I’ve never had much of a green thumb. Even though and both are quite skilled at growing things, I tend to kill them. I once killed a cactus plant – I watered it too much.

I’ve had much better luck with in-ground plants (versus potted ones), and vegetable gardening has been quite rewarding. The soil at our house happens to be especially fertile, since most everything we plant does well, without much work on our part (aside from plenty of sunlight and watering).

Regardless, it was completely understandable that someone scoffed when I told them I was starting plants for our vegetable garden from seeds. I mean, a plant from the store will most certainly have better luck than seeds, which are fickle and delicate. But, seeds are exponentially cheaper, and there are far more varieties available than at your local garden center, even if it does happen to be the flagship Bachmans.

I ordered my seeds from Baker Creek, and they are all heirloom seeds. I was very picky and read the comments before choosing my varieties. I think I picked well, though only time will tell.

Here's my set-up. That's a cardboard egg carton with potting soil (and seeds, obviously), sitting in one half of a take-out container and lightly covered with plastic wrap. The tray has plenty of water in it, so between that and the plastic, the seeds stay nice and moist, even if I forget about them for a few days. I have two such set-ups (one four-egg and one eight-egg from the same carton), sitting on the shelves of a planter, parked in front of the patio door in our bedroom. It's south-facing, and gets tons of sun, so these guys have a good chance.

I planted these guys on Sunday afternoon, and here was the state of affairs on Tuesday night. The other seeds didn't show much activity, but the lettuce mix (Rocky Top mix, if you're interested) is very promising.

I managed to snag these photos before leaving for work this morning. It’s amazing what can happen in just a few days!

Cucumber

Squash, if memory serves me.

More squash!

And the lettuce! Oh my goodness! There will be plenty of thinning out to do, that's for sure. (I was feeling generous with the lettuce seeds, since there were 1,000 seeds in the packet. I do plan on planting some seeds every 2-3 weeks so that we can have a continuous crop throughout the summer and early fall. I'm doing that for carrots, cucumbers, and the lettuce.)

managed to snag this photo on Wednesday evening.

Just hanging out on the deck. They're cute in the back yard, but once they get into the front yard, Prince Charming and the chipmunks become mortal enemies (though the relationship is not nearly as volatile as the one between Prince Charming and the squirrels).

I think my set-up will keep the seedlings growing while we’re in California (being away for 5 days could be dangerous). The tray holds a sufficient amount of water, and a large portion of the seeds have not sprouted yet. In two weeks (roughly), I’ll be faced with the difficult question of where exactly these guys will be going, and then removing all the rocks from those parts of the garden. I know that the spots where we had tomatoes and peppers last year are cleared, and that we can’t put those same crops in those same places again, but I have a lot more varieties this year (for the record, two kinds of pattypan squash, butternut squash, sweet potato squash, pie pumpkins, cucumbers, carrots, lettuce, tomatoes, brussel sprouts, red peppers, and peas). I am assuming that will want to do hot peppers again this year, but we’ll do those as plantings, not seeds. Go ahead and laugh at the ambitious plan. Just don’t do it to my face, or I won’t give you any fresh-from-the-garden carrots. There will certainly be plenty of many of those to go around (I plan on only letting one of each type of squash grow to full size, so that should help, but there will still be surplus).

I do have plans to learn how to store away much of our produce (see linkfest post later this afternoon). The tomatoes are “paste” tomatoes, meaning they should make good sauce (which is all I want them for). The squashes should store for several months if kept right. The carrots and peas will freeze, and perhaps the brussel sprouts, so that just leaves the sweet peppers, lettuce, and cucumbers. I see many salads in our future.

If anyone is interested, I have an unopened packet of eggplant seeds, which were free with my purchase. I despise eggplant and will not be growing it in our garden. Ever.

But for now, I’ll just leave you with this peaceful thought.

(Click to view full-size in Flickr if you can't read the very small text.)

… is back, growing with a vengeance. Even the second plant that we tried to kill. The stalks are still green right now, but soon they will be ripe. So, if you like rhubarb, get your recipes ready, and then come on over and take what you need. No one in this house eats rhubarb.

