Indoor Garden - First harvest!

Last week I posted that I was growing an indoor lettuce garden. And this week I did my first harvest! Following the tips from others who have the same garden kit on how to properly harvest the lettuce I went with the whole leaf method. On the right you can see the before picture. This shows that the Red Sails (the purple one) and the Black Seeded Simpson leaves were covering up the pod that has yet to fully sprout and the others were also fighting for light. So I cut them down a bit.

You can see here on the left what I kept on the plants after the harvest. I might still trim a few more but this was a start. They say not to take more than a third of the plant at each harvest so that it can recover and grow. The plants are quick growers so I am not too worried. Just have to figure out what to do with my small pile of fresh salad greens. Yes, make a salad is the typical answer for what to make with lettuce. And maybe that is what I will do. Start simple, to get to know the flavors then go more advanced in my salad making or lettuce uses.

It is nice that even while it is snowing outside I can still have my own bit of green and fresh produce. This is a great way to let kids see where food comes from, and grow their own salads and other veggies. Even if you don't get a fancy kit to create your own indoor garden there are other ways to start one. You can take empty food containers and fill with soil and plant seeds, get some small pots, or other recyclable containers, even toilet paper tubes can work for starting seeds. Take the tube, cut four slits on one end to fold over creating a cup, fill it with soil stand them up inside a cleaned food container, getting 4-6 of them in the container depending on size, and place by a window to watch the seeds grow. Remember to water them each day as needed. Enjoy your own indoor garden grow, Meet Me Outdoors.

Indoor Gardening 2021

My indoor gardening over the years has typically been some version of volunteer garden. Or basically whatever mysteriously grows out of my compost is what gets to be watered and nurtured and let grow until it is finished its season.  I have gotten squash plants and tomato plants out of it in the past. Not the best of produce but worked well enough. Last spring I did do some planting of basil seeds that I got and the result was quite nice. Fresh basil has been a great addition to my meals. Other seeds I tried planting a month ago didn't grow because I wasn't keeping up on my watering. That has been something I have forgotten to do even when I do walk by my window garden entering my kitchen all the time.

So this year I am trying something different. A garden system that will tell me when it needs water if I forget, and when to add nutrients, too. An AeroGarden. I am not one for brands or anything, but this is something I have wanted to try for many years. And now I have! It has been two weeks since I planted and four of the six pods have made some great progress. The other two I am giving another week before calling it, and the company has a guarantee if any of their pods don't grow by sending replacements.

I started this as a project for one of my classes, was hoping to do weekly check ins with my students to see how the plants progress over the semester. Then for fun I decided to do daily growth check ins in between the class time since the first sprouts were super exciting for me not to share. I took a couple pictures two to three times a day depending on when I was home or out. The resulting video was made with a stop motion app with eight frames per second timing.

I have yet to try any of the lettuce leaves, I am waiting until they get a bit bigger. For harvesting they say to just pluck the leaves and eat. Right now they are small so maybe next week or a week after that I will try one. I also have a plant your own seeds kit so I might add those in the spots where the plants didn't grow and see what may come out of it. I have some more basil seeds and some other herbs I can plant.  It is early for planting outside, but this has been a fun way to bring the outside in. Looking forward to watch this continue to grow. Try some new ways to plant your own indoor garden or start some seeds for an outdoor garden and watch it grow, Meet Me Outdoors.

Looking Forward to Spring

I decided it was time to do some repotting of plants for spring.  In the blue pot is my geranium plant that needed a bigger container. On the right in the green pot are some acorn squash sprouts my second grade class planted. The put too many seeds in the seed starter cup and when I put in a plastic bag too keep moist 7 of them grew. I put them all in the pot and hope that at least one makes it to a big plant and maybe even to flowering stage, but there are many more weeks until that happens. Until then... waiting for spring, Meet Me Outdoors.

Field Trip to Ladew Gardens

Today, I went on a field trip with fellow coworkers to Ladew Gardens. Ladew Gardens has a wide variety of gardens and many topiary displays as well as a Butterfly House full of local butterflies. Our group was divided into two with half wandering the gardens first and the other half went to the butterfly garden.  I was in the wander the gardens group.  With map in hand and my big sun hat and sunblock on it was time to explore with my group.

The gardens were made up of garden rooms which were highlighted by color, plant or theme.  The topiaries throughout the gardens had themes as well from one garden room to the next.  Some were still getting trained so you would see a frame and a topiary still growing to fill it. The first image is of the Hunt Scene you can see the hound dogs on the left and 'hopping' over the fence is a man on a horse. Off frame is the fox topiary.  The second photo is from the Sculpture Garden. See if you can figure out what some of the topiaries are supposed to be. Not easy, is it?

After exploring the rest of the gardens it was time for my favorite part, the Butterfly House.  All around the enclosed garden are host plants as well that if they find eggs or caterpillars on them the staff may clip them and bring them inside.  As the main plants are being eaten by the caterpillars they would bring in some clippings from outside so the ones planted in the garden can have a chance to recover.  Throughout the Butterfly House you can find butterflies in all stages of life from egg to adult and the docents are happy to point them out to visitors.

Fritillary

I have tried to capture some of the butterflies and caterpillars in pictures. (If it is out of focus: blame the camera. It doesn't like accept where I want it to focus so it tends to have the background in focus and the object I center the focus box on a bit blurry.) To identify what was in the butterfly house they had some signs around the marking the plants and the type of butterfly that would use it as a host plant.  There was a pamphlet that was available to help ID some of the common butterflies in the garden. For those at your home gardens and you can get a good picture of them there is a good website for North American butterflies and moths.
Some of you may notice that a few of the butterflies are missing part of their wings as shown in the picture of the fritillary on the right. This is part of their defense, if some predator comes by they may only get a bit of their wing while the butterfly can flutter off and escape being eaten. The swallowtail butterfly, named because of the little tail bit at the bottom of their hind wings, has that small section of the wing for that reason. 

Spicebush Swallowtail caterpillar

Ladew Gardens is great for families, kids and school groups alike. My group went as part of an exchange, they had some of their staff visit the Science Center and we went to visit them at their gardens.  For those who know me may remember that not too long ago I also worked at a couple different butterfly gardens. Ladew's was unique in that they only do local butterflies. So you won't find any tropical ones that would have to be shipped in from butterfly farms.  I really like that everything they had in the Butterfly House was something I may see in my own backyard.  Many of which I have seen before and some were new to me.  They even provide a list of caterpillar host plants and what caterpillar only likes those plants so you can add those to your garden. Just be sure that they are pesticide free and get local plants to your area. 
There was a nature walk path that we didn't have time for, I still had a great time exploring the topiary gardens and seeing the butterflies.  Go visit explore a local botanical gardens near you, Meet Me Outdoors

Monarch Butterfly

Ready for Spring - Tomato Plants - update

Back in February I planted some tomato seeds with the kindergarten class at Sunday school. We transplanted them a few weeks ago and you can see how well they are growing. 

Kindergarteners' tomato plants

The ones in the kindergarten are doing really well. They have a tray under them and are watered 2-3 times a week.  They are due for another transplant soon. Next week the kids will get to take them home and can plant them in their gardens or into a bigger container for those who don't have garden space. 

Tomato plants need to be acclimated to the outdoors before they are planted, this is known as hardening.  The idea is to start them in the shade and each day you can bring them more into the sun, and for longer periods of time.  In the readings and advice I have gotten from various websites about growing tomatoes and from the garden center tomatoes when transplanted to the outside or to larger pots can be buried deeper than the previous container. That means you can bury more of the stem, up to almost the top leaves of the plant. Tomatoes will grow roots along the stem and this makes it a stronger plant. 

Preschoolers' tomato plants

The preschool class only meets every other week so I bring the plants home. There were a few stunted plants that needed to heal and set roots. These will likely need more time before transplanting.  Maybe after spring break we will plant them. Sing to your plants and watch them grow, Meet Me Outdoors.

Little Purple Flowers - Mystery Solved

Almost a year ago has gone by since my neighbor's kid pointed out to me that the little purple flowers had disappeared from around the yard. The flowers came back again this year and I remembered to take a few pictures.  I used the pictures to help identify the flowers using a dichotomous key.  I narrowed it down to crocuses. The name was familiar from hearing it around the office as first sign of spring.  So now the mystery is solved.

Late winter, crocuses are of the first to bloom. While they do come in different colors, it seems that someone scattered only purple ones in our area and they come back each year. Best part is that even when there is snow they may bloom, are still there when the snow melts again.  Go out and enjoy the first signs of spring, Meet Me Outdoors.

I am ready for spring!

I decided to have my Sunday school kindergarten class do some seed starting for early preparation for spring.  It has been 2 weeks and we can already see growth. What is great about keeping the plants in the classroom instead of having them take the plants home right away is we can extend the learning from one week to the next.  We planted cherry tomato seeds in a simple seed starting greenhouse kit.

One week after planting the seeds we were able to measure the sprouts.  With the group gathered around the table I had each student pick a sprout to measure with the ruler.  Since they were kindergarteners and just starting to learn to read numbers we looked for which number the leaves on the top of the sprout were closest to.  Most were 1-2 inches tall, a few were 3 inches tall.  

Once the plants start to sprout they should be under a lamp so they get enough light and have warmth to grow.  I took the plants home over the week so I can be sure they are watered and have enough light. As you can see from the pics they are growing quite nicely. 

The little plants make it feel like spring will be here soon, even though we just got almost a foot of snow outside. If it hadn't just started raining I would have gone out to build a snow-person or fort.  Stay warm everyone!  Think spring, have fun in the snow, Meet Me Outdoors.