Please don’t fall, my precious plants

– Columns –

Hi. I’m Julia and I have a lot of plants.

I have the cutest little cactus. For a time, the little guy resided on my kitchen window sill, where I could lovingly stare at it while I washed the dishes.

One fateful day, I had the windows open in my apartment. That was the day I learned that my cactus was so little, the wind could easily knock it off the window sill, especially with help from the moving blinds. No plants, pots or people were harmed during the great fall, but a little dirt was lost to the sink.

It turns out, I didn’t learn my lesson from putting the cactus on my window sill.

When spring came back around, I decided to start some plants for my non-existent garden. Might as well, right?

I decided to try using cardboard egg cartons, remembering how we would occasionally grow flowers in separated egg cartons in elementary school. Also, the cartons fit on my window sill, which was pretty much the only place with proper sunlight that I didn’t already have full of plants.

I had some squash seed around, so I planted one tray of those. I also tried planting pepper seeds from a bell pepper I had eaten earlier in the week, in another tray.

The two egg cartons sat perfectly on the window sill. I even made sure to raise the blinds when the window was open, to avoid the blind swinging out and hitting the plants (again).

Well, the blinds didn’t knock it off. The little plants never sprouted though. I tried replanting both the egg cartons, to no avail.

It was probably just as well. After a couple weeks looking at my replanted, but still lifeless, dirt-filled egg cartons, I gave up on those seeds. I kept the containers on the window sill, thinking I would buy some new seeds. Hopefully, something would grow.

Before I got around to that, the wind sucked the containers up against the window screen, with dirt flying through the screen.

One fateful day, the breeze decided to come through from the opposite direction. There the egg cartons were – upside down on the carpeting. Lovely.

The dirt cleaned up easier than I thought it would. However, that was the end of my “great” egg carton idea. I’ll have to use the cartons for something like holding eggs, instead.

I did try starting seeds again. My boyfriend got me a variety of garden seeds – OK, mostly hot pepper plant seeds – to try my hand at planting.

So far, everything is alive and well. Unfortunately, garden season is in full harvest mode, and my two-inch high pepper plants living in a water glass on my window sill (yep, never learn) are nowhere near ready for harvesting.

I also have basil going, but I’m holding out hope it will have a long and prosperous life sitting on my window sill.

The peppers will likely need a bigger pot soon. I don’t think those will fit on my window sill, at least not for long without falling.

I’m still formulating the next steps of my plan when it comes to the pepper plants. Or maybe, I shouldn’t even form a plan. After all, my plan can’t fail if I didn’t have a plan to begin with.