Sidenote: anyone know how to kill rhubarb? Seriously, the second plant is in the lawn. It needs to be gone.

In other news, I went through two boxes of clothes last night that had been stored in the basement, and managed to fill two grocery bags for Goodwill. And, I got a huge pile of summer clothes that I had completely forgotten about. Just a small pile of “these don’t fit.” Tonight, I will sort through the dressers and pull out the winter stuff for storage. And maybe, just maybe, the dining room table that is covered with Christmas/winter decorations will be cleared before the weekend.

Here’s how I wanted to spend Saturday morning: going to a free seminar on lawn care (at Bachmans, not Gertens as I previously stated), then coming home and writing up papers and getting all of my homework done before dashing off to get my hair colored at 2:45, followed by dinner out with and then watching TV until bedtime.

Well, some of those things happened. We woke up late but made it to Bachmans anyway, only to learn that I had the date wrong on my calendar and the seminar is actually next weekend. Bummer. Before we left the house, the neighbor had come over and told us they were going to cut our power for “an hour or two” because they were out there cutting down a tree that was interfering with the power box (or something like that – the power company was here to deal with it). That was no big deal because we were going to be gone for a few hours (the seminar was 10-11:30). But, then we were at home, at 10:30, with no power.

Do you know what you can do with no power? Not much. Can’t do homework (laptop battery will only last so long). Can’t sew. Can kind of clean, but the vacuuming was what really needed to be done, and that was not possible. Can’t watch TV. Can’t even iron. I ended up spending some time cutting threads off of fabric (so that I could iron it later) – so exciting, I know, and then going to the MOA. My trip to the MOA was exhausting and completely unproductive. The bead store had nothing acceptable for jewelry for ‘s wedding. DSW did not have any shoes that I thought were perfect to go with my little black dress (also for ‘s wedding), even though I looked through the whole store 3 times.*

I rewarded myself with a minibon that I bought with a gift card leftover from Christmas 2008 (they tried to upsell me twice to the regular size, which I did not appreciate, nor did I think it was as cute as they did). When I got home (now after 1 pm), we still had no power. I found some rice cakes for lunch. I played some piano, and generally wandered around the house frustrated that we had no power. I might have been whiny. The power came on at about 2:20, and I left at 2:30 to go get my hair done, which took two hours and got me home at 5. was going out for a run as I got back, so we finally made it to the Dancing Ganesha by 7. The food was delightful, and definitely a highlight of the day. We had a gift card from Restaurant.com that we used, and it worked out wonderfully. I highly recommend going there if you’re in the mood for good Indian food. I had the Tandoori Chicken (a favorite of mine) and garlic naan (they weren’t joking around with the garlic, and it was fabulous), and had the Chicken Tiki Masala. I was worried our bill wasn’t enough (it had to be at least $35 to use the $25 certificate), so I ordered the Chocomosa for desert (described as “chocolate and nut filled Samosas, served with mint ice cream,” though I would have sworn it was vanilla ice cream – the Samosas were warm and the filling gooey and wonderful), and it was divine. Some odd flavors wandering around in there (I think it was the “nuts” that were really a paste or so finely ground that I didn’t notice them), but fabulous nonetheless.

So, in the end, I got no homework done on Saturday at all, which meant I had to spend Sunday doing homework, which was a bummer. I did finish one paper, finished up research for the bilingualism paper, organized notes for both classes, and have the strategy log wrapped up. So the lesson plan and research paper are all that’s left, and it all needs to be done before we go to California in two weeks (because I am absolutely not bringing homework on that trip).

But, lest I sound too whiny, the weekend really was pretty good. I had a great massage Friday night, my hair is now many colors of red, the house is clean, I had good food (and leftovers for lunch today!), and got enough homework done to not feel stressed.

*Actually, there was one pair that I liked, but was a different style than I’d worn before, and I just couldn’t be sure that it would be OK. No one was with me to run this by, so I left them there. Now I’m re-thinking this decision, and can’t find the shoes anywhere online to send pictures to people and ask for their opinions (their website does not have nearly as much inventory as the store does, since only two Anne Klein brand shoes come up in a search, but I tried on more than two pairs of that brand alone). I might have to go back and take a picture of my foot in the shoe.