A too green thumb

A couple of weeks back, the green bug bit me yet again and I went and bought a whole bunch of plants for my patio garden. Among my planting ambitions was growing coriander from seeds. According to the directions on the packet in which the seeds came, the seedlings would sprout within two weeks. So I planted the seeds in a pot along with planting the other plants (tomato, capsicum, Thai chilli, egg plant and two flowering plants - california poppy and geraniums - ambitious, ambitious, I know!).

Me being a very protective and caring plant "mother", I began every morning by watering my plants assiduously. However, after more than one and a half weeks, there was absolutely no sign of any activity in the coriander pot though the other plants seemed to be doing okay - touch wood.

Then one day last week I was discussing with a colleague at work about plants and she mentioned that it was watering day for her plants. Huh - watering day? Isn't *every* day watering day? And she said, "Oh no, though I drench the soil completely when I water my plants, I water them once a week only". I doubtfully asked her if her plants did not wilt and die due to this neglect. She replied that they were doing fine and in fact an avid gardener friend of hers had told her that once a week was plenty enough water unless it was very hot weather.

Hmm. Hardening my heart, I decided to neglect my "babies" and decided to keep the watering jug away the next morning. The next evening, my skeptical self was surprised to find that the all the plants looked fine in spite of not getting any water in the morning.

The day after that that, I once again skipped the watering. Later that day, late noon, I stepped into my patio to see how my plants were doing. Surprise, surprise, not one, not two but six seedlings had popped out of the coriander pot!
O boy, I had been drowning the poor seeds all the previous days and no wonder they could not put their heads up! What's more, my tomato plant had grown two more new branches, all the other plants had put forth lots of new leaves too.

Meanwhile I had consulted the Google God. Yup, more people kill their plants by anbu thollai* a.k.a over watering than by under-watering! And there was no need to water plants as long as the top one inch of soil had moisture in it.

Ah.

Oh well, you live and you learn. Here's to hoping my darling plants will not be the guinea pigs for too many experiments!

*anbu thollai roughly translates to trouble brought on by too much love.

The non-hanging garden of my patio.

Swish, swish. There, I just brushed off the last of the dust from the cave I had crawled into for the past few weeks. I have been super-duper busy. Before you roll eyes and go, "Yeah, right", for a change, this is not the usual self-important sounding excuse. I was actually busy. To all the readers (actually make that reader, singular) who worried about me: I am doing fine :-)! Things are now almost back to normal and I am all set to be a glittering part of your lives again. Woohoo or groan, whichever!

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'Tis the season to garden. This year I have gotten super ambitious. Yesterday's trip to OSH saw me return with a tomato plant, a yolo pepper plant, mint plants, two different varieties of flowering plants and a big bag of Supersoil. It was only while I was planting that I realized that I did not have enough soil for all the plants. Also, I had two empty pots left even after all the plants had found a home. Some googling also informed me that the pot in which I planted the pepper was too small for it. So much for claiming to be a seasoned gardener.

This morning I remedied the situation by repairing back to OSH and buying additional soil, a bigger pot and some more flowering plants for the empty pots. This is how my patio looks currently.


I solicit all unoccupied fingers you may have to cross them on my garden's behalf and wish for the healthy growth of my plants. Thank you!

Yesterday was also the day when, after a long period of not seeing any water except for the excess water draining from the plant pots, the patio was washed and cleaned. My poor back stands (or rather curves) testimony to that. Groan.

Oh well, anything for my garden.

Fruit of labor

The first ripe tomato...

...with promise of lot more to come:
I don't know how much of it was imagination. But I sure thought that the tiny ripe tomato packed quite a punch and tasted absolutely delicious :-)!

Each time someone totally unexpected asks me how my tomatoes are doing, I realize all over again as to just how many people I have told about my "gardening" and my tomato plant. Almost as bad as a grandmother telling about her grand-kids to one and all without being asked :-).

In spite of all the interest shown in the status of the plant as well as in tasting future tomato fruits, no one has yet shown any interest in my suggestion of supplying tomatoes in return for being invited to meals consisting of tomato-based dishes. I wonder why :-P! However, many people did suggest that I could make that meal and invite them over. Tsk, tsk, no respect for the gardener!

And yup, the joy of seeing my plants every morning and evening has not yet begin to pall :-).

Miracle

I had to share! Here are the first tomatoes (yes, yes, there is more than one :-D) on my tomato plant peeking out:

Snippets

My garden
Yeah, yeah, my flowers are doing good :-D. My patio has a lovely splash of color to it now. It is awesome to get up sleepily in the morning and see all that brightness. Touch wood!


And, surprise, surprise. My tomato plant is now blooming flowers. Yes, it really is. Hopefully I will also get to see tomatoes. I am keeping my fingers crossed (besides watering the plant regularly and trying to make sure it gets enough sunlight, which I suppose, will help the plant a lot more).



p.s. The pictures were taken during night. It looks a whole lot better in daylight :-)!

