Gunns Greens

Baby Sweet PotatoesGonna keep this one short. I harvested the...

Sun, 07 Oct 2012 09:29:00 -0400

Baby Sweet Potatoes

Gonna keep this one short. I harvested the Sweet Potatoes I planted and got these little babies, so I decided to roast them. I took picks of the process, but forgot the final. The 2 left on my plate were all that was left when I remembered.

Man did that taste good… and I don’t even like...

Fri, 29 Jun 2012 08:27:34 -0400

Man did that taste good… and I don’t even like peppers!

Peppers!

Wed, 27 Jun 2012 23:39:00 -0400

I’ve been a little disheartened by the state of my patio garden of late. Mostly because my patio is constantly windy and it makes survival for my plants a lot harder than it should be.

With that said, as I went out this morning to reposition the plants I saw something as I was heading back in. What I saw was simply my pepper plant still being blown in the wind after I had moved it, so I decided to try to reposition it again. In doing so I was shocked ( and even more so because I hadn’t noticed sooner ) to find not one but TWO peppers growing on it

I’ve had a lot of the sprouts, or whatever they are called, fall off due to the wind. I wasn’t even really sure where the peppers grew from, but I assumed it would be the sprouts that were falling off. indeed I was right, and it seems that even through all the wind the peppers are still coming to life!

In other garden news, one Cucumber plant seems to have fallen victim to the wind, and the Strawberry plant doesn’t seem to be surviving it’s bout with spider mites. The lavender plants seem to flower to a point and then fall off quickly, while the basil plants from seed ( and the starter plants ) are still growing strong!

More to come!

Plant Update1

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 09:11:34 -0400

There have been a lot of ups and downs in my garden as of late. The Strawberry plant fell victim to Spider Mites. We’ll see if it can rebound. Gnats are aplenty and I’m fighting them off as best I can. And the wind is a beast! It just seems that my balcony is a tricky place to grow plants.

However, there are a few plants that seem to be doing A-OK ( or are atlest putting up a hell of a fight! ), and it makes this whole experiment more than worth it.

BUGS!

Sat, 23 Jun 2012 09:04:41 -0400

Over the past few months I’ve been introduced to a lot of new bugs, thanks to my plants! Here are some I was able capture. I could only identify a few of them.

BBG Plant Sale

Mon, 28 May 2012 23:33:00 -0400

Here are some photos of the aftermath of the BBG plant sale from earlier this month. As of today ( 5/28 ) most of the plants are on the paito… and most are alive and well! So much green!

Death of a Celery!

Tue, 22 May 2012 08:14:49 -0400

This little guy which you’ve seen in a pervious post didn’t make it. He was my first real causality of gardening. He was liven his life strong all the way up until I put him in the pot. What went wrong you ask? Well, I’m still not sure. He quickly started to yellow and his stalks were easily pulled out. Unfortunately the same thing happened with the second celery plant I started.

I’ll definitely review this and try again, making some adjustments along the way.

Orchid 411 – The Q & A

Wed, 09 May 2012 11:49:01 -0400

Rebloging this for my followers interested in orchids! I’m not quite ready for an Orchid yet with all the other things i’m doing, but I know some of you are :)

inzuzolandscaping:

By Stylist Home

Q: I love the elegance and the exotic feel of an orchid, but every time one winds up in my care, I find myself with a dead orchid after a short while. I do well with my other houseplants and like to think I have a green thumb. Are orchids really just that difficult? I was thinking about getting one for someone as a Valentine’s present but I don’t want it to die — it would be a bad omen.
A: Orchids are a lovely gift (for so many reasons), but they are not just temporary. Orchids have a few tips and tricks. They are a little bit different from other houseplants, but no more difficult.

Q: That’s sort of a relief. How can I keep the flowers in my home longer?
A: Flowering time on any houseplant is limited, and orchids are no different. While their bloom duration can, and often does, exceed consecutive months, they will eventually go off bloom. Losing the flower does not mean that your plant is dead or diminish the beauty of the plant itself. Check out the form of the leaves, the root structure, rhizomes, pseudo bulbs…

Read More

Upcoming Posts / BBG Visitor Center

Wed, 09 May 2012 11:34:43 -0400

Hi all. Just a note there will be some new posts coming soon. One to do with Scallions, and another to do with the BBG’s recent plant sale!

Speaking of the BBG, check out this article from the NY Times about the new visitor center. I can’t wait to check it out!

A little lavender

Sun, 06 May 2012 10:41:03 -0400

Backing up a bit to 2011, which was my first year growing stuff, I had started a few veggies and some flowers late in the summer / early fall. As I mentioned before, almost nothing lasted as the effort was too little to late. However, there were 2 plants that when brought inside ( and put under a regular light bulb ) continued to grow. These 2 plants are my Lavender plants.

