Herbs, Day 7

My oregano has sprouted! They are very tiny... but they are on thier way! Most of the other seeds take a minimum of 10 days to germinate, so we'll see how the other herbs do.

Life Will Find a Way...

Okay, so I've been a little lax about rotating my compost. It's been a couple of ... months. So I resolved myself to rotate my compost today. I have two compost buckets right now. The first one has a little leftover humus from this summer (on the right), the second is the compost I started this fall.

When I looked at the second bucket a little more closely, I realized there was something growing in the compost (in addition to some mold). When I pulled on the stem, I realized it was attached to a piece of potato!



The stem didn't look great - it was kind of a greenish-grey color, but I was impressed none-the-less. This potato managed to grow in a bucket with a lid on it and not much light getting in - and little in the way of water.

It reminded me of a quote from Jurassic Park - Life will find a way...

Herbs Day 1, Take 2

One of my New Years Resolutions is to grow and maintain an herb garden. So... here's the new herb garden... I have sage, parsley, basil, cilantro, and oregano...

Hopefully they sprout this time... and hopefully I don't kill them.

I'll keep you updated! Should germinate in 10-20 days.

Epic Fail.

Well... after about 3 weeks of watering.... nothing in the herb garden. Epic Fail might be a little too strong, but it was pretty much a complete and utter failure. A few weeks after I stopped watering the soil... one little sprig of parsley showed itself, but it honestly didn't seem worth the upkeep - for one sprout. And it was right before I went out of town....

The White Dot Situation

My sister pointed out that I never followed up on the white fuzz - after rolling the compost, I have not seen the white fuzz! However, not too long after the white fuzz incident, there was the Tiny White Dots Situation - - I opened up the compost to switch lids to roll it and there were strange tiny white dots all over the inside of the plastic bucket (see the above picture). I wasn't sure what it was then (and I'm still not sure what it is) my first two thoughts were: 1) tiny dots of mold and 2) insect larvae of some type.

Nothing has hatched... so I'm pretty sure it's not larvae. The last time I opened the lid to roll the compost, the dots were still there, but they didn't seem as... intense, for lack of a better word. However, I wouldn't not call the White Dot Situation resolved.

Herbs, Day 1

Since outdoor gardening failed (and we had the first hard freeze of the year) I moved the carrots inside - they're doing well, but I don't want to freeze them to death. And I planted herbs today! Hopefully I'll have more luck with the herbs than I did with my plants this summer. I still had some of the humus from this summer left over, so these herbs are planted in a mixture of potting soil and humus. Let's see how they grow!

And then there were .... carrots.

Well, the spinach did not survive the flood. And the zuchini did not survive either... it, I am afraid, died from neglect more than anything. Though the zuchini bloomed, the blooms never turned into little zuchinis... Here's the current state of things: