Chive Alive

The chives are doing just fine after their winter in the cold.  These are the ones I transplanted and then thought died last year but were actually OK.  

Back again

It's possible that the big project for this year will be the back yard.  We have a little triangle of dirt in the back, accompanied by oodles of deck and a maple tree.  The back is enclosed by a tall fence.  

The light the little triangle of earth gets is not really enough to support flowerbed like the one on the side.  In the morning it is in the shade of a) the tree b) the fence and c) the tall building next door.  In the afternoon it is in the shade of a) our house and b) the house next door.  It gets a little bit of the hottest, harshest light of the day, though ... so it's not really a safe place to put shade-lovers, either.  

I can't decide what is to be done with this sad little plot.  Right now it has a couple of shrubs and some chives.  It used to have a couple of rhododendrons, but we dug those up and gave them to a friend who put them in a sunny patch and they've been growing happily for her ever since.  

The chives are easily moved (although I'm not sure where to, given that I'd like to be able to eat them and I'd hate to eat anything from the cigarette-butt, road-salt, dog-piss laden front and side yards.  The shrubs are less easily moved, but they were there when we got here, so it's not like I have an actual emotional attachment to them or anything .  Basically, I suspect the best thing to do would be to dig the whole sad lot up, turn over the patch completely and start afresh.  I doubt that is going to happen this summer.

Over the weekend we did a nice bit of cleaning up in the backyard.  The improvement is tremendous and instant.  I do want to do something nice back there.  I'd like to give the flowerboxes another go, for example.  Last time they basically flooded and that was a disaster, but I have learned a thing or two since then.  

Window greenery

The herbs in the window are now doing quite well.  When we got back from our trip, I was expecting to find them all dead, but our nice cat sitter had watered them without being asked.  Lucky plants.

The parsley is positively running amok.

The basil I am carefully and sternly pinching back in the hopes that we'll have some nice bushy plants instead of the stilts we had last time.

The chive, singular, is looking pretty nice for a chive, singular.  

The coriander is suffering terribly because it's in a small pot that I didn't water enough.  The good news is that as soon as I'd taken this picture (honesty, full disclosure and all that) I did water it and water it well.  Hopefully it'll stand up again (as much as it does, anyway) shortly.

I have a dream of setting up time-lapse photography on the windowsill to document the plants reaching for the sun.  I turn them when I'm home, and a quarter turn every day leads to dramatic results.  They are such neat things!

On the windowsill

The sprouting report continues with some not very up-to-date pictures:

The solo chive is ... OK, I guess?  Actually, the sweary one noticed a new shoot this morning, so we've got chives plural now.  I think it's all from the same seed, though.  

The basil really is fine.  It's not growing like wildfires, but it is chugging along contentedly.  Some of the sprouts seem to be producing their first true leaves.  It's slow going, though. 

The coriander is as leggy as all get out.  I suppose that is a risk of growing it in a not-sunny season in an east-facing windowsill and generally being non-tropical.  Hopefully the stems will be able to support the growth.  Many of the coriander plants have true leaves now; I am waiting for the second burst of leaves before I start pinching them back to discourage this legginess.  

The coriander plants flop all over the pot.  It makes it hard to turn the pot (to prevent the plant(s) from leaning in one direction) because they grow braided together.  I haven't worked out the best solution to the problem (except maybe to give up on growing coriander from seed).  

Finally, the windowsill-full of plants continues to be, shall we say "of interest" to a certain carnivorous member of the household.  She hasn't been caught eating them, which is good.  On the other hand, she does give them more attention than they merit, which is bad.  She can't possibly enjoy the flavour of chives, basil and coriander.  Cat food wouldn't smell the way it does if cats liked herbs (and this cat absolutely slavishly loves her cat food).  Her interest is a mystery.  

