After one night of 14 degree temps last weekend, the weather is back to “normal” here. We have all of the windows and doors open today and it feels soooo good!!

Three weeks ago, the grandbabies came to visit. While they were here, I took them down to the basement, let them choose seeds to plant, and pulled out pots, dirt, and little shovels. We had to do it inside because it was literally FREEZING that day.

Jack went NUTS when he saw the package featuring Glass Gem Corn. It really is quite beautiful!! So, Jack picked corn, tomatoes, and cherries. Mackenzie chose tomatoes, cherries, and strawberries.

I helped Jack fill up his pots, and plant his seeds first. While I was helping Mackenzie, some funny business must have happened on Jack’s side of the table… (Jack reminds me a lot of ME at that age!!) 😉

Two weeks ago, the seeds started sprouting and Jack’s tomatoes looked, well, rather tall and grassy. Huh? It took me about two minutes of pondering and scratching my head to figure it out. While I’d been helping Mackenzie, Jack had gotten more of the beautiful corn seeds, and pushed them down in every single pot! So, we now have corn/tomatoes, corn/cherries, and, of course, just plain corn.

The smallest seedlings (cherries and strawberries) are still in the “plant nursery,” which is the small half-bath in the basement. It’s nice and warm in there and we have grow lights hanging above the pots. The corn, however, is going nuts and it has been transferred to the “toddler room” (the greenhouse).

For you green thumbs out there, I have a question. The corn has already outgrown these small pots. The roots are coming out of the bottom. Corn does not like to be transplanted and it’s a month too early to plant it outdoors. If I gently cut the bottoms off of these pots, and place them in bigger pots with more dirt, do you think that will work?

I’ve never grown corn before and, with the help of the grandbabies, it’s been a VERY interesting and funny project!!! 😉

Here are more pictures from the greenhouse:

Seven of the tri-pots have different types of lettuce in them and one has Baby Bok Choy. To the left is a green bean plant that has produced beans all winter (though not many). Next to that is Red Malabar Spinach, which has also thrived all winter. It’s a beautiful plant! The empty-looking pot has a horseradish root in it that I just planted last week.

Most of the orange buckets have the tomato plants we kept inside all winter. And, they produced most of the winter. We got our last tomato a couple of weeks ago and it was tiny. They have since stopped so we’ll be harvesting the leaves for salad (yes, tomato leaves are edible!) and the stalks will go into the compost pile.

Above is one of my container garden failures. (I’ve had a LOT of those.) While this looks like parsley, it’s actually celery that never grew a stalk. We are very soon going to eat the greens, and then do something else with that pot.

The leaning tree here is avocado. It arrived in the mail about a month ago. It seems determined to die on me. I’m pampering it daily but I’m losing confidence that it will survive. The leaves are turning brown and curling up. I can’t plant it in the yard. It must be a container plant because it won’t survive the winters here.

After the big kerfuffle about avocados in Mexico, I decided to try to grow some myself. So far, I’m not doing very well. The avocado ban has since been lifted but I’d still rather try to grow my own.

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