Tomato Update

Hi!

I had this past Friday off of work and it really kickstarted a 3-day stretch of laziness which meant no blog posts. Be assured it isn't for lack of things to write about!
Lots to come in the next few days but I wanted to share the most exciting news first.

The AeroGarden was doing well, but there were lots of flowers and nothing happening with them, so I decided to take a more pro-active approach to pollinating. Not being an artist by any means so I don't have any paintbrushes lying around, but I do like personal hygiene and I do have Q-tips. With weapon in hand I did the work of bees to my indoor tomato. And yes, I may have made buzzing noises to really get into the part.


I also took the opportunity to prune a bit by pulling out any of the V growth (is there a more technical term for it than that?) and cutting any leaves that were too close to the light and getting burnt. Yes, the tomato plant is so big it's rubbing up against the light that's already on its tallest setting.
It all must have worked because two days later J noticed this:TOMATO ALERT!!! I'm already coming up with recipes in my mind and watching it and searching for hints of orange and red. I'm hoping to have ready to eat tomatoes before Easter. Is that overly ambitious?

Garden Gifts

Look what I got in the mail!
Mom and Dad thought I should be a fashionable gardener! And I'm sure they had my super-fancy manicures in mind too. Right. I tried a manicure once. Seemed like a waste of time. A little soil looks good with the nails.

And this beast! Woah! The Soil Scoop really gets the job done. Especially in that giant block of compacted soil we got you need something serious to "fluff" it up. This little guy gets the job done. And it's so easy to make a hole for transplanting. I think it'll come in handy to get things out of the pots at the end of the season too.

Thanks mom and dad!! :)

More Fruit!

On the same theme as yesterday, I decided to try a pineapple from scratch. In this case not a seed, but from a nice organic pineapple from Whole Foods.

This technique is based off a collection of YouTube videos, so I'm not necessarily counting on success here, but it's worth a shot.

Step 1: Take a pineapple and cut the top quarter or so off.













Step 2: Cut all of the fruit meat off of the top. If you leave it on, it will just rot.














Step 3: Cut the top off in little slices until you can see the root buds, or whatever the brown things are.













Step 4: Peel off the bottom few layers of leaves.













Step 5: Let it sit out for a few days so it dries out.
This would have been a boring photo.

Step 6: Set it in a glass of water and let it grow some roots.
This photo hasn't happened yet.
Now I just have to wait and see if I get any root action!

New Seeds

So I put an order in on Ebay not too long ago for some seeds to add to my indoor plant collection.

And the winners were, cacti and tangerines. I'm saving the cacti for later, until I have a better setup, but the tangerine seeds are getting sown soon!
I gave 3 of the seeds a good soak and a shot glass seemed to be the perfect vessel to soak the seeds in.

This is the most action a shot glass has seen in my house in years. It probably enjoyed being taken out of the back of the cupboard for a change. After an overnight soak they went into the seed tray under the light. I'll keep you updated on the sprouts!

Worm Food

On my last post about the worms someone said they needed to see the worm food. So here ya go!

Doesn't that look delicious?! You may not be too interested in eating it, but worms are going nuts! They're eating about a pound of the ground up food every two days. Which works out well since that's about how much we have in food scraps.

We blend it, then freeze it, then thaw it out and feed it to them. The only problem was that that freezing and thawing causes a lot of excess moisture and that was making the worm bin really wet.

A little more shredded newspaper fixed that and now I have a boatload of happy, hungry worms! They must be getting busy with it because there's a LOT more worms in there than I originally bought.

Indoor Update

I thought I'd give you an update on the houseplants. I've been focusing a lot on preparations for the garden, but I still haven't forgotten my indoor jungle.

I have a large spray bottle and try to spray them daily since the humidity level in the house is really low.

The shamrock is in full bloom. The white flowers are so delicate and pure looking. I wonder if that's what Ireland looks like in the spring?

And the spider plant my mom gave me when I moved to Boston is finally big enough and strong enough to throw off a shoot. I'm hoping to take the shoots and start growing them. There's a huge nursing home down the road and I'm wondering if there's some residents who might like a fairly low-maintenance houseplant.

And in other news my dining room has officially been taken over. It never really stood a chance, but I'm hoping to reclaim it sometime in June. Or at least most of it. The blue worm bin will most likely be a permanent fixture. Though the front sunroom closet might work well in the warmer months...

Dum, dum. Dum, dum, dum dum...

Looking at this thing I can't help but think of the Jaws theme music in my head.

Is it ever going to open so I can get the seeds?