Hiking
I went on another hike this past weekend. Around eight miles or so round trip (yaay, I am improving :-D). Guess what, right at the very beginning of the trail, we saw a snake. About 3-4 feet long with a rather enthralling diamond hatch pattern on its skin. It lazily slithered across the trail, about a feet away from where we stood. To my credit, I did not run screaming back to the car. Nevertheless, from that point, I exclusively focused my eyes on the ground. The last thing I wanted to happen was a snake to wrap itself around my ankles while I busily admired some vista! Fortunately, after that, though we saw a lot of chameleons and a few deers, we did not run into any more snakes. Phew!

Exemplary planning
Yesterday, we had a farewell lunch for my colleague N who is returning to her home country. About a dozen of us were going for it in three different cars besides N herself who was planning to come from her home. The venue was popular Indian restaurant ABC. The car in which I went left work a bit behind the others. When we finally reached ABC, it was strangely deserted but for the other two cars filled with my colleagues. Apparently restaurant ABC is closed on Mondays! Darn.

So we decided to go to Indian restaurant XYZ instead as it was close by. After calling N to inform her of the change in venue, the procession set off again. When we arrived at XYZ, I had a feeling of deja-vu: deserted parking lot with only two cars filled with my colleagues. Apparently restaurant XYZ is also closed on Mondays!

At this point, my stomach was already beginning to digest itself in hunger. Everyone was no longer finding this knocking on various restaurant doors funny. So Indian restaurants were dumped as food choices and we finally wound up at a Chinese vegan place (of course, after calling them and making sure they were open). Who would have thought finding a place for lunch would turn out to be such a non-trivial task.

p.s. I was supposed to be the coordinator for that event :-D! Thankfully, I was not beaten up by anybody in a hungered craze. Note to self: Even if you know that a restaurant does not take reservations, at least call to find out if it is open on the said date.

Gotcha :-P!
Nopes, I have not forgotten about the Utah trip. I finally got the pictures yesterday - yaaay :-D! I will write my story soon. If not for anything else, the pictures look so awesome, I simply HAVE to show them off :-D!

Archana's fables - 1

Who said only Aesop could come up with moral-worthy fables? I can too! At any rate, I claim I can :-P.

Haste makes waste.

Two days ago, I was in a rush to get out of the house and on to work. In case you are wondering, no, I am not one of those "Wheee, I LOVE going to work" types - just that I prefer to get going as soon as I am ready. Before leaving, as per my usual routine, I picked up my cup of turmeric milk*, all warm and ready, from the microwave. Impatiently, I started to drink it. Or at least, that's what I wanted to do. Instead, in my haste, I managed to spill some of the contents onto my shirt.

Now, my most favoritest white shirt in the world had two smudges of bright yellow right on the front. Oh CRAP! There was no way I could let this wait for later. The stain would set in - besides, turmeric is well known for its limpet-like properties when it comes to staining. So I had to rush to the restroom, find the stain remover, spray it on, wait for it to work, then wash off the stain with warm water and then use the hair dryer to dry my shirt - yeah, I was still wearing it. And THEN head to work. In the process of trying to save myself 10 seconds, I had managed to add an additonal 10 minutes :-((!

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Think before you buy

After my good experience with "gardening" last year, I decided to buy some plants this year too. So the past weekend, I went plant shopping and chose my usual zinnias. Then I noticed that organic tomato plants were on sale too. Immediately, my head filled with visions of plump, ripe, red tomatoes growing in my patio. And visions me making tomato rasam, tomato kurma, tomato sandwiches.... all with tomatoes from my own "garden". Ah, nice!

So I decided to make an impulse buy and put a tomato plant in my shopping cart. And then added additional soil and a big pot to grow my tomatoes. Once I got back home at noon, I got busy potting all my plants. In the evening, I spoke to two different friends on the phone and I excitedly told them about my new tomato plant. The first question I got from both was: "Really? Tomatoes can be grown in pots? Isn't it supposed to be a vine?"

Uh-huh! Good question! I was so super confident of my gardening abilities that I had not even bothered to find out the requirements for growing a tomato plant :-(. Now, I have decided to see how well the plant thrives on my patio. Else I am planning to donate it to a friend who has a proper backyard. Of course, I plan to make sure that I get at least half the harvest tomatoes.

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p.s. 1: I just read that blogger has started auto-saving drafts. Woohoo! No more lost posts. Yaaay :-D!

p.s. 2: This post title is numbered. After all, Aesop too did tell more than two fables :-P!

* In case you didn't know, turmeric milk is very good at warding off colds. Recipe: Mix one cup milk + 1/4 tsp turmeric + 1/2 tsp black pepper + sugar to taste and heat for a minute and a half in microwave oven. Tip: Put it as much pepper and turmeric as you can stand.

