As we come to another year of
remembering the events of 9-11, I want to focus on growth and the
beauty of our home. I am very thankful for the life we have and
the beauty of our home. I love our garden so I want to show you a
little of what's been happening to my plants.
Last month,
Ahgoo came home from school with a tiny little paper cup with a little
brown dirt in it. Mr. BAW had picked up the kids that day and
told me that the teachers had planted a corn seed in the cup. I
didn't think much of it and kept the little crumbled (from Ahgoo
squishing it) cup by the kitchen sink and add a few drops of water to
it each day. After a week or so, something started to sprout!
So I transfered it into a small pot and took it outside.
Well, fast forward to a month later and this tiny little plant
has become a giant!! Literally, it's looking like the giant bean
stalk! I showed a picture of the plant to the teachers and
everyone was shocked! They all thought that most of the parents
probably threw the tiny dirt cup into the trash! We'll see if we
get any corn, I've never grown corn before!
Then there's our
tough little strawberry plant. You may recall that
Grandma and
Buzz had planted this together over a year ago. Well, I never
thought that it would live this long, let alone continue to bear fruit!
And the strawberries continue to get bigger. For a while, I
had the pot sitting on the ground until one day I realized that Toby
had been sticking his big snout into the pot and eating the tiny
strawberries!! Now, the plant is safely sitting on a tray table
next to my basil plant.
Speaking of basil, I've managed
to keep a Trader Joes' basil plant growing and producing for months
now. This is my second attempt at growing basil. The first
time, I was inexperienced and didn't properly prune the plant to
prevent flowering. This time, I made sure to keep the plant in
check and prune often to prevent it from getting too tall and flowering
too soon. One night, I pruned a stem and instead of throwing it
away, I stuck it into a glass of water, hoping to just keep the leaves
green for a few more days until I need to use the leaves. After a
few days, I noticed that the stem has sprouted roots! So I
planted the little guy into its own little pot. We'll see if this
little guy will grow.
Back in July, we spent a night at
the kids' Great Aunt's house and she planned several activities to keep
the kids busy. One of which was
baking cookies. The other activity was planting a pot of
succulents
using cuttings from her garden! She got each kid a small pot with
soil already filled in. Then she allowed each kid to pick out
various succulents to stick into their pots. The kids got to take
their pots home and were instructed to water the plants daily.
Well, they did in the beginning but I sort of been "helping them
out." Now, the plants are huge! They are literally growing
out of their pots. So I'm thking of transfering them into larger
pots, but they may no longer be my table settings!
Lastly, all
of my flowers are doing well! I must admit that keeping geraniums
is a pain. Caterpillars LOVE geraniums. I don't use any
pesticides so the only recourse I have is to physically look for the
bugs and removing them from the plant! But those buggers are hard
to find, I guess that's how they survive! Most of my geraniums
have been half eaten by fat caterpillars. But when they flower,
they are quite beautiful. I've also successfully propagated a
rose plant which has been producing amazing flowers. I also have
an azalea plant that I was going to give up on because it wasn't
looking so good. After I moved it from the backyard to the front
balcony, it started to thrive and has been rewarding me with gorgeous
deep pink blooms. But perhaps the easiest flowers to grow has
been the begonias. They are thriving on my front balcony and I've
been letting them cascade down. By the way, all of the flowers
were left by the previous home owners, both have since passed and were
the original owners and builders of the house. One day, I'll blog
a little about the story of our house.
So all in all, I'm pretty
happy with my garden and can't wait to see what happens in another
year. So far, the kids have proven to have pretty green thumbs!
:-)
