Grow little plants, grow!

We bought a new house and moved in at the end of February. As the temperatures have slowly gotten warmer, I've been curious to see what the landscaping around the house will reveal.


We have a couple pear trees (these pics were taken when they first started to open). 



a white lilac bush (now open and smelling terrific!)

We mostly have HUGE pine trees to the south with small bushes around the house and deck. This weekend my mom is coming to help supervise my landscaping skills. She has the green thumb so I'm really looking forward to her visit and having some help with sprucing up the place. We might just mulch and talk about future landscaping potential. We have also been known to tackle a massive landscaping project in one weekend though so anything can happen. I promise there will be pictures for the blog no matter what we do. 

Even though I knew my mom was coming this weekend, my friend Rachel and I were at Home Depot a couple weeks ago and the plants looked so good I couldn't resist buying a few. I decided that raised beds were too ambitious for this year so I opted for containers. Because of the pines on the south side of the house I'm experimenting with an acceptable location with enough sunlight.  Here are the pictures right after they were freshly planted.  

Right now the concrete pad next to our back deck seems to be working out.



Red pepper plant







Cherry tomato plant



Oregano

 

Basil and Rosemary

Sadly, after I planted them it proceeded to rain and storm for a week. For the first few days, I would move them inside at night when storms were forecast. Then one night I left them out to "tough it out" and a storm I wasn't expecting, swept up and broke off a nice piece of the left basil plant. (sad!)  While we were out of town, the Kirksville forecast was rain and storms for almost the entire time we were gone. I left the pots under the eaves against the house, so they would be partially protected. At least I didn't have to worry about watering them with all of the rain.

This week we've had cool temperatures (with a near frost last night) but loads of sunshine and I'm happy to report that my nasturiums have started popping up.



Tiny little green life! Now there are six little green lives popping up in my coconut husk planter. Yea!!



I decided to plant nasturiums from seed and when they didn't germinate in the estimated time frame I started to worry. But then overnight last Thursday one popped up and then the five others followed over the weekend. Nasturiums produce flowers and leaves that are edible and are supposed to have a peppery flavor to add to salads. Stay tuned for how that turns out.

While my damaged basil plant isn't doing that well, all the rest of them look good. So far the important thing is that I haven't killed them. Fingers crossed that they make it!