how to grow stuff.

if you are looking for actual helpful information about growing things, you might as well just leave now.

anyone still here?

i guess i should preface this by saying that i am amazingly underqualified to write this post. and yet, that fact is not stopping me. nor is the fact that i am not the one who is in charge of our garden. the fact is, i know pretty close to nothing about what all is going on in the realm of things that may or may not be growing at my house. (except maybe for the mildew in the bathrooms. that one's all on me. why oh why didnt i marry a bathroom-cleaner?)

what i DO know about garden-related growing things that are growing in our house is that they are doing it in my kitchen. because apparently we have a lovely greenhouse-like window right above the sink that is better suited for growing things that it was for being home to my lovely assortment of decorative vases and bottles.

why yes, we did in fact have things planted for our garden while there was still snow on the ground. it was a rare thing around these parts this year, to have snow on the ground. but i guess it kind of helps to explain the lamp. that window is exposed to the elements on five of its six sides, and its not extremely well insulated, which means that when Mother Nature wanted it to, it could get rather chilly up in there. also: winter is cloudy.

so Mark bought the seedlings a special lamp (on a timer!) to keep them warm, well-lit, and happy for the cold, cloudy portion of winter that they were forced to endure. i tried to convince him that I could use a special lamp to keep ME happy in the winter, but those are a lot more pricey.

the eggplant seeds were the first ones to go into the dirt. they were followed a few weeks later by the tomatoes and peppers. (at which point Mark informed me that he had been using my good spoons for digging in the dirt. i gave him a plastic one to use instead and promised to thrift him his very own dirt-digging spoon as long as he stayed far away from my silverware drawer.) the tomatoes and peppers are still just looking like little pots full of dirt at this point, but as of this week we are the proud parents of some cute baby eggplants!!!

i was kind of embarrasingly overexcited when i found these little green shoots, i almost fell off of my precarious perch atop the sink (which is why the picture is slightly blurry) i am kind of in awe at the whole real-live-plants-growing-from-tiny-seeds thing, and also excited at the prospect of actually being able to grow edible things in our own backyard. Mark is excited that i am excited about the garden at all.

i'm starting to feel almost ready for the real-live springtime that i'm hoping is right around the corner. how about you?