I started these guys from seed and boy have they been run through there paces! Fighting every step of the way, these plants have managed to find a home here while making it through this light winter. These 2 plants are my first real success!

Because I had never grown Lavender ( or anything ) before, I just let it grow as it wanted to for the most part. Considering the light situation alone wasn’t ideal, I figured the plant would figure out how to get the light it needed, and it did! These Lavender plants sent out shoots to help grab as much light as it could get, and it used that light to grow and grow and grow!

Now the plants have become tall, a bit lanky and definitely top heavy! They have been been trying very hard to flower. I’m guessing that until I can get them outside with some better light / air conditions they won’t fully flower at all, but I could be wrong, and it’s something I’m keeping an eye on.

For now tho, I’ve been letting the plants try to bloom from time to time, but I’m mostly pruning the flowers to help keep the plants healthy until I get them outside. I’m also going to try to help shape them a bit, and see if I can get them to branch out more from the bottom.

Below are some shots of the plants over time, all the way up to their current state. I seemingly forgot to take picks when they were small, but I’ll post some more pics once they’ve been outside for a bit so we can see how they’ve grown!

I own one of these, Mother-in-Law’s tongue ( thanks to the...

Sat, 05 May 2012 20:52:04 -0400

I own one of these, Mother-in-Law’s tongue ( thanks to the kindness of a friend ), and plan to get more. I can use all the fresh air I can get!

Reborn

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 20:02:07 -0400

One of the few tutorials I saw online featured a “how to regrow celery” from the base of a cut stalk post. I followed the one from 17 Apart and you can find the original tutorial / blog post here.

I thought I’d give ii a try as it looked simple and fun to do, and it was / is! All you need is the base of a celery stalk, a dish to put in in, water and light. I happened to use an empty yogurt container. The photos below show the celery in a few stages. The first image is a few hours ( maybe less ) after I put the base in water. It may not seem like it, but it had already started growing! The second photo is 3 days later. The third photo is 10 days after that.

I’ve since repotted the celery, and started a second one with slightly different results! I’ll do a follow up post on the progress of the celery plants.

BTW, this method also works with Scallions and Bok Choy which the people of 17 Apart have also blogged about. I’ve been experimenting with that as well and will post an update about it in the future.

Oh how sweet it is.

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:40:13 -0400

A few weeks ago ( maybe a month or more now ) I was given a Sweet Potato that had unexpectedly begun to sprout. As I contemplated what I was going to do with this new find, I found myself thinking back to my last gardening attempt the year before. I had gotten a super late start ( near the end of fall ), so almost everything I planted died off after a few weeks. I was able to bring a few plants indoors that survived, but the rest didn’t make it. It was my first attempt at gardening, but that’s for another post…

As sad as that was I knew definitely wanted to do more and spent the winter waiting and thinking about what I was going to do. So I was extremely excited when I realized this year I’d be starting off just in time and with and unexpected plant at that! I’m highly excited to see what I can grow indoors / on my patio and the Sweet Potato plant is the first of many I’ll try my hand at this year.

As I mentioned, the Sweet Potato I had was already sprouting, but I figured I’d still set it up to sprout more. It’s very simple to start. If you’re interested in starting some yourself, below is what you’ll need and the steps to get going:

What you’ll need:

A Sweet Potato of choice
A Jar
Tooth Picks or Skewers

How to get started:

Cut the Sweet Potato in half.
Stick a few tooth picks or skewers into each half ( about mid way through ).
Place the Sweet Potato into a jar filled with enough water to submerge the bottom half.
Place in a windowsill ( or under a light ) and add water as needed.

You’ll start to get sprouts in a few days to a week depending on how much light / warmth your potato gets. As you can see, my 2 halves act as before and after pictures. In reality, one side got started before the other. I’ll keep you posted on how they progress!

The Beginning

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 19:33:01 -0400

Hello, and welcome to my lil’ corner of the interwebs.

if you are following me, you should consider this blog to be an experiment more than anything else. I can’t say I know what I’m doing, but I am doing what I know and i’m learning as I go.

Also, because the conditions in my grow space are not ideal by any means, who knows what will happen! That’s part of the experiment and part of what makes it so exciting. I intend to kill a lot of plants as I learn how to keep them alive. It’s the nature of the game. If you follow any of the “tutorials” I put up here, you will likely get different results than I.

The plan is to grow some stuff indoors and out on my patio. Each has it’s advantages and disadvantages but both will provide great learning opportunities! I’m very excited to see what happens.

Aside from the above, I’ll also reblogging stuff I like / that is in line with what I’m doing. Not only will this help keep the blog current, since it may be awhile between original posts, it should also make this blog more informative.

That’s it for now. I’m getting some pictures together and will be posting them up soon! In the meantime, here is a little sample of what’s to come!