Loaded Life Update

Well, a lot has happened since I last posted...

I figured it would take me more than an entire page of words to explain everything, so instead I'm going to make collages that best sums up the first half of my 2020 senior year of high school. This is a warning that the collages below were auto-generated and have images that look like they don't relate to each other.

Here we go!

JANUARY

This month, I bought a little plastic greenhouse for my plants so they could get used to the outside temperature. The weather was no higher than the 70s or 80s so this would have been a great time to plant some things. I tried to grow a couple plants in it for a while and it worked great! Later on I bought for bare-root strawberries and planted them in whatever I could find available. I also got a bare-root blueberry plant. Hmm... It's all coming back to me! The reason why there are so many new plants is that I got a home-depot gift card for Christmas from my family. I am so grateful and blessed! The art project that I'm holding in the first photo is a paper-mache replica of my adopted banana plant. I was taking an AP 3-D art class this year so I thought I'd have my banana plant as my concentration and use it for my guided inquiry.

FEBRUARY

This month, a lot of my plants started to grow. I was kinda concerned for my blueberry bush though because the weather kept frosting it. The frosts kept destroying my banana plant too, but luckily it kept coming back stronger. I made another art piece, but this time out of magazine paper and plastic straws. It took way too long to make that sculpture. Probably because I had no idea what I was doing. In the picture in the middle, there is my lemon tree seedling plant thing that I took outdoors for the first time ever. I knew that lemon trees love sunlight, but I didn't want any critters outside to harm it, so after a few hours I took it back inside. Recently I took it outside and now it looks far worse than the photo. But I'm so happy that it's trying to grow back!! Also, my strawberries grew like champs in my greenhouse! The only problem was dealing with pesky snails that pooped all over the plastic cover and ate my watermelon and cucumber seedlings I was trying to grow.

MARCH

March was an extremely busy month. I felt like it was very tough juggling 8 classes at once and studying for weekly tests. I had so much going on at once, but I managed to work a bit in my little garden. One of my plants made a few tiny strawberries, and I was trying to grow a bunch of little things in toilet paper rolls. Unless you have an indoor or concealed area to keep them, I do not recommend using them for seedlings. Everything I tried growing in those little tubes ended up dying or drowning anyway. There were also a few frosts happening here and there but I think this was the last month that it did so. I was growing 2 little peach seedlings in my refrigerator during the weekend, so this was the right time to finally let them grow into beautiful looking plants. They honestly looked really weird when they sprouted, but now they're skinny little things. I'm thinking of repotting them soon.

APRIL

In the month of April, I had so much free time from the COVID-19 quarantine that I spent my afternoons watching plant videos. My strawberries went through this dormant-like stage so they didn't make any more strawberries all month. One of the reasons was that it was getting hotter and anything that was in my greenhouse was sure to get cooked. Now my plants are doing a lot better. Later this month, I took a little trip to Home-Depot again to spend some birthday money. My mom chose two bell pepper plants for me to grow and now they're producing lots of flowers. I also started a few seedlings including cucumber watermelon, lettuce, radish, cayenne pepper, tomato, and more. Something's eating my little tomato plants though, so now I have one. I guess I can't grow tomatoes like I want to. Oh! And I almost forgot! I'm growing another avocado plant, but this time it'll be outdoors most of the time. So far it's looking ok. It's taking it a while to grow green leaves though. They seem to be growing neon green or something.

MAY

Pretty much, this entire month was about me building my banana plant sculptures. Here is one of my best ones. Also, my garden is doing better. We had a lot of heavy thunderstorms and flash floods in the past few weeks, but everything survived. I bought this MiracleGrow chemical fertilizer and I think its working because a few of my plants are growing fruits! This is what I've always dreamed of!

As for my crochet life...
I plan on making a blanket soon. I have a lot of free time now that I sorta "graduated" from high school, but I can't really feel a difference right now. I'm really excited about my future though. In just a few months, I'll be in college and live my college life all on my own! But first I have to celebrate my high school graduation.

Update

School Started. I'm kinda stressed.
I tried to grow lettuce twice but failed both times.
All of Avocadee's leaves fell off, but there's still hope. There are little buds growing off the side of it. Egg isn't doing so well.
I'm trying to grow some strawberries from seed. 2 germinated.
My lemon plants are the winners out of all my plants. My tallest one is 8 inches.
I adopted a small banana tree. Brought it back to life but now its leaves are looking sketchy.
You may not hear from me for a while because I focusing on senior year and applying to college. bye!

