I Swear We Aren't Growing Marijuana , Officer

Feb 2011

As a lot of you guys know, since for several months I was talking about nothing else, one of the reasons we were excited about having a home was owning a backyard. It is now over a year later, and our main room still has no furniture, but we can't be bothered because we're still playing in the backyard.

Our first big realized project was installing a garden, which lead to this moment - taking the lives of many plants into my hands. This is very scary for the plants, because I kill everything I touch. Luckily my partner in crime is much more plant-savvy.

The dirt we ended up buying in bulk for the garden is made to continue to break down and nurture the plants for at least 5 years, and the dirt guy said we would not want to plant seeds directly into the bed because something something something it is bad.

Sadly, this often happens to me. My brain fixates on the take-away, but instantaneously forgets the actual reason why. In this case, I vaguely recall it has something to do with the dirt compounds that are newly breaking down leech something (water? nutrients?) out of seeds and they won't germinate well. Possibly. This brain shortage tends to make me look like an idiot on a regular basis.

Anyway, this led to us needing to start all of our extensively planned garden indoors. We don't get any direct sunlight due to extensive tree cover, so this was a slight issue which we chose to gloss over for the moment.

So! Starting seeds indoors! For those of you who could are less and just want to look at the pretty picture, I've placed any actual informative info at the end of the post.


Filling the cells after mixing and moistening the soil - it should resemble a wrung-out sponge.

Fill the cells. I usually put three seeds in each one, to make sure something takes. I will thin them out later. Just barely scratch the surface, place the seed, and lightly cover with the mix. Most seeds like to be 1-2 mm deep. Be sure to check each packet.



LABEL THEM. I cannot stress the importance of this. It is especially vital to see how things progress thought the season so you can plan for next year. David is very into this whole process, and I have not seen him this excited since the first time he went snorkeling. One side effect is that he planted a tray and had only a foggy idea of what was planted where. This made for interesting guesses later, since all seedlings look almost exactly alike.

THE HATED PEAT POTS

I did tomatoes on the first round, and they had to suffer my ignorance. These plants have already spouted, and grown what is called their first 'true leaves'. When a plant comes up, it will always have a pair of leaves called cotyledons, which are usually oval and smooth. It is hard to tell what a seedling is until it produces it's true leaves, which take on the unique characteristics of the plants. At this point, you need to start supplying nutrients if your potting mix does not have any.

Week 1: Wow, is that fuschia

David got online and ordered a grow light for our little plants, whose arrival I was informed of when I pulled up to the house after work late one night to discover aliens were landing in our upper story of our home.

He wasn't sure where to put it, so he had set it up in the bathroom at the front of the house. This caused violently fuchsia lights to stream out of every window in the upper story. It looked like Halloween had come several months early at our house.

Week 2: I felt the need to document David's love of the seedlings. It was really cute to see him so energized by the process. He could come in from work and go directly to the seedlings.

Eventually we moved the operation to an unused alcove in our office. I think it used to have a TV for the little girl who lived in that room before us, but we never knew what to do with it. It was a perfect solution, and the awful light was not terribly visible from the street.

This did NOT happen before we got a visit from the police.

Oh yes.

It happened while I was going to school, working late hours and sometimes could barely remember my name. So, basically, after my shift ended at 1 am I just kind of forgot about the whole thing and didn't tell David.

Which apparently means it didn't happen. It didn't happen to the point where when one of our friends mentioned the story to David, he TOLD THEM I MADE IT UP.

We had a little chat after that one.

So, friend, whoever you are, I most definitely did NOT make this up and thank you for presenting the chance for David and I to have a lovely talk about having faith in your spouse, backing them up first and asking them questions later instead of the 'throw them under the bus' route.

I still don't think he believes me.

Still Week 1

In all honesty, it wasn't all that thrilling. Basically? They thought we had a grow operation in our home. Which we do, technically - only it's lettuce instead of marijuana. Our street gets patrolled pretty often, and I guess the cop thought there might be a chance we were really dumb criminals. He asked to come in and take a look around, to which I had no issue with. I showed him our grow area, and after poking around a bit for show, he left, clearly thinking there were some really weird people in the world. Specifically in our house.

