Succulents: Let Them Grow

A little over a year ago, I brought home three succulent plants as a sort of Mother's Day gift to myself. Two of them were snacked on by an animal when I left them out overnight, and one grew long and lean - not an ideal figure for these succulents. 

One afternoon, I experimented with repotting and propagating the succulents and ended up replanting a couple to be indoor decor. Unfortunately, those and the little leaves I was propagating, got blown over in a storm when our friends plant-sat for us while we were on holidays. 

Now, I only have two of the three original plants and what remains of my Mother's Day gifts look nothing like the succulents I had brought home. I didn't know what to do with them anymore so for a while, they sat in my garage surviving on dust and car fumes. They started to wither away and eventually, I realized that even though they're said to thrive on neglect, they still needed the basic necessities of life - sunshine, fresh air and water. 

I moved them out to the pathway beside my laundry room. I still didn't know how to "fix" them but I figured these plants survive and multiply effortlessly in nature so the best thing I could do was just leave them alone so they could heal themselves and grow again. 

Recently, I cleared out some of the original, dried-up stump to give the new plants more space to grow. For now, they're sitting in a pretty shaded area, getting the occasional watering when it rains.

For a long time, this plant was growing long and stringy. You can still see evidence of that. But after a few months of being left alone, started growing in tight bunches again.

I've cleared out some of the dried stems and tucked the hanging parts back into the pot. You can see lots of bright pink roots sprouting out from this plant and I'm excited to see what happens next.

Aloe Pups Growing Up

Back in March, I experimented with replanting some aloe pups. My original aloe plant grew little babies and I separated and repotted them for more greenery around the house. It's been three months now, and the pups are still alive so I think it's safe to say this experiment was a success.

This pup is doing the best out of the three. It's thriving, growing tall and strong, and sprouting out new leaves. I can't figure out why it's doing so much better than the other two but I suspect it has something to do with the size of the pot, water drainage and sunlight.

These two are surviving but you can see they're not growing as rapidly as the first one. I actually almost lost one of them when I placed them on a shelf with less sunlight. These plants thrive in high-intensity, dry heat so clearly placing them in a shady spot wasn't the best idea. Once I moved them to a sunnier location, they regained strength.

And finally, the momma plant. She's grown a lot bigger, her arms stretching out much wider than when I first brought her home. It may be time for me to replant her into a larger vessel. She also has two more pups for me to replant. Looks like I'll have to start looking for new pots!

On a different note, I've been noticing that random leaves of my aloe plant will deflate (I think it's dry out?) and will either completely fall off or the part that has dried will fall off and I can't figure out why. Does anyone know what's going on?

How to Replant Aloe Vera Pups

I discovered the world of succulents late last year and they instantly became one of my favourite plants. If a plant wants to survive in my house, it has to be hardy and easy to care for and that's exactly what succulents are. Plus, they eventually grow baby plants that you can separate and grow as a whole new plant. Free plants!

Just before we left for Toronto, we bought a new aloe vera plant so we asked a friend to care for it while we were away. When I brought it back home, I discovered these mini aloe vera plants growing around the original plant. A quick Google search told me those baby aloe vera plants are called pups. How cute!

Pups need to be separated from the original plant, or they will rob the original plant of nutrients. This was the perfect opportunity for me to get some new houseplants as my succulents were lost when they blew over in a storm while we were away. Since I already had the containers, all I had to do was transplant those pups.

So, the first order of business was to separate the pups from the mother plant. I found the easiest way to do this was using a fork to help wiggle them out of the dirt. Some of the pups were easier to remove than others.

One of the pups had developed a pretty good root system. The other two had little root-like structures growing so I think they'll be like the succulents I had and develop them as they sit in the soil. Like other succulents, if the pup has a wound site, it needs to be dried for a few days before it can be planted or it will rot.

I planted each pup into a little pot of a soil-sand mixture, gave them a little bit of water and they were good to go.

