Spring Inside!

Look at how these chives have bounced back with a little care!

Well, I'll warn you now.  This post will be picture heavy (they typically are, aren't they?)!  That being said, compared to last week, this week has been extremely productive!  The weather outside is still...lacking though.  We'll start with the plants first I suppose!  Our experiment is working much better than we

Chamomile, Lemon Balm, Thyme, and Leeks are starting to show their faces!

 expected!  The non-grow light lights (that's a mouthful!) seem to be triggering an amazing response from our plants (just look at those chives!).  In our set up, we have the plants in front of a set of windows with two lights that we turn on mid morning (normally in between 10 and a 11 am) and off when we go to bed (typically around 1 in the morning).

Pumpkins and tomatoes are the exciting additions here!

We wanted to make sure that since they aren't true grow lights that the plants receive plenty of access to the light they provide.  Could we do with a little less time with them on?  Probably, but so far it's working wonders so I'm hesitant to really change much.  I'm really excited by this because we really wanted to use heritage seeds this year (to make our gardening even cheaper next year), but year after year our trials with starting our own plants have failed from lack of light!  What lights am I using?  Well, I'm glad you asked!  Our light set up is pretty simple to be honest.  We have two light clips (we've previously used them to pose photos for different things in the basement) and in them we have a reveal bulb and an incandescent "natural light" (which to me looks like a more cool toned light).  I had read online of some people have good results just using regular (in contrast to buying special grow bulbs) and was skeptical of it 

A baby pumpkin plant!

at first, but I can't argue with the results so far!  I'm both nervous and excited to see what will come of the plants as time goes on.  So far, they seem to be responding really well!  I do have another bulb clip downstairs should I need to give them another bulb later on.  Sometime this weekend or next week, I need to start 

Mystery plant revealed!  Nasturtium Flowers!

dividing the tomato plants that have multiples growing in one container and start my mother-in-laws- starters for her.  I'm excited to do both (although I haven't decided if I'm just going to wait and see how many "multiples" come up before I start a set for her).  M had the great idea that if I end up with too many starters I could sell them or give them away for other people to start their gardens with.  Perhaps I won't worry about it too much then ;).  Each day (to be honest, since they've been responding so well it's been twice a day) it's a mini adventure for me to go and see how their growth has changed!  One could probably say I'm just a silly person, but I'd still be happy with that!  On Tuesday, our little farming efforts grew in size!  Tractor Supply got their baby chicks in!  We split the minimum six (which is kind of a bummer that there's a minimum since we just 

Introducing our little chicks when we first brought them home at 2 days old.

wanted to increase our flock not start one) with our neighbors and we now have three happy little Black 

Australorp chicks in our basement growing up what feels like much too quickly!  We originally had intended to go with Buff Orpingtons (because they look more similar to our ISA browns and they had all the qualities we were concerned 

Chick Shield-Sisters.  Watching each other's backs since days old!

with when choosing a chicken), but it seems like this year (even though all the TSCs had them last year) they weren't on the "chosen" list.  I'm really excited to have these guys though.  There was a good deal of quick research done on them and the more I've learned about them (we didn't just get chicks without knowing what we were getting into, I promise!) the more I love them.  It probably doesn't hurt their cause that they're 

Look at those tiny wing feathers!

adorable!  This coming monday they will be a full week old!  Already there's quite the bit of feather development in their wings and their little personalities (and playfulness) are starting to show!  Now, with chicks, there is the fear that we may have gotten a rooster (even if they say it is highly unlikely).  That being said, we haven't really named any of them (Well, the one with the more yellow beak we've been calling Coco after the bird thing from Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends because it's a loud little chick and I've started calling the little black beaked one Parker after the Leverage character because ...well I love Parker.  No names are final until they are older though!).  Only time will tell!  We've been enjoying them thoroughly and they're giving us something to help the last bit of winter pass by a little faster (and we'll have more eggs come summer!)  With that, I'd like to leave you with a video.  It was taken with my camera cell phone (so nothing too fancy) before our neighbor's took their baby chicks home.  While we were trying to get the temperature right downstairs (remember we didn't brood the other chickens...we got adolescent birds!) we put our big coop thermometer sensor (don't worry we cleaned it really well first ;) ) down there.  When it's sending the temperature to the receiver, a little red light turns on.  This kept the baby chicks amused for quite a while!  Have a great weekend and see you all next Friday!