gardener – "Mind Your Biscuits" Texas

Note that some of the links below are affiliate links! I only recommend products and brands that I use and love, and that I think you would love as well! I earn a small commission on products purchased via these links, and appreciate your support of my blog! <3

So I’ve gotten way in to this gardening thing, and it’s been going really well! My newest project is starting plants indoors from seed, and I’ve been working on the setup required to do so! As of today I have three varieties of Cauliflower that have already germinated, and two varieties of Plumeria in the seed trays as well!

I started with these Burpee Seed Trays from Amazon, in both the 16ct and 8ct sizes. I originally got all 16ct but then I realized especially with the Plumeria, that I probably didn’t want to start 16 of the same variety at a time, and I didn’t want to combine different plants in the same tray as they’d probably grow at different rates and then the lighting would get all wonky, so back to the store for some smaller trays!

The potting medium I used was recommended to me by a class I took with The Dallas Garden (a GREAT follow if you’re not already doing so!), and so far I’m super happy with the results. It’s the Miracle-Gro Cactus and Palm Mix, which you can pick up readily at any Lowes, Home Depots, or local garden store!

I filled the seed pods with the soil mix, dampened with a bit of water, placed my seeds in each pod, then covered with Vermiculite – I filled the bottom watering trays about 1/4″ deep and put the seed pod tray inside, then placed them under these handy adjustable clip-on grow lights for 12 hours on / 12 hours off (helps that the lights have a timer ha ha ha) – and PRESTO, 4 days later I have 16+ Snow Crown Cauliflower, 8+ Flame Star Cauliflower, and 8+ Lavender Cauliflower seedlings emerging and looking awesome!

Lower the grow lights down to just above the seed pod trays for best results! Not like shown. LOL! I’ve adjusted those now!

If you look closely you can see the tiny seedlings emerging from under the Vermiculite!

This morning, and throughout the day, the seedlings are growing like crazy!!! I took an image this morning with the lights on, and then again this evening with the lights off, and they’ve grown at least 1/4-1/2″ throughout the day! I can’t believe how fast these things are taking off!

To say I am excited is an understatement! I’ve also been doing a lot of research on growing Plumerias from seed – I’ve been growing Plumeria plants from cuttings for about 12-13 years now and had a TON of success, but I’d love to try getting some seedlings growing. I have a tray of 16 planted in seed cups/soil currently that are a white/yellow mix, and then another tray of 7 that are an orange/yellow mix. The interesting thing about Plumeria seeds is that they have completely different DNA from the parent plants, and so can be completely different colors from the mother from which the seed pod came! Germination can take anywhere from 7 days to 30 days, so it’ll be interesting to see if both the seeds from one of MY seed pods, and also the seeds I ordered on the internet germinate, and if they do, do they germinate at the same rate?

Meanwhile, just for grins, I decided to do another experiment with the plumeria seeds which I’ll probably try half/half purchased seeds and my own seeds using hydroponics to grow! I wasn’t quite ready to shell out the big bucks for an Aerogarden, so I did a little digging and found this less pricey option by iDOO.

I’ve seen other growers have great success using one of these, and it has a lot of nice features that I’m looking forward to seeing if they make a difference one way or another. If this works as well as I think it will, I’ll probably go ahead and get a couple more, because I plan on starting a LOT of Plumeria seeds.

That’s your garden update for now! Keep posted, because there should be a lot more updates coming soon as these babies start growing up and the Plumeria plants start sprouting! Happy gardening everyone!!

To lose my mind, and find my…. Something? Lol

For years I’ve toyed with the idea of “suburban farming” – growing my own produce in raised beds of some sort. I love spending time working with the decorative plants around my yard but just never got around to the whole vegetable/fruit part of the equation. There has always been some other pressing home improvement project that bumps the raised bed gardening down lower on the list and we just never really gave the idea much traction.

This spring I began mentioning it to the hubs again, and for some reason this time the idea took hold in his head (maybe it’s his growing love for a nice ripe tomato slice on his hamburgers? 🤣) This past weekend he built me a little prototype raised bed to see how I liked it based on some designs I sent him that I liked and a few other random ideas that popped into my head for maximizing the not-huge space we could allot to it.

We decided to level them out and step them down the fence line here to allow for easier netting should we need to keep the critters out. First things first, however, was fixing the mud pit that over half our backyard had become (it’s always something, isn’t it?)

We were supposed to be off work today to help with a fish survey in the neighborhood lakes, but due to circumstances beyond control those plans got scrapped and we decided to go ahead and get this huge project finished off. Two and a quarter pallets of St. Augustine sod, 28 thirty pound bags of beach “pebbles” (they’re ROCKS people, calling them pebbles doesn’t make them lighter), and a crapload of sweating, swearing, and me having to crawl under the trampoline several times later, we have a completed backyard project. It’s funny, I knew the muddy mess in the shaded areas under our huge bald cypress trees looked bad, but I didn’t realize exactly how bad until we got the sod and the dry creek bed done and it looked freaking amazing!!!

So I got to work hand-watering all that sod, and hubs set to work installing the bed and making sure it was completely level by digging out the ground underneath. When he got it level we placed some cut branches in the bottom to help with drainage (and also to cut down a little on the amount of soil we’d need to fill it) and filled it with good quality gardening soil. First one is in!!!

We did some calculating and planning and decided on a total of 6 boxes for this first phase, 5 of which will be stepped down this fence line, and the other will be placed beside the kids’ playhouse cottage as the “Children’s Garden”. Of course I couldn’t wait to put some plants in this so I went out and bought way more than would fit and we probably can’t get the other five boxes made for 2+ weeks 🤦‍♀️🤷‍♀️🤣.

This box got three red beefsteak tomato plants with supports and I read on Pinterest that basil makes a good companion plant to tomatoes so I planted two of those in the front of the planter. Waiting on the sidelines now are one more tomato plant, four big Bertha green bell pepper plants, and two good-sized strawberry plants. Hopefully they’ll make it until we can get the additional boxes made, though I may put the other tomato plant in a large pot with a support and see how it does there. Why not experiment, AmIRight? 🤷‍♀️🤣

And of course, I had to go back and get a second sweet basil, because there MUST by symmetry or my brain will start screaming, so here I am at 10pm at night putting another plant in… 🤣🤦‍♀️😜

I hope to catalog my “journey” here along with trials, successes, and failures to share with others who may be interested in growing some of their own produce in a smaller, more confined place. More power to the suburban farmer!! ❤️❤️❤️ Updates coming soon (and hopefully more frequently than I’ve been posting in the past 🤷‍♀️🤣)

Happy Gardening!!!!

Tag: gardener

The Garden is GROWING

Into the Garden I go…