Sprouting report

Unfortunately, I still haven't got around to taking pictures of the sprouts.  The small pot I think has basil is positively bursting with sprouts.  The small pot with chives is actually the small pot with chive.  It's a good chive, but a couple more are required to make it a viable herb source.  The big pot of parsley, into which I put a few other-herb seeds for fun, is showing some (presumably) basil and some probably coriander.  There's no coriander anywhere else.  

I am very interested by the success of the coriander in the already-occupied pot.  I know I put some seeds in their own pots.  I wonder if coriander likes friends.  Or if the big pot gives it a better view of the tiny, weak, winter sun. Whatever the reason, the sprouts in the parsley pot represent a greater number of coriander sprouts than I have seen in all of my previous attempts to grow coriander from seed, combined.  

I have been looking at seed catalogues and thinking (droolingly) about the summer.  It seems like it might already be time to start broccoli, if we're going to do it.  

Up, up, up!

The seeds from last weekend have started to sprout!  I suspect it's the basil that's popping up so eagerly, despite the snowstorms and our not-very-warm windowsill.  One small seedling pot is alive with little green duckbills and another seedling pot is showing some of those little bent white swan's necks that come before the leaves make their way out.  The second pot might be the chives, but I thought they took longer than that to sprout the first time.  

No sign of other things yet, but I'm not going to cover the pots because I am so encouraged by the dudes who haven't been coddled coming up that I think maybe we should be selecting un-coddled only.  

I have to say that one of the huge advantages of having started seeds last year (and let's be honest, in terms of impact in the garden, there wasn't much impact so it's a good thing I can see an advantage somewhere else) is that I now have a better understanding of which seeds behave in which way.  Knowing that coriander doesn't sprout much is useful.   The first garden we tried to grow included a planterful of coriander and when it failed, I thought the planter and the position and all was flawed.  Now I know that it's the coriander and I can put that planter back up and fill it with marigolds and it'll be fine.  Hooray!  

In other news, the pace of the leaf-yellowing in the new parsley seems to be reducing.  It's still happening, though. 

Winter Indoor Gardening (with apologies to my father)

I did, finally, get around to re-potting the boughten parsley.  I suspect that it's an old, old plant.  It's got positively carrot-like roots beneath.  There were a few plants squished in together and growing into each other, which I ruthlessly cut apart.  There was nothing for it.  They couldn't be expected to keep going as they were.  The leaves on the sprigs were going brown at a quite alarming rate, which I took to mean that there just wasn't enough room for the roots.  

Anyway, I spread the new parsley around and as I did so, I looked at my culinary herb seeds and decided that there would be absolutely no harm in giving them a go.  So, I popped a few seeds in a few pots (including some in the parsley pots) and hopefully in a couple of months we'll have a healthy indoor garden.  

We got rid of everything but the parsley we had before now because it had acquired little friends.  I suspect the mint was really to blame.  There were insidious little webs all over the bottoms of the leaves.  Let's hope the new batch do better.   The seeds were: basil (which did amazingly well in tiny pots), coriander (which barely germinated at all when the seeds were new, so I don't know what I think will happen this time), chives (also not keen to come up), and mint (which I think took a long time, but then did come up before I neglected them and they all died).  

My plan is to put some of the annuals outside when the summer comes.  The mint is most definitely destined for the outside.  I have a dream of putting mint in the difficult little triangle to the left of our front door.  I think a nice-smelling, aggressive as all get out plant will be just right for that sad patch.  I'll even spread out some compost for it.  But not much!  I don't want its roots to break through the house foundations.  

Transplanted

The chives I took from the plot have done alright.  They took some time gaining a foothold, and I don't know if I did them wrong when I transported them (on a hot day, out in the open) or if they just don't much like the compacted soil and dark surroundings of the back yard.  Anyway, they have at last the look of a plant that's going to be around for a while.  I am glad.  I like chives.  I meant to have an indoor pot of chives, but for now I'll settle for the success in the back.  

Gone as a consequence of being forgotten

The strawberries are dead now.  I completely forgot to water them or tend to their needs in any way, shape, or form.  

The chives aren't looking that good, either.  So much for the casual transplants from the plot.

