Daily Discussion Thread: Tue 15 Aug 2023

Waiting for stuff to arrive. Enrichment in my enclosure.

I ended up buying two Garden Up herb planters because they looked to have that self watering reserve at the bottom, which would cut me a lot of slack with remembering to water.

One big bag of potting mix (really should have bought two smaller ones as I might get injured or not be able to lift it).

The seeds: I wasn’t able to get to the seed library but Bunnings eventually came through.

I’m going for a tiny indoor container vegie garden. Leafy greens apparently need less light than the fruiting or root veg, plus spinach has shallow roots and can be continuously sown and harvested as baby leaves. So I chose Viking spinach (they didn’t let me get Medonia but Viking is still heirloom and heat tolerant. Which is important if still sowing into the warmer months. I can also save the seed if I want.). Being inside isn’t great for light but should protect them a little from bolting?

These may have to live on the windowsill for more light, if the pot is narrow enough to fit, but I got the small round Paris Market carrot seeds for container gardening. Apparently carrots are biennial?? Oops. And have to be left til the next year to set seed?? So instead of doubling them up with spinach as I planned they might need their own pot. Only if I wanted to save the seed though.

And cat grass to easily keep resowing it because I keep killing it and it’s annoying to try and dig it out from outside. Also the visiting black cat hangs out and poops out there (risk of worm or flea larvae).

I should have bought 3 of the pots maybe but am trying to keep things really easy and manageable. There is a way to make self watering pots with huge buckets that could scale down to reused yogurt pots but lazy. It wouldn’t get done.

Mushrooms are also really cool to grow and don’t need light or much room. They would be genuinely safe to eat, being from domesticated varieties and shop bought mycelium. But I can’t really eat too much of them and don’t know if cats digest them well either. (Melbcat likes cooked vegetables.)

Things like mini pumpkins in pots or potted citrus are not practical at the moment. Too much space, too heavy, too much light.

I also thought of making terrariums. Those need so little maintenance. But I would probably have to sterilise the jars and substrates. As well as buying special drainage gravel and potting mix. There is moss outside but no ferns.