Horticulture project

Not long after we moved here, we went to a Sears store to get a new battery for R's power drill. I mean, how on earth can I forget the pictures have been hung on the wall until they've been hung on the wall to forget? While R was looking at drills and drill batteries, the kids and I wandered around the store. There were some 'plants in a box' for 75% off. When the little lightbulb in my head flipped on, I thought it might be a good idea to get a couple. The kids and I can do this as a project one day and enjoy watching the flowers grow.

Last week, I 'found' them in the garage, so we sat down at the kitchen table yesterday to get-a-plantin'. The kit included a pot, dirt disk pellets, and bulbs. The instructions said to pour X amount of warm water onto the pellets, let it soak in, then break apart with a fork. Then you can plant the bulbs and eventually you'll have flowers. Hooray. Sounds easy and fun, right? My first kit contained two packages of pellets. There were two pellets to a package. I put all four of them in the pot and added water.


Nothing


Nothing


Nothing


I distracted the kids with lunch and we came back to the pot a bit later. Well, the top disk was certainly absorbing the water. Progress! I got a fork and poked around on it a little and I'm telling you - this stuff is apparently super freeze dried, dehydrated, and compressed wonder dirt. Just the edges of the dirt disks were really absorbing the water and loosening up, but the problem was that the pot was already full and over half of the dirt wasn't finished expanding. I opened the second box to transfer some of the dirt into the second pot, and realized that we were only supposed to have one package of dirt disks. Well, whoops. So I start to divvy it up, and I get dirt everywhere. The kids are literally jumping up and down wanting to help me 'move the dirt'. Nooooooo thank you - I don't need that kind of help on our little family project. I'll just do it. What? There would be dirt in the light fixtures and every single surface of this house - light carpet included.

So that I can technically count this as a group project, we planted the bulbs and placed them on the bar. The pots are cute, the bulbs had already started to sprout a little, so I'm feeling this great sense of accomplishment. Family togetherness - check! We water the bulbs and go outside to take a walk. Coming back in, it turns out that one of the pots leaks water. Suddenly, the price is making a lot more sense. So now there is dirty water on the bar and the dirty water has also run down both the back and front of the bar. So I get to clean that up. Yay! We've been in this house about a month and already I've put in more cleaning hours than in six months in Germany. Next time we'll just paint. Sheesh.