just watchin the dew drop

I've decided to keep the lights in the greenhouse on during the day, so everything cycles with the sun as the sky wheels around and will sun my kitchen (eventually).

There's a constant condensation on the plastic around the layer that has the seeded plugs. I thought it was because it's so chilly in my apartment, but it's keeping up the damp all the time. Even when the lamps are off.

I had a lot of errands today, so I was gone for a good part. I came home, fed the cats, and looked in on the seeds. The lettuce is gangbusters. Ok, well, gangbusters for seeds that were put in 5 days ago and are now a few inches tall.

The b.sprouts are still coming along. I noticed with a little closer look, that the amaranth, cosmos, and coleus have sprouted too.

I'm going to start a few more plugs of wheat grass and oat grass. I hope to transfer the plugs I have now into some pots the cats can get at, but there's just not much there yet. I don't think I planted dense enough. The blades of grass are getting taller than 4"! I'll give it a couple more days to see how tall it will get.  Until then, I'll watch the grass grow. It's the only thing I can see when I'm sitting in my favorite chair in the living room, and the tip of almost every blade has a dew drop that catches the light.

sucked in

I decided to buy more seeds today. Holyheck. I went to Wagner's (I joined their membership club this year) and went through the seed packets just tossing them in my basket. I spent $25 on seeds, which kind of shocked me. But, I got seed catalogs this year and the cost in the catalogs is more than the retail price for the same and I don't have to pay shipping.
$25 in seeds is going to get me a whole lotta food, so I don't have much to complain. I guess $25 seems like a lot to spend all at once.

I need to start these new seeds and I've already used up my 72-cell starter. So I bought another one. At Target. It was $7.99. Last year, I bought the 72 cell self-watering doohicky. It was $20. So I'm justifying my $7.99 too.

I rearranged the lighting that I've got going for the greenhouse so that I can zip the plastic cover closed completely.

I noticed the lettuce mix, wheat grass, and oat grass are sprouting already. 2 days. So much fun! I like growing things.

I checked with a few more lobby stalkers - cauliflower, lemon basil, and spinach have been requested. A head of cauliflower was $1.89 at the store tonight. I think I'll skip that. Too much space for too little out-put. The others are a go (I already have the seeds).

I'm back

I got pretty quiet last year. I hosted my class reunion in August, got pretty sick, and the garden fuddled along with me.

I waited until the last day to take down my fences and posts. It took about 45 minutes to get everything flat so when the snow would come, the garden wouldn't be discernible (as per city code).

The Garden President, Sophia, banged on my door earlier that day to yell at me and tell me I was horrible (when I told her she woke me from my sick bed) she yelled that I was lazy and should sleep at night like a normal person.

I'm not sure if she has hard feelings for me. Ultimately, she can decide that I don't get a plot this year because almost broke the rules. I'm still pretty ticked. I'd like an apology. But she's a bossy, grouchy old lady so there's not much chance of that.

I flip-flopped over whether to have a garden or not. As soon as I agreed with myself that it was going to do it, "gardening" has had my attention online, in the stores, and looking through my homesteading books.

This will be my third plot in our community garden (as long as Sophia doesn't ban me). I never had a garden of my own before this and I've made a lot of mistakes (which really irks the senior citizens who think I waste). Since I've made some really annoying mistakes, I think I started off well.

I bought a 5'5" indoor greenhouse ($19.99 on sale) with a clear plastic cover and zipper access. I saved lots of my small plastic pots from last year. Last night, I started some seeds in my 72-cell Jiffy plant-starter tray from last year. I did some bigger pots for lettuce mix. EACH pod got it's OWN label written on a mini popsicle stick ($5 for 1000) in permanent ink that includes the date the seeds were started. I haven't been so organized in the past and it took a lot of extra time.

Here's the seed list for 15 March 2013. Most are last year's leftover seeds:
Amaranth: Love Lies Bleeding
Brussels Sprouts: Long Island Improved
Cat Nip
Chives: Common
Cliantro
Coleus: Rainbow Mix
Cosmos: Gazebo Mix
Oat Grass
Pepper: Cubanelle
Pepper: Poblano/Ancho
Sweet Pepper: Carnival Hybrid Mix
Sweet Pepper: Red Roaster Hybrid
Tomato: Super Sweet 100 cherry tomato
Tomato: Warren's Yellow cherry tomato
Wheat Grass

Gosh, when I look at the list all spelled out like that, it seems like a lot. There are still a lot of crops I want to grow. I'm going to hold off a week (if I can restrain myself) until these seeds get a good run at sprouting. I dreamed about them being a little lawn of green last night. They aren't sprouted of course, but my brain is already there.