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.

9:40 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!!!!