Audrey documents her newfound ruthlessness... sorta...

All right. It's been a while since we checked in on the plants (because that's really the only reason for you to check this blog, I'm sure).
When I last updated, it was to share that I had to start over as almost all of my precious plants had been eaten by furry or slimy demons. It was then that I lost my ability to really see rabbits and slugs as "just other creatures trying to survive." I'm striking back now.

I posted on Facebook about killing a particularly large slug with salt on the porch. It seemed to delight everyone who read it (several friends at aikido commented on it during class, calling me "killer" for a short while). Now I can't pour a salt ring around my plants, but I'd been saving egg shells for a few months since reading about them being good for putting calcium into soil and at the same time repelling slugs and snails. I smashed them in a big old ziploc and sprinkled it around my bell pepper sprouts, which I repotted last weekend.

No more nasty slug trails around MY peppers.

One of my four remaining plants had begun to wilt before the transplant and has not perked up since, so I'm prepared for it to be a loss.  But the other three are leafy and strong and I have high hopes for their future. I feel particularly protective over these plants because they are the survivors. I raised them from seeds and have been very attentive to them. Acer tried to snack on the one that is currently wilting away, and he got a firm talking-to and finger wag for his actions.

I've also mixed up a jug of rabbit repellent made from water, red pepper flakes, garlic and dish soap. The recipe suggested letting it sit in the sun for a couple days to let the flavors and smells saturate in the mix. When I opened the jug to pour it into a spray bottle, I caught a whiff of just how rank it was. I've been spraying it on bean vines, pumpkin sprouts and a sweet potato sprout that poked itself up but apparently attracts bunnies.

 This plant has grown a fair amount since this photo was taken. There are actually the beginnings of buds on it now.

Sweet Group Shot! Meet the new sweet banana pepper plant and the regrown sweet potato sprout.

I'm also trying a second round of radish seeds, but may have lost them as well. I did not get the spray on them before something ate about 75 percent of them. But I still have lots of seeds left and the warm season isn't going anywhere soon.

After I lost a lot of my plants last month, I decided to let plants grow larger before putting them in the yard. My two pumpkin vines are weathering being in the ground much better since I let them bulk up before moving them. I did purchase a six-pack of tomato sprouts for my Topsy Turvy stand and they are looking very happy in their spot in the middle of the yard - the best place for them to get the sun they need. I had to move it from a spot next to the fence when I caught a squirrel eyeballing it from the fence post.

I'm getting excited about the garden again, even though it's spread throughout the yard and kind of at a point now where all I have to do is make sure nothing is getting nibbled on and everyone stays watered. I don't foresee any more transplants, so it's really just waiting on the blossoms to appear. Here's to rank rabbit repellant and sharp shards of slug deterring eggshells all doing their jobs.

Quick and dirty check-in

Hi there. I know nobody is probably checking this blog for updates, but I realize I haven't posted in almost a month and wanted to do so. I don't have a lot of time, so this will be picture-free.

My Facebook friends are aware that not long after I put a slew of seeds and sprouts in my garden, they were devoured by fiends unknown. Most likely rabbits, but I'm suspecting certain bugs and squishy things outside also played a small part. "Devastating" is only slightly too strong a word. I cried a little. All that work, gone in just a few days. With it being so late in the season, I'd almost resigned myself to buying some plants at Home Depot to replace them, but decided to give the pumpkin seeds another shot. My rationale now is to get the sprouts to be big enough that a few nibbled leaves won't destroy everything. There are two of them pushing up on the porch now.

I haven't replanted the radishes and a few spinach sprouts seem to have survived. The shallots haven't been touched and -- the most relieving point for me -- I hadn't put the bell peppers in the ground yet. I still have four of them, currently sitting on the surface of the dirt in a large houseplant's pot that I left outside for some reason. It's on the porch and kind of high off the ground, so the only thing knocking them over is the strong wind from all the freaking rain we've been getting.

Seriously, more than two weeks almost straight of rain we've had. When did I move to the Pacific Northwest?