On the other hand, the raspberry is looking pretty nice.  I hope that those things that used to look like incoming blossoms and are now dangling are going to turn into yummy fruit.  

Culinary Herbs

The garden at home is not really meant to produce edible things.   Too many dogs relieving themselves on the leaves, too many passers-by using the soil as an ashtray, too many chips of paint from an uncertain era dropping from the house.  Nonetheless, there are a few herbs in there.  I grow herbs mostly because I like the big green patches that they can produce.  The walking thyme, for example, can get where it wants to go in no time at all.  The lavender is not fulfilling my dream of fragrant drifts throughout the beds, but it keeps growing and I like that about it.  The stuff I've been calling mint isn't mint after all.  Probably oregano.  I tore a chunk of it out this evening.

It was muscling in on the gladiolus territory.  I love the herbs and their obliging way of growing healthily in whatever there is, but I can't let the glads get suffocated.  I'm quite emotionally invested in the glads. 

Last weekend, I brought home from the plot some strawberries and some chives to plant at home.  Chives and parsley are culinary herbs I would love to have patches of at home.  

I never use a whole "bunch" (as defined by the grocery store) of chives, and I often don't use up all the parsley, even though I do try.  The obvious answer is to grow them myself and take small bits when necessary.  

I would be delighted to get an indoor herb garden going, but there is the question of which window is Chutney-the-cat-proof.  The chives I planted at the beginning of this year were growing alright but they got a mysterious mould-like substance in their pot and I didn't dare let it linger.    The undead basil is still growing on the window-ledge.  I even pinched it to encourage it to grow out instead of up.  It will need to go out soon enough.  

I should try again with the indoor garden, but in the meantime, I have some chives to keep me going in the summer months.  Let's hope that they survive. 

Shuffle

It is a quite interesting fact that bamboo grows so fast that you can hear it.  I sometimes think that these beans must be doing the same.  I can't hear them, though, so I probably should stop thinking that.

The beans and nasturtiums flat has been moved wholesale to the place where the peas were.  The mint remains (too tiny for me to believe it's time to move it). 

The peas and beets have been put outside for the day.  The beets were tragically dry and I have probably really done them in.  I'm only completing the job that Chutney began, I guess.  Time to start the real, outdoor garden and put seeds directly into the ground.  

On the germination windowsill, only the basil (and one pea that I can't quite bring myself to just kill because it didn't thrive and won't thrive) remain.  And with that, it's only the basil that I haven't killed yet.

Time for me to think about what goes under the plastic next.  In my grand plan, I thought I'd be putting cucumbers and zucchinis in this weekend.   Also beets and late leeks. I thought I'd be planting beets every week.  In retrospect, that would have been a good idea.  

I am so excited about the leeks that I just can't say.  If I'd been on the ball earlier, I would have tried early indoor starting for early leeks.   I love leeks but they're expensive to buy.  I'm betting they're temperamental to grow.  I know that other people with plots in our garden grow leeks, so it can be done somehow.  

The marigolds haven't had any attention at all lately.  I've been lavishing all my attention on the fast-growing beans.  I have been thinking that they (the marigolds) would be earth-ready soon.  My book says that they should go into the earth when it's warm.  It's not going to be warm for a while yet.   Must find new, bigger pots for those guys.  

As can be gathered from the previous paragraph, I've consulted my book.  I think the peas, beets and beans can go into their respective bits of real dirt this weekend (which the meteorologists are currently predicting will be rainy.  Oh, goody).  I don't know where the basil and mint will be going once they are ready for the earth.  Probably some of each will go into a little pot like the one the chives are growing in. (They're doing nicely, by the way ... I know I haven't said much about them of late.)

Ew, ick.

The basil goes well.  It is not disgusting me.  Subjects for neither the dinner table nor the easily nauseated to follow.  Ew, ick.

