Well, Halloween is a few short weeks away, so I thought I would dress up the website to reflect the coming season. I chose this image, because when my husband and I first moved into our new home, we found a beautiful blue skull in the backyard. It is now sitting on the patio table in the sunroom.

I really like it, and it fits in well. Every Halloween season I drag out all my favorite horror films and enjoy having my own little Halloween fest. On my old entertainment site, I enjoyed adding my favorite 31 films with the intent of watching one everyday. That is usually the intent. However, I generally get to watch about ten of them before something attracted my attention. Perhaps, I will post a few on the newer ones next month. 

Meanwhile, I have set up my hydroponic systems with the usual herbs and vegetables. They are growing well. As for what they are, you can check out my previous posts, because today's plants are of the same variety as back then. I found that these plants grow easily, and are easy to maintain as well as being tasty additions to our diet.

Perhaps one day I will give you pictorial tour of the sunroom, and then tell you how I put it together. Since it is my first experience with a sunroom, there was a lot I had to learn about shielding the plants from the sun rays, its heat and humility, and also what are the right types of cooling and heating systems.  

You say, "Heating systems. This is Florida. Why would you need a heating system? 

Well, yes it is Florida, and during some of the past winters it has been pretty cold. Since it is my educated guess that this sunroom is not insulated, I believe it will as cold out there as it can get hot right now. Therefore, good portable cooling and heating system is very helpful. But more on all things sunroom on a later date. Right now, I am working on some minor things that will make the sunroom the perfect place to drink a cup of tea and watch the sun rise, read a book, or better yet, toast a brilliant sunset goodnight with a glass of wine. 

Until then,

Happy Halloween!

Future Posts

Hello, Darlings,

UPDATE: MAY 25, 2025

 When I wrote the previous post below, I started some come confusion. We wanted the help of family members during our move due to our advance ages and physical ailments. To correct the mistaken idea that we are alone and without help, I want to state that what we cannot do ourselves, we will have the help of professional movers. This move is just a little harder on us physically and the extra hands of family would be helpful.

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Because I have badly injured my left ankle, plantar fascia and Achilles tendon muscles on New Year ’s Day, I have not been able to work in my container garden outside, many of the plants out there have died. Now, we have to move to a new resident, and there is only the two of us to do the work, which meaning things will be made harder because I can only stand and move about on my foot for a short period of times. Depending on the activity, I use foot braces, my cane and crutches or wheelchair to get about.

I share this information, because until we are resettled in a new resident, there will no new post.

Until next time,

Chow, Darlings

Evelyn’s Indoor Garden: ‘Gardening Indoors under Artificial Lights’ Journal Entry April 7, 2025

  Monday, April 07.2025

Today, I am trying to root a couple avocado seeds. Instead of placing the seeds in a dark place like my first attempt two years ago, I have placed these two seeds on the top level of my large hydroponic system. I was tempted to place them inside the system, but I want to view the whole rooting process. As many growers know, Avocado seeds take weeks to root, so I added 1/8 teaspoon of rooting medium to their water. 

 

Sadly, my first attempt at rooting an avocado seed was technically not a failure. It rooted as expected, and sprouted as expected but after so many week, in a dark place, mainly out of sight, out of mind, as the old saying goes. What I ended up with was a very tall and sickly pale stem with dwarf leaves that no amount of nursing would bring it into good health.

Nevertheless, and on to one of my successful propagated plants, below is a current photo of the Ficus Benjamina (Wintergreen Weeping Fig Tree cuttings that I rooted back on August 18, 2023. The pot contains to cuttings that doing well. Sometime, perhaps, later this year, I add a few more cuttings to fill the pot and to someday match the mother pant.

 

Evelyn’s Twigs, Thyme and Stranger Things Garden Journal Entry 02/09/2025

 My adventures in indoor hydroponic gardening are progressing well, regardless of the power surges that occurred, Friday. Nevertheless, below are photos of the latest progress of the newest veggies and fruits I am growing.

