It all started a few months ago…
I was cleaning out the refrigerator and I found some carrots that didn’t have an owner. They looked like they had been there a while since the tops of several carrots appeared to be growing. They reminded me of a story Jack once told me. It was about him as a little kid planting carrot tops in milk cartons. They turned into little plants that he transplanted into the garden. I mentioned it to him and we decided to plant these carrots to see if they would grow. We had plenty of dirt to plant the carrots, Jack had tried to grow some flower seeds he purchased off of eBay, but we did not have any flower pots or containers to plant the carrots in. We ended up scrounging an egg carton from the recycling. We planted four little carrot plants. We watered our carrots everyday and kept them on the windowsill in the kitchen. Sadly they did not seem to want to grow outside of the refrigerator. We continued to take care of them anyway until they fell off the windowsill and dirt and carrot tops went everywhere. We picked everything up, threw them away and forgot about growing things for a while. Until…
I was reorganizing in the kitchen and I came across two potatoes that I had forgotten about. They were growing some serious eyes. I begged Jack to let me use some of the flower pots he bought at Home Depot to grow these potatoes. It didn’t take a whole lot of convincing to get the pots and in a few minutes we had two little potato plants on the windowsill 
We were growing things again!
After a few days it was clear that these potatoes were not going to suffer the same fate as our carrots did. The little potatoes peaked out of the dirt with their little green leaves. They were and are still growing like weeds!! A few days after we planted the potatoes we found an onion that was growing in the refrigerator and a clove of garlic that was growing in all sorts of directions that no one claimed, I can’t imagine why 
We planted both of these in the remaining two flower pots Jack had.
As you can probably tell, since we are planting the random items that we found growing in the refrigerator, Jack and I both REALLY want to have a garden. Unfortunately right now neither of us live in a place that we can have one. I have no yard what-so-ever and where he lives someone would destroy it. We have talked about it a few times and we decided that we would create a garden at the house we are renting for next year. We put the idea aside though because the weather was too cold to even think about having a garden without getting bummed out about the weather. That was until a few days ago when we noticed that our plants had outgrown their pots. The idea of a garden was back and this time it came with beautiful weather.
On Saturday some friends and I went to the store to pick up barbeque supplies. I checked the garden section while we were there for some larger flower pots but I didn’t see anything that I liked or that was in my price range. I couldn’t spend $10-20 each for cheap, ugly pots that the plants were going to outgrow in a few weeks. For the price of 4 flower pots I could have purchased 40-80 seed packets. With that comparison I decided to look elsewhere for large pots. Earlier in the day I asked my roommate Jess if I could borrow the pot that she once had a tree in and she said I could. While it wasn’t an ideal flower/vegetable pot it would work until I could find something else. I just needed to get some dirt so before we checked out of the store I ran off to get it. On my way I passed by the Easter section where I noticed cute little buckets. They were bigger than the cheapest ones in the garden section and significantly less expensive. They might not have had the “garden look” but they were cute and within my budget. I picked out a green bucket (it is a happy growing color) and headed off to get the dirt. While I was looking for the dirt I passed the seed section. It was crowded since it was a beautiful day outside and many people were outside doing yard work. I still stopped to take a look at the seeds. With all the garden talk I wanted to see what options I would have when we started our garden. One of the first things I noticed was the tomatoes. Everyday in the fall I walked by tomato plants on the way to class and I always wanted to “steal” one. I absolutely LOVE tomatoes and my own tomato plant would make me very happy. I picked out a tomato packet that looked tasty and went to find some dirt. I got a big bag of dirt and then picked out a cute red bucket (because my tomatoes would be red) on the way back to my friends. In the checkout line we discovered that the buckets would make great helmets
I put the supplies to transplant our already growing plants aside so when Jack got home on Sunday we could move them together and plant my tomatoes. By the time Jack got home on Sunday I had already decided that we were going back to the store for more seeds. I have wanted a garden and a backyard for so long I couldn’t wait anymore. They both are so close I can taste the veggies from my garden
When I asked Jack if he would go back to the store with me to get more seeds he thought it was a great idea. Some types of plants prefer to be started inside so that when spring finally comes to stay they can be planted outside as tiny seedlings rather than just seeds. At the store we were only going to choose plants that advise you to start them inside to start with. Instead we spent at least 20 minutes in the seed isle and chose 16 different types of seeds that we wanted to plant. We tried to narrow it down to just a few but we each had our favorites and we both wanted the other to plant the ones they had chosen. We couldn’t narrow it down so we just got them all. We grabbed a set of little biodegradable seedling holders and went off to start our garden adventure.