Anyway, the lack of sunlight also killed the sunflower sprout from the seed kit my mom gave me for Christmas. The zinnias, likewise, didn't survive the transplanting. Either I watered them too much in their bags or they were too shocked from the move to the pot. I just don't have luck with gifted plants it seems.

However, I was gifted some other seeds after furry demons ate my garden. A good friend in Dallas saw my post and sent me a whole set of Miracle-Gro seed pods. Tomatoes, peppers, lettuces, herbs, watermelons, a really nice assortment. It still feels too late in the year to be messing with seeds, but I have put one each of spinach, basil and green bean pods into some dirt to see how they do. The beans already have a sprout, and I put them in the dirt on Saturday(?). I will probably hold on to the rest until next year, when I can get them started ahead of time. Yay for pre-preparedness! (In case I didn't say it enough, Thank You, Korri!)

So, I've lowered the expectations of, but not quite given up on, my horticulture daydreams. If I ever find time with my new full-time schedule, I do intend on buying some established plants, but I'd really like to wait for the sun to come back. The rain is nice and oh-so-needed, don't get me wrong, but I can't keep things alive on moisture alone.

In other news, Brian and I have fallen off the push up challenge wagon. We are both working full-time now (horray!), but it quickly took a backseat to us figuring out how to schedule dinner when he gets home after 5 p.m. and I'm not there until almost 8:00 p.m. But with two full-time incomes, we managed to get me a new car last week! Now we are both mobile!

Ok, I lied. One picture. I'm squinting because it was one of those weird "overcast-but-bright" days.

 

Hopefully soon I can find time to update with more photos, but I didn't want the silence to unnerve anyone. I'm just busy with life at the moment. :-)

Into the ground we go

As my Facebook friends learned yesterday, I finally got some compost for my garden.

Brian convinced me not to buy a dozen more plants while we were at the store, and we hauled the two bags (plus another bag of potting mix) into the backyard. My shoulders were, and still kind of are, hurting from Sunday's push ups, but I managed to turn the existing dirt, dump in the bags of compost, and mix them in with a hoe. I was extremely pleased to find a really fat earthworm in the dirt as I mixed it up. As the dirt in the box came from a store, I had taken to pulling worms out of weed roots when I pulled them from the yard and throwing them into the box. Most of them were pitiful, skinny things, but the one I found yesterday was a hoss. Something in that dirt is doing the worms right.

However, in mixing the dirt I did realize just how shady my little garden is in the afternoon. I am questioning how happy my mostly-full-sun-wanting plant choices will be there, so I first moved my five remaining bell pepper seedlings to the brick wall side of the garden. Their roots are not yet showing through the peat pots, but I figured this would be a good opportunity to see whether they will thrive or die in the partial shade of the area before I commit to putting them in the dirt.

Don't mind us, we are just taking in the view.

I was all ready to start putting actual plants into the dirt when I realized I couldn't even list everything I had to plant yet. So... I went to my notebook to make a list and draw a plan.

Believe it or not, I do have a rather organized way of approaching projects.

Brian helped with the planning, suggesting putting the pumpkins on the side so the vines could grow over the edge of the garden instead of just blatantly taking up space in the middle.

All I managed to do yesterday was put the five shallots into the bottom left hand square foot, park my long pot of garlic to the right side of the box and sprinkle the questionable-vitality spinach seeds into the top left hand square foot. I bought the seeds last year, if I remember right, and never planted them. Because I never throw anything away, I still had them and figured "what's it going to hurt?" to throw them into a corner of dirt. If they grow, cool. If not, no loss.

The first thing I did this morning was put some pumpkin seeds in a bag to germinate. This should have been done weeks ago, but with the stalling on getting the garden ready, timing was hard to get right.

 When we grow up, we're going to make pies!

With the pumpkin seeds on the windowsill, I set out with the radish tape. I smoothed out a portion of dirt and dug two trenches with my hands and lay the radish seeds in them.

 

I also put a single pumpkin seed in the top right hand corner of the box. Kind of to see which grows faster or stronger: separately germinated or in-ground germinated.

