Gardeners are superheroes!

I regularly visit a progressive news site called Common Dreams. It's a totally cheesy name, so I don't mention it to many people. Consider yourself the lucky few!

Anyway, they collect and publish articles that align with their political views, and I enjoy being able to find a wide variety of more liberal-minded articles all in one place.   I don't always agree with what I read, but I appreciate the perspective. Especially being down here in Texas...land o'republicans!

Today an article was posted about the movie WALL-E, which I haven't actually seen yet, and how it stresses the importance of....gardening!! (I really had no desire to see this movie before I read the article, but now I'm rather curious. 

Here's the first line of the article. If you'd like to read more, I've included a link.

Published on Saturday, July 12, 2008 by CommonDreams.org Gardens Save the Day in ‘WALL-E’ and America’s Cities by Olga Bonfiglio The feature film, “WALL-E,” is a must-see for urban pioneers, environmentalists, teachers and community organizers because it reflects what can happen when citizens take control of their own lives — and plant gardens. Full article here

Basil follow up

About 2.5 weeks ago, I put some basil clippings in water to root, and here's the amount of grown I'm seeing after this short amount of time. Not bad. 

The roots are showing the slightest bit of brown color, and I'm worried that some mold/fungus may be forming. So, I'm going to attempt to plant it in soil tonight. I have no idea if this will take or just die shortly after. Wish me luck.

Happy Blooms

Having flowers intermingled among my veggies and basil provides so much satisfaction. Not knowing how long it will take for the oranges to ripen, my next pepper to grow, my herbs to fill out....it's nice to have the instant satisfaction of constantly blooming flowers. 

These are a butter colored variety of petunias. I had never seen ones like it before, and I find the delicate sunburst of yellow to be so cheery.  The plant has gotten rather leggy. I need to get better at pruning it back, but I always feel guilty pinching back a perfectly good bud.  

Patience

I gotta get me some.

Lots of baby oranges

My whole orange tree is covered with baby oranges like the ones in the photo above. I'm absolutely thrilled. I'm crossing my fingers and knocking on wood that I don't do anything to jeopardize their growing to full potential. As it's a dwarf orange tree, I'm not sure to what size the fruit will grow. Regular size? Dwarf size?

The orange tree is in the same pot it came in. I never re-potted it, even though I'm sure it probably needs it. I read somewhere (online, of course!) that once the tree is more than 2 times the height of the pot, then its time to repot. In which case, I'm overdue. However, I'll have to wait until these finish ripening. 

Gardening at night?

Watering in the heat of the day in Texas is not a good idea. The water evaporates faster than the poor plants can drink it up. That leave the choice of watering in the morning or watering at night. Since I started the garden, I have been regularly been watering every morning. Then, out of curiosity, I switched and started watering at night.

I honestly expected no difference in the health of my plants. Yet...they seem to be able to stand the heat of day better when I water at night. There is less wilting by the end of the day, especially in the broader leafed plants.

That said, if I learned nothing else with my master's degree, it is that correlation does not imply causation! So, I will keep my eye on this.