The Last Item I Purchased

I am such a very boring person. The last thing I purchased was dinner at Weinerschnitzel. Something slightly more interesting than that is the thing I purchased before that. Say hello to Click & Grow.

If you know me at all or have followed my blog at all, you know that I have a brown thumb. I kill everything I try to grow with the exception of cactus and succulents. If I don't kill it, snails do. Well, I can grow an obscene amount of tomatoes. So many tomatoes that I still have nightmares about them. Overall, I am just a plain old unsuccessful gardener/horticulturalist which is a shame because I love plants, flowers, herbs, and homegrown veggies. 

I heard about Click & Grow around some social networking something. Probably Twitter. It sounded pretty foolproof so I decided to give it a try. I got my kit in the mail on Thursday, rushed it into the house, and broke it out of its box. Setting it up was extremely simple. A mere five days of being turned on and watered and I already have sprouts!! I just noticed today that I had life in my pod. Woot!!

If my cockscomb grow well, I will definitely be ordering more plant cartridges. I love that this combines my obsession with technology with my want to grow things. I also really like the speed with which I received my order on Nov 2nd and it delivered on Nov 8th. They were also really good with order and shipment confirmation. I appreciate speed, accuarcy, and being kept in the know.

Keep your fingers crossed that my batteries don't die and that I don't get a rogue snail that kill my sprouts.

No Plant vs Weed This Week

Plantweed has been decimated by snails and I'm pissed. No picture this week. I can't bear it. I decided to bring him inside which means that now I have to worry he won't get enough sun because I hardly get any sun inside my house. I have him in the kitchen window cubby thing and that means I had to evict the cat. I also have to worry that he won't get enough water because I always forget to water my plants. I'm beginning to think that I'm just not meant to grow anything other than cacti and succulents. It's depressing.

In other news...

Is anyone watching HBO's new show, Girls? I'm too old by about 13 years to be watching this show but I really like it. It's quirky and very Sex in the City-esque despite what the show's creator says. Instead of women in their 30s and 40s, it's girls in their 20s. I love Hannah. She has such a dry sense of humor and she also epitomizes what is wrong with today's teens and 20-somethings...that belief that they're entitled to everything instead of having to actually work for what they want. Anyway, I hope people are watching so that HBO brings it back for a second season.

And this time last year, the Mister and I were on our anniversary vaca in Paso Robles. ::sigh:: I could use another vacation. We don't have any big plans for our anniversary this year. We're going to do something that involves drinking our bottle of Merlot that Rotta Winery gifted us last year and that we were saving to drink this year. Pretty excited about that. It was an award winning vintage.

Plant vs Weed: Week 6...And Other Stuff

There's not much to report on Plantweed this week. Still growing and being eaten by snails. Plantweed did get a nice soaking last night though. We had a good amount of rain come through the area, which was nice. Here's a picture that I took yesterday, April 25th.

In other news...

I just finished one of the most painful classes I've ever taken. It was called Shakespeare Power and Justice or something to that effect. I'm not a fan, nor have I ever been, of Shakespeare. I can read it, understand it, and appreciate it as classic literary works but I would never read Shakespeare for "fun". To make matters worse, I had to argue why I think Shakespeare is still relevant enough to have a place in today's high school curriculum. I'm not so sure how much I actually believe that. The language is obscure, the themes are outdated (I managed to argue very convincingly that they aren't ;)) and I think the time spent on teaching and interpreting his plays could be better spent elsewhere. Like teaching teenagers that "ur", "okaay", "kk", and "fuk" are not correct spellings and when to use their, there, they're, its, it's, and other commonly misused and misspelled words. Ironically enough, the play that I think has the most modern relevance is Coriolanus and it's one of Shakespeare's most obscure plays that has only been produced as a play and/or movie a handful of times. Ralph Fiennes directed and starred in the movie last year as a matter of fact. Did you know that? I didn't until I started doing some research. It was so "popular" that it has made less than $700,000 since it's release in the U.S.

Anyway, I'm glad that class is over and that I have fulfilled that requirement and never have to take another Shakespeare class again. Thank you very much!

And FYI...

I'm thinking of imparting the importance of using your turn signal by accosting drivers, ripping out the turn signal handle in their car and shoving it in a very specific place that they won't forget that it's there.

I'm also thinking about driving around my neighborhood until I find the yapping dog that is left outside to freaking yap at 6 o freaking clock in the gosh freaking morning and kicking its owner until it stops yapping.

I have anger issues this week. I need to live on some remote mountain somewhere that's accessible only by helicopter so that I can't get away from inconsiderate people.

Plant vs Weed: Week 5

Snails are my nemesis. I've tried espresso and now eggshells and neither seem to be much of a deterrent at all. The day after I put eggs shells in two different pots, I go outside about 7:15 in the morning and there are snails hanging off my plants and SITTING on the shells. WTF?!?! The Mister finds this hilarious that snails are kicking my butt. But they seriously eating Plantweed. Grr! The next thing I'm going to try is copper wire. That is, if I can find it. Supposedly I can get copper wire at a craft store. We'll see. It's supposed to shock the snails, heheheh. Little devils.

Anyway, here's the latest picture of Plantweed taken on April 19th.

If you click on the picture to make it bigger, you can actually see the snail damage. You can also very clearly see my worthless eggshell barrier. I'm peeved. I also just noticed that I was a little too close to the pot for this picture. Sorry about that.