 A brave seed goes where its brethren ventured not.

I marked its spot with a rock, then put some water on everything.

 Apparently the early morning sun is stronger than I thought. At least when photographed.

So thus far, I have five sprouted shallots, one packet of possibly expired spinach seeds, two strips of radish seed tape and a pumpkin seed in the garden. The bell peppers are still parked on a wall, deciding if they like the environment (if they end up not thriving, I intend to put them in pots with the potting mix I bought and placing them in a sunnier position in the yard).

In less-thrilling garden news, I also bought a crutch for one of the plants I've been taking care of since I found it on the porch last year.

A friend told me it has "bat wing" in its name, but I can't remember the rest and Google shows 

weird things that don't look like this.

I also was excited to find on Sunday the mystery bulb I threw into some dirt on a whim is sprouting!

 

Yet another mystery plant. Anyone who knows anything about bulbs is

welcome to weigh in on this.

People think gardening is a "girly" activity, or that it's boring because of the patience required or it's a hippie choice because of the green/homesteading trend going around now. For the most part, I'm not as interested in flowers as I am in utilitarian plants (though I obviously have a soft spot for some pretty blooms). I find excitement in the progression of plant growth, not just in the end results. And I don't do it to try and provide food for myself -- while it's not an idea I'm against, I am just not good enough to rely on it yet, though homesteading projects like gardening and chicken raising do appeal to me. I garden because I like to see what I can help to create by providing dirt, water and food to a little seed or small plant. I like to watch something small grow into something self-sufficient. I like tending to an ongoing project.

Pushing up!

Huzzah! Progress on the push up front!

Wednesday night Brian and I performed the exhaustion test that concludes the second week (or in our case, month) of the program.

I, who managed 11 measley push ups in the initial test on March 1, eeked out a whole 26 before the muscles in my arms started to burn so bad I couldn't push up any more. In mathy words, that's approximately a 136 percent increase in push up ability (according to a calculator I found online).

Brian performed 21 push ups in our initial test and managed to do 40 on Wednesday's exhaustion test. (That's a 90 percent increase in push ups performed.)

It's crazy. We have gone from this:

 Brian: already a .38, at least. Audrey: Wimpy wimpy, water pistol. (March 3)

To...:

 Huzzah!

Okay, I know that it may not be very impressive, but my arms are getting stronger from doing this. I just have to stay on top of it. When we started Week 2 of the program, I was doing okay. Then we managed to not move on again for a week. Re-doing the same day was torture, so we did Week 2 Day 1 maybe four times until I was competent again.

Even Brian started to have a hard time with the workouts in Week 2, but we are both continuing to move on at our slow little pace.

Kitchen territorialism

It's been a long time coming, but I finally admit to being territorial over my kitchen.

I reflect on this now as my roommate and his girlfriend prepare dinner tonight. I've jumped up multiple times to make sure they were using the right utensils, not using metal on my nonstick pots, not throwing recyclables in the garbage, etc. Mostly, I'm glad they got started while I was at work.

I cringe at the thought of other people using my utensils and ingredients, but I don't know why. My mother never worried about us kids in the kitchen. My party-hosting friend in college never cared if us dorm-dwellers got our cooking fix in her kitchen. But ever since I moved out on my own, I get kind of wiggy about people using my kitchen.

An accurate depiction, as little as I'd like to admit it.

To be fair, I didn't have an issue with my college roommate. Maybe because I felt the duplex we shared was more "hers" because she found it originally and asked me to room with her that year. We shared stocking and cleaning duties, so I guess I just didn't mind when she wanted to use it because it was quite literally half hers.

Living in my own apartment, however, I guess one would become possessive over things. The kitchen was full of food, tools, utensils and decor that I purchased. Some items, like the microwave, were gifts and loaners, but whenever someone would try to prepare something I had a habit of hovering and critiquing.

Brian learned this the hard way. When we started living together, I would ask him to help me make dinner sometimes, but I always had a problem with how he did things, or I'd get annoyed that he didn't know where basic things, like towels or cutting boards, were stored. I guess I can't really blame him for leaving the food prep to me now.

