Next project

Doesn't look good, does it? Seems like only the lemon balm is doing fine. Lemon balm, on the other hand, is among those plants that grows uncontrollably once you've got them started. The only reason this plant is small is my habit of making lemon balm herbal tea every other day. I have no idea why the parsly is white (thrips?) or why the chives are ridiculously thin.

My ignorance is certainly a hindrance. Perhaps the best thing is to dig this garden up, sterilise the soil and start afresh. I dream about using plants from seeds this time, but I have no money to buy the seeds*. Next sowing will be strawberries instead (I have the seeds, the leaves are good for herbal tea and the fruit are good for bribing kids - perfect!)

My seedlings are mostly fine. In some dull thought of doing good I put on the plastic hood on the green house - and didn't see that mildew started to grow on the ice plant pots. I've removed the hood and I hope the molding will die as the air starts to circulate around it. If the ice plants survive they'll probably kill their 'guest' all by themselves. They have a habit of poisoning the soil around them with salt. (Hm, I realise this means I have to create a separate soil bin for ice plant soil. Yes! Another project to loose myself in!)

*If you want to make it possible for me to buy some more seeds do click the banner ads. Google AdSense is kind enough to convert my enourmous revenue from peanuts to swedish kronas ;-)

Stuck in life, stuck in reality

My rose almost dried out, but the pansies (Johnny Jump-Ups) do very well.

I haven't been posting here for a long time. It's because I've got Other Things To Do In My Life (tm). A full time job steals a lot of time from the hours you thought you had for your hobbies; cooking, cleaning, caring for children and laundry, everything are supposed to fit into the few hours you have left. My flowers have suffered from it, and some of my home made selfwatering pots are a sad sight to see. But I'm not ready to give up on the project. A fulltime job is a reality for most of us, and I want indoor gardening to be a possibility for all of us. The problems I'm pondering most on right now are how to fit in the gardening into the Real Life.

An other thing that keeps me going are all those nice comments you've written on my posts. Thanks to everyone who tried to save my basil and sage with various recipes and suggestions on freezing the surplus. The thing with indoor gardening is, though, that you'll (hopefully) have access to the plants all the time. If you start saving the surplus you'll soon drown. I'll plant new herbgardens, and when I do I'll plant sage and basil in an amount more fit to our needs. And I'll add chives, dill and parsley - herbs used in the kitchen by my grandma and quite the ordinary stuff in Sweden. Exotic herbs are fun to grow, but in the end I don't know what to do with them, so I've learnt the hard way to stick to the 'boring' common routine.

All those weeks...

You may have noticed that I've been absent for a week, and that's for a reason. Last week was the week from hell. I've started a new job, a nice one so that's not the problem. The problem was that my son fell ill and kept me awake during the nights. I had forgotten how sluggish you become by not sleeping at night. Things was so bad I even forgot to water my seedlings and they bent like overcooked spagetti over their boxes. I watered them anyway, and most of them recovered.

Other plants have flourished while I turned my back. The basil for exemple. It's so big that when I log it next time I'll have twice the amount I had last, ie two (2) litres (or four pints). I'm going to dig it out of the box and replace it with chives and parsly, mark my words! I have pesto enough for a year.

I've found a nice recipe for the sage that will keep it in check in the future. It's called "Icelandic chicken" (if anyone of my readers are interested in the middle ages you may recognize Cariadoc's miscellany).

My two biggest challenges for now is to replant my seedlings - I have a replant phobia, and to get a vermicompost. The last thing is a bit like getting a cat; you need to care for it, feed it and take care of the poop. Good thing it doesn't have fur; my hubby is allergic.