Plants indoors...Large Scale. Part 3

The other day I went over to my Friend Greg's house to pick up some heirloom tomato plants, and to check up on All of his' plants growth. He has moved 200 tomato plants out to his garden now, and in a few days will be moving his peppers, eggplants, herbs, and other vegetables out to the garden.

Below are some pictures I took while I was there. All of the pictures were taken on 5-11-09. There are also a couple pictures of the Ruby Moon Hyacinth Bean. My brother Jarin collected some seed pods for this from the trial gardens at CSU thinking it was called Red Birds in a Tree. Well it is not Red Birds in a tree, but we call them "birds" because the seed pods look like birds!

Plants in front of a sunny window.
The seed pod of the Ruby Moon Hyacinth Bean. They look like birds!

The flowers of the Ruby Moon Hyacinth Bean (RMHB for short)

More RMHB seed pods.

A mass of tomato plants.

Greg's big Anatolian Shepperd. He is HUGE! (almost as big as a Saint Bernard!)

A tomato plant out in the garden. Gregg put something up to shade them for part of the day.

These are all Leeks, Onions, & Garlic etc.

Greg's Ducks.

A couple of days ago I went up for a test at Colorado State University (CSU.) The test went really well and I had about an hour and a half to walk around and take pictures. I got some pretty cool ones that I will try to post in a day or two.

Also today when I got home from running some errands I had a surprise. As I was unloading groceries my brother showed me that our young cat had kittens! Of course, I had known for about a week or two that she was pregnant, but it was still a surprise especially because one of the kittens was hanging outside of the cage we had put the cat in so that she would not have wild kittens. The little kitten was fine although it did not look very comfortable to say the least. Our cat had a total of four living kittens and one still born kitten.

Hopefully this will be the last batch of kittens we have for a long time. As soon as we get one cat fixed the other gets pregnant!

Respectfully submitted,

Joshua

Plants indoors...Large Scale. Part 2

Below are some pictures of Greg's (my farmer friend) plants. The pictures were all taken 4/13/09. His plants were all growing fast! Greg had an incident where he got some organic gardening soil and it had high nitrogen level and it contained manure... Shortly after he planted over 120 plants in the new soil he found out his plants were all dying! He moved quickly to get his plants out of that soil and was able to save quite a few. Unfortunately he lost 80 tomato plants to that mistake. Greg then proceeded to throw that soil out into a hole his dog had dug. When his dog found out all it would do is bark at it! As Greg told me "even the dogs did not like that soil."
Greg's mistake when he purchased that organic soil was not checking to see if it contained high nitrogen levels and manure. The soil contained both with the result that when he transplanted his seedlings they were burnt. Seedlings cannot deal with the high nitrogen levels that a lot of common gardening soils contain, even though large plants can. The soil I and now Greg use is a soil that is in commercial use called Fafard 4-P. This soil only contains Canadian Sphagnum Peat Moss, Processed Pine Bark, Vermiculite, and Perlite.
I recommend using a soil like this for seed germination. Should you purchase your soil at a local garden center I would first ask an employee if they have a soil for seed starting and then check the label to make sure it does not contain high nitrogen levels. The soil that my friend Greg used in the story above had a nitrogen level of 10-13%.

Tomato plants.
Pepper plants.

More tomatoes.

Plants in front of main window.

Biggest Tomato plants as of 4-13-09.

I have mostly finished up with finals at Colorado State University. I still have to go up to campus for a test Monday or Tuesday. I was planning to rototill a new section of garden today, but it is raining so I don't think that is going to happen.

Hopefully I will be posting more pictures today.

Respectfully Submitted,

Joshua

Growing Plants indoors

This week is finals week at Colorado State University, so I am very busy!
Below are some pictures of the plants I had growing indoors in March 26 - 29, 2009.

Cinnamon Basil.
Stevia. Sometimes called The Sugar Herb.

Queen Sophia Marigold in Bloom

Alaska Nasturtiums. These are very good to eat. The leaves and flowers have a kind of pepper cress like flavor. I like to put them in sandwiches.

Plants in front of my southern window.

I will be posting more soon. Hopefully the next post will have pictures of plants production on a much larger scale!

Joshua