Oh no, I might have murdered my tomato plants!

Today I attempted to re-pot my little tomato plants that you can see growing in this picture. I wanted to separate them so they'd have some more room before I move them to their final container (and when I popped 'em out the roots were starting to grow along the bottom of the container). However, in my attempt to separate the two of them I broke some of the roots.

I'm pretty sure that damaging the roots is a BAD THING, just hopefully not so bad that they die. I guess I'll find out over the next few days if they're going to survive or not. Wish them luck!

Garden Obsession

Since I last posted about my container garden, I decided to dig up the zucchini seeds that I planted in the container that was too small and I planted some bok choy in that container instead. As of today, I officially have some bok choy seedlings. Of course, the picture I took of them was very bad and blurry so you'll have to make do with your imagination on what they look like.

I also picked up a strawberry plant from the grocery store! Its cute furry little stems and leaves called out to me to buy it! Boy, it sure is growing pretty fast, lots of new leaves coming out from when I bought it last weekend. I just hope I can keep it alive long enough to get some strawberries from it.

Of course, my basil is still coming along. It has it's first leaves starting to grow now, so exciting! Now I know I really need to get rid of the extraneous plants here, but I feel a little bad about killing off the ones that I don't need. I wonder if anyone else feels guilty about thinning seedlings.

Container Gardening

So I got this idea into my mind that it would be great to have some fresh vegetables this summer. However, living in a condo, I don't have a yard in which I can make a garden. Therefore, I have turned to containers.

Now I have never gardened before, so I'm not really sure how well this is going to work out. I planted some basil seeds in a yogurt container which I'm keeping indoors, and some zucchini seeds in a container outside. Of course, only later did I read that the container I used for my zucchini is far too small and I discovered that i had planted them wrong and possibly too early. So it remains to be seen if I'll have any that manage to grow.

At least my gardening experience so far hasn't been all bad news. This morning I discovered that my basil is growing! I have to say that discovering this got me thoroughly excited. Now I just hope it lives long enough for me to be able to use it.

Roasted Asparagus

Can asparagus be roasted? Yes, it can.

I suppose that the answer to the question should have been obvious. I mean what would stop asparagus from being roasted? (Are there any vegetables that you can't roast?) But then I never cooked it this way until recently.

Roasted Asparagus

• Asparagus
• 3 cloves minced garlic
• Olive oil to coat
• salt & pepper to taste
• balsamic vinegar

1. Preheat oven to 425 F.
   
2. Prepare the asparagus (break off the tough ends).
3. Toss with olive oil, garlic, salt and pepper.
4. Place in a shallow baking dish.
5. Cook for 15-20 minutes or until desired tenderness.
6. Sprinkle with a small amount of balsamic vinegar if desired.

Knitting mistakes

Continuing with my hat obsession, I also worked on knitting one. I'm not sure what possessed me to try knitting in a round on DPNs when I can barely knit, but I tried anyhow. I would like to state for the record that working in a round in knitting is a bit of a pain, and all those needles get in the way of your hands.

Anyhow, sitting on the Kirby plushy is the hat that I made. Why is it on a Kirby plushy you ask? Well I made a mistake and the hat was too small. Either I measured my gauge wrong, or I measured my head wrong. In the end, I'm not sure which, but the results are the same; the hat ended up a tad too snug for my head. At least Kirby can go out in style now.

Hooked on hats

After my initial foray into crocheting, I wanted to start on a wearable small project. So that's where hats came in. I figured that crocheting a hat had to be something akin to knitting a scarf. So off I went to find out how. So I started with instructions from threadbanger for a hat that was rather similar to the amigurumi that I was previously making. It was simply single crochets in a spiral. Then I added a little crochet flower for embellishment. The flower I originally made was this loopy flower but it just didn't fit that hat so I took what I learned from there and made my own simpler flower.

After my first hat was completed I started onto a second one. Since I had already done so much single crocheting, I wanted to do some double crochet stitches. So I made a hat consisting mostly of double crochet in rounds (I read about working in rounds and I think I figured it out now, but I can't be certain). And then I threw in some rows of puff stitches at the end. Of course since I didn't use a pattern and I made it up as I went along it ended up in a funny shape. So it was a bit of a failed hat :(

This did not dissuade me from making yet another hat, and throwing in yet another complication. Bored with the monochrome creations, I wanted to work with more than one colour! So after studying a few patterns on how to shape a hat to ones head (and constantly testing what I was making on my own head) I was at it again. To the left is the hat that I made up to fit my head(the pink and brown one).

Amigurumi

Since the end of my yarn has finally been freed from the scarf that I was knitting, I wanted to learn some crochet. Around the internet I've seen all sorts of cute crocheted things called amigurumi. Since the yarn I ordered for a hat hadn't arrived yet, these seemed like the perfect little mini projects to learn crochet.

So I started with a mouse pattern that I found on the net and learned how to single crochet in a spiral, how to do increases and decreases, and what a slip stitch is (as well as how nice it would have been to have something to mark the beginning of my row rather than trying to keep track of the number of stitches).

Using the knowledge that was gained from making the mouse (and a safety pin to mark rows), I then decided to try a bunny pattern. But this one was done in rounds instead of a spiral and confused me completely (I'll have to figure out how to crochet in rounds some time). I ended up with odd shapes rather than spheres, so instead I just said "screw it" and made something up on my own. You can see the results for yourself.

And then lastly I tried to make something that sort of resembled a sheep. It still needs some eyes to see with. I'll have to find something to use for that.