CraftGarden

I’m going to use this blog to document the goings on in my “garden” aka the various containers i’ve cut holes in, filled with dirt, and shoved a plant into in order to feel something. i will be giving a walk through of each plant, when i planted it, what i plan on doing to it, and how often i plan on watering it. this first day will be full of posts, but after that i only hope to post once a day or so. maybe a bit more often if i have multiple topics in a single day. also there will be pictures. also the daily posts wont start on day one because i already had a hand written journal but i didn’t like that i couldnt read my own hand writing so im doing this here instead.

im ditching the days since it doesnt actually mean anything anymore. lots of big news! theres a jalapeño on the control plant! its only about an inch big right now but its still awesome. i see a bunch more flowers on almost all the jalapeños except for tue experimental jalapeño which makes sense since it was topped. it is way bushier though with a bunch of activity coming off the leaf buds. i also got a new plant! its a lemon basil and it smells amazing. i might make a mixed drink of some sort with it. it would be great in an iced tea or lemonade. its super healthy and i cant wait to eat a raw leaf.

i added some straw mulch to all the peppers and the tomato. it should increase water retention and protect the leaves from pests and disease getting from the soil to the plant. also i really want to get a strawberry plant. i saw one today at the garden center at home depot and it was already fruiting and i really wanted to just eat the strawberry but i did not. also theres a good chance i'll get to build my mom a raised bed in the backyard which would be a major win for gardening. i could plant some really nice herbs and maybe some squash or watermelon. i'll do some research on things that grow really nicely and dont need much fertilizer and do that. probably the first crop i'll do is some really nice potatoes since they're super easy and super low maintenance. i just need to learn how to build things and what a raised bed is.

the one flower on the jalapeño fell off. no idea why but probably high winds are an animal knocking it off. sad, but not too bad for the plant since it has so many. i did an in depth inspection of all the plants and it looks good. lots of flower buds on all the peppers and even some starting to form on the bell peppers which i was worried had died off already. the peppermint is bouncing back from whatever hit it and is throwing off tons of long branches trying to propagate. i might actually propagate it soon and secretly plant it in the yard to have it take over but we'll see. it would be pretty funny to come back to my parents house in a few months and see a backyard filled with peppermint. it would smell nice too so its not all bad. plenty of fresh tea to be made. the basil is looking nice too, very green but no alarmingly so. aside from the two yellow leaves on the peppermint and the flower that fell off of the control jalapeño the plants are looking good. Tomorrow will be a big water day providing the rain doesn't hit too hard tonight. if it does thats less work for me so no worried, but i would really like to get some direct water on the tomato again to really get those roots searching. i also need to get a special tomato fertilizer but one thing at a time.

HOLY SHIT

big few days for the plants. first off, journal entries are less frequent. thats obvious. there just wasn't much to say and i was super busy all day for a few days. anyway, new plant has been added to the roster. after i finish this entry i'll make an intro for it. it's a tomato plant since i felt i was missing out by not growing them and i saw this really awesome one at a Menards that was just begging to be potted up. really thick main stem, healthy enough leaves, and a flower already starting. i also potted the two bros garlic. they each got their own pot so they're for sure five feet apart now, confirming their heterosexual status. they looked really crazy in the water with the big spindly roots and a bulbous bottom. biggest news ever though, a flower bloomed on the control jalapeño! im so happy. i'll also make another post dedicated to that after this. lots to post today i guess. i got a watering can today so i did a good water on everything. really deep with some fertilizer. i want to make sure they dont dry out as it gets warmer. the yellowing on leaves has lessened and i think thats just recovering from the stress of the drive. lots of shaking and dry heat. now time to make the other two posts!

so i missed yesterday. it was a huge day and i was super busy and tired so i didnt do an entry. the plants got moved across the state and are now safe under a net until i get some wooden stakes to make a proper fence in each little planter. the peppermint looks really bad i think it dried out. there should be rain for the next three days but i watered everything a little with a slightly stronger mix of liquid fertilizer than i normally do just to give them a hit of nutrients. im hoping to see some really nice growth soon with all the plants. i also potted the two bros garlic into seperate solo cups and will pot them again into a different thing once i have that different thing. other than the mint leaves going yellow i think the plants look nice.

i decided that my plants needed some sort of fertilizer. i got some worm castings (worm shit) because i heard it was good and i put some on the top layer of soil and mixed it up a little bit. i also got some liquid fertilizer and put a bit on all the plants just to give them a little boost. i hope it does good. i leave tomorrow so i think i need to order a mesh net today or get one at a hardware store. i expect tomorrow there will be a noticeable change in how healthy the plants look. also i noticed a rhizome on my peppermint plant so thats cool.

no need to water anything because of the rain yesterday. some plants have holes in them probably because of a bug of some sort, but thats fine probably. two days until i have do cover the plants somehow and i still dont know for sure what i'll do. everything is growing nice, but one leaf on one plant turned yellow and fell off. no idea why.