Progress Report

First, my plants! This is how my pots looked this morning. As you can see, each of the plants has new flowers. I am one proud gardener :-D!
Second. I had written in an earlier post as to how shy I was with people I don't know well. I had also added that I was trying to work on improving myself in that aspect. Well, this evening, I went for a barbeque where I knew no one but the host. And guess what, I actually had fun with the nine other invitees too :-)! Of course, that the rest of the people were super nice to me played a big role in this but I am claiming some credit too (hey, I went) :-)!

Third. Tomorrow is a working Monday and I am not sulking that much. This is a temporary phenomenon and will probably not be repeated for several more months. Nevertheless, I am marking it up on this week's progress!

Fourth. I could not come up with any blog topics but wanted to pay attention to my blog. So came up with this pointless post. The pointlessness of my pointless posts is rapidly progressing by the post! It is not a good thing I know. But regression is still progress in a different direction!

And finally, the post is concluded. All of you who read till the end just added one more golden brick to your golden house in heaven :-P! Good night, folks!

From bud to bloom

About ten days ago, I wrote about my new "garden". Now I am proud to announce the appearance of the first flower under my care :-)! Hoping this is the first of a lot more blossoms to come!

Taking a tentative peek at the world

Still a cute baby

Testing the waters

Spreading wings further

In full glory!

These pictures were taken on five successive days. The flower is still in good health and along with the rest of my plants, provides my morning dose of joy and pride :-D. And yup, all those streaks of water are proof of my diligent daily watering (and you were just wondering why they are there in the picture*).

Go plants :-D!

*actually those streaks of water came in on the days I forgot to take the picture before I started watering - but really, you have to give me credit for coming up with such a valid excuse :-P.

Here a pot, there a pot

The main reason why I signed the lease for my current apartment almost as soon as I saw it was because of the long patio. Of course, the building being located in a pretty neighborhood at a convenient location helped - but the double patio, with the sunshine streaming in was what majorly completed the good impression.

In my mind, I immediately visualized the patio filled with lots of plants with pretty flowers. That there were two big obstacles to actually fulfilling this vision viz. - 1) My lease agreement specifically had a clause saying that the patio should have nothing on it including brooms, deck chairs and plants (Right! I paid rent for it too I thought) 2) My gardening experience is limited to watering the potted plants my mom has at home - did not deter me even for an instant. The first obstacle did not bother me - I could see my neighbors patios filled with all kinds of stuff. The second obstacle only served to challenge me.

Anyways, I moved in and the very next weekend went hunting for plants. I had chosen some pretty flowering shrubs (yeah, the kind they have in those small tubs in the store) and was all set to buy them. Which was when I read the instructions that those flowers had to be replanted in pots. Oh! I had thought that I just had to transport them to my house, keep them on the patio and start watering them. I never knew that transplanting was an in-between step. So I took a deep breath and decided to first buy the pots (yeah, I decided to stick with the transplanting idea because I thought that would be real gardening).

Ten months later, I was yet to buy those pots. While I enjoyed the abundant sunshine from the patio, it had nothing more than two blue-colored beach chairs on it. No plant, no flowers, nothing. Hmm, I thought that I really should buy those pots soon.

Finally, my procrastination got defeated from an unexpected quarters. My colleague at work, S, had some mud pots which she wanted to give away. I immediately perked up and volunteered to take them. Here, at along last, were my pots. Now I would feel compelled to use them. Yaay :-)!

Three weeks ago, those pots rattled away to glory in the boot of my car as I drove home (really, I need to be given an award for not forseeing the rattling. I swear, after I pulled out and drove away, at the very first signal, I almost got a heart attack when the pots banged against the sides of the boot as I slowed down!). Once home, I unloaded them onto the patio. I just had to get the plants and I would be all set.

This weekend, the grand event finally happened. I went to Orchard Supply Hardware (OSH) to get plants and soil. I have never been to OSH before and I looked like a villager in a candy store as I gaped at all the gardening related paraphernalia. I tried to not look too newbie-like and managed to pick out potting soil, gardening gloves as well as two "annual" plants. The only reason I picked out the annuals was because a) they were cheap b) if I was going to kill plants, I might as well start off with inexpensive ones.


Then it was back home. The very next morning was "gardening" day. I put the plants into different pots filled with potting soil. Then I realized that I did not have enough pots to plant all the saplings I had. I need to go and buy more pots now (and this time, I really hope I do it soon). Anyhow, this is what my plants look like at the end of it:
My plants are two days old now. And they are still alive. Yippeeee :-D! My patio has a lovely splash of color to it. The plants are already noticed and appreciated by visitors to my apartment :-). I am a happy person now!

I am just hoping that this happy status of affairs will continue and my dear plants won't die on me. I am hoping further that, maybe, they will at least shoot out a couple of flowers under my tender care. Amen to that!