Bringing the Succulents Inside

When I picked out these three succulent plants on Mother's Day this year, I was hoping they would add some life to our overly minimalistic home decor. The man who sold them to us reassured me that succulents were easy to care for and actually preferred to be neglected. 

A few months later, they were starting to appear, well, neglected. This was not exactly the look I had in mind and it definitely didn't create feelings of life and energy. It actually did the opposite. 

I knew they needed some TLC but I didn't have anything to replant them in so I left them alone and the continued to grow.



Then, a couple weeks ago, while having brunch at a local restaurant, I spotted a big, red "SALE" sign in the window of the home decor store next door. We popped inside and I exercised an enormous amount of restraint to walk out with only enough for what we needed.

After an afternoon of repotting, my plants looked happier and I could finally bring them inside to fulfill their original purpose. 

Much better. Now that's the look I was going for - calming and alive.

Our Growing Garden

My friend won a garden plot in the school community gardens a little while ago and asked if Nathan would be interested in taking care of the garden with her son. We envisioned the boys working together to weed out the garden, then they would plant seedlings of the vegetables they wanted to grow, and they would have the responsibility of watering the garden and taking care of the plants.

That was the idea anyway.

When we finally found out which plot was ours, the boys were very excited about it. Our plot was overgrown with weeds and grass, and needed to be cleared out before we could plant anything. Even then the boys were excited to be digging, but mostly they were excited about getting the best tool and using it to chop the weeds into little pieces.

So in the end, it took the combined effort of my friend and I, plus her husband and her dad, to clear out our little patch. Then, it was time to plant!

That first week, a random assortment of vegetables were planted: spring onions, beet root, tomato and land cress (our alternative to watercress which requires a lot of, well, water). Oh, and there was that mint plant that was left over from the previous gardeners.

The second week, my friend sprinkled in a couple rows of bok choy seeds.

Our third week, the boys assisted in planting four neat rows of more bok choy and carrot.

And now in our fourth week, we also have four little kale plants added to our garden.

We also have these little weeds springing up among our bok choy seeds. We're not entirely sure what they are but we'll let them hang around until our seedlings are big enough for us to tell what's edible and what's not.

Caleb loves going to water the plants and dig in the empty part of our garden every day. Even if we're only there for a little while.

Mini Herb Garden

I'm so excited to share our mini herb garden with you so far. 

At the beginning of August, I had found some herb plants in the grocery store. I sent Andrew to choose a few for our garden but somehow we left empty-handed and I didn't see any of the herbs I wanted again for the next few weeks.

I had put my herb garden to the back of my mind, but this past Sunday, a friend gifted a couple mint plants to me. When I went to replant it, I found that it had a very sparse root system so I'm not sure how long/if it will survive but we'll keep it for as long as we can.

Then, when I went grocery shopping on Monday, I found some basil plants! I texted Andrew right away and informed him that I was buying two. When I replanted them, I found that I couldn't really because the roots were growing through the bottom of the little container and if I pulled the plants out, it would rip out all the roots! And there were lots of roots. 

So as silly as it may sound, right now they're planted in the soil, inside those plastic containers. Andrew laughed at me but I didn't know what else to do! 

There's one more herb that I want to grow and it's rosemary. We've been using it a lot this year, in our pot roasts and my rosemary and honey chicken so I thought it'd be nice to plant our own so I don't have to keep buying it. However, it's been quite difficult locating a rosemary plant so for now, that last space in this planter remains empty but I'm hoping to add our final herb to it soon.

Stolen

When we first bought the strawberry plants, they were in little pots. I watered them every morning, brought them outside to get sunlight and brought them back inside each evening.

Then, I finally replanted them into a small planter and I agreed to leave the plants outside from then on. Andrew had put up with the plants sitting on our kitchen counter each night and it was clear he didn't like it.

The next morning, we found that some animal had eaten the three "biggest" strawberries. They were tiny. They barely looked like a strawberry and they were still green! I can't believe something would eat them, but they did.

I was so upset. I decided I had to bring the entire planter in every night again.

And so I did.