Last night, Chutney the cat gobbled down her wet food in a microsecond, as per usual. Unusually, about 5 seconds later, she threw it up again.  I know that kitties aren't as disturbed by vomiting as a human is, but it's not nice (plus, precious wet food: wasted).  I was worried a bit about her until this morning when I found a chewed-up narcissus leaf.

Some time ago, we got Chutney some "cat grass". She chomped it down cheerfully, and spent then next week or so spurting nasty liquid from either end.  We took the cat grass away and the distressing spurting stopped.  We decided that her diet, as provided by pre-packaged wet food and dry food, is JUST PERFECT and we haven't messed with it since.  

I didn't take a photograph of the puddle of sick.  I cleaned it up.  When I was growing up, when one of our cats left a hairball around (oh, thank you, developments in hairball formula cat food!) what we children would do was to put a paper towel over it, so that it wasn't a hazard to people walking around in bare feet.  At some time later, my mum would clean it up.  Now that I am not a child and have cleaned up a little bit of cat sick, it is (yet another) bit of my childhood self of which I am deeply ashamed.  How could we not clean it up ourselves?  Couldn't we have taken that paper towel and wiped up the hairball? No, I'm not proud.

Back to gardening.

The chives are coming along nicely in their new spot on the kitchen windowsill.  They lean like crazy into the sun, so I have to be absolutely diligent about turning the pot regularly.  I am looking forward to having a little pot of cooking-ready chives waiting for harvest.  

The unfolding-thing of the chives continues to delight and fascinate me.  One of the leaves (blades? what is a chive, anyway?) has been struggling up with its seed still clamped on to its tip.  Given how spindly the stalk is and how big the seed is compared to the stalk, I feel very much like I should be taking the seed away and doing it a favour.  My gardening book is quite stern about it, though.  It says that the plant may still be drawing nutrients from the seed and I shouldn't disturb it.  Before I read that, I did remove the seed from one of the marigold plants.  You can tell which one it was because what the seed was surrounding was one of the leaves, which I neatly tore off when I removed the seed from the stalk.  So, I have learned my lesson. I will let this chive deal with its seed.

And, I will only keep plants in places Chutney really can't get to.  God only knows where those places are.  Sun-shiny real estate is at a premium in our house.

Dotty

The chives are unfolding.  They come up as long, narrow leaves which then reveal themselves to be actually one blade folded in half.    They are doing quite well; at any rate they are not obviously suffering for having been moved to the windowsill above the kitchen sink

The basil are being somewhat chaotic but otherwise still obviously growing.  Their leaves (cotyledons?) are so very different from everyone else's.  They're like duck bills.  Also, there is the strange habit of growing roots outside the soil.  I am now trying to bury the roots without doing the plants damage.  We'll see how it goes.  Next time, I will know to bury the seeds much deeper.

All there is of the mint is the tiniest of sprouts.  Still just one.  The leaves make it clearly a sprout and all, but I would feel better if more of the seeds started sprouting.  This one tiny thing is the only green above the soil under the plastic at the moment.

The marigolds are interesting.  I just noticed yesterday that they have little tiny spots on the undersides of their leaves.   I can't see anything that says that marigolds should have little spots around the bottom of their leaves.  I am worried that they're not spots, but insect eggs. 

For some reason, I am comforted by the fact that even the emergent first true leaves have the spots.  I am also, irrationally, comforted by the fact that the spots are rather pretty.

Carnage

The beets, after Chutney had her way with them.  I didn't notice at first that she loosed her venom on the peas, too.  

Now, I know that she can't possibly be aware that these are my favourite veggies.  Still, it feels like a personal attack.  This could be because I now get up in the morning and check the flats before I fill her food dish.  She may be wishing that I throw her a ball instead of admiring the flats before heading out to work.  

The chives and marigolds are still fine.  They've been sitting on one of her favourite looking-out windowsills for a while now.  The peas in the flats as yet un-potted-on are in quite dire straits.  It's well past time for them to be moved into bigger containers, but I still haven't had a chance to get soil.  Maybe this evening.  