I want to make more hats

My goal this winter is to make sell $100 worth of hats. It's going to take a lot of commitment but I think I can do it. I feel like I have to do something extra for my senior year for some very pressuring reasons. Speaking of that, here are some ideas I have to take my passion/hobby something more than it already is.

• My aunt suggested donating hats to a children's hospital a few years ago. I'm kinda considering it now
• Starting a crochet/knitting club after school once a week
• An NAHS project that has to deal with crochet

I'm thinking about walking over to Hobby Lobby after guard camp ends next week. My mom is my only ride and I really don't like asking people for rides. In the past, I've stayed at Wheatsville, a nearby local grocery store. They have a cool little patio area along with a community center where people can hang out or whatever. I like it a lot because it's very welcoming and I've never felt unsafe or uncomfortable. It's a really good place to study, too. I'm looking forward to going there to finish my summer projects.

Most of that probably didn't make any sense but I'm posting it anyway. I'm watching a video and typing at the same time, in case you're wondering. I'll post any progress I make. Bye!

Avocado update

I'm reeeeaaally hoping these are new branches!

The ends are dying off but at a very slow rate. I have a feeling one of the leaves are about to drop soon

This is truly the best spot to put my plants. Look at all that sun! Avocadee (left) has been waiting for this for a long time!

Peach seed

I'm growing a peach seed that I got from a peach I ate on Sunday. I'm using all the methods I learned from Youtube. Like the avocado plants, it'll take at least 2-3 months before the seed starts to germinate. You know what? If I can go through waiting for my avocado seeds to germinate, then I can wait for this peach seed too! I'll post an update when right when I see any signs of germination.

RIP tomatoes

The seedlings were all too unhealthy for me to continue this series. I think they didn't do so well because of the chemicals of the paper towel (my guess) and the seeds weren't stored correctly after the first time I used them. Better luck next time. :(

These photos were taken on July 11th

This is something that really freaked me out. I have no idea why t looks like this but it loots shriveled and in no good shape.

AVOCADO UPDATE: 2 Avocado plants left

I am more than upset with the results of Avacado, but I feel like it wasn't a good start for her anyway.

Her life wasn't going so well from the start. I raised her in a cup, gave her too much water and space to grow, and little to no sunlight at all. Now that I'm reflecting I feel like I tortured the poor creature. During Avacado's last moments, I pruned all her leaves off, repotted her and left her outside for nature to take its course. The next day, a heavy storm came through town and absolutely destroyed the plant. It was practically a ball of roots at that point. It continues to sit out there today and a little part of me hopes that it will spring back to life after being baptized from the past thunderstorms.

If it wasn't for Avacado, I wouldn't have started this plant journey. I don't know I mentioned this earlier, but I literally did not try to be careful when Avacado first germinated. I felt like it was a miracle when it happened, and thus started my seed-growing high. I'm trying extra careful to meet my avocado plants' needs right now, even if they're not in good shape right now. Basically, all of the leaves except a few fell off all of my plants, BUT THEY'RE RECOVERING! They are still healthy enough to have some new growth, which is a very good sign. The only problem I have is that it's taking forever. But that's a good sign too!

The more I grow plants, the more I'm patient with myself

Here are some recent photos:

These all were taken on 7/2/19

THAT BIG O LEAF FELL RIGHT OFF!

Maybe this will grow as big as the old one

Still my favorite plant ❤️💚

This is my Uncle's peace lily plant her got a long time ago. We're taking care of it for the summer while they're on vacation.

Tomatoes day 3

Sorry for the poopy photos but here's a 4 day update. Today is 7/8/19

here are 3 seeds with visible roots

I took these pictures on the dining room table because the room had the best lighting. I'll try to fix that next time.

probably the best photo I have of these seeds haha

[observations]
So far I am pleased to get these results for the first 4 days of growing tomato seeds. My passed-down knowledge has once again proved successful. If you want to grow anything, use the paper towel method. I learned this in second grade and it has never failed me (except once because I forgot about it). The results showed 70% germination so far, which is a big deal. I noticed some of the roots turned a little brown, which means (at last I think it means), the roots are getting a little too much air, but it won't kill the seedling. Because of this, I'm going to make my weekly checkups every 4 days just so I can monitor that browning. I'll leave a comment to tell you what it actually means when I do a little research.