It rained again this morning. the soil is really wet and im worried root rot will start if it keeps raining like this but plants are made for outside right? if they couldn’t handle rain they wouldn't have made it this far. the planted garlic is still growing like crazy and so is the two bros garlic. the peppermint has really taken off as well, now with one of its branches reaching to the edge of the pot its in. the control jalapeño has that flower thats still growing nice and big. honestly everything looks pretty good. one of the tub jalapeños had a leaf fall off but it didn't look like it was sick or anything i think the wind and hail just ripped it off. i ate one of the leafs off the peppermint plant this morning and it was amazing, that is going to make some really good tea. i might start propagating the branch that is sticking out so i have something to leave with my parents but i also might wait until i get there. still have no real plan to keep my plants safe but i think it'll be as easy as going to a garden center and buying a mesh to cover the plants with and using some rocks to weigh them down. also if they're on the patio and not the ground that'll help too. im thinking about planting the two bros garlic in a little pot just because i dont really like how its looking in the water but we'll see. if i do i'll give it its own post with a picture and a new intro.

It rained like crazy today so i didn't need to water anything. im worried it rained too much and waterlogged the pots but theres nothing i can do about that so im done worrying about it. the garlic is really growing super fast i hope that means its a good growth and not a "theres no bulb down here to grow so lets send all the nutrients and stuff to the stem" but again no way to know. i was gone all day so its a short one today. probably dont need to water tomorrow but at this point im still playing it by ear on when to water. no idea what im doing.

The planted garlic has emerged from the soil! i can see 3 shoots where i planted them a few days ago. they're growing way faster than i expected, i just hope i vernalized them enough. i have no idea what im doing so i hope a lot. no watering needed today but i did anyway. i just watered the garlic and gave a little water on the rim of some other plants just to encourage more outward root growth. all plants look good and healthy. the control jalapeño has a flower that looks like its growing nicely. all the other peppers that had flowers i snipped off to let them grow more but this is the control group so i wanted it just watered. the experimental jalapeño obviously has no top anymore so it has no flowers, but other than that it looks healthy. i noticed a lot of purple on the leaf axles of many plants and i think my peppermint has a sunburn so i should find a more shaded area for it. i hope the herbs take off in growth soon since they seem really healthy and i would love to be able to propagate them for my parents and leave a little clone plant there. book update: its really good. Andy Weir rights lab procedures that have a narrative to them and i can't get enough of it. the martian was awesome and project hail mary has been even better. no idea what his third book is about but im picking it up as soon as im done with this one.

Today was a basil watering day. watering the peppers yesterday fixed the wilting so that was the problem. i guess i have to water them twice a week. its cold and wet today but all the plants look healthy. not much to say today. the book "project hail mary" rocks though. totally read it.

today was a big water day. i watered everything except the peppermint which i watered yesterday and will water tomorrow. the other peppers started wilting a little bit and since watering jalapeño 3 fixed the wilting on that i thought it would fix the rest. i cut a bunch of holes in a water bottle cap and have been using that to measure and water. besides the wilting everything looks really good. at some point i might do all that measuring stem diameter stuff but for now i'll just keep it simple and focus on watering. thats the thing im most worried about messing up. the two bros garlic is getting some nice roots and the shoot is getting taller. i was worried it wouldn't since the growth didn't seem to be happening but im happy to report i was wrong. unrelated to my personal garden i also help out at a cannabis research lab at my college and the cannabis plants we're growing have exploded in growth. maybe one day i'll make a post explaining that entire experiment that's going on since it's the thing that got me into plant biology and growing plants but for now i just wanted to mention the huge growth of them for now. i think once im old enough i'll start growing cannabis as well mostly because it's so interesting how specific the temperature and humidity and growth media and water ph and light par and everything has to be to maximize growth and bud production. also it would be an awesome gift to give my dad. also also it would end up being cheaper than buying it at some point. not right away since i would need the grow tent and lights and stuff.

Today wasn't a big day. i refilled the two bros garlic cup which is something i'll probably have to do often. i think every time i go out there i'll make sure water covers the roots. i might end up planting that garlic but i also dont really want to since i already have garlic planted. i dont expect the planted garlic i have to work since it probably didn't go through full vernalization but who knows maybe it will. i can always repot it and put it in the fridge for a while to vernalize. also i watered the peppermint today. i think either today or tomorrow im going to make a weekly watering schedule. i did get a calendar for that but it honestly doesn't work the way i wanted and i think a homemade table with each plants watering day would work best. i misted all the plants today. i just felt like it and honestly it was nice to pretend it did something. Jalapeño 3 in the tub is still drooping a lot more than the others so i watered it to see if that does anything. Jalapeño 2 is doing really well, probably the best out of all four in the tub, so that's a good baseline for what they should look like. no further progress on the plan to keep the animals from eating these plants. if anything happens to them i would probably go insane and cry for the rest of my life so i have to find some perfect way to protect them that also allows me to water them. i think weighing down a net is my best bet. well my best bet is probably more like "dont go to my parents house and care for them here" or "build them a green house and put all my plants there" but the net idea is the least intrusive and most plausible idea. this has less to do with the plants, but while i write these logs i listen to the "today's results" theme from Pikmin 1 and it feels like im olimar recounting todays pikmin escapades. sometimes i dont listen to any music and imagine myself as mark whatney stranded on mars writing a log that no one will read unless i can find a way off this planet. i guess i have a thing for people who get stuck on planets and have to use plants to survive. play pikmin and read the martian, both good.