The Self-Watering Seed Starter Experiment

I'm sitting on my front porch right now, trying to decide if I should get a little more work done or try to start unwinding. Mr. Autism had a good occupational therapy session this morning, a great day at summer camp and a pretty good speech therapy session. He's exhausted and already sound asleep after last night's antics and today's busy schedule. Mr. Smarty Pants and I had a productive trip to Lowe's this morning and a reasonably peaceful day. He's currently watching Anne of Green Gables on the dvr, after reading the Children's Illustrated Classic version of it.

That's one of the joys of homeschooling- nobody is going to tell him it's not manly to like books.

I was in a project kind of mood today, so I've been attempting to make self-watering seed starting containers out of round plastic overflow containers for houseplants (the kind they sell next to the cork pads) and clothesline.

I have no idea if it's going to work or not. A few sites I found on the 'net says they ought to, but I've learned not to believe everything I read online. If it does work, I'll post pictures (if I can remember to).

The carrots were outgrowing the tiny terra cotta pots, so I transplanted them all into a larger container and put them out on the front porch to harden off and grow a little more before I put them in the ground. I need to do the same for the butternut squash, summer squash, and most of the bush beans. One lone banana pepper is starting to sprout. No love yet from the bell peppers, peas or balm lemon.

One of the self-watering seed trays I started today is dedicated purely to herbs. I've got cilantro, sage, thyme, rosemary, parsley, marjoram, dill, spearmint and German chamomile in there. I'm also planning on starting some actual flowers: butterfly weed, zinnias for Mr. Autism's occupational therapist, carnations for my mother-in-law, and likely one or two more for us to fill in some gaps when the sunflowers and zinnias fail.

I'm still percolating the change in perspective on the book. The more I think about it though, the more I like the idea. Tomorrow, the little girl down the street who I "preschool" in exchange for lawn cutting services (which is too much fun to actually be considered a fair trade I think) is coming over in the morning. Her big sister, almost Mr. Smarty Pants' age, is coming over to play with him at the same time, so I will have a houseful of children, temporarily, which is just the way I like it. And when things start getting too loud, 2 of them will go home and it will be temporarily quiet again, which is just the way I like it too. Win-win.

I think I'll finish my daily quota of laundry and go read Nora Roberts' new book on my Kindle.