Avocado experience! - Tip - Part II

New tip for the avocado experience!

TIP - The skin of the seed needs to come out completely! Or the upper part is going to become like a shell and will not let the plant to grow out of the seed.

Found it in this video:

What I'm reading now

Check my Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/Mizinha

My 2016 reading goal: https://www.goodreads.com/user_challenges/5402722

Last garden activities of 2015

The year 2015 is almost over. Is incredible how fast it went by!

Now is the the time to think about what happened during this year. Make a balance of what we got and what we wanted to have. Think about what we learned and what we wanted to learn... And think what 2016 can offer us!

In other hand the gardener must think about what are the tasks that should be accomplished in the garden before 2016... What were the things he wanted to do in 2015 that he didn't do and now he has two weeks to make it happen!


So my last garden activities for 2015 are:

• Remove the summer bulbs. Because I want to change the garden organization I need to remove the summer bulbs if I want to use them next year. What I read is that you remove the bulb from the earth, let it dry and packed in a dry place... let's see if it works!

• Finish the stone path. I don't think I will finish it but at least all the stones would be in the right place.

• Buy a small garden house to store the garden tools. All my tools are in the patio and doesn't look that nice.

• Check the house plants for yellow leaves and clean the leaves with a moist clothe.

• Bring the plants that need to be protect during the winter inside.

• Eat the cornsalad. Is the only thing I can eat in my garden now!

• Buy bird food.

• Cut branches. 

Being sick at home

Is so nice to have a day at home and not go to work.

I have a world of things I would like to do. Things that are in my to do list for ever waiting for a little extra time to be done.

But when you are sick things are not like that!
Head hurting plus nose running plus sleepy eyes equals zero capacity to finish any task.

So the dream of having a day for my projects is gone and I'm being forced to enjoy a day for my self!

I'm sited outside in the garden drinking a cup of tee and is, I think, the first time I just spend time here like this...

The Luffa seeds are here

Luffa seeds are here and I almost can't believe it! 

As I wrote in the "Seeds of Luffa by Post" I send a letter to a random lady on Facebook that was offering to send to random people some seeds of Luffa and I hopped to get an answer.

After a very stressful day at work finally a very good reason to be happy!

First

I got seeds from a plant that is not so common in my country or here and many people don't know about it. 

Second 

We shared seeds! 

Companies like Monsanto don't want us to share seeds.

They try to pass laws that forbids the seed sharing. If that isn't evil enough they try to only sell hybrid species so you can't use their seeds to create other plants

I think people should share seeds, plants without limits (of course not plagues). A plant shouldn't have copyrights attached to it. 

Third

The nice lady that shared this with me doesn't know me...  was just a random person that went on a Facebook group and asked who wanted seeds of Luffa and posted her address.

I send her a letter with a postcard, two euro coin for the sending costs and a envelop that she could use to send the seeds with my address on it.

I have to say I didn't had so much hopes to receive something. Shame on me! I should have more hope and be more trusty of people.

Fourth

In portuguese we have a saying that is like this:

"Fazer o bem não importa a quem"

This means something like "Do good things doesn't matter to who"... And I lived the result of this life style yesterday when I was overflowed with joy when in saw that letter? 

I'm very thankful for this wonderful world and wonderful people that live in it!

Now I have to think in planting this, they need allot of warm and I'm living in Germany (that doesn't happen around here very often). Maybe I will planted inside! Need to research a little bit about this. 

I could also take some seeds to my mom, is warmer there.

After this I'm with the seed sharing bug!

DIY Advents Calendar - Poetic Style

I learned about advents calendar when I moved here. This little tradition of preparing a little surprise for each day of December until the 24th grown on me,

I decided I would do an Advents Calendar for Carl even if he didn't want one... 

If you wonder if my boyfriend would maybe read this and see his surprise in advance... don't worry he doesn't read my blogs... I guess no one does :P

The idea was that I would make something by myself and he could keep it later.

Because I'm always complaining that we don't have any decoration on my apartment walls I decided to make some wall Art! Romantic wall Art :)

1st Step: Pick the Poem

I searched for the perfect verses that I wanted to work with. It needed to be special because it's going to stay in our wall for a while.

I wanted it to be a Portuguese poet and the verses would have to be in Portuguese.

So I picked a poem from Fernando Pessoa

"Quando te vi, amei-te já muito antes.

Tornei a achar-te quando te encontrei.

Nasci pra ti antes de haver o mundo."

"When I saw you, I loved you already long time ago.

I found you again when I met you.

I was born for you before there was world."

2nd Step: Prepare the base

What I did is to put the white papers that I was going to use on the table and tried to paint the base for the calligraphy. I used watercolour paint and did just random (very fast) "art" work.