Maybe it's because I've lived with people inactive in the kitchen for so long now that I became territorial because I feel I'm the only one who uses it. I know where everything is, how much of each ingredient remains, what needs replacing soon, what substitutes I can create for different ingredients, and I think I resent having to tell other people. Part of me thinks they should know, but the other part knows why they don't.

Anyway, dinner is being served. I am doing my best to appreciate not having to prepare it tonight and not think about going in to figure out what's misplaced or depleted or improperly used or cleaned...

Reflecting on my 20s thus far

Not long ago I read this Buzzfeed article titled "17 Things Twentysomethings Need to Chill Out About." If you've read any number of posts in this blog not related to my plants, you know that the last couple of years I have struggled in the job realm. Those difficulties and the secondary ones that stem from joblessness and job searching and wondering what in the heck I want to do with my life made this listicle hit really close to home. I wanted to reflect on some items in the list today.

1. You didn’t study the right thing at university.

Is it bad that I was wondering if I was on the right path by my sophomore year of college? I remember starting my very first newswriting class and having a hell of a time getting interested in it. I struggled with the vague directions and made-up news assignments. But by Newswriting II, I kind of enjoyed it. The class required us to pick a campus beat and find stories from it to turn in. This made it interesting, as I chose the College of Fine Arts (where my next choice of major probably would have fallen, had I decided to change).

I think now about returning to school to start over, but I'm not sure what to study. Design and hospitality cross my mind a lot, but I fear getting burnt out in these industries as easily as I did the reporting one. 

2. Your uni[versity] experience wasn’t as fun as everyone else’s.

I do regret not taking some of the chances I was offered in college. Traveling, studying random subjects, getting involved with different groups, even going to more parties. I was actually to a happy point of being able to stay up late and hold my liquor fairly well before I graduated. Two months into the working world and my habit of staying up past midnight every night was gone. I drink far less now, so my tolerance is also significantly lower. It's all to be expected, I'm aware, but I do miss being the age where it was expected to make terrible decisions (and share the resulting stories).

3. You have absolutely no idea what you want to do with your life. and 4. You don't have your dream job.

This is a topic I've blogged about before. I am 26. I was a reporter in the "real world" for about two and a half years (maybe a little longer if you count my internship), and the impression of experiences were not always enjoyable. I did like parts of it, and I got to meet a lot of really awesome people and learn really cool stuff about a whole variety of topics, but the eternal stress of deadlines apparently isn't the way I work. Yes I need a deadline to really get going, but maybe I was just too young to discipline myself into meeting them all.

Then again, maybe I was too young for the professional world in general. Looking back, I can see all the mistakes I made. If I went back to it, I might be able to do better. But for now, I'm still washing out the bitter taste the reporting industry has left in my mouth.

It's a very humbling experience, however, to know that you're qualified to work in an office or professional environment, earning a very livable wage and holding nice vacation and health benefits, but sending all of your job applications to gas stations and retail and customer service positions. I don't know how many coworkers I've come across in my last few jobs who were surprised when I told them I'd been to (and graduated from) college. "What are you doing working here?" they ask.

The truth is it's a combination of fear and desperation. I'm afraid to get back into a professional job again because what if I fail at it like I did the last time? What if I get fired just a few months in and have to go back to looking for another job? It's overwhelming. So I take low-pay, low-hours, entry-level jobs when I can get them just so I have some money coming in and do not have a long employment gap in my resume.

The jobs are easy. They have low expectations. I don't bring the stress of them home with me in the evening. Once that drawer is pulled and the money is counted and till is balanced, I go home and don't worry about it anymore. As some kind of professional, the stress follows you well beyond your eight hours per day. Your back is tight from sitting all day and worrying if what you turned in will be good enough, if your supervisor has some hidden agenda against you, if you may be walking a razors-edge line and not even know it.

But I know this isn't the kind of work I want to do for the rest of my life. Yes, I want something more. I just don't know what it is specifically yet.

