On the third day

Let the earth sprout vegetation, plants yielding seed!

Hibernation

A select few have been chosen and moved indoors for the winter. Some of these plants just started producing peppers. They may continue producing for a few more weeks but will probably go dormant soon.

If all goes according to plan, I'll be able to put them back outside in April and grow some gigantic pepper plants next year. More likely scenario is we will grow tired of having pepper plants filling our bathrooms for the next 6 months -- and/or forget about them -- and they will end up in the trash can.

Not sure what we're going to do when it's time to start next season's seeds. Perhaps it's time for the growhouse to expand?

Growhouse resurrected earlier than planned?

Somewhere between the weather forecast and the sports talk I heard a random "expert" on our local radio station this morning talk gardening tips. It was strange, as this station usually just repeats exactly the same thing every 10 minutes. Traffic is on the 8's (12:08, 12:18, etc) which is the only reason I listen; there's about 8 minutes of commercials and maybe some sports talk to round out the rest of the 10 minutes. Usually I have to listen a good 30 minutes before I remember to pay attention to the traffic report rather than thinking about things like how much I love nachos or how badly I need a nap. But it's all cool, because in half an hour you go about 2 miles in DC traffic, so no big deal.

Anyway.

He claims I should bring in all my pepper plants now. I don't have a nice sunny window as he recommends but I do have a decent sized grow house just waiting to get back to work.

His theories were -

• If you bring pepper plants inside they will last through the winter and be even bigger and better when next season rolls around. He claims his have lasted 8 years.
• If you wait too long to do it, you will be half asleep when you hear the frost warning and be too lazy to do it at all.

I do have quite a few in transportable pots that I can just toss in the bathtub/grow house. Many of the peppers are in the garden, but their understudies remain on the deck, in tiny pots. It's tempting. Not sure what I'll do with them once it's time to start the seed growing again. Buy more grow lights?  Dear Santa....

Honest, officer, it's for the tomatoes.

Why is my shower glowing?

Today we MacGyvered some grow lights with random parts from Home Depot and some pink twine I found in the garage.

Admit it, you're jealous.

I now have two showers that have been unused for years that are finally serving a purpose.

We also bought a tiller kind of like this one. I have a feeling once we fire that up, nothing is safe. We shall conquer the land!