Next, the seedlings. The tomatoes (in the front two rows are beefsteak and cherry tomatoes) are enormous; everything else is doing pretty well. At this point we've also got spinach, basil, poblano, cilantro, oregano, chives, rosemary, sage, and green onion inside. I gave up on the idea of growing mint from seed (mine were really, really small, and then I read somewhere that growing mint from seed is really hard) and bought a little plant from the farmer's market this weekend. Also, the green onion doesn't appear to be doing so hot, and I threw out the lettuce I had planted in peat pots, because it got a bit moldy. One of the cilantro plants got upgraded to a big pot. The lovely little terra cotta planter in the center is a nice self-contained herb garden, an Easter gift from dad. That's where the oregano and chives live.
Last weekend I planted green onion, lettuce and cucumber outside, figuring that we are probably past the last frost (knock on wood). The seed packet tells me that one is supposed to plant cucumbers in little 4-inch hills. I have no idea why. But, having never grown cucumber before, I just followed the directions:
I must have done something right, because today there was a little cucumber seedling! Luckily I already have a nice bamboo trellis all ready for it to climb on. I would have posted a picture, but it poured rain all day, and my dedication to blogging doesn't run deep enough to suffer through wet shoes. Maybe later.
Lessons learned: pack the little seedling pots full of dirt (of whatever variety), sans the paper wrapper if you use pellets. This is because eventually you will plant the seedling pots directly into the ground or container, and you don't want a gap. I'm not sure why this didn't occur to me earlier. Oh well. And for things that like cool weather (so far: lettuce, onion and cucumber), just wait to plant directly outside.
Finally, some DC-specific pictures. A few from the cherry blossoms--apparently they bloomed for two full weeks this year, which was a record. They're quite pretty, even when one goes on a cloudy and slightly windy day.
Here's my favorite memorial, the D.C. World War I memorial. It's so forlorn.
Who knew that DC occasionally hosts loons?!?!? I was very excited. [There are two in this picture; they are very small, but that's an unmistakable loon profile, and they were diving in the tidal basin, just like they do. I hope they didn't eat any scary fish.]
And here's a picture of the pope in the popemobile.
Sometimes I also go to the archive.
