Gardening woes

Today I left work early to go to the Gardening Center. There's a fantastic place down the street from work on Sepulveda called International Gardening Center. They were really helpful, especially after I managed to pull a flatbed trolley inside to the decorative fountain area, only to realize I couldn't get out, and thereby abandoning the trolley, only to be found out by staff that I was the one who brought the trolley in in the first place. I was sweating! I've decided to start a garden in containers, and today I bought seeds for a bunch of lettuce, chives, Basil, and Blue Lake Beans. They all appear to be OK for containers, according to my research.

Blue Lake Beans can be grown in a 8" pot with 2-3 plants in a pot.
Lettuce only needs an 8" pot with 4-6 plants in a pot.
Tomatoes need 12" deep (if dwarf), and if standard, then 24" deep. But I have gotten away with less.

Some disturbing realizations while potting plants outside:

1. The fuschia bush is COVERED in aphids, mealybugs and white flies. At first I thought the bush was merely dusty, but upon closer inspection I found millions upon millions of small tiny insects on it. Also there's honeydew on the leaves (poor thing), which I thought was water initially because it was dripping onto the ground - that's how bad it is. I hosed down the bush with some soap and water. Hopefully that will keep things ok for the time being. I moved all my plants to another location as a result. I will take a picture of the mess shortly. I warn you now, it is TOTALLY GROSS.

2. I need to get a spray bottle.

3. I have to pick up the worms for my composter.

4. The window box has not been disturbed in many many years, with old cigarette butts stuffed into a small ramekin. Made me want to barf. When I removed the top window box, which was lodged into another window box, I found two cockroach carcasses attached to the sides. I was so grossed out I couldn't deal and put everything back into the corner. The last tenants here were FILTHY.

On an aside, I made a pizza dough tonight, only I put in too little yeast and so I'm letting it rise and settle in open air over night so I can make my calzones tomorrow. Hopefully with all that time, the yeast can feed and multiply.

container plants

I haven't gardened in a long time, and now that it's spring, I've decided that its time to start the plants out and grow my own food. I used to volunteer for the Food Not Bombs community garden, which helped to grow fresh produce for our weekly soup kitchens. That was really fun, except it wasn't so great that I'd have to get up at 7 in the morning to water the plants before biking to work. I used to also volunteer for the U of T equity gardeners, except sometimes that whole thing became too political, and although food IS political, sometimes you just want to eat.


I recently purchased an arugula plant and an heirloom variety of tomato called "pineapple". I've had luck growing conventional tomatoes out of containers. In fact, I've grown a mini plum tomato plant out of a margarine container and it fruited many times over. Tomatoes are great for that. But the heirloom varieties - they make me nervous. The arugula apparently likes the shade.

Since I've started work now, I wasn't able to do the potting in the sun, so it was all done in my pantry in the evening. Oh well. I tamped down the soil at the bottom of the pot to prevent bugs from getting in. I then put out the seedling, loosened up the roots, added potting soil, pressed down the roots, and watered.

Oh yes, and I bought my potting soil from wholefoods. I feel like such sell out!