11:20 AM My poor legumes

I think my beans and peas are on their way to little legume heaven. The vines are turning sickly colors and not much is happening with their growth. Honestly, I think it's rot. They're container planted and they're in the only container with a tray to hold water in. Add in the weeks and weeks of pouring rain we've been getting and they've been well over watered. Not to mention that a couple of those hard storms broke many of the vines.

So I guess we'll try again next year or in the fall. I think I'm going to try the bush variety of many of those guys instead of the fragile vines. That or I'll try the vines in an upside down hanging container.

Unfortunately, my Sage is also not doing so hot. But my African Basil from last year has bounced back rather well. And so has my oregano. In fact, all of the plants I bought last year in seedling form are still doing well. The two trees I bought this year as well. I think this may be a lesson for me. I just may not be cut out to raise my own seeds.

10:03 AM Here's how we grow

This is how I've rearranged things. I've strung some wire between the planter stands on either side of the box with the beans/peas so there's a guidance to grow up. Unfortunately, my little pomegranate tree isn't thriving as well as I had hoped.
This is my parsley/cilantro planter. The formed leaves are So Tiny!
Oh I just adore my lavendar. I'm so happy it is blooming finally. Unfortunately the storm last night beat it down even more. I may have to put something around it to re-train it, if that's possible.
Here's my beans/peas. You can see how I've only got 2 of the 4 really doing well and the growth of one far exceeds the other. I still can't remember what is what, so when they finally produce, it'll be a lovely surprise!

3:06 PM No more waiting, it's here!

My little Dwarf Pomegranate Tree from Gurney's that is.

This little tree is very different from the Dwarf Fig. The Fig came as a sapling sprig with a couple of leaf buds emerging. The pomegranate tree in comparison is more like a bush and is Full of leaves. It's still very tiny in comparison to an actual bush or tree, but hopefully once I get it planted and fed it'll grow like crazy.

10:15 AM Join the Urban Garden Project

Among many of the blogs I follow, I try to keep up with other folks who are gardening in the Urban Jungle. It makes me feel like I'm less of a crazy person to see others living in situations similar to mine refusing to adhere to the hard and fast apartment living rules.

Today Urban Garden Casual posted an article about joining the Urban Garden Project. I signed on as quickly as I could fire off the e-mail, haha! So maybe my little modest garden will garner new friends and we'll receive some good advice from this network of Urban Gardeners.

Speaking of my garden, I meant to take photos of my crazy plants today. I'm going to have to get that vertical climber set up soon as those little beans/peas are growing like Crazy!!! And it looks like my sage and basil are also starting to pop up as well.

12:18 PM Continuing with the Spring lovliness

After yesterday's wonderful First Day of Spring surprises, this weekend has continued on with establishing a lovely and fruitful season.

Today I brought my little dormant dwarf fig tree out of the veggie crisper of the fridge and I gave her a home. I couldn't quite afford to give her a really pretty large home yet, but the helpful folks at Redenta's Garden advised me on a suitable temporary pot that can last her while she's growing. She'll get a prettier upgrade when she needs one.

So without further ado, here she is!

See how pretty her little buds are?

Yesterday I showed you pics of my first bean/pea sprouts. Here's an update on those. It just amazes me how Fast these things grow! Yesterday they were barely out of the soil and today, I can almost see leaves. Maybe tomorrow they'll unfold.

The section of the box that was just teasing me with the one teensy tinsy sprout has exploded like the original section. Those sprouts are about a day behind in development, so they look exactly like what I showed you yesterday.

Oh, remember my lavender that I planted last year that never bloomed?? This one:

Let's take another look at our little lavender.

Did you see it??? One more time.

It's a bloom!!!!! I'm shocked. Seriously, I'm shocked. The Only thing I did different is that I threw some of the dead branches of my basil plant in the pot hoping that the decomposition of those branches would help out a little. It seems I Could have been right about that. But now I also have some food/fertilizer for flowering plants and vegetables that I was told to get for the fig tree and I think I'm gonna put some of that in the pot tomorrow and see what happens.

Here's the whole garden collection all together.

I was planning on doing some square foot gardening this year, but now I'm thinking that I should stick with what I have now as I also still have my pomegranate tree coming. This is my first year to container garden any veggies, much less fruit trees and this many herbs, so I'm a little afraid that I will get overwhelmed and drop the ball. I'm thinking it may be a better idea to get this system established before I expand more.

Yesterday I also showed you a patch of crazy dandelions. Now here's the pretty pre-wish version. There are still a few of these left around the yard.

