Seeds sprouted!

As you can see a lot of my seeds have sprouted. 3 of them have sprouted 2 leaves and become tall enough that I put them in another container for them to get more sun.

Only the peppers and the coriander have not sprouted so far. I'm keeping my fingers crossed that they will sprout soon. Otherwise, I might have to try again.

This last weekend, I ended up buying 10 cu ft of garden soil for the raised bed garden I'm planning for this summer. Also, I bought 2 tomato plants and a strawberry plant from Home Depot to plant in some containers as soon as danger of frost is past.

For some reason, it gets warm during the day but gets chilly at night. I guess that's spring!

Busy Saturday!

I spent sometime today working on some household tasks I had been putting off. I finally replaced the wreath on my front door with a new one.

Last year, my gardening hobby/experiment was 50/50. I had an ok harvest but not as well as I had hoped. But it was not too bad either. So this year, I'm planning to increase my scope and try more plants. Also, I thought I'd try planting seeds instead of buying the plants from the store. 

I bought a jiffy seedling greenhouse and planted a bunch of seeds - some perennial flower mix, basil, coriander, peppers and cherry tomatoes. Based on how these go, I may plant some more. I will keep posting on this.

Tomato plant

When we'd gone shopping a few weeks ago to get our plants, we had gotten a fully grown tomato plant in a pot from Home Depot.

As the days went by, the plant slowly started dying and we couldn't figure out why. The other plants we'd bought were fine and even the other tomato plant was fine. The leaves of the plant were turning yellow and starting to droop.

The condition of the plant was getting worse and we thought that we had just wasted $15. But I happened to be talking to my friend one day about this plant and she told me that Home Depot has a 1 year warranty on plants and that we could take it back to the store and return it or exchange it.

Luckily, Home Depot had emailed me the receipt and I was able to dig it up in my email. We took the receipt and plant to the store and were able to return it. We bought another tomato plant - a different variety. Now we just have to wait and see how it does.

My Cilantro plant

My cilantro plant has grown like a monster and is now tall and thick. Unfortunately, I think I made a mistake it letting it grow so tall without cutting it frequently.

As I learnt from reading this article How to harvest cilantro, I learnt that you need to harvest frequently and most of the growth is good only in the early spring or early fall as it required moist and cool temperatures. Also, I should probably plant some cilantro seeds soon as my plant will probably start bolting soon.

This weekend I plan to plant some cilantro seeds and hope that it germinates before this plant starts bolting.

My plants

Here are some pictures of my plants as they are right now.

My tomato plant is already looking to be in very sad shape. It's got yellow spots on its leaves everywhere and I'm not able to figure out what is the cause.

This is my bell pepper plant. It's still in its pot from the store - I haven't transplanted it yet. 

My mint plant is doing well. So far, it seems to be the only plant doing well. 

My cilantro plant is not doing so well either. Some of its leaves have gone yellow but not as bad as the tomato plant and it doesn't really seem to be growing. 

My other tomato plant is doing ok so far. It's still in its original pot from the store and hasn't been transplanted yet. It's growing new leaves so far. 

Gardening adventures

I've always wanted to grow my own food but my last few attempts at it have been unsuccessful for the most part. So, this year, I've decided to try again. I'm going to be blogging about status every week

I'm going to try the following this year:

2 varieties of tomato
green pepper
red chili
mint
coriander
curled parsley
dahlias

One of the tomato plants already was at maturity in the store. I bought it wanting to see whether I could kill an already grown tomato plant or it's just the seedlings that I kill.

And this year, I'm just going to try container gardening. If it goes well, I'll look into making a garden next year. 

I'll post photos of my plants as they grow or not grow as the case may be.