alchemicink

As I mentioned in my most recent weekly summary post, Mom and I started planting our gardens on Saturday. We're reusing some of last years pots, but Mom also bought some new ones so we can grow a few more things. (Pro-tip: make sure the pots have drainage holes in the bottom BEFORE you put the dirt in them 😂)

Anyway, here's an overview (with two photos included) of what my garden is like this year so far:

Mom and Pops ended up getting a variety of soil this past week for us to use. Some of it was labeled topsoil, some was labeled a generic "potting soil", and some of it was MiracleGro. We basically mixed them together in each pot (half topsoil or potting soil, half MiracleGro), and Mom also thought we should add a little bit of 10-10-10 fertilizer too. (That's a mix of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium). So I think the plants are gonna have plenty of nutrition...

What got planted on 4/19/25:
☆ Eggplant (variety: ichiban) (two plants)
I've been growing these the past few years, and really like them. They don't get as big as American eggplant, so I think they're easier for me to cook. Also, they have purple blooms which are really pretty 🥰 I'm looking forward to them again this year

☆ Tomatoes (variety: better bush) (two plants)
Pops picked out this variety for me because it apparently doesn't grow as tall as other varieties. (I don't know why he thought I needed a smaller one when I'm using the same size pots as last year?? But whatever.) I'm not familiar with this variety, but the plants look healthy so that's a nice start. One even already has a few blooms.

I'm hoping to maybe get at least one more tomato plant of a different variety, just because I always worry about wilt with the tomatoes. We'll see what I can find.

Here's one of the tomatoes:

☆ bell peppers (variety: bonnie green bell) (two plants)
I did not put enough soil in these pepper pots last year and they got kinda top heavy with peppers and kept leaning over, so I added more soil this year 🤞 hopefully that'll be good enough to give the roots more space to grow and give the plant a little more stability.

The pepper plants came in a package of five each, so I still have three more I don't know what to do with 😅 (Pops is currently building a little rectangular box for raised bed gardening, so they might end up over there)

Here's one of the peppers:

Still left to plant:
☆ okra: Mom and I forgot to grab the seeds from the house Saturday, but hopefully we'll get that planted this week. I have a pot full of dirt ready to go
☆ snaps: uh... I forgot to buy those plants 😅 will have to look for them soon
☆ yellow squash: can't currently find any of these plants at multiple stores 😭 hopefully some will turn up this week

I did buy some small rectangular containers for my wildflower seeds, but we're out of potting soil at the moment. But there's no rush in planting flowers, so I'll get to that when I get to it.

I'm just glad we've gotten a good chunk of the planting work done. Now we wait and see how nice the weather will be in the coming weeks.