Miss Maizy Loo loves Spring too.

Nabisco wishes she could be outside gardening with Maizy and I.

But this is about as far as she's gonna get unless she can prove to me that she can behave outside, as in come back in when she's told to.

9:45 AM More than one sign of Spring

Today is the first day of Spring. Spring is a favorite season for many. For me it is because you can see so many wonderful miracles of Nature happening right before your eyes. Well, that and all the bright green colors everywhere. But mostly I am a huge fan of Nature's rebirth after the hibernation of Winter.

At my home today, I got to witness not one but Two signs of the beauty of Spring happening right outside my front door.

The first thing that I noticed was that the pair of birds who nest in my front Catalpa tree are back. And they're busy making their nest again in one of the holes in the trunk. I haven't identified the birds yet, but I want to try to figure out what kind they are. I'm pretty sure it is the same pair as last year.

This is the little male guarding the nest. Their nest hole is just to the right of the new leaf growth in the center there.

He's a bitty little guy. He's mostly black with a few brown flecks and his neck feathers can fluff out quite a bit. He's very talkative when I'm out there. Protecting his nest, I imagine.
And here he is with his mate. I had Just Missed them both waltzing down the sidewalk picking up paper for the nest. I wouldn't have noticed it if the piece of paper hadn't been so Big, haha! I need a zoom lens. You can sort of see that his mate on the left is brown.

The other sign of Spring that happened at my home this morning was that as I was goggling at the sheer numbers and height of the dandelions in the yard, I looked down and noticed that I have Sprouts!!! I can't remember which ones these are. I planted 4 different kinds of climbing beans/peas in this long planter. There's one other one which is starting to sprout as well, but it's so tiny, you can barely tell it from the soil, so I didn't include that picture. I'm so excited, aren't they beautiful! Dang, I need a macro lens too!

Here's the envelopes for what I planted in that long box. I still can't remember what order they're in, but I guess we'll find out when they all mature.

Here's that Dandelion patch I mentioned. Crazy huh? Yes, my apartment's management really needs to get back on the stick with the mowing. Eventhough it's really just the Dandelions which are growing like crazy.

Hey remember that Oregano I worried about killing???? Here it is today!

My neighbor finally came out to do something with it. He gave it a "haircut" as he calls it and it seems like that was exactly what it needed to start really filling out. I think I may give my oregano and my basil a haircut now and see what happens!

12:44 PM Fig Tree happiness.

She's here! I'm so excited. She's even got some green sprouts on her. I can't wait to get her into a pot and watch her grow! I may stop by Redenta's at lunch today since I'm going home for lunch and pick up a pot and some good soil.

Eeeee! I'm doing the happy dance!

12:43 PM The Oregano Problem

In my apartment complex I am not the only person who has an interest for gardening. My upstairs neighbor also dabbles in urban container gardening. From time to time we will care for each other's plants when we go out of town. I really enjoy this kind of community.

Over Christmas, I was home and so I was asked to care for his potted oregano. This particular oregano plant had been raised from seed. My neighbor prides himself on raising all of his plants from seed. I like to cheat and buy the plant from a nursery.

When I received the plant, the oregano was spilling over the side of the container nearly touching the ground. And although the leaves were a touch dry, the plant looked quite healthy. Unfortunately, it didn't stay that way. Within a couple of days, the oregano began showing signs of drying up. I was completely confused by this as my own oregano plant sitting less than 3 feet away looked Lovely.

(my oregano)

At this point, I just did what I could to keep it watered and hoped for the best. Despite all my best efforts, the whole thing finally just dried up entirely and began to die. I, of course, felt horrible for killing this lovely plant.

My neighbor has been back for two weeks now and has yet to come get his oregano. Either he has forgotten about it or he was disappointed that it was on its way to herbal heaven and just left it with me.

Just before my neighbor came back, I pruned out all of the obviously dead branches and left the ones which had some green left in the stem or actual green leaves hanging on. This morning I removed all of the dead leaves from the remaining branches. Boy does it look pitiful now, haha.

(neighbor's oregano after the death removal)

As you can see, it's not ALL dead. Some of it did survive, but just imagine that plant being full and lush and almost reaching the ground. It is a pitiful sight compared to what it used to look like. Although, the remaining green gives me hope that it can be resurrected. And Look! There's some totally New growth popping out!

