seeds

I'm not particularly good at keeping plants alive.  Or at least, I'm not particularly good at getting them to thrive. I have had several plants over the years that survived (an African violet that never flowered after the ones it had when I got it died, though it stayed green for a few years... a handful of orchids that were similar... a couple kitchen herbs that made it a few months...).  Most of the time, I get a young plant, and forget to water it.  Or get some seeds or bulbs, and they sprout, and turn into seedlings... and then die from over or under watering.  I did have a number of plants in my aquariums that did pretty well, but mostly as long as I had the appropriate amount of lighting for them, they were fine - because if I didn't have enough water to keep them alive, there wouldn't've been enough water to keep the fish alive either. Plants are simply not as good at reminding you to feed them as cats are.

Despite this history, G and I have decided to attempt a small balcony garden on our 3.5th floor (4.5th floor if you're in the US or Canada) apartment.  G has a better history of keeping plants alive than I do, luckily.

Mostly I write this today as a way to mark the date.  I suspect that it's a little late for some (most?) of the seeds I've planted, but we'll give it a shot - and at worst, some (or all) don't make it, and we try again next year.

A bit over a month ago, we grabbed a little herb kit at IKEA on an impulse.  Many of the seeds germinated (the coriander in particular was quite enthusiastic; the thyme never looked very happy; the basil looked okay from the beginning) and they got their first-set-of-leaves-after-being-cotyledons (and there my plant biology leaves me)... and they kind of got stuck.  There has been a little progress in the growth department in the last two weeks or so, particularly from the basil, but mostly the seedlings have looked about the same for over two weeks.  I don't know much about plants, but I suspect this is not the behaviour of happy seedlings.

We acquired a plant of some form (it has broad leaves that are kind of prickly underneath) that supposedly has edible flowers (no flowers currently in evidence) from G's parents last weekend.  After a few days of looking a little droopy and sad, it has perked up considerably after repeated application of water.

Last week, we bought some pots and some dirt and some seeds.  I put one pot, most of the dirt, some water and some of the seeds (pansies) together on Thursday.  We shall see how they do (they didn't have pansy seedlings at the hardware store... these are some of the seeds I suspect are too late in the season to really do well, since there are tons of pansies out in public places with tons of color).

Yesterday, G got me some herbs-in-pots at the grocery store.  He got me some trays to start seeds in today, along with more dirt.

In one longish pot, there is basil (both the new basil and the sad IKEA seedlings), mint (from yesterday) and the coriander (from IKEA).  I rather expect that the seedlings aren't going to be very happy about being transplanted at this age, but they were not looking terribly happy, I imagine that the dirt they came in isn't all that good, and the IKEA pots had no drainage, which probably isn't good for them (the dirt at the bottom of these pots was rather tightly packed and fairly wet, supporting my theory).  Either they will die, which is sad, or they will be happy about this.  We will know in a few days.

In one medium round pot, I put the chives (from yesterday).  I upgraded the size of the pot they were going to be in after I saw how tightly packed the roots and bulbs were in the little pot they came in.  They might not be chives though - they smelled quite strongly after I pulled them out of the pot they came in.  We'll see, I guess.

In a small square pot, I put the extremely sad, tentative looking IKEA thyme, under a similar theory as the basil and coriander above, but in its own container so I could watch it closer.  This will probably mean that it will die, because I will probably overwater it, but we shall see.

In one of the two trays of little pots, I've put dirt and the seeds of cherry tomatoes, some kind of green bean and some kind of pea.  I'm not entirely sure what kind of bean and pea, because the pictures aren't quite like what I'm used to from the US, but they should be edible if they actually get that far.

Everything got a whole bunch of water today (I don't know much about plants, but I do know that recently transplanted plants are happier if they have more water, and seeds need moisture to get going), and we'll see what happens.

There are no pictures because I'm lazy, and most people know what dirt in pots look like. :-)