But that was it. Life went on, and David continued to spend upwards of 20 minutes staring at the seedlings the instant he got home each night.

Cilantro! David's favorite herb, and my attempt at an artistic shot. You don't even want to know how many I had to delete.

Week 2: Seedlings, cover is permanently removed once they have germinated

UPDATE

Week 3

Growth! Plants are doing well, specifically tomatoes and lettuce. We started another batch of later-season veggies, including squash, zucchini, cantaloupe and a mix of flowers for our butterfly garden.

LET THERE BE LIGHT

Weirdly colored light.

You can see a small fan I picked up in Target towards the back. I read that a small breeze helps with circulation and encouraging the plant to grow thicker stems to deal with their future outdoor home.

Back to normal

After staring at the light for a second, the whole world is green for a few minutes. It's trippy, and the dogs really hate it. The grow room was also the 'we're at work get in the cage' room, and Lily would audibly whine when I turned it on before leaving.

UPDATE


Week 4? I really should have documented this better. Next year.

At this point there are no more veggies, and David and I have started growing lettuce and herbs indoor year-round. In this batch we have butterhead lettuce, red leaf, black seeded simpson, gourmet greens mix, thyme and basil.

I think we are going to try to have some of these going at all times. It quickly gets too hot to grow lettuce and leafy things in Texas. The heat causes them to bolt (send up seed stalks) too quickly, which makes the plant bitter. We really like wandering over and having hte option to snip off a leaf for a sandwich, so, why not. Seed is approx $1.00 for 8,000 seeds (at least that's what it seems like) so the cost is almost worth it, if you take out the expense of the grow light. It's a fixed expense! Or something.

Not gonna lie, gardening? Not cost effective. Only do this as a hobby, people.

Turkey basters? Work great as waterers

Here's what we've found works best for us - we've had several successive plantings by now.

Firstly, stock up on supplies:

• Seed starter medium. Note I do not say 'soil' because it's usually not the best to start them in actual soil. Lots of starter kits have peat pellets, which we started out with and I quickly learned was stupid. Peat has absolutely no nutrition for your seedlings, so once they get going it quickly can stunt your plants if not careful. I prefer to use a seed starter mix, which can be mixed with potting soil, which helps provide nutrients for your plants after they germinate.
• Something to start your seeds in. After first using the standard peat pots, i quickly learned to LOATHE them. I hate them with a firey passion. They are a pain in the booty, and the roots quickly become enmeshed with the pot, so you have to replant the whole thing in your garden, or rip out all those tender roots. We had to do with with a few plants, and digging them up later in the season after they were done producing showed that the peat never really borke down, and the roots became root-bound even though they were planted in the ground. Break down my ass. It took a while, but I finally found a plastic tray that not only gave me easily transplanted plant cells, but I can reuse over and over. Win.
• Seeds. Be sure to read up on the variety that you are getting to make sure it is suited to your area. I tired to do this and still failed miserably sometimes.
• Plant things according to package directions and LABEL THEM. I plant several seeds per cell so if one done' t germinate, you have backup. You will thin the seedlings out to one per cell later
  
• A tented cover to go over the tray while the seeds are germinating. If you get a kit, it always comes with one of these. Place in warm area. We use the top of the fridge - or did, at first
  
• Once germinated, good-bye cover, hello light. Make sure your plants are placed so they get at least 6-8 hrs of sunlight per day. We use technology to laugh at nature, and usually leave our light on for 12 hours a day.
• Keep moist. Drying out = dead things. We used the turkey baster to water the delicate little things at first, but now we place them in a shallow tray and pour water into the bottom - the plant soaks it up as needed without damaging new growth. Don't add too much water - that equals rot.
• When they get old enough, stick em outside.
  
• This is like Cliffs Notes for Gardening. If the author was mentally disabled. I'm probably leaving something important out.