Friday Afternoon Update

Well, I've got dirt under my fingernails again and I'm perspiring in a most un-ladylike fashion. Whoopsie-daisy.

On the plus side, I'm smiling.

The German chamomile has now been transplanted at last, from the failed experiment container into a medium-sized terra cotta pot. As always, I didn't have enough faith in the germination ability of my seeds, and will have far more chamomile plants than I know what to do with. Everyone I love will be getting dried chamomile for tea-making purposes this Christmas, even the non-tea drinkers, assuming it is actually somewhat tasty.

Sorry about that.

The ginormous sunflowers in the front garden are past their peak and starting to slowly die, so in one of the smaller self-watering overflow trays I started far too many sunflower seeds. I still have enough left in the packet for springtime sunflowers too. Not a bad deal for $1.57. Next year, my beloved wants me to try the uber-mammoth ones. I think he wants to try to be Jack & the Beanstalk.

I'm okay with this.

I remembered I also wanted to start carnations for my mother-in-law, so I've done that in the other small overflow tray. I hate to see an empty planter.

I added the gone-to-seed lettuce plants to the compost trash can, and cleaned out 3 of the smaller containers. My beloved's interjections notwithstanding, I'm going to be trying to grow some plants inside. The romaine lettuce outside is growing very slowly, and will probably get there eventually, but I have faith in the Simpson Elite Loose-leaf, and it is not, thank you God, 90 degrees in my house, so I think I may have success there.

The containers are on the counter next to the microwave, so it may be irradiated and glowing purple, but it will be lettuce, and it will help us use up the abundance of cherry tomatoes we've been blessed with. It just doesn't seem right for the lettuce to run out just when the cherry tomatoes come in.

While I was doing that, I thought to myself, "in for a penny, in for a pound", and grabbed 6 of the smaller plastic containers and filled them with potting soil. They are now on the counter between the kitchen sink and the living room, and the Goliath something or other broccoli seeds will hopefully do well in there. They are close to the aquarium and the lights in there should help supplement the diffused lights from the front windows and kitchen bay windows. I love broccoli almost as much as I love lettuce, and it doesn't really start growing here until October. I just don't want to wait that long.

When he complains, I will remind him of the price disparity between homegrown and store-bought. He doesn't really care about the environmental impact of buying things grown thousands of miles away, but he does care about saving our pennies. Also, knowing how migrant farm workers are treated is a little off-putting. I'd rather try to grow my own when I can.

And now, back to my regularly scheduled house cleaning and child-rearing.