My Knights in Spotted Armor

So its been a little over a week since I separated the plants and they seemed to be doing well. Then I noticed their leaves were turning a little yellow. Of course I have no effin idea what yellow leaves mean but in an attempt to feel like I have a clue what I'm doing I began inspecting the plants. I found that there were some little green bugs under the leaves and on the stems. (I still have no effin clue if that's why my leaves turned yellow). Since I have done extensive reading on such things (8 chapters in Organic Gardening for dummies ;) I knew these little creatures were aphids. After actually checking a few places I found out that indeed that is what they are. Well it just so happened that we bought my son a Venus Fly Trap that day, so we decided that it might be hungry for a baby aphid. Now I know this may seem a little cruel but anyone who knows me knows that I am an insect lover. But these are trying to take over my plants and I cant have that. And so... we fed one to the fly trap. It took some tickling with a stem of grass to get the trap to close because the aphid was too small

But with a little coaxing it finally closed. Now I did feel a little vindicated but not much and so I decided it probably wouldnt be such a great idea to attempt to feed all the aphids to the fly trap.

Apparently aphids are common little pests for gardeners like myself (hey this is the internet I can pretend to be whoever I wanna be), but one of the better known enemies is the ladybug. Since I am trying to grow my veggies using organic methods I decided that buying some ladybugs would be the perfect answer. So off to the garden supply store I went and came home with a plastic bowl of live ladybugs.

Now since I dont have a REAL garden at the moment, I only let some of the bugs go. The directions said to wait until it was evening since the ladybugs would be less likely to fly away during that time. So that is what I did, it was really hard to keep them contained because they were all trying to come out at once and tragically i squished a few trying to get the lid back on (oops!). So i let them go last night and most of them didn't fly away at that time.

Unfortunately one of my knights met its end with the fly trap (sorry about that I didn't mean to drop you THERE) R.I.P ladybug....yea there was no glory in that one ;(

(If you look real close at the closed one on the bottom left u'll see a little orange spot inside thats her)

This morning I got up and checked to see how my little soldiers were doing and whether or not they decided to stick around and to my surprise quite a few were still out there roaming around. Although they must not have been hungry because after minutes of close inspection I found that they werent even hanging out on the plants with the evil aphids and to my disappointment I only got to see one get devoured (the ladybug in the picture at top is the one who I saw eat an aphid, but then she flew away). Either way they are hanging out and  that is a good thing. Hopefully the aphid population can be controlled now before they each have 6.9 million offspring (I actually read that they can have that many in as little as 6 weeks!!) As for the fly trap it is my hope that only aphids will venture in for a peek but I have a feeling I will lose a few more good soldiers. 

On a side note about aphids in 2007 when I still lived in Florida I took a photo of an ant and another bug on a plant. At the time I just thought the ant was laying the smackdown and I had no clue that the other bug was an aphid but apparently it is. It seems that aphids have an evolutionary advantage in that they produce sweet honeydew that attracts ants and in exchange for letting the ants have this sweetness they have some protectors hanging out on their leaves. I did read that there are often casualties as the ants need protein too but I suppose this is a small price to pay for the protection and also with millions of offspring who the hell's gonna miss a few?

Last but not least one of my sunflowers are sprouting (I planted two seeds), I have no clue if a sunflower can live in a pot but I guess I will know soon enough....

Separation Anxiety

So I went out and bought supplies to help me with my kitchen window-in a pot on my square of concrete-garden. Of course I took a picture to commemorate it. Anyways, today's projects included separating my nine tomato plants, planting some new seeds I bought, and after I was mocked by my dad (yea dad, I heard haha) who saw the picture of my jalapenos, I also attempted to separate the jalapeno plants.
I have never separated plants before and I had no clue what I was doing. My husband tried to do it (I guess he didnt trust me and he wants them tomatoes) but I refused to let him do it all. After all, I am supposed to be learning so eventually he will have no fear that I will murder our potential harvest. I took on the tomatoes first, seeing as there were only nine of those. It was not too difficult. I separated them all out (ok I'm lying my husband helped too, but I swear I did a few) and put them into little containers. If they make it I will be giving them away. If not, lets just pretend it never happened :)

The picture at the top of the blog is one of the individual tomato plants. The jalapenos were next. Let me just say that the reason the jalapenos ended up in this condition was because of my history of botanical homicide. I was so scared nothing would live that I decided it was logical to just dump the whole bag of seeds into the pot that way at least SOMETHING would live. Lesson learned. I let my husband handle the task of separating them, all I did was dump them out  (after posing with them, of course. I love my dad and decided to give him one more laugh before I did it). After getting a good look we found out there was no way we would be able to separate all the individual plants and so he just kind of ripped apart a few at a time (uh, not sure thats gonna work). We'll see how tough them jalapenos are (c'mon dont be a sissy, you can do it).

