Power Plant - Harvest

Well, its been a while since I last updated you with my Power Plant adventure!  Good news, we have real parsley and a lot of it!

I never thought much of parsley before this project. Now all I think about is how can I use these beautiful, green leaves to liven up my cooking without becoming a pretty garnish.



The following are some great recipes that utilize my parsley:

Roasted Pork Loin

Boiled Potatoes with Parsley and Butter

Kwille's Kitchen... An Update

For a year now we have been updating our kitchen; and I'm finally getting to the point where I love to actually