They are as follows:

• Alpine Red and regular size strawberries - of the four regular size strawberries that I transplanted from soil to a hydroponic system, only one survived and it seems like it will grow to maturity and fruit. The same is true of the remaining two mini Alpine Red strawberries; although one plant is smaller than it sister
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• The Tangerine Dream Sweet Pepper plants are looking good, and although not all are seen here, they have several peppers on them. They will be mature and be ready for harvest when they turn bright orange.
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• The two patio baby eggplants have flowered, a lot, and now have little eggplants on them that are about 2/3 the size of chicken eggs. They are also a beautiful glossy purple.
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• In addition, I heard that tomato plants, especially the mini ones were easy to propagate from stem cuttings, so I tried it and the results are amazing.
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• The older tomatoes are still producing little Tiny Tim tomatoes and the new seedlings have gained their true leaves. This may appear to be a lot of tomato plants. However, in our house, they go quickly as snacks, cold plate meals of crackers, cold cuts, sliced ham, cheese and fruit (Chardonnay, anyone?),  casseroles, stews and in salads. There are also three pods of Swiss Chard seeds, which I may or may not transplants to soil in the spring.

I have also planted some baby cucumbers, wonder bell peppers and mini watermelons. The cucumber seeds were planted earlier and have already sprouted, while the bell pepper and watermelon should sprout within a few days.

These are climbing plants, so the hydroponic systems I am using are designed with attachable trellises that reach 28 inches in height.

It will be interesting to see how well these plants do.

Finally, like the lettuce, I am using one hydroponic system just for herbs. Some of the little sprouts are beginning  to show now. 

They are:

• Thyme
• Chive
• Dill
• Mint
• Rosemary
• Oregano 
• Sage,
• and of course some catnip for Sam.

Well, this is all for now. When there is more progress, I will add another post.

A Widescreen Online Review Plus Article

Evelyn’s Twigs, Thyme and Stranger Things Garden journal Entry 01/26/2025

 Today, January 26, 2025, I seeded some more ‘Tiny Tim’ tomatoes, so that we would have more this coming spring. The four older plants are still doing well, and although, they took four months to mature and are still putting out more tomatoes, they will not last forever. They look a little ragged, because I trimmed back the heavy leaf growth. We have been eating them with in casseroles and salads.  The Parris Island Romaine lettuce is tasty like regular romaine. 

Last night, I added four regular strawberry plants to one of the other systems. The expert say it is better to buy them, and then put them in the hydroponic system after removing the soil. They looked a little limped after I did this, but today they have perked up. I also have some hybrid cucumber seeds that I will try. They are the small variety used in most countertop hydroponic systems.

Keep in mind, I clean these hydroponic systems once a month, but filter the water in them more frequently, as the water and the liquid nutrients are the plants only source of food, which gets used up quickly depending on the plants needs. Therefore, and remember this, I know if there are problems.

Finally, if you have been following this journal, you know I rooted my ‘Angel Begonia’ in one of the hydroponic systems, because it had become too leggy. The photo below shows how well it is doing now. I also intend to germinate some flowers for spring as well.

Evelyn’s Twigs, Thyme and Stranger Things Garden journal entry 01/11/2025

 No entries were written in December 2024, because I wanted the plants to grow more before posting a new entry online. I would say that my experience with Hydroponic indoor gardening to date is successful with very little hiccups.

The plants are as listed below, not in order:

Patio Baby Eggplant
 

Alpine Red Strawberry

Tiny Tim Tomato

Lemon Thyme

Spearmint, Salad Bowl leaf lettuce on 2nd row

 

Tangerine Dream Sweet Pepper

Young Parris island romaine lettuce

 
Green onions/scallions

SsSee the video.   

UPDATE: As some of you may have discovered there is an embedding error between Google and YouTube that prevents viewers from watching YouTube without sign in or some cases viewing video at all Firefox. Therefore, I have added a share link for the above, However if you are using Firefox, you will probably need to sign in to your YouTube personal account. Let's hope that this embedding error is fix soon.

  Video share link

In addition, there are various herbs seeds planted. However they just beginning to spouted and are to see of camera. The store green onions were bought on October 30, 2024 and are still growing. One the leaves is budding; however, I will remove, so that it will not flower.

The lettuce in the larger planter is ragged, because we eat regularly for salad and BLTs sandwiches. While the Spearmint plants are regular trimmed and made into tea and my favorite summer evening drink, mint julep to keep the plant in control.

All in all my experience is successful.