The pea on the right (in focus) has a root showing.

See it?

The mint and rudbeckia stolidly refuse to do anything.  If they're not up by this weekend, they lose their under-plastic status, I am afraid.  I've got plans.  

Iceberg peas

This morning I made an interesting discovery about the peas.  The peas have been slow to come up and I thought they just were taking their time starting.  Nope.  They've been toiling away below the soil building long white roots.  The soil they have been sitting in has been consistently moist, I believe, so I am not sure why they put so much effort into the roots.  Certainly the pea sprouts are much, much more substantial than the other sprouts so perhaps they need a strong root system before a stem like that can emerge.  Or maybe we planted them too deep and we would have seen growing patterns like the other plants if only we had given them less earth to plough through.  

Either way, the roots are screaming through the bottoms of the coir pots and so the peas need potting on.  One of the pots has roots through the bottom but no sprout at the top.  I now have faith that it'll sprout.  I put half of the sprouted peas into bigger "pots" (yogurt containers with holes poked into the bottoms), but then had to stop because I ran out of potting soil.  Hopefully they'll like their new homes  and won't mind being jostled about.  Cutting the pots apart required some serious hacking on my part.  I'll need sharper scissors next time.

The new pea pots and the beets have been moved from the downstairs windowsill up to the bedroom windowsill in an admission that there really isn't room for everyone.  I see our dresser gradually getting covered in potted plants, too.  We're going to need window shelving.  We have been meaning to put some in in the kitchen for a while.  It would have a double advantage because not only could we grow fresh herbs right where we need them, we could also block out the late evening sun which usually blinds us as we're cutting onions for supper.

On that cheerful note, I say that there seem to be chives now, too.  

Don't see them?  Yes, there is plenty of perlite in the pot to distract you, but the chive sprout is the green thing on the left of the pot.

It's still very small, but there is definitely a sprout and there are actually others, too.  It's good news.  I was starting to worry that they would never come out.

The basil is also a certainty now, but it's very odd-looking at this point.  Not what I'd expect basil to start life looking like at all.  It's sort of hairy-looking.  I think I can be forgiven for wondering if it was just the pot becoming mouldy.

I will add that this has been a great education about my camera.  I have a lens which is good and bright and clear (but not expensive) and a lens which doesn't let in much light that the camera came with, but which is the right size for the magnifying lenses.  In the very bad, crappy-weather light today the magnifying lenses can do nothing to save the situation and all I get is the aberrations in the cheap lens.  The beautiful bright lens produces images from far away of such quality that I can crop them and magnify the image and it's still good.  Note to self: either get magnifying lenses the right size for the bright lens or get a much better telephoto lens.

Kitchen pot

The chives were not only not sprouting, but they were probably getting very, very cold on the kitchen window.  That thing leaks like there is no putty.  So I have moved them to the same window as the marigolds and put a glass bowl over the top of the pot to give them some nice warm greenhouse action.  

Indoor seed starting

We made a trip to the seed store on Saturday (March 22) and came home with a bag filled with hope and promise.  

Zucchini, leeks, cucumbers, string beans, scarlet runner beans, peas, beets and spring onions.

Chives, basil, and mint.

Marigolds, nasturtiums, and rudbeckia.

Cress as an experiment to make sprouts.

Flat of "recycled" and "peat-free" small seed starting pots, complete with clear plastic cover (5 sets of ten pots).  Flat of same stuff larger pots (6 sets of 3 pots).  

From Canadian Tire, I splurged and got the Miracle Gro seed germinating soil to fill them with.

On Sunday, I put peas into the first set of 10, beets into the second, marigolds into the third and fourth (can never have too many marigolds, right?) and rudbeckia into the fifth.   Then I checked it 10 minutes later to see if anything had sprouted.  And ten minutes after that.  And about half an hour after that.  It turns out that I don't have a lot of patience, actually.

I also put some chives into a small indoor pot for the kitchen window, and some cress into a jar in the broom closet for (hopefully) sprouts.