Spring is great!

 azalea planted by previous homeowner

1st azalea I planted

The other azalea has started to bloom.  I like the white edging on the flowers.

bougainvillea

azalea planted by previous homeowner

fat cat

New projects

Since the peppers are doing great, they have made it to their new home outside.  Soon I will pot them up, but for now they are in the biodegradable peat pots, which can be inserted directly into another pot and surrounded by soil.

The new project is morning glories.  My friend Robin gave me a packet of morning glories last year as a little housewarming gift.  These will be started up in the Aerogarden and planted in the front bed.  I am going to try to get it to climb up the pillar next to the front walkway.

Morning glories to be.  No action from the avocados yet..

Upside-down tomato project is doing great!  The starter pellet I have has 7 sprouts, and I even forgot to start it with the little plastic dome.

Tomato sprouts 

Tomato sprouts

Azalea update

More blooming from the azalea planted by the previous homeowner

Newly planted bougainvillea

Newly planted azalea starting to bloom.

Pretty!

Days 59-62

Baby Tomato 

Still struggling with blackened pepper leaves.  Laying off the water seems to help.

The aerogarden has become crowded with my various experiments, but I'm havin fun!

The white cup is the start of my "upside-down tomato" - peat pellet plus cherry tomato seeds

Florida Cavern State Park

Took a day trip to the Florida Cavern.  Thought you guys might enjoy some pics!  Much of the FL cavern was naturally formed, but quite a bit of it was dug out by a crew, the CCC, specifically to make a tourist attraction.  Such a beautiful site.

Tower of Pisa formation

Cathedral/Castle formation

Dolphin-shaped pool

A bat hangin out

Micro-toms

One of the Aerogarden Facebook followers has posted a picture of his tomatoes.  These are called "micro-toms" and grow like groundcover.  There are 6 plants here.  Aren't they gorgeous?

He says the seeds come from "Tomato Growers Supply Co." out of Fort Meyers, Florida. 

A future growing endeavor, perhaps?

Spring planting! (round 1)

This year I am trying the upside-down tomato planter.  It came with a small white seed packet labeled "tomato" (no other details?).  I used my own name-brand seeds instead and made sure they are cherry tomatoes, as I have found that larger tomatoes don't grow too well down here in FL.

I started my little tomato project with about 10 seeds in a peat pellet, under the Aerogarden light, of course.  May the strongest seed win!  Then I'll move it to the upside-down planter when it germinates.

Bf was kind enough this morning to make my life so much easier by aiming the sprinklers at my new shrubs.  No more waking up early and filling the watering can three times to make the rounds in the yard.  He also gave me a little tutorial on how to turn the sprinklers on in the zone I need watered. 

This also encourages me to plant more shrubs since it's less running around each day to tend to them!

Aerogarden days 55-58

Day 55:

Day 57:

Day 58:

Can you see the little tomato?

Sorry for the lousy photo - that part of my plant looks hacked, as it had to be pruned to allow the thyme and oregano enough light to thrive.

Non-aerogarden, yet still planty, stuff

Weird day.

Nightmares about laundry (I hate laundry!), camera died, lost the camera charger, found the camera charger, lost the car keys, tore up house freaking out looking for the car keys, found the car keys in lunchbox and was almost late to work (1 more minute and I would have been)!!!

I am happy to announce that the shrub growing right outside my back door is an azalea with a TON of buds, some of which have opened to display large, beautiful pink flowers.

From what I've read, they only like acidic soil and most of my soil is alkaline (sand).

Well, this growing azalea inspired me.

So yesterday I tried an experiment.  I planted two small azaleas out back.  I dug a large hole, much larger than the plants, and filled the whole hole with nice, fertile Jungle Mix shrub soil.  I did not put any of the sand back in.  And my two azaleas went in there.  We will see what happens.  Soilwise.  I did not have mulch on hand, so I went oldschool, using leaves.

THEN..
This morning I woke up to water my new shrubs and found that an armadillo had trampled one azalea, breaking about 1/3 of it off.

The right plant got trampled.  The front middle "plant" is actually the part of the azalea that was broken off.  I stuck it in the ground to see if it would grow.

Then it dug 3 big holes in my nice Jungle Mix soil around the plants.  That's how bf knew it was an armadillo - we didn't actually SEE it.. Well, what the hell?

Anyway, I tucked the broken ends (front, middle foliage in the picture) of the stems back into the ground.  Some stuff grows from clippings, so maybe I'll get lucky with them.

2/21 update!  Found another azalea in the front flower bed!  It's kind of a bare-looking one.  But see the pink buds near the bottom?

Since spring is just about here, you may start seeing some more outdoorsy posts.  Hope ya don't mind!

Herbalicious!

Day 50-Oregano & Thyme mingling

Parsley

Day 54- Thank goodness the parsley got a 2nd leaf.  One parsley leaf would not season much...

Speaking of parsley, I think I'll drop a few more seeds into that pod.

Had an avocado pit from an avocado we ate the other day.  Actually I had 5 or 6.  I started 3 like this:
Pit 1-West window
Pit 2-Aerogarden
Pit 3-Inside a cabinet
I can tell you that after 2 days Pit 3 was moved to the window because it was getting moldy!

I'll start the other pits once I see where these grow best.  Maybe we will have some nice avocado trees in the yard, eventually?

Days 50-54

Josh's time-lapse video of his Aerogardens

Check this out - Josh has been an avid participant on the Aerogarden Facebook page, and was kind enough to share with us his time-lapse video of his Aerogardens.

This is so cool!

http://static.ak.fbcdn.net/rsrc.php/v1/y1/r/Qyh5ph9cQ_M.swf?v=10100574084337349&ev=0

I think the play button "hides" sometimes..
Check back later if there is no play button on the screen.

Days 48-49

I think once springtime comes, it would be lovely to put the cascading thyme in a hanging basket.  The oregano is starting to cascade a little bit too.  There are hooks outside my entryway that were installed by the previous owner.  I imagine she hung baskets out there too.

Parsley got its first frilly leaf.  Yay!

Savory

The pepper is getting black leaves.  I think this is due to over-watering.  I backed off on watering for 2 days, because the peat seemed sopping, and the green started to come back a little.  I'll try light to moderate water every other day, or every 2 days now.