´

3rd Step: Calligraphy

Just tried to write in the paper one or two words with different types of calligraphy. I'm not an expert but I think I did a good job.

4th Step: Check if you didn't miss any part of the verses

Checked!

5th Step: Roll it up

Done!!

Hope he loves it :)

What you guys think?

Seeds of Luffa by post

I'm a member of a facebook group for Portuguese speakers on facebook (I'm Portuguese) and one of the ladies is planting Luffa in her garden and she promises to send seeds to people that would send her a letter with a envelope and a stamp for her to send a couple of seeds to us!

I'm going to try it out! 

I hope that she sends me some seeds and I get to plant some vegetable sponges in my garden!

Avocado experience!

I organised a dinner with some friends and we ate some rice paper vegetable raps (or veggie summer rolls as goolge calls it). I chopped many types of vegetables and fruits to include in the raps filling. Two from this mix were avocados.

So... Like the rest of the world I'm doing the avocado seed experience! I'm trying first with one seed and if it doesn't work I try with the other. 

I saw this experience many many times all over the Internet. It looks like is the easiest thing to do. But my avocado seed didn't create any roots yet! And I read that in a day the avocado seed starts rooting when in contact with the water!

Looks like it doesn't!

I searched in Youtube for some more information's and I found this video here:

This guy, my avocado seeding guru, explains in this video how we should do it. 

But is more or less this what you need to know:

1. After the first day in water take the skin from the bottom of the seed, it will help the root to come out.
2. The seed can be in water for 3 months and it doesn't mean is a dead seed. 
3. Don't transfer directly the seed from the water to the soil. Is a huge shock for the plant this brutal change in her environment so what he proposes is adding soil to the water during a period of time. When is full of soil than pass the seed to the container.
4. This plants would not produce fruits (sad) because they need pollinators.

If this works I don't know what I'm doing with one or two avocado plants but is always good for oxygen production and I'm sure they make lovely gifts!

Here is how the avocado plant will look like:

The cats, the garden and my growing hate

Since I realised that it wasn't my imagination and I wasn't forgetting things unfinished around the garden I have to confess I'm starting to grow slowly a hate inside.

First was the fox! Yes... I have a fox that comes to my garden to make her dirty business every single night! So, although I don`t have a dog my garden is full of poop.
But it's ok! ( kind of ok!) I take the "accident" as free fertilizer and she is honoring me with her presence. Some what it makes me feel like a Beatrix Potter... and I feel proud to able to build a garden that attracts wild animals.

Then I started to notice things that I planted taken out from the earth. Specialy Bulbs... after replanting for the fourth time the bulbs for the winter flowers my gardening peace was destroyed with the realisation that I did that before and something or someone was destroying my work!

And who is to be blamed? 

All the gardens know this criminal! 

The CAT!!

And don't take me wrong, I love animals. I even fill a big bowl of water for the animals that visit my garden to have something to drink in this year hot summer that we had in Germany.
But my breaking point was the garlic!

I planted garlic in my garden, already late, in the end of September beginning October.
Is my firt time trying to grow garlic and is not a easy task because they realy need the last warm days of October to be able to start growing. If something goes wrong you can't do anything because you are dependent on the weather.
It takes on average 8 month to grow garlic enough to produce a bulb. So this long time and the weather dependency makes this a high risk culture and can mean that in the end it was a waste of time and money.

When I came to the garden and I saw half of the garlic out of the earth... Ooooohhhhh! I was realy mad!

I replanted them and try to hide them better but it didn't work like expected... the "visitors" thought it was a game, a cognitive research from my part that they were able to achieve at 100% success rate.

My job now is to check all my bulbs and pray for them to gain roots so they aren't so intertaining.

Carl said we need to get a dog, so he can do what dogs do best and kick the cats out. 
But my past expirience tells me that probably he and the cats will become friends and probably I will have more poop and on more criminal being an accomplice in what happens at night in my garden.

Jardim Botânico do Porto - actividades

O jardim Botânico do Porto tem organizado visitas guiadas gratuitas ao Jardim.

A próxima data vai ser a 31 de Outubro e as visitas vao comecar às 15h30. Os interessados têm que se inscrever aqui --> http://goo.gl/forms/EOTXtzSzDU

Lembro-me quando me infiltrava nas aulas de arquitectura paisagistica da FCUP e tive uma visita guiada ao jardim botânico do Porto feita pela Maria Teresa Melo Breyner Andresen a directora do curso na altura.

Ao jardim com 4 hectares junta-se também a casa Andersen, onde também assisti a aulas de biologia clandestinamente. Esta casa pertenceu a familia Andersen. No Jardim do Jota têm a oportunidade de ver as iniciais dos seus antigos donos, Joana e Joao Andresen,  avós dos famoso escritores de literatura portuguesa do século XX, Sophia de Mello Breyner Andresen e Ruben A.