(the small leaves in the middle are the new growth)

I always thought that I was incredibly lucky that I've resurrected my Memama's Ivy plant no less than 4 times over the last 3 years. But if I can pull off the resurrection of this oregano, then I may start to believe I have some sort of Gift of Plant Resurrection or something. It sure would be nice if in a couple of weeks I could walk up to my neighbor's apt and present him with a renewed oregano plant!

8:04 PM Come on Home Spring!

I just bought my Dwarf Fig and Dwarf Pomegranate trees from Gurneys! Eeeee! I can't wait for them to get here!

9:40 PM Inspiration while the weather is wonky

Yesterday Dallas was covered in ice. The surrounding areas lost power. I'm a Central dweller, so I didn't get the brunt of the icy conditions due to the cocoon of the concrete jungle, however, I came home to a Beautiful scene of ice covered tree limbs everywhere. Unfortunately my tripod is MIA, so I couldn't do the scene proper justice.






Anyhow, yesterday it was icy, today the high was in the mid 50s, but by Friday the high temp will reach just over 70 degrees. Up, down, up down. This is Texas winter weather. It won't Really freeze until the end of Jan. I'm not much of a snow bunny, so I'm already waiting anxiously for full on Spring to get here and stay.

And in the spirit of my waitin' and wishin' and hopin' and prayin' I've been looking at some cool urban garden ideas. I do have a small area where I think I may be able to cultivate some vegetables at my apartment complex, however the small space is REALLY small and I'm going to have to get pretty creative about what and how I plant. Not to mention, since my space is viewable to the street, it's going to have to be aesthetically pleasing as well. This presents a bit of a challenge. But you know what? I Love a challenge!

Here are the two coolest ideas I came across today:

Wading pool gardens. This idea certainly won't pass muster in the aesthetically pleasing department, but it reminds me of a very similar method by a different name - Square Foot Gardening - which can be contained as prettily as your building skills allow. I've been mulling this method around for a while. I believe I can make two or three square feet work in my little space.

Then there's also Veritcal Gardening. When I first started searching that method, I kept finding flower and shrub gardens build on building exteriors. But eventually I started seeing vegetable gardening. There's two ways to vertical garden for veggies. One way is to build a wire or wood trellis for vines. The other way is to build a wall of shelves for containers. I think I have begun to hatch a plan for two trellises. One for black berries and blueberries with strawberries spilling out on the bottom. The other will be for peae and cucumbers and greebeans.

These plans may take some more reconfiguring to get right. But I'll eventually have produce of my own to be giddy about. And I do have several more months to mull this over after all.

9:00 AM I have a dream

No, it's not to have my children's names in Lights with nothing to hit but the heights, hehe.

I have a dream of a nice little house with a large backyard where I can grown enough vegetables for myself and also to make a small dime off of. I have a dream of working from home in a career where I can manage my time however I choose so that I can cultivate those crops and write to my heart's content as well as have the ability to still nurse a few wayward animals to health and proper homes.

Yes, this dream will likely require a Large lottery winning to attain, but it doesn't stop me from dreaming it.

In fact, I've already begun to put part of my dream to use. I am nursing a few wayward animals to health and proper homes and I am also beginning to be a gardener. I may be an apartment dweller at the moment, but I have guerilla'd a spot in my building's front lawn for a bit of a container herb garden. I figure I'll start there and see how things go over the winter.

Spring and Summer were pretty good to me. My basil flourished. Although I let it go to seed. Next time I'll remember to harvest those leaves a lot earlier, man when one branch went to seed it seemed like the whole thing burst into flowers! Although I will say that the honey bees sure liked those flowers! And honestly, even though they say that the flowers will stop the plant from producing more leaves, I think that's only true for each branch that has flowers. Because my plant has continued to sprout new branches even after the mass flowering. So letting the plant flower wasn't All bad. In fact, it was rather enjoyable to see the flowers there and the bees going to town on them.

Next Spring I plan on attempting a technique called Square Foot Gardening. With my small little area I have quadranted off, I think I can get away with building an Attractive (meaning I'll have to pretty it up) little raised garden box. My hope is to plant some of the things that I buy the most at the grocery store, like green beans, peas, and lima beans, more herbs, and maybe some garlic and onion and carrots. Mmmm!

And also I found out that there are some fruit trees that come in Dwarf varieties. I actually Found a Dwarf Pomegranate! And if I can find a dwarf Fig tree to keep potted, then I will be in HOG HEAVEN! All I would need else-wise for fruit would be grapes, and blackberries. Both would be awesome on a trellis!

I'm getting excited already just thinking about it!!!!