My raised garden experiment is a month old today, and has withstood about five heavy rains so far, but it is still standing.
The sun came out for a few seconds this morning so I ran out to take this photo:
If you wonder why the salad greens are smaller than before, I did snip off a few leaves from the romaine lettuce and Swiss Chard yesterday for munching. Better me than the rabbits.
The seedlings indoors in the AeroGardens are bigger, of course, but when the shadows of winter retreat perhaps these will catch up.
I think this is going to be a Lipstick Pepper, but only time will tell:
This is why they say we should label our experiments. Oh, well! Surprises can be fun, too.
Here are some flower seeds and herbs from a mixed packet. Nature will sort out which are which:
The tomato on the left doesn't look too happy. Usually I grow them in hydroton rocks, but this one is in perlite. If it doesn't look better in a few days, I will cut the tops off and let them root and start over with the clay pellets.
I bought the perlite to see if it would work better than water for rooting the plumbago, rosemary, and gardenia cuttings.
Here is the contraption I rigged up for this experiment:
My Grey Mulch Experiment:
I call Air Conditioning foam that I use to support cuttings my Grey Mulch. It is open-celled foam, cut into whatever shape is needed to block out light, seal in moisture, and support the stem.
I got a package of little see-through cups from Smart & Final to use in place of the AG domes. When they get ratty looking, instead of throwing them away, I use them to start cuttings. The little cup is filled with a an equal mix of spaghnum moss and perlite. I cut the stem at an angle and stripped some of the "bark" off at the bottom. Then I inserted the cutting into my grey mulch, and dipped it in Shultz rooting powder before snugging it into the cup.
My next step will be to invert a larger plastic cup over the whole thing. The bottom cut off a water or juice bottle works well, too.