#gardening blog

[wildrungarden]

4/26/24 - Jalapeño update!

[goblin-gardening]

I wanna read there

[third-floor-garden]

welcome to my gardening blog!

hi there! my name's robin, and i live in houston, texas. i've recently taken up gardening as a hobby after having a few succulents over the years, and i'm having a wonderful time learning about plants. i'm very much an amateur, but everyone has to start somewhere, right?

this blog is called "third floor garden" because, as you may have guessed, my apartment is on the third floor of my complex. this means that i have very little space for growing things... but that's okay! i can fit quite a good variety of things up here, even if each one has to stay relatively small!

we've had flowers on our patio before, but i can say that my official "garden" started on march 13th, 2024. here's a photo featuring most of my first plants on my newly-built plant shelf:

talk about humble beginnings! nothing in this photo looks like this anymore. thanks to having an east-facing apartment, my plants get plenty of sunshine, which is making them grow like crazy! i try to take pictures of them every day, and i want to use this blog to keep track of the growth progress of each plant, including when each one is ready for harvesting!

my next post will have a listing of the plants that i currently have growing on my patio. this blog is still a work in progress, so come back soon for more info and pics!

~ robin 🌱

[arthooooor]

Gardening Log 1

I've never done one of these before, but I'm really proud of this project and I wanted to share my progress.

BACKSTORY TIME:

My dream of several years has been to start a garden. It never really got off the ground (haha, ground... gardening puns are fun) until this past year. I started breaking the ground up and turning it into a dirt patch sometime this past winter, before The Big Cold, or afterwards on a really warm day-- I really don't remember because my sense of time is completely off. Anyways, now that it's warm and I'm currently unemployed, I have a lot of time to really focus in on that dirt patch. Really make something out of it. For a while it looked like this:

not pictured, but there was cardboard keeping the grass from growing in on those spots for a while. Twas a gardening tip I gathered from youtube. It's also a great way of killing your lawn! I read an article about that while writing this while I was trying to fact check what I did:

https://www.treepeople.org/2014/07/16/sheet-mulch/#:~:text=After%202%20months%2C%20dig%20through,remove%20it%20and%20the%20grass.

Today I set out to make the dirt patch dirt-ier. I don't have a fancy tiller like some folks, just a shovel, a rake, and some kind of hand-tiller I got ages ago. I don't have a good relationship with the hand tiller, it's a little annoying to use and I am not very strong. That said, I got a lot done using all three tools together. Perhaps, with time, we will learn to work together a little more harmoniously.

Anyways, here's the finished product:

I threw some seeds down in the dirt kind of haphazardly as an experiment a few days ago. They might not germinate, or they might. We'll see! I was feeling like an eager beaver. Trying not to be attached to the outcome of that particular pet project.

The other half of this project has been seed germination. I was really unsure of how this would turn out. The only plant I've ever kept alive before was a ficus and unfortunately I had a little bit of an oopsie (psychosis) and I neglected him until he died. RIP Killer Joe, you are missed.

But! I'm in a new chapter of my life and I think my emotional wellbeing is now somewhat tied to whether or not I can keep plants alive.

In all seriousness, if you're in a place where you can and you think gardening will help you, I recommend it. It gives me good feelings inside, which are not always easy to come by.

This is my seed germination set-up. Despite how discouraged I was feeling about this side of the project, I am happy to say my first seeds have sprouted! I would like to include a photo, but tumblr keeps changing that photo to another one. Not sure why... The sprouts are really hard to see anyways.

I am proud of my seeds. I'm not sure if anyone else has ever experienced this, but I find myself whispering when I'm talking to them. Like it I talk too loud, it might scare them (Silly as that may be).

Germinating seeds seemed really intimidating when I first started. I ended up using cardboard and an old cat litter tray filled with potting soil. Obviously, I had many anxieties about how this would go (and will go) given my history with plants, but today's sprouts filled me with joy I was not expecting. The best thing to do seems to be keeping the soil moist throughout the day. I forgot to for a day when I firs started and that sent me into panic mode, but my fears were unfounded.

