Going to Texas, work stuff, and an update on the plants

I talked to my mom tonight and she will be in Texas for the family reunion from Oct 7-14. Most of the rest of the family gets there on the 8th. I don't want Winter missing too much school, and since I will be in San Diego from the 1st through the 6th, missing a lot of work is also a concern. So we'll be going down the morning of the 11th, and coming back the evening of the 13th. The tickets cost $888 for all three of us. On the upside, there will be nothing  to spend money on once we are there, because we will be in the middle of nowhere.

Jeremy has been looking for an internship/job as a personal trainer. He has contacted a few places already and is planning to apply at Gold's Gym on Broadway as well. He'd like to work a couple of evenings a week and Sundays, in addition to his regular job,  which he works at very early in the day Tues-Sat.

A rare opening came up for a mid day shift on Tuesdays at the airport. It starts in the middle of September. I decided to take it. I am also working 8 extra hours per week at my regular job since the first of August. Hopefully that won't be too much to be sustainable.

Mom said I should dig up the potatoes since the plants were drying out. I got 7 hamster sized potatoes. I think I just planted them too late, but out wasn't a very big planter box either. The radish plants all bolted then died. The carrots and beets are still tiny and sad. I have officially given up on them.

Increasingly disillusioned with gardening

Between forgetting to water my window boxes for a few days, and it being in the 90's my tiny baby lettuce died. I am starting to think it was never going to get much bigger than it was anyway. I'm glad I literally grew it from something I'd have thrown out otherwise.

I am also 95% sure my radishes are not going to bulb. They have been growing for like a month and a half and all I see is skinny pink stems.

I am running into issues with my potato plants being way too tall/heavy and there is no more room to hill them in those little planter boxes. Plus now when I water them it mostly just runs down the side of the "hill" and onto the sidewalk below, so I have to make sure no one is walking underneath when I water.

The carrots and beets still look ok, though they are  growing at a maddeningly slow pace, and at this point there are only like six carrots and two beets growing. If they do actually turn into anything edible I am betting they will be tiny.

I'll give it the rest of the growing season before I give up, but I am thinking next year I'll just plant some herbs instead. Growing vegetables is proving to be more complicated than just getting things to sprout and not die.

Window box gardening

The apartment we moved into a few months ago has three window boxes. Four, actually, but one of them isn't accessible because of where the furniture is. I decided to see if I can grow anything in them. I didn't want to spend much because I sort of have a black thumb. I am not entirely convinced this is actually going to save me any money. I have already spent about $15 on dirt, fertilizer, and one pack of seeds.

My mom mailed me some seeds, including radish and beet seeds, so I planted some of those. I also planted a few fingerling potatoes that had sprouted, and replanted the roots of a living lettuce I had eaten most of. Lastly I bought a packet of rainbow carrot seeds and planted some of those.

So far the potatoes are the hugest thing in the boxes. They are about a foot and a half tall now. The radishes are also growing pretty quickly. The carrots and beets still just have two leaves, although they are getting bigger. Very slowly. And the outer leaves of the lettuce are decomposing, BUT the tiny little inner leaves are finally starting to grow up and out. They are still very small.

The potatoes are starting to get top heavy and flop over. There's not much room in the box to hill them, and I need to find some free dirt somewhere to do it with I guess.