souvenir_kattunge's Journal

I was looking at the before pictures of my jade plant and I’m wondering what the hell happened. I suppose the stress and chaos of the construction has wrecked havoc on the plant. Poor thing. I hope that it will improve when I put it out on the balcony when the weather gets nicer and warmer.

At least there are little buds and leaves to show that it’s still hanging on.

I was hoping that we would have some nice healthy chilli and box pepper plants. Unfortunately Ull got into the window box and decided that he needed to uproot the wee seedlings. I will give it another try soon. Hopefully they’ll grow beautifully because now the sun is out and shining.

Construction ended and the plants are trying to get back to normal.
Ikea hacker had this great suggestion for a greenhouse, so we got ourselves a detolf glass shelf for the smaller jade plants, so they don’t have to sit on the window sill where it is very easy for Ull to knock them off.
Anyways.
We got a couple of new plants. I’ll add them as soon as I take some pictures. I also got a mini plastic green house and some seeds. Hopefully I’ll get that going soon.

Fredrik and I went to a couple of garden centres before he went off to Australia. We picked up some biological spray that kills the adults and larvae and some yellow sticky hangers. I hung up one of those sticky traps on our largest jade plant. After a couple applications of the spray, it seems that there is substantially less gnats. In fact, I am happy to say that our problem seems to be dealt with. YAY!

Now that the gnats have been taken care off, I plan on getting some more plants. The other day when I was at IKEA, I found this beautiful jade plant that had purplish leaves. I think I will get that the next time I am at IKEA.

I talked to my mom on the phone last night and told her about my issues with the fungus gnats. She suggested that I get myself some bug spray. I put the plant(s) into a plastic bag like a garbage bag, spray the plant(s) and then close the bag for a while. That way, the bug spray is contained inside the bag and the gnats DIE!

I’ll be doing that with my jade plants only since they seem to be the plants housing most of these gnats and since I don’t eat the jade plants. I don’t have to worry about Ull too much either ‘cause he is rather disinterested in the jade plants. Especially now that he’s got his cat grass.

I’ve planted about 6-8 seeds that have sprouted roots into the window box. There are tiny sproutlings but there has been so very little sun in the past few weeks. My basil plant is withering away. I’ve also been busy with our new kitten so I’ve been slightly forgetful in terms of watering. None the less, I hope that the sun will return soon and my poor plants will be able to go back to their former glory.

Fredrik and I got a kitten about 4 weeks ago. We named him Ull.

Ull discovered the window sill that I keep my smaller jade plants and the window box on. After I had gone to bed, he knocked over one of the smaller pot over. The pot is smashed and in the trash but the plant was salvageable. I put it in a glass of water. I had seen someone keep wee jade plants in glasses of water. I suppose it will stay there till I get a new pot. We need to look into a shelving situation for the plants.

The other day I discovered some bite marks on a few leaves of the largest jade plant. But nothing too serious. Ull has some cat grass now so he’s leaving the jade plant alone. Not to mention I’ve trained him with the spray bottle not to jump into the jade plant pot. Before he was trying to crawl into the pot.

The fungus gnat situation is getting a bit out of hand. They’re flying into my face and up my nose at times. Ok, so it’s not like there are swarms of them (THANK GOD!) but there are enough to be an annoyance.

The other day I finally got a spray bottle and I sprayed the soil of the plants with some water mixed with a bit of soap. Today I sprayed the largest jade plant pot with a rubbing alcohol and water mix. When I looked in the soil I saw little white slivers. I hope that’s the dead larvae but at the same time I don’t want to know ‘cause I think larvae and worms (although not earth worms) are just plain disgusting. I’ve also put some masking tape over the opening of the pot in hopes that the adult gnats will fly into the tape and get stuck.

I hope all this will work enough to keep the gnats to a minimal level.

The seeds that sprouted in the bowl and glass were transferred into my window box. Now they have sprouted wee leaves. I can’t wait till they get bigger. I planted a bunch of them. I guess now it’s just a matter of playing the waiting game.

I’ve also been putting spent coffee grinds on my plants. I drink coffee everyday and thought it was a bit of a waste to chuck the grinds. I read somewhere that coffee grinds make great soil and adds nutrients. Here’s hoping that the plants enjoy the coffee as much as I do.

I was cleaning up the flat yesterday and in the process of vacuuming, I knocked the glass containing the wee pepper plants off the set of drawers they were sitting on top of. Bits of dirt, glass EVERYWHERE!
Unfortunately I could not salvage the wee plants ‘cause there was just too many bits of glass. But not all is lost. I looked at my window box and saw that the scattering of pepper seeds were not in vain. So I’ll be transplanting those into their own proper container.
Today, after the cleansing of the kitchen and the laundering of the clothes, I’m hoping to germinate some chilli pepper seeds.