I am also germinating a single seed using the wet paper towel in a plastic bag method. We will see how that one progresses. It actually sprouted in the tray, but I accidentally pulled it up and I felt bad about just discarding it.

Outside of The Big Project, I am also trying to keep a Lavender plant alive. I don't think she's going to hold on for much longer, but one can always hope.

My current plan is to grow a combination of flowers and vegetables. The first seed tray is all vegetables. The second one is going to be herbs. After the last frost date passes and as long as I can stay patient, I'll worry about flowers.

That about wraps it up! I hope you've enjoyed my first gardening log. I'll update more as I go along and talk more about my plans, which plants I'm growing, and anything else gardening related.

- Art-Marigold

[goblin-gardening]

The most beautiful garden cottage and cute garden kitty

forever intertwined

source

[lukajagor]

Doing the Right Thing

I made a Bee Bath, but I believe that the environment should be affected as little as possible by some 𝖱𝖠𝖣𝖨𝖢𝖠𝖫 𝖯𝖱𝖮𝖢𝖤𝖣𝖴𝖱𝖤𝖲. Driving away snails is the right thing to do, but 𝖪𝖨𝖫𝖫𝖨𝖭𝖦 them is too 𝖨𝖭𝖳𝖱𝖴𝖲𝖨𝖵𝖤.

[yardenercom]

How to tell if a sweet gum tree is dying

Worried your sweet gum tree is dying? Our guide covers how to identify common problems like wilting leaves, branch decay, and fungal growth. Plus tips to restore their health through proper care and cultivation practices.

[bebs-art-gallery]

𝓑𝒖𝒕𝒕𝒆𝒓𝒇𝒍𝒚 𝓕𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝓜𝒐𝒕𝒉 𝓕𝒂𝒊𝒓𝒊𝒆𝒔 𝒐𝒇 𝒕𝒉𝒆 𝓦𝒐𝒓𝒍𝒅

© Malina Dowling

[120daysofsodomm]

[k1tten-m1lk]

[strawberryraviegutz]

Me

[wildrungarden]

⭐️Currently reading: The One-Straw Revolution by Masanobu Fukuoka ⭐️

‘Just playing or doing nothing at all, children are happy. A discriminating adult, on the other hand, decides what will make him happy, and when these conditions are met he feels satisfied.’

The synopsis calls it ‘Zen and the Art of Farming.’ This book is about his experience over 30 years of using the ‘do-nothing�� farming method. He lets his orchard and rice/barley fields grow wild without any pest controls or fertilizers. That’s the basis of it (kinda?) — but what makes this book amazing is that he goes deep into why it works for him. Explaining why he doesn’t have to use chemicals to treat weeds and pests. Into the full circle of life & how to actually grow ‘natural’ food. We always want bigger and better quality & focus on high yields and money. How disconnected we really are growing from nature in agriculture.

If you aren’t into agriculture or learning about the exact ‘whys’ of his experiences from growing rice, barley & citrus on his personal field —- skip to part 2 of the book. I honestly wouldn’t recommend skipping(it holds a lot of useful information), but after part 2 is where I really got interested.

It’s not only about farming though - it also incorporates our health, diet and how basic our knowledge is as humans. It makes you think.

Even this book being written in 1978 - it still holds up to today. We’ve had all this knowledge since then and we still continue to do industrial agriculture and live/eat the way we do. It’s eye opening, for sure.

I’m not completely finished yet - I have about 40 pages left - but that’s what I think so far ☺️ You should definitely give it a try.

[goblin-gardening]

Dream home 🏡 💭 🌟 ❤️

[axololtls]

kofi

[awgeezitsthetoiletnator]

some days it's still 2015 on twitter

[allthingseurope]

Covent Garden. London (by Elissar Haidar)