feed store looking at seeds, I noticed a similar bowl in the clearance section and just had to get it and make my own salad bowl. Because I’m keeping my bowl inside so I can have early lettuce, I didn’t remove the plugs from the drain holes, but instead used packing peanuts to allow good drainage for the soil.  PackingRead More →

On:
In: Fish and Aquariums

In addition to plants, I love animals.  I also enjoy art, so when you join those three things together, what do you get?  Aquascaping a fish tank!  The idea is to turn a fish tank into a specific biotope.  Because my favorite fish are corydoras catfish, I decided to try to replicate the South American pools and slow moving rivers where they live. This is what my tank looked like before I started, sort of – I already removed fake plants and took out some of the water before realizing that I should take before pictures.  If you see a blurry blue blob in theRead More →

On:
In: Cavies

This blog is meant to be for rabbits and cavies, as well as gardening, in spite of the fact that all the posts so far have been about gardening.  But I have some exciting news in the cavy world, so my first non-gardening post will be about cavies! This is Onyx, my black Silkie sow, who is obviously heavily pregnant.  Because of the bitter cold and my desire to keep a very close eye on her while she is so pregnant, she was moved into my bedroom for observation.  At about 8:00 a.m. this morning, I heard some strange noises coming from her corner ofRead More →

On:
In: Garden

My cabbage (below) and kale (above) are getting tall, and as I mentioned previously, they are outgrowing the clear plastic lid of the greenhouse.  I had hoped that the 25 plant greenhouse from Burpee would be here before I needed to move them, but it was clear that wasn’t going to happen.  So I stopped at the feed store and bought a second small greenhouse, identical to the first one.  I moved the kale and cabbage into this new greenhouse (now known as the “Growing Greenhouse”) and left the mystery flowers and the parsley in the original greenhouse (now known as the “Sprouting Greenhouse”).  ThisRead More →

On:
In: Garden
Tagged:

I was going by memory on what the white flowers were from last year, but when I was cleaning I found the package from last year, and they are labeled as “Paperwhites, Narcissus.” Narcissus actually includes daffodils and jonquils.  But because these are “Paperwhites,” it means they are Narcissus papyraceus. Unlike other Narcissus species, Paperwhites do not require chilling to promote bloom.  This is nice since I’m not sure they got cold enough in our basement last winter to force a bloom or not. Last time I posted, I was worried about if I had done the right thing with the little mini bulbs attachedRead More →

On:
In: Garden

Tonight was Garden Chat night, and the topic was “Garden to Glass” which was a lot of fun.  The discussion was about things you can grow in your garden to make tasty drinks.  Of course, I don’t drink alcohol due to the medications I’m on, but I can enjoy mocktails, flavored waters, and most of all, tea! I’ve been purchasing my tea, but this chat started me thinking, what if I tried growing my own herbal tea?  I’ve already planned to try to grow Chamomile this year, but I wonder what else I can add to it to make different teas?  My favorite tea rightRead More →

On:
In: Garden
Tagged: ,

Last year at the end of the year, I bought a pepper plant that had some blooms on clearance.  My thought was that I could put it inside and have some peppers over the winter.  Well, I never did replant the pepper plant into a bigger pot, so all I ended up with is a spindly pepper plant.  The top looks good and there is new growth coming in at the bottom, but there is a good six inch space that has no leaves, it is just stem. I did some reading and found that spindly pepper plants was a result of overcrowding – whichRead More →