Next it was time to plant some seeds (see cheesy picture of me and a seed below)

I decided to plant some organic bell peppers, some sunflowers (per the request of my oldest son), some lavender, marigolds, and sweet pea flowers. I am not certain that the sunflowers will grow but I'm just seeing what works. 

The hubs planted the bell peppers

He does comb his hair- just not on Sundays (just kidding I love ya babe)

I planted the rest. (lavender,marigolds,Sweet Pea)

I comb my hair, but only on Sundays
(ok I lied, I didnt even comb it today)

At the end of our gardening session this is what we are left with

I'm not sure what will make it, but I think it's a good start. Hopefully in the coming weeks we'll be picking some tomatoes or peppers to eat, wait....how long does it take them to grow? Guess I'll know soon enough.

Diggin in

So it was a couple months ago that I decided that my family was going to be green. Now I am trying my best to waste as little as possible. But really one of the biggest changes we have made has been to our diet. My husband and I decided that when we buy as house (hopefully next year) that we are going to plant a garden. Now let me preface all of this by saying I am not exactly a green thumb and in fact the only plant that I have ever been able to keep alive was a flower given to me by a neighbor before we moved from FL to NC. It was a fighter, it seemed that I couldn't kill it. That is, until we moved to NC and  I forgot to bring it inside during the very first freeze. oops...Anyways as I was saying, we plan on planting a garden when we buy a house but I have decided I would like to practice now and I have been inspired by a book I was reading which told me that "hey you don't have to have a yard to have a garden" and so I am going to start some plants. I have already planted some seeds last month that have began sprouting (see pictures below). But what really made me want to plant something more right now (and this may sound odd) was when I read one of my sons books that came in his chick-fil-a happy meal (gotta love them educational chick-fil-a toys, I know he does... NOT) so this book was called "I wonder why trees have leaves and other questions about plants". It was actually a pretty good read but one thing stuck out to me as I was reading and the book asked "why do plants make fruits?" Well apparently it is to make them appetizing to animals who will eat the fruit (or vegetable) and poop out the seeds (now that is some built in fertilizer).  I don't plan on pooping out my seeds but it got me thinking....if I plant my seeds from a fruit or veggie I have eaten, will it grow? After asking around and checking the internet (which you know is ALWAYS right) I have decided that yes, it SHOULD grow. I read in some places though that many of the plants wont bear fruit but given the right conditions they will grow. And so today I am headed to Home Depot where I am going to stock up my supplies so that next time I am eating a fruit or veggies I can stick em in some dirt and see what happens. I wanted to make this blog really for myself, so that I can see the progress (or non progress) that I make in my endeavor for us to be a more self sustainable family but if your reading this and your not me then, thanks! I hope you enjoy and believe me input is welcome as I really have no clue what I'm doing.

Here are some photos of what I have going so far

Basil
This is when it first started growing

This is it now

Rosemary

I planted at the same time as the basil I'm not sure why its so puny in comparison

Oregano

I bought this as a little kit, i don't know why there are so many sprouting up but it said wait until they are two inches until you transfer to a bigger pot, lets see if I can keep them living until then

Tomatoes

Pretty soon I am going to need to separate these (which I have no clue how to do)

Jalapenos

Um I dont know why these are so close together I guess I accidently stuck the ENTIRE (which I guess your not supposed to do) bag of seeds in the same spot. Not so sure these are going to be able to make it

Wild Flowers

These are a packet of wild flowers I dont know if the pot is big enough for them to be able to thrive but its been about a month and they've only wilted once and came right back the next day (::clears throat:: after I remembered to water it)