Confessions of a PLANT KILLER!

Part of my battle to live a greener existence is my talent for killing plants.  I often try and fail at maintaining houseplants and I’m certain that I’m not alone.  But I can’t help but continue my efforts.  There’s something so creepy about living in a space that doesn’t have anything alive in it other than its occupants.  Plants make my rented apartment feel a little more homey and not quite so temporary.  I hope that by learning to keep houseplants, I'll learn some transferable green thumb skills to help me grow more of my own food.

Despite my best intentions, I don’t always succeed.   The garden experiment is part of my road to recovery as a plant killer (although that’s not going so well – more to come).  Another part of it is a quest to green up my home life with an indoor herb garden.  For some, this is an easy feat.  For me, it is an exercise in will.

When I first moved into my apartment last year, I was determined to have a mini herb garden.  I had grand ambitions with eco features in mind.  Instead of purchasing pots for my herbs, I fashioned my own by using a can opener to remove the tops of pop cans and planted my seeds.  I excitedly watched my herbs sprout and then proceeded to kill them.  Too much water, then too little water, too little space and then eventually, complete disinterest.  A bona fide recipe for disaster.

This year was supposed to be different.  I’ve managed to keep a houseplant alive for 2 years now and I was confident that there’d be hope for me.  But alas, another green fail.  I remain a plant killer.

It all started off so well…

The herb garden went from the simple basil, parsley, chive trio to a rather ambitious array of things I don’t even know what to do with.  I blame the lovely ladies at the Glen View Greenhouse south of Miquelon Lake for the extra encouragement and excellent sales job.

English Thyme and Peppermint - Before

The massive herb invasion included: 2 pots of basil, 1 Italian parsley, 1 English thyme, 1 Greek Oregano, 1 Chocolate Mint, 1 Peppermint, 1 Lemon Balm, 1 Lemon Verbena.  I’m also attempting chives from seeds and a pot of parsley from seeds that ended up getting planted before my epic trip to the greenhouse.  I really don’t know what I’m going to do with it all but at least my apartment will smell awesome – if I can keep them alive.

The first casualties have been the thyme and peppermint.

After : (

Unfortunately I was overzealous and had them situated in my west facing front window which gets lots of sun.  Too much sun apparently.  I returned home from a trip to Halifax (only 4 days!!!) to find them completely fried.  My attempts to resuscitate them have been, so far, unsuccessful.

I supposed I can also count the chives as a casualty since they haven’t bothered to sprout.

Everything else seems to have survived so I guess it counts only as a partial fail.  And I have managed to use my fried herbs even if the plants are dead.  But it’s not what I had in mind and certainly not exactly the best way to start things off…

Are you a plant killer?  Have you tried to rehabilitate yourself? 

A Gardening We Will Go

Ah yes, my first blog post of my strange adventures in green living... For more info about this blog check out (surprise!) the About this Blog tab.

As a child growing up in Edmonton, gardening was a bit of a mixed bag.  Part chore, part summer boredom relief, I never really got into it the way my sister did.  It could have been my mom’s haphazard gardening philosophy, but more likely it was my decision to live in an apartment after fleeing the parental nest.

Apartment balcony gardening wasn’t really high on my list of priorities while I was in university.  Working nearly full time hours to pay for school barely allowed for college fun time let alone time to think about a garden.  And really, let’s be honest, between school, work and excessive alcohol consumption, it never really crossed my mind.  I bought a planter one year thinking that I’d spend mornings on my balcony drinking coffee and tending my flowers.  Oh, the naïveté of youth.  I think the planter lasted a month.  I barely spent enough time at home to open the balcony door.

Thankfully, times have changed.  Maybe it’s a bit of growing up but for the last couple of years I’ve been feeling the itch to flex my green thumb.  There have been a couple of terrible attempts at patio tomatoes and a mini pumpkin patch that yielded one baseball sized fruit.  Pretty solid fails.  However, the itch has become increasingly itchy with all of attention being given to local food and the potential for economic savings.  Gardening, it seems, is cool these days and I just can’t resist.

This year I’m taking the jump.  After some careful encouragement and a timely dose of bad/good luck, I got a plot in the city’s Community Garden.  (Why the bad/good luck?  You see, I’m supposed to be on holidays in Nova Scotia right now but thanks to the never ending work in the good ole Alberta oil patch, my one true love and travel companion was called back to work and the vacay was cancelled.  But at least I have time to garden, right?)

So, seeds and borrowed tools in hand, I went off to plant my garden.  I survived the mosquitoes (only 15 new bites!) and the garden is in!

Here’s the run-down: 1 hill of pumpkins, 1 hill of squash, 3 mini bell peppers (I’m planting from seed), a row of sugar peas, a row of beans, a row of carrots, a row of onions, a half row of spinach and 3 tomato plants. 

It’s small but I really didn’t want to go too overboard and plant more than I could handle (which was a serious temptation).  I have no idea what I’m doing but I think I’m on the right track.  I’m not expecting to halve my grocery bill, but I’ll be pretty happy if I can actually eat something I’ve grown.  Let’s just say, considering my previous failures, I’m expecting a learning experience :)