It rained all day on Sunday so we couldn’t transplant our plants and plant our new seeds outside. Instead of waiting I set up a picnic blanket in the living room at my apartment.
With the blanket down we were free to make as big a mess as we wanted and we could just bundle it up in the blanket and shake it out outside later. Since our existing plants were the reason for the new buckets we moved them to their new homes first. Jack poked some holes in the bottom of the green bucket for drainage and we filled it with dirt.
The first plant to be moved was one of the potatoes. It took a few minutes to get it to come out of the pot, it was pretty stuck and holding on for dear life. In order to make it easier to take the potato plant out of the pot we put some water through the hole on the bottom of the pot. The water helped to hold the dirt together and helped the plant slide out of the pot. When the potato plant finally came out of the pot there were tiny roots that had sprouted everywhere. We planted it in its new home and moved on to the second one. This potato was even more stuck than the other one. The roots even came out of the tiny hole in the bottom of the pot.
When it came out of its pot you could hold the entire plant dirt and all in your hand and it held the shape of the pot. The roots had formed a very strong base.
We moved the garlic next, when we got it out of its pot we discovered that it had grown more than we could ever see from the surface. It actually has tiny bulbs that have begun to grow. We were very excited to see this; obviously we are doing something right!
Our last transplant was the onion. It had been looking rather sad lately. We couldn’t figure out why though and thought that maybe it was because the pot was too small. Sadly, when we went to move the onion it fell apart and some sort of tiny white bug had gotten into the bottom of the onion, we had to throw it away 
Here is a picture of our newly transplanted plants!
Now it was time to start planting the seeds we bought earlier at the store. We made little maps for each 2×5 tray so that we could remember what was planted and where. This is what our trays look like:
Jack suggested that we plant things that were alike together so we sorted the seeds into groups of 3-4 per tray. Each seed type was given 3 seedling cups; in each seedling cup we planted 2-3 seeds (or in the case of beans and peas, 1 per cup). We took turns planting the seeds, Jack planted the peppers and I planted the tomatoes, beans, peas and fruits. We filled up four trays of seeds! That is over 40 seeds! I am excited since at least one of them has to grow. We also used the red bucket and two old cool whip containers that I found in the cupboard for seeds. The red bucket has pumpkins in it now and Jack planted corn and one pea seed in one container and lettuce in the other.
This is how we filled up our trays:
Tray One: Peppers
1-3 Kaleidoscope Mix: Five Sweet Bell Peppers
4-6 All Alarm Hot Mix: Five Favorite Hot Peppers
7-8 Long Pepper Mix: Sweet and Mild Peppers
9-10 Jalapeno M
Tray Two: Tomatoes and a Little Basil
1-3 Roma
4-6 Endless Summer
7-9 Super Sweet 100 Hybrid Cherry Tomatoes
10 Basil
Tray Three: Beans and Peas
1-3 Contender Green Beans
4-6 Cherokee Wax Yellow Beans
7-10 Super Sugar Snap Peas
Tray Four: Fruits
1-3 Streamliner Hybrid Cucumber
4-6 Burpee’s Fordhook Hybrid Watermelon
7-10 Sweet ‘n Early Hybrid Cantaloupe
We made a mess all over the floor while planting our seeds but we had fun. Who knows maybe the next time I post pictures of seeds being planted they will be in a real back yard
Since planting seeds was a spur of the moment thing we didn’t really think about where we were going to store our plants once they were planted. The trays fit perfectly in the windowsills of the kitchen but the buckets and cool whip containers do not. I am going to rearrange my room a little bit so that there is more space by the windows but I still don’t have quite enough room. Hopefully it will be warm enough soon and all of our plants can stay outside on the porch of my apartment.
This blog is going to help Jack and I track the progress of our garden but it is for more than that. It is also a way for us to share our garden with you! If you are lucky maybe we will share our produce with you 
We hope you enjoy it!
Here are some pictures that Jack and I took earlier tonight:
The beginning of an adventure…
March 30th, 2009