Each morning before the rush of getting the boys ready for school, I brought the planter out and watered each of the plants. Every evening, before dinner, we would bring the planters back in.

For the past two weeks, our strawberries were safe. They were untouched and we watched patiently as our one strawberry (the rest are just barely coming out of their flowers right now) grew bigger and bigger.

This week, it started to ripen.

First, it turned pink at the bottom.

By yesterday, it was half red.

This morning, when I brought the plants out, I told Nathan who has been waiting so anxiously this week, that he would be able to pick the strawberry either tonight or tomorrow.

He was so excited; he's been looking forward to this since the last strawberries were stolen.

So imagine just how devastated we both were when Andrew called us down for dinner and told us that something had eaten our beautiful strawberry.

I was irate. I mean, are you kidding me?!

Just like that, it was gone.

And all we can do now is wait for the next strawberries to grow and hope that whatever it was that ate our previous four strawberries doesn't strike again.

Strawberry Patch

Okay, I guess you can't really call it a strawberry patch since it's only two plants but it's a start for us.

Remember that Winter List I posted at the beginning of winter? One of the items was to plan a herb garden and another was to pick strawberries. Our plans of going to a strawberry field over the school holidays got rained out, and while I was grocery shopping one afternoon, I saw little strawberry plants for sale.

So while we didn't get to pick strawberries from a strawberry field, I "picked strawberries" in that I picked some strawberry plants to bring home. We've been watering them every day and one strawberry is getting noticeably bigger!

I transplanted them from their plastic pots today and we're planning on leaving them outside from now on. Hopefully, we'll be picking our own strawberries soon enough - if the animals don't attack it at night and destroy our plants or eat our berries.

I still plan on growing some herbs, but that'll have to wait a little longer. I'm still trying to decide which herbs I'll actually use, and won't require too much maintenance.

Any suggestions?

* * * * * * * * * *

Winter List 2012 | 12 goals to keep us from hibernating this winter.

Checked off: 2, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 12

Our Scallion Situation

We have a bit of a scallion situation in our home.

We like using scallion on occasion, but somehow, we never manage to finish the entire bunch. Most of the time, the remaining stalks end up sitting in the fridge while we try to find other ways to use them up. Eventually the green parts dry up, the white parts get slimy and it all, inevitably, gets thrown out. 

This time around, I was hoping to put an end to this cycle and salvage the remaining pieces. 

I've heard of people planting the bottom white part in water to regrow green onions. In fact, I'm pretty sure my parents did this when I was a kid as well. So instead of wasting more money at the grocery store each time I needed a bit of green onion, I wanted to see if I could grow my own instead. I should mention that the bunches of scallions sold here are quite large and cost more than I'm willing to pay back home so I was excited to see if this would work out.

However, my good intentions got pushed onto the back burner as life got busy. 

My scallions sat in the fridge, and went dry and slimy again. Except perhaps this time (this is a little embarrassing to admit), it went beyond that point because when I finally pulled them out from the fridge again for my replanting experiment, I found fresh new green onion stalks growing underneath the old dried up ones.*

Did I mention that scallions cost money? 

The new growths looked perfectly edible to me and I didn't want to waste perfectly good food so I discarded the dried pieces, chopped up the fresh ones and put them into my scallion pancakes to go with our chicken congee the other night. 

I've read that sometimes the regrowth isn't as flavourful but it tasted fantastic. 

I still wanted to try regrowing the green onion so I cut each one just above the white part so they'd be tall enough to stand in the baby food jars. (I knew those would come in handy one day!) And I added some water to each jar.

Now, we'll wait and see if they will regrow again!

In other green news, I accidentally left our little venus fly trap outside over night and some monster ate it. I'm so upset I forgot to bring it back inside. The next morning, I found it strewn across our backyard and I tried to salvage the pieces that were left and replant it. 

I'm hoping this little guy will make a recovery over the next couple days.

*Please rest assured that food does not typically stay in our fridge long enough to rot and grow babies. This was an exceptional incident where I really wanted to follow through with my plans.