Quando visitei este jardim posso vos dizer que achei que o bom estado de manutencao se devia aos bons jardineiros que realmente mostravam um interesse supreendente pelo seu trabalho do que gracas aos professores universitários da FCUP.

Eu que na altura coleccionava suculentas senti, com alguma seguranca, que tinha mais especies criados na minha coleccao que as estufas do jardim Botânico. Sonho também por ver uma parte deste jardim dedicada somente a rosas de origem portuguesa. É uma pena que nem a rosa Bela Portuguesa, que foi hibridizada neste jardim, exista hoje em dia.

Bolbos - Época de plantar Bolbos

Estamos na altura de plantar bolbos!

Geralmente faz-se por esta altura, entre setembro e dezembro, mas tem estado tanto calor e eles precisam de apanhar um pouco de frio que se calhar esperar por novembro será uma boa ideia. Se plantarmos com um mês de diferença somos capazes de ter os vasos floridos durante muito tempo na Primavera.

Neste video da Praça da Alegria o Luís Alves, o engenheiro agrónomo  do já muito conhecido Cantinho das Aromáticas fala no assunto e dá óptimas dicas

O mais importante para quem não tem jardim (como eu) é saber que os bolbos também se dão bem em vasos e pode-se misturar espécies por que são bons vizinhos. Só é preciso ter cuidado e não saturar a área toda dando algum espaço às plantas.

Algumas espécies são:

• Crocus
• Anemonas
• Jacintos
• Campainhas-de-Inverno
• Tulipas

Quando as flores todas murcharem é só cortar a planta a nível do solo e desenterrarem-se os bolbos. Esperamos que eles sequem completamente o resto das folhas ao ar livre e podemos guarda-los para o ano seguinte no lugar fresco e escuro.

Ao pesquisar este assunto encontrei uma actividade realizada pela Escola 1º Ciclo e jardim de infância de Coucieiro que achei super fofa!

Os jacintos também crescem quando em contacto com a água, mas tem que ser em recipientes especiais porque a água só pode tocar na ponta do bolbo. Neste blog podem ver um exemplo dos vasos super especiais que podem ser utilizados Pequenos Nadas..... 

No sábado vou comprar os meus primeiros bolbos de jacinto naquela lojinha de sementes perto do Bolhão e experimentar no que dá! Tenho é que conseguir um pedacinho de carvão... Talvez nos senhores das castanhas ;).

Calendário de Sementeira - Legumes

Calendário de Sementeira - Flores

Dicas - Cactos

Os cactos de conserva

"Verificou-se que as cactáceas evidenciavam excelente comportamento quando cultivadas em latas de conserva. 

O latão parece ser benéfico para o seu crescimento. É pouco estético, mas muito eficaz. Encoberto dentro de outro recipiente mais decorativo, o que não é visto não é conhecido."

in Plantas de interior para todas as estações, Patrick Mioulane

Links úteis:

• Tin Can Succulents

 

5º EDIÇÃO - CURSO DE FORMAÇÃO EM ILUSTRAÇÃO CIENTÍFICA

5º EDIÇÃO - CURSO DE FORMAÇÃO EM ILUSTRAÇÃO CIENTÍFICA
Universidade de Aveiro

CANDIDATURAS ABERTAS1ª fase – 24 de julho a 4 de setembro de 2015
2ª fase – 10 de setembro a 5 de outubro de 2015

Início das aulas: 9 de outubro de 2015

Informações:
http://www.ua.pt/formacao/
http://www.ua.pt/formacao/PageText.aspx?id=16362

AGOSTO e SETEMBRO - Calendário da Época das Sementeiras

AGOSTO e SETEMBRO

Semear: Acelgas, Agriões, Alfaces, Beterrabas de Mesa, Cenouras, Chicória, Coentros, Couve-Flor, Couves de Folhas, Couves Lombardas, Couves de Repolho, Couves Tronchudas, Couves Pencas, Espinafres, Feijões, Nabos, Rabanetes, Salsa, Segurelha, Tomilho. Relvas, Luzernas, Trevos.

Flores: Açafates de Prata, Amores-Prefeitos, Assembleias, Bocas de Lobo, Calceolárias, Flocos, Galhardas, Gerberas, Gipsófilas, Godétias, Lobélia, Malmequeres, Margaridas, Papoulas, Piretro, Prímulas, Sálvias, Statice, Saudades, Sempre Vivas, Verbenas, Violetas.

Flores (Bolbos): Setembro Amarilis, Tulipas, Anémonas, Frésias, Ixias, Íris, Narcisos, Crocos, Andorinhas, Jacintos, Ranúnculos.