Planting!

So over the course of the week I have planted pretty much all of my tomatoes and peppers outside. Still waiting a bit on the basil because its supposed to get down into the 30s tonight. I will post pictures as soon as I take some!

Swiss Chard

Today my Bright lights Swiss chard came up! I originally planted it directly outside but it never came up. Apparently each seed is actually more than one seed stuck together- check this out:

Theres like 4 plants coming out of there!  I love that the colors are already visible.  I have no idea whether or not I even like chard, I just bought it because its so pretty!

Updated Lab Picture

Yesterday we had a going-away-yay-you-got-a-job- lunch for Rowena and Harrison. I am so happy for both of them, but I will miss them! Especially Rowena since I am now the only female (not counting Dr. Zhang of course). So anyway, here we are:



Back: Iain, Xiguang, Dong

Front: Yi, Baoning, Me, Rowena, Harrison, Josh

Missing: Chris and Dr. Zhang

Almost planting time!

I have been hardening off some of my seedlings for the last couple of days.  Most of the tomatoes, peppers and marigolds are big enough to go outside and I am so excited.  Sunday afternoon we set up the tomato trellis. It looks nice, but will look even better with lots of tomato plants growing up it! :)  I am using the 'string' method as described here.  Last year I used cages and the plants outgrew them about halfway through the season so I am hoping that going up will work better.  I am only growing one type of tomato: Roma.  I will probably get 1 or two more from picnic day too, but for now thats all.  For the peppers I have several different kinds: CA wonder (red bell), orange sweet bell, purple beauty and cayenne hot.  I was never able to get the purple to sprout so I just went out and bought a plant at Ace.  I am thinking that next year I might just buy all my plants.  For all the effort it takes to start seeds it might be worth it to spend the extra, at least for things like tomatoes and peppers that you transplant anyway.

I want

this
Too bad we just bought a new car.

Anyway, today I finished my last. class. ever. It feels good. I cannot say that I took my last exam, however, because I still have the daunting task of passing my qualifying exam ahead of me. This week I must finish my proposal. I must. If I don't, there is a good chance that I will have to go on vacation before I take my quals and that will just suck. I would much rather be able to truly relax for a week!

Yesterday Derrick and I went out and flew our new kite! We got it at COSTCO. Its a seahorse- our compromise between the blue angel and the pretty bird. Anyway, we found this open field on campus and started romping about. Our seahorse wasn't very good at flying, maybe because he's actually supposed to swim. He kept crashing down on his head. oops. We did get in a couple good flights, though. We will try again when the wind isn't so gusty.

Seedlings are growing!

Pottery!

I've been taking a wheel throwing class at the campus craft center and I took home my first finished pieces on Sunday! They are in order of creation. I love the white glaze on the inside of this first bowl.

This glaze was supposed to be the brown and green thats at the top. I think it got contaminated with the blue, but I like the way it turned out.

This is my accidental pitcher. I bumped the rim when I was taking it off the wheel so I made it into a pitcher.

This is a cute little bowl. The glaze is kinda weird- bubbly in some spots. Oh well, still functional :)

Last week we learned closed forms and I'm so addicted.

Squirrel Update

So my efforts at burying the fence were fruitless. I came back a couple days later and they had just gone under it. My new strategy is to scatter the remaining plants around the garden in hopes that the squirrels won't find all of them. So far they haven't found any. In the future I am going to line the beds of root crops with chicken wire. I did that for my tulip bulbs and it worked so hopefully it will work for more tempting things like the potatoes I planted this weekend.

Tulips and Sunset

I went out one night to try to take a picture of my tulips blooming, but they close in the evening. BUT I did get to see the most beautiful sunset!

 

And then I came out the next day to get the tulips at their best. They are a wonderful intro to spring!