[measurements]
No measurements until the stem sprouts

[Anything interesting]
I need to do a better job taking pictures because I don't want to look back on this report and cringe over how bad and useless the pictures are. I'll find some lighting and everything to get the best quality documentation. I hope you were able to read through my grammar issues ..... 🙂

Now starting my tomato growing series

Thanks to the Sustainable Food Center and Youtube, I am now inspired to grow some tomato plants this summer. I thought it was too late to grow anything at this point, but apparently, tomatoes are a good crop to grow during the mid-summer in Texas. Since I have been binge watching other plant time-lapses and have been on a plant growing high, I'm going to try documenting the growth of a few tomatoes. Plus, it's summertime and I have a lot more free time on my hands right now, so why not start a tomato garden?!

I bought some seeds from the dollar store a few months ago before school ended. I made a little greenhouse for them to germinate quicker, and immediately I began to see results. I was so happy to see that I was about to be the mother of 5 little tomato plants. Alas, my joy was short lives. When the seedlings began to sprout leaves after a few weeks of germinating, I moved them to a larger DIY greenhouse. I kept them in there for a week and noticed that the plants weren't growing at all. They all died. I was upset with this result but not too upset because even though I wasted some tomato seeds, I glad it was only 5. I still have plenty of opportunities to keep trying to grow tomatoes. I now know that tomatoes can't grow in moist climates and they need a lot of sunlight.

So with that said, I will now be this documentation!

Look @ my tomato page for day one.

In each blog post, you will see the following:

• A minimum of 3 photos of the plant's growth
• A paragraph of observations
• A measurement of the seedling's length
• The date and time of the photos taken
• Anything else I find interesting that I might share

R.I.P. Avacado

BUSY BUSY BUSY

The title couldn't have explained my situation any better. Ever since I went on my junior Internship ended in February, this year has been all flip-flopped.

This summer, I plan to fill up space between the last avocado update and my future plans for them.

Right now I only have a week of school left, so I'm going to finish that before I do anything else right now.

Egg

Egg

I pruned avocadee

AVOCADO UPDATE

Avacado and Avocadee chilling

Avocadoes new growth is sprouting very quickly. Almost just as fast as my 3rd plant, Egg.

Avacado is still looking limp and petite. That lower leaf is continuing to wither away and brown. There are no signs of browning on the other leaves, so that's good. I heard this is a deconstruction thing avocado plants do when they're getting rid of old leaves.

I have a feeling Avocadees height with soar once those new leaves grow. Still thinking about pruning.

Egg

More of Egg. IT'S SO TALL! Almost taller than Avocadee!

New Hat (ARS Intersession)

For my school's 2019 Intersession, I joined the Getting Cozy one where all we did was watch movies and knit or crochet. I had an amazing time touching up on my knitting and crochet at the time. I even made 2 new friends. I started this blue hat with some yarn I bought from hobby lobby. I used a ribbed hat pattern I learned last year and I think it looks pretty nice.

Happy New Year!

Woot woot! It's been 1 year since the first post of this blog!

YAAAAAY!!

AVOCADO UPDATE

DEC 31 2018

Avocadee is growing new leaves! This plant is growing so much faster and healthier than my first one, Avacado. According to my research, you're supposed to prune your plant when it looks like this so it can branch out and look bushy and petite. I didn't know I was supposed to prune my plants until after they grew 6 inches. I feel like puning the plants this early is too harsh anyway, so I'm not going to do any serious pruning until the end of winter.

With all of this avocado knowledge, I'm thinking of writing an E-book about growing them. I did a quick search to see if anyone has published a book like that already, but I didn't find anything. I need to dedicate some of my own time ot do this, and it looks like the next time I'll get some free time will be when I'm done with Winterguard and SAT prep. However, I'll still make time to make monthly updates with my plants.

 I am so passionate about my avocado plants and I want to their progress as much as I can. In order for me to do that, I need a better camera, and more time and motivation. Right now I have neither, so I appreciate your patience.

Another eye-balled pattern. This is the first hat I've made in a very long time!

AVOCADO UPDATE

This is Avocadee and its leaves are getting BIGGER!

Avacado's leaves are still petite, but they've hardened and have that mature-leaf-feel to them. I'm still thinking of pruning it to 6 inches ....

This is Egg, the youngest but largest seed of the Avocado bundle. Its leaves are just beginning to split!

I think Egg is going to have 3 dominant leaves like its big sister, Avacado. You can also see the white fuzzy hairs covering the plant. All of my avocado plants had this fuzz at this stage of their lives, so this is completely normal. They probably won't lose this fuzz until they grow their first true green leaves.