Friday 30 March 2012

Emergency Rosemary Part 2 (and other garden news)

If you've been here before, you may know that my garden is a constant experiment, trial and error.  Here's the progress of my latest experiments, plus a little dumb luck.

Good news!  My emergency rosemary isn't dead.  It's not established yet, either, but I was confident enough to plant it in a permanent pot.
You can read the start of the story of my rosemary here.
Yesterday, my new rosemary plant had its first full day outside.
 I nestled it safely into the loving arms of my tub of pineapple plants, if tubs had arms.
The sun was quite hot, so even shaded, the little peat pot dried out quickly.  I misted the plant with water in the afternoon.
This morning I checked to see how much of the little sprig was still alive.
The bottom half is still very much alive, and it doesn't look like that's changing any time soon, so a quick snip with some sharp scissors and...
Now the whole thing is alive (if you're wondering what those white bits are in the pot, they're egg shell, as the sprig was planted in compost).
I found a nice big pot to plant the rosemary into, as I wanted to sprinkle some pak choy seeds around it and see if they come up.  I chose pak choy as the leaves can be harvested and the roots left undisturbed, so the rosemary won't be disrupted.
A small sprinkle of fertiliser and a good watering in, and now all that's left is more watching and waiting.

Another experiment in my garden is with my sweet potatoes.  They have begun multiplying like mad, although they are, like all my plants, contained in a pot (an old garbage bin, actually).  I pulled up some of the new plants, and, with a very sharp kitchen knife, cut the very end of the tuber and planted the potato top back in the ground with the vine still attached.  I didn't think I should waste time taking pictures of something that needed to get back in the ground, but I took this picture of one of the sweet potatoes I harvested:
 I figure either that vine will die or it won't, much like most of my garden experiments (if you know this will end badly, please don't tell me, I'll get sad).
I moved all the vines over to one side of the pot, added some wonderful new, rich compost, and in the other half or the pot I've sprinkled some lettuce seeds, to see what happens, and also because yay!  Lettuce!


On to sheer dumb luck:
Remember my second lot of surprise potatoes? (If not, I started writing about them here and continued over here.)  It turns out the thing that grew up in the pot is a potato plant after all!  I took its picture for you.  It has a mild case of 28 spot ladybug, but is otherwise healthy.
And finally, plants that seemed to have really liked all this rain, onion family plants.  My spring onions have multiplied out of sight, and some of them have grown far beyond normal size.  I took this picture to show you a size comparison between the spring onions I normally grow, and one of the large ones.

 That's the toe of my spotty gumboots at the bottom of the frame there.  I was going to crop it out, but I decided I like it.

I think that's all I had to share today.  I'll probably think of something else after I hit publish...

Lots of love in all you do,
Cassandra Louise

5 comments:

  1. Hi Cassandra,
    Thanks for visiting my blog! I love the premise of yours. Looks like fun!
    Beth

    ReplyDelete
  2. everything looks healthy and happy!! with your compost, rain, sun...and your TLC...you'll be harvesting your veggies and herbs in no time!

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hey Cassandra, I keep meaning to ask you - your link in the Sustainable Suburbia linky list doesn't have any image attached - is that deliberate, or would you like me to add one?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. When I added the link, I didn't have a picture in mind to use. I would like one added, but wasn't sure what.

      Delete