Plant vs Weed: Week 4

I'm really beginning to think that Plantweed is actually a lily plant. Looking down in the middle of the largest plant, I can see what looks to be buds. It's just really hard to believe that something that I was growing managed to propagate on its own after being killed off by frost last year. If this really does turn out to be a lily plant, EVERYONE must go out and buy their own because they would have to be deemed the easiest flower to grow. ;) Well, aside from dandelions.

I still don't have the snails under control. The espresso didn't seem to work all that well and I keep forgetting to save my egg shells. Considering that Easter was this past Sunday and we colored a dozen eggs then turned them all into deviled eggs, I would have had a lot of egg shells. But alas, I forgot and we threw away the egg shells. Another suggestion was to put hair around plants because snails don't like to slither across hair. But the thought of doing that grosses me out. Yuck. Can you imagine a patio full of pots with hair in them?!? Eew! Shivers.

Oh. And one last thing about Plantweed:  There are seven individual Plantweeds in the pot. I discovered more young'uns while I was picking out snails this morning.

In other news...

My mother-in-law went home today after visiting us for nine days. We had an absolutely fantastic time. We did San Diego touristy things like going to the Children's Pool to gawk at the seals, dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe, shopping at Seaport Village, and we also took in an exciting Padres game. After the Padres game, she dropped the Mister and I off at the downtown Sheraton and we spent the night downtown and took in the Gaslamp. Too much of the Gaslamp to be honest, hehehe. I found two new yummy drinks that I love:  The Moscow Mule and the Lychee Girl. It had been so long since we've been out amongst people, that I had no idea what people are drinking nowadays. We sat at the bar and I watched the bartender making drinks and when she asked me what I wanted I said, "What did you just make in the mason jar?" When she told me it was a Lychee Girl, I told her that I'd take one of those. I did the same thing with the Moscow Mule which comes in a copper mug. Very cool drinks. We had so much fun. I'm sad that she went home today. Now what??

Plant vs Weed: Week 3

Other than growing, Plantweed hasn't done too much since last week. I did some research and found some things to try where the snails are concerned. First, I tried espresso. I had mixed results. While there are fewer snails, I still have snails. So, I'm going to try egg shells next. I just need to remember to save some egg shells. Here's this week's picture. I just snapped it a couple minutes ago.

As you can see, I have resisted the urge to pluck the two slivers in the pot even though I know they are weeds. They have to be. What else could they be?? I might be a bit hard to tell in this picture, but there are four Plantweeds growing and they are doing really well.

Until next week...

Plant vs Weed: Week 2

Plant vs Weed: Week 2 Growth

As you can see in the above picture, there has been noticeable growth since the Plantweed's first post. Is that picture blurry? I'm just noticing. Sorry. Anyway, there it is. There are four different Plantweed's and then the two slender shoot things that as I said before, I'm almost definitely sure those are just weeds. I'm very tempted to pluck them out of the pot. Kind of like picking a scab. They are tempting me. But we have DRAMA!! Check it out.

Something is eating Plantweed!! The horror! I've been keeping my eye out for the culprit since I first noticed the chewing but hadn't seen anything...until this morning!! 

 Yup. We have an interloper in Plantweed's domain. You might be able to guess that since my green thumb is a wilt-y, sad, little thing, I haven't the faintest clue what to do to keep snails out of my plants. Is it egg shells? Or coffee grounds? I need to do some research. I'd rather use something organic than a store bought pesticide.

Until next week...

Plant vs. Weed

I have a sad, wilted, green thumb. There are a few plants that I can manage to keep alive because they require little to no effort on my part:  succulents and cacti, tomatoes, peace plants, and whatever is growing in my kitchen window. Despite this, I love flowers and plants so I continually attempt to grow them and keep killing them as well. I have a trip planned to the nursery so I can restock my pots, heheh.

Last year, the Mister and I bought several plants and flowers and put them in some empty pots that I had. I put in that white crystal-y stuff that helps the soil stay moister longer and plant food in hopes that I would be able to keep this group of plants alive longer. Well, they all lasted through to the winter months then we had frost for which the weather people gave us NO warning, and I lost these lily-looking things, my lavender plant (I was most mad about the lavender plant because it smelled so good), and another green leafy looking plant that I forget what it is...err, was. I wasn't happy because I was feeling pretty pleased with myself that I had been able to keep these plants alive and well for several months. I guess it would have been about five or six months before the frost.

Now it's spring time once again and one of my pots is growing something. I'm not sure what it is but it's in the pot that had the lily-looking plants in it. If I remember correctly, those were annuals. I didn't do anything to them when they died except pull out the dead stems and throw them in the bushes. This left a completely barren pot. So, did those lilies manage to propagate on their own before having their lives cut short by evil frost or am I growing weeds in a pot???

I took a picture of the pot this morning and I will take another one at least once a week as updates and post them to my blog. You can click on the pic to make it bigger.

Plant or Weed?

The group of leafy stuff to the left, at 10 o'clock, has been growing for about two weeks now. The slender shoot directly to the right is a weed, I'm pretty sure. The two stubby things in the middle are what the leafy things on the left look like when they first break through the soil. I'd say they are four or five days old. The slender shoot on the bottom, right is the same thing as the other shoot and like I said, I'm pretty sure they are weeds.

So, there ya go. It's a plant adventure. ;)