8. You’re not able to afford to buy your own place.

I've actually been quite lucky in this area. From the time I started my first reporting job until now, I have managed to keep up with rent, even while job hunting. A very strange turn of events led me to living in a house as I am now, which is much preferable to having been forced to move back home (number 5 on the original list). However, I have felt stuck in Central Texas since about the second month of living here in 2011. I find myself dreaming most days of moving back to the eastern part of the state, under the pine trees, but the whole not having a great job and trying to help the fiancee settle the estate means we could be here a while.

But why shouldn't we? This house is paid for. We would only have to pay property taxes on it once per year. It's kind of hard to maintain (having never tried to keep more than a one bedroom apartment moderately clean before), but we have a roommate for now paying rent, a small yard for my plants and both of us are working. Neither are great jobs or hours or pay, but there is income. Moving would mean finding new jobs, new places to live, etc. I honestly think I'm okay staying here for a little while while we try to save our money back up.

12. You feel like your time is running out.

I've had an itch to travel the country or even to another part of the world for years now. I was actually planning to go somewhere in 2013, as I'd worked over a year at the paper I was at and would have actual vacation time to use. Then my position was cut, and I had to start a new job and try to rebuild vacation time from scratch there.

Obviously the time and money situations haven't improved. I'm still dying to visit other states and cities and even countries. I feel like the older I get the harder it will become to do these things (especially if I don't get in good with some company). Brian and I took the Amtrak to Fort Worth last weekend and picked up several brochures and a magazine of the routes the train takes. I'm enamored with the routes that go to Nashville and New Orleans and Memphis. I want to traverse other cities, try new foods, listen to local music and just escape the annoyances of my life for a little while.

As it becomes less likely looking that I can really travel abroad, I shift my focus. I've wanted to go to Louisiana for months now. It's just a state over. I've actually visited Shreveport before, but I want to visit the French Quarter. Try a bakery, visit a jazz club, take a ghost tour. Be a freaking tourist, you know? I guess someday, but damn I wish it was sooner.

17. You’re getting old.

I know for a fact I'm not the only "twentysomething" worried about this. I found my first gray hair a week before my 23rd birthday, and it's far from the only one there now. My forehead and corners of my eyes are already showing signs of where the wrinkles will be.

These combined with the item discussed above really make me feel like time has gotten away from me in this decade of my life. But I look at the other people I know in my life, the people who have survived their twenties and still seem happy, and I have hope.

Some of them struggled working multiple part-time jobs well into their 40s before they found a well-paying full-time position (regardless of whether they enjoy it or not) and make time for activities they enjoy outside of work hours. Some branched out to do their own thing a few years before turning 30 and now travel and do everything they wanted to and seem thrilled with how things are going (but no one really broadcasts all their insecurities).

On the flipside, there are a few items on the list I seem to have conquered. I have not yet had to move back home (#5), I'm not a flippant spender (#6. You're rubbish with your finances) and I am a decent cook (#7. You're a terrible cook). I am engaged (#10. Everyone around you is getting hitched), though planning a wedding has taken a backseat to everything else going on. I've dated around and know the relationships that ended did so for a reason (#11. You're hung up on someone). I know that my friends are struggling with the same assortment of things I am (#13. You're not as cool as your friends) and the changes in my body seem to be for the positive (#15. Your body is changing).

I guess I'm saying I know that there is still time to grow and improve myself when the first digit of my age is no longer a 2. I'm just hoping that everything I want to accomplish is still doable by then.

Some pretty plants join the party

I bought more plants last week.

Yes, yes. I left work Thursday night. Brian was hanging out with a friend, so I went to Walmart to look at what they had.

Things were bought. Things were not regretted.

ANYWAY! I put a lot of my new plants into pots Monday. The herb tower is now a thing and I have two new flowers to join my old daisy (which also got a new, roomier, better-soil home).

I started by bringing everyone outside and test-driving a couple pots.

First I wanted to work on the herb tower. I only bought three live herbs: lavender, sweet mint and rosemary. There is also a packet of chives seeds that I haven't yet attempted to do anything with.

You may have noticed the pots full of bottle caps in some of my other photos. My mom alwasy taught me to add rocks to the bottom of a pot for drainage for plants. Living in apartments the last few years, rocks weren't always easy to find. But I drank a lot of sodas.

Exhibit A.

I started saving caps from soda, shampoo, milk, juice and coffee creamer bottles, as well as whole empty energy shot and liquid water enhancer bottles. They are a good, lightweight option to add a drainage element for container plants when rocks aren't easy to come by. I guess it's also kind of a "green" option, but that wasn't my thought process at the time.

Anyway, I put a layer of the plastic bottles at the bottom of a large terra cotta pot. I filled it with the potting soil I also bought at Walmart (mixed with the less-good soil from old plants), then checked to see where a smaller clay pot would fit on top of it.

It was originally going to be centered.

Then I actually read the instructions on the lavender and mint peat pots. They said to remove the bottoms of the pot and leave the pieces in the hole that the plant was going into. I used a pocket knife to carefully rip off the bottom of the pots.

 After I got them into the edge of the large pot, I decided that placing the second pot, where the rosemary would go, a little off-center would look better and leave some more room in the bottom. So that's what happened.

View from above.

 I put the rosemary, which didn't come in a peat pot, into the top and admired the work. I think it came out looking pretty sweet.

Like I said, I also bought some chives seeds, and I'm trying to figure out if I want to put them in the spaces of the herb tower seen here, or give them a separate place to call home.

But with the herbs done, I moved on to the two flowers I bought.

I'm not usually an ornamental-plant type of person, but these two had really pretty purple flowers and one was kind of a trailing type of flower that was also labeled to be heat tolerant. It was an easy sell.

The last hanging pot I had was buried in the garage, but it had a built-in drainage tray, so I didn't have to use more bottle caps. :-)

When I pulled the plant out of its plastic pot, it looked like this:

I know a lot of store-bought plants are cramped in their pots, but I always feel kind of bad when I see how crowded they get. The roots were too tight together to really pull apart any (I tried), so I just had to make sure it had room to spread out in the new pot.

I'm so enamored with these kinds of plants.

Next came the delphinium. These were on display outside the garden center and I literally spent a few seconds lusting after the blooms the way most girls would lust after shoes. Just look at the blue-on-purple color scheme going on here.

It reminds me of those galaxy pictures you see online.

I didn't take photos of the repotting of this one. I'm sure you get the idea by now. Plus I was listening to a YouTube playlist on my phone and you may know how the music stops if you try to do anything else, like take a picture.

 Since I was on such a roll, I also brought out the old sweet potato vine (I'm thinking it's dead, but not entirely sure) and my gerbera daisy to join the fun.

Gerbera daisies are supposed to be one-year plants, but I've had mine for three now. I bring it in in the winter, where its green leaves whither and die off, but new green sprouts come up. It was sending up some new greenery when I realized how slowly it was growing. It has been in the same pot for a while now, so I moved it to a larger home and replaced the old, tired soil with some fresh stuff.

It kind of looks like size overkill, but trust me, this daisy can get pretty big.

The rest of my plants are still doing well. The garlic got some fertilizer and the pepper sprouts, celery and mystery bulb get water regularly. Once the roots start showing at the bottom of the pots for the pepper sprouts, I'll move them to the garden bed, where I hope to see them flourish. The final step I need to finish before moving anything to the ground is adding some compost to that soil. I will also need to get the radish and pumpkin seeds started, and buy a banana pepper plant for Brian. I'm still contemplating tomato plants, but that can wait, as they won't be starting from seed.

Also! Speaking of mystery plants (the bulb hasn't changed much on the surface) the mystery sprout I put in the corner of the garlic pot poked above ground!

What ARE you???

I hope everyone else's spring projects are shaping up, if you have any. And in case anyone has any misinformed thoughts that gardening or repotting are clean activities, I'll leave you with this reminder that it's easy to take photos of only the good-looking angle and results

Here's to a happy, green spring for everyone. May you be as happy this season as Acer was laying in and nibbling on the grass while I was working.