You Grow Girl™

Hello To All!
This is my first 'blog' entry on this (or any other!) fab site. I grew up in southern florida and always longing for a 'real' garden, asparagus, peas, rhubarb, with a 'real' fruit (anything but citrus) orchard, little did I appreciate the fact that I was among some of the neatest and most original plants around. My Mom's friend had a carambola (star fruit) tree/bush that produced massive quanities of fruit, she was always 'pawning' them off on us, we had star fruit coming out of our ears! Now I go to the grocery store and they're like, $3 for one! Which brings me to my point: [made most poetically by the band Jawbreaker, my favorite band when I lived in florida, (i.e. when I was in high school and generally frustrated) the you don't know what you got till it's gone. I now live in grey New England (so aptly named!!!!), in an apartment with no deck, 'just several sunny (when it's sunny) windows'. There is no place around here where I can grow in the ground either, so my growing experience for the time being is going to be all about containers.

Since about January I have been growing cucumbers, radish, peas, eggplant, and salad greens, all inside. Eventually, I'd like to put them outside, but we'll see, won't we! Back to the growing... the peas all died (even after reading the article on this site, 'ensure your bounty of peas') for a number of reasons, most notably the super warm air and the absolute fact that their roots got choked to death in the 4in peat pots that I grew them in.

Side Bar to this thought: if I ever have children or find my self teaching children (clearly I would also be finding myself in Hell) I think that it would be good to grow peas, they really have the most articulate and interesting looking seedling.

As I have posted in numerous places in the forums about it, the cucumber bush is just lovely, but there is no pollinating. So, as it stands now, I have a lovely house plant with pretty yellow flowers. The radishes were great, and super spicy, because the container that I was growing them in was directly above the heat register. They too are really easy to grow. There are lots of leggy herbs, parsley, cilantro, and chives in every windowsill too. It feels good to eat something that you've grown. Even if it is somewhat out of season and unnatural...

Spring feels like it has finally arrived. Althought I did think this a couple of weeks ago and then it snowed... My mother tells me that the true sign of spring is when the pussywillow blossoms, I don't know about that, but here are some pictures of the arrival of spring around me: