It's prickly

Wild cucumbers. We covered these in the lab the other week and their fruits are hecka fun to play with.

Let's see, current update on the state of my No, I Don't Have A Garden But I'll Do My Damnest To Pretend pots in my room has that everything that is ready to be planted in the backyard has been taken back by my parents last weekend. Hopefully they'll get planted correctly in the backyard. Hopefully they'll get watered correctly. Hopefully they'll live. Now, that's a lot of hoping but hey, dum spiro spero. If all else fails I can spend the first few weeks of my days off (oh God I HOPE I get some days off) frantically trying to replace everything with whatever seeds I have left.

I can always tag people in GW for more seeds. The people there are nice that way.

What's left in my room are, currently, two pots of snapdragon shoots that have gone off and died because they went past the planting stage, became too leggy due to inadequate lighting, and lost too much water in our recent Hot Again, Cold Again weather. I have seven pots currently covered with shrink wrap in an effort to minic green house, only one of which has germinated (I have really good luck with forget-me-nots, it's rather surprising because I always imagined them as really temperamental flowers). I have: 1 beebalm, dehydrated and wilting because the last few 80-something degree days have not been kind to it, and it's only two centimeters long. I have: one feverfew, 1cm tall and determined to stay that way despite of the fact that's it's a couple of months old and should be taller. I have: black dragon coleus, leggy, green and kind of strange. I'm not quite sure what to do with it.

I also have, two jasmine cuttings currently rooting. In an old newspaper bag and a zip-lock bag, with wet paper towels. I am very high-tech that way.

I still miss the backyard, which I do, in fact, refer to as "my backyard" in my head.

Really cool plant

Something from the mustard family. I've seen this out in the vernal pools. Isn't it awesome?

Last of the yard photos

Three front yard plants that I don't actually know the name of, and I planted the first one.


Mikey. Still growing.

Should I try to poste all the photos?

The rose should start to bloom in a few weeks.


Calla lillies. It's a good year for them.


Butterfly iris is budding. I'm not sure how long it'll take before it blooms, but the buds are very pointy and hurts if you accidentally get poked with them.



More sweet pea photos (because they're so pretty).

Today I've: started 2 containers of chamomile and lemon balm, 1 container of feverfew, 1 container of heirloom forget-me-nots (not sure what type it is, but the seeds are covered with little prickles), and reseeded green onion and marigold.

More backyard photos

Still massive amounts of sweet pea in the backyard. I didn't know I had the speckled kind...must remember to save some seeds for that.


Mint, after being pruned ...four times already.


Begonia, which finally stopped being so leggy after the pruning and seems to be doing fairly well right now.

Garden photos 4/12/08

I'm proud to announce that my columbines have finally started blooming.


Not as great a photo, but I was excited.


Lavender is still flowering. The inflorescence is different from what I expected for Spanish lavender, so I finally got around to looking it up, and it turns out that mine isn't the "true" Spanish lavender - Lavandula stoechas, but French lavender Lavandula dentata that sometimes gets called Spanish lavender.
Such is the fun of common names.


Hens and chicks, rescued from the hungry geranium.


Calendula, or pot marigold.

germination 4/4/08

Germination photos 4/2/08

Stuff germination photos 3/30/08

Giving up

I biked to our club garden plot the other day and was frankly astonished at the rapid growth of weeds. They were waist-high and carried every conceivable surface, not to mention giving the general impression that they are a jungle that would eat you alive if given the chance. Despite of this I bravely ventured forth into the field (after taking something like five minutes to find the path) and this is what I saw when I reached our plot.


Lupines. Ones of the few things that are still alive because I covered them with half of a cut-off water bottle when I planted them. Now when I arrived I find them growing in this weird contorted formation, sun light deprived, amidst the weeds. I'm not sure how long they'll last, given the chance, but well....


The lupine-in-a-bottle before I pulled the bottle off. Everything else around it, ladies and gentlemen, is weeds.


A sad, sad photo of our plot (you can pick out the bottles of lupine peeking out amidst the weeds).


Our "flower plot" area. If you squint you might be able to make out a few poppies barely there. Everything else around is, once again, weeds.


This is where one of the paths used to be, and why it took me a moment to find it.


Standing in front of the plot, looking at where the other path used to be.

Thus, having emailed the rest of the club several times, thereby at least convincing, if no one else, the club president to go out and take a look at it, it was brought to our attention at the last meeting where it officially came out that yeah, everyone thought the idea of having a garden plot is cool but no one actually has the time for one. As in - no one has the time to even make it to a work day, much less being able to water and weed it regularly (and my what a lot weeding needs to be done out there in the field - it almost makes me appreciate my backyard, despite of the accumulation of weeds I find every time I go home). Therefore the motion was passed that we just drop the plot thing, and so that will be the end of that.

I just received random things that I completely weren't expecting from a GW exchange that ended weeks ago. It is so random. Pleasing, but random nevertheless.

Seeding

Received the lemon balm and heirloom (I think it's the Chinese blue cultivar, but we'll see) forget-me-not that I traded for in today's mail. It's a little bit like opening presents at Christmas. (I have been trading out California poppies "moon glow", my 4 different cultivars of corn, and morning glory "giant, mixed colors".)

Also today: reseeded marigold (only 1 came up), tomato (only 1 came up, but the seed's from 2006 so that's pretty good for tomato), feverfew (dunno why, a bunch came up the other time, I think).

Iris, it blooms

Clearly I'm not done with the yard yet

So, a few more photos, including the ones with the blue pill bugs that I mentioned a while ago:


Sweet peas in bloom. A lot of them in bloom. I'll be trying to save some seeds and we'll see how that goes.


Blue pill bug! I guess the color doesn't show up as well in direct sunlight.


Yeah, definitely better in dimmer lighting.


I thought they were blue beads at first, but beads aren't quite as...crawly.


Yep.

Mass germination!

First of all, two more photos of lavender:


There were spikes coming off at all sides. I might decide to save a few for seeds. Anyone interested?


The next photo dump will be this weekend. I'll try to remember to take photos of all the germinating stuff tomorrow. This is the last of the backyard photos though.

Meanwhile, so what's germinated, you ask?

Well, I've one of bee balm and St. Johnswort for a while now. I got one feverfew (might resow because one is a sad number, it'll be lonely, and I actually have more seeds for that one). There're also now calendula (mixed color), marigold (French dwarf), basil (sweet), radish (champion), sunflower (dwarf cultivar of some sort -- I'm sad that I didn't remember to copy down the name before I threw away the packet), snapdragon (mixed color), thyme (olde English), and chive (garlic chive) (previous pots didn't make it through the transfer back home).

Just...wait for the photos. I think they're really cool.