Thursday, March 29, 2012

When Life Hands You Tomatoes...

Inside the human house this week, lots of green things are living under the lights, and some of them are not so wee anymore. 

The strawberries are going to a community garden that Matt is helping set up at a local low-income housing site. 

Tomatoes! And a few peppers- the Serranos have come up, but I've only managed one poor little Jalapeno so far, and not a single Hungarian Wax or Aci Sivri has sprouted yet. 


I transplanted my first planting of tomatoes into gallon pots last night. On that planting, I forgot to use the spray bottle to water until the seeds sprouted, but watered directly and washed all the seeds around. I now have a bunch of mystery tomatoes that came up in pots labeled as peppers. Oh well, we'll get a surprise later in the summer!

With space under the lights at a premium, a tray of marigolds, chamomile and yarrow is hardening off on the front stoop this week, to be planted out into the garden. Flowers!


These starts are taking a bit of a beating today, because a spring storm has moved in and wildly windy (in that wonderful spring way) and pouring rain. But it's warm (mid-50s, anyway)! We haven't had warm rain in so long- it feels so refreshing outside right now. All this rain should help everything we planted last weekend come up in a hurry. 

Our camellia burst into bloom this week, surprising us with both dark pink and light pink flowers!


I went to take a closer look, and discovered that the ones I thought were light pink are actually varigated- how pretty is that!?

My spring break hasn't been as relaxing or productive so far as I had hoped, but it's been very good practice in going with the flow. In addition to starting a new job, this week has been full of surprises, including a family emergency on Matt's side, and an unexpectedly urgent root canal on my end. I had a big long list of chores and activities I wanted to do on my break, but life has reminded me that in times of stress it is more important to sit still and read the new issue of Mother Earth News than to wash the giant stack of dishes or clean the garret. I've gotten a lot done this evening though, and after dinner Matt and I are going to tackle the one big job we agreed to accomplish together this week: organize the basement, which has descended into disarray over the last four or five months.

1 comment:

Heather said...

You are a champion at plant starts! I was thinking last week about how good your layered light system is.

2 of my Hungarian wax peppers have come up so far (out of 10) - but they just came up today after maybe almost 2 weeks? So maybe yours will still come - they are the slowest of all I've started to come up.

Sympathies to you for your root canal - I had my first last year and oh my was it expensive. I hope you have dental insurance!