Plant Babies: Progress Report #1

It's been about a week and a half since I planted the seeds I wanted to start indoors, and for the longest time there was no sign of anything popping up above the dirt. Starting on Sunday, though, my little sprouts started making an appearance!

The first plants to sprout were my tumbler tomatoes, and they had made quite a bit of headway by day seven. The zucchini also started to poke its head out of the dirt a bit, which you can see in the bottom left corner of the picture.

Spindly little tomato seedlings

Zucchini! Can you see it?

By Monday morning (day eight), the one zuccchini seedling had managed to grow about half an inch and was kind of goofy looking with its seed still on it.

On day nine, the tomatillos joined the party and the serrano peppers were just starting to show (but not enough to see in the picture). The zucchini plant had also grown a fair amount again, and other zucchini seedlings had started to show up.

And now, on day ten (this morning!) I couldn't resist seeing what was happening before I headed to work. I was pleasantly surprised to see that the tomatillos are growing happily, and the serrano peppers are almost to the point where you can see them in the picture (you might be able to if you look really close). I had to take the lid off of the growing set-up since the tomatoes are getting too tall and spindly to stay in there any more, so now the plant markers are being put to good use.

Overall, I'm really excited with how things are going so far! Now I just need to get the grow light installed so that these babies can have enough light!

Ladies' Day Out!

This past Saturday, I had a whole day of fun girly stuff planned:

• Cabela's Ladies' Day Out from 10am until probably 4pm with S
• Dinner at Three Amigos with S
• Suicide Girls Blackheart Burlesque at the Starlite Room with S

The highlight of my day was definitely the Ladies' Day Out at Cabela's, even though S ended up bailing on me. I did all sorts of neat stuff, like learn how to back up a trailer (it's been years since I've even tried), learn how to tie a lure for fly fishing, carve a feather out of wood, shoot a compound bow, and of course, shop! 

Tying the first bit of feather on the fly

My completed fly!

Second time I've shot a bow - good aim!

Ladies' Day Out included employee-level pricing on all items in the store, so I definitely took advantage of that. I bought:

• SKS tactical stock (for R)
• 110-round .22 drum mag (for R)
• duelling .22 target
• dry box for ammo
• Bone Collector steering wheel cover (for R)
• Real Tree squirrel dog toy for Koda
• Bucket of Bullets 0.22 ammo
• clays for skeet shooting
• Browning orange and fuchsia hat

After all the time spent at Cabela's, I did a bit more running around and met up with S to go to Three Amigos (a local Mexican restaurant) for dinner. I always feel bittersweet about visiting Three Amigos, because the food is usually quite good and authentically Mexican, yet the service always leaves something to be desired, and they're usually out of at least two menu items. Unfortunately, Saturday was no exception, but they had mariachis!

He even smiled for me!

The rest of the night was spent at the Starlite Room to see the Blackheart Burlesque, but we unfortunately left a half hour into the show since we couldn't see anything. It was a shame to miss it, since what we did see looked quite good. But overall, it was a pretty decent day!

Cat Saturday: Nera's Odd Behaviour

I'll do an introductory post regarding my fur baby Nera at a later date. I would've done it today, but I just had to share this video with you!

One night, quite a while ago, I was sitting in my living room watching TV, when I heard this weird noise. It sounded like a cat or a dog running down the hallway and the muffled galloping footsteps that come with it. I brushed it off as being the neighbours behind me (I live in a condo), but it kept happening. So I turned around, looking at the kitchen (where it sounded like the noise was coming from), and saw this:

What a weirdo, right?! Happy Cat Saturday!

Plant Babies

On Sunday, I finally got my butt in gear and planted the seeds that I need to start prior to Alberta's growing season. It's a pretty standard practice when it's usually not frost-free until after the May long weekend (usually the third week of May). This is what my plant babies looked like a couple of days ago (which unfortunately isn't much):

The lid on the planter helps keep moisture and warmth in, since seeds need a certain atmosphere to start. Unfortunately, the seed markers I found were a bit too tall to fit under the lid, so for now, I scribbled directly on it to identify which is which.

I only started four kinds of seeds this time around, since a lot of the other stuff I want to plant (peas, beans, cilantro, potatoes, etc.) work fine seeded directly into the garden once the frost season has passed. I did two "cells" each of the following (from top to bottom): tomatillos, serrano peppers (or chiles de serrano), zucchini and tumbler tomatoes (which will be grown in my upside-down tumbler tomato planter - apparently they do really well this way!)

This year is my first year gardening. I've watched my mom garden since I was just a wee little thing, so I know a bit about it, but my mom is still my go-to expert for all things plant-related. After reading my seed packets, I saw that the serranos and tomatillos need 14 to 16 hours of sunlight a day to thrive once they've sprouted, so this weekend I'll be heading to Home Depot for a fluorescent light housing and some bulbs for it. Mom suggested that I get one "cool white" and one "warm white" bulb to cover the full spectrum, instead of spending significantly more money on the actual grow bulbs.

I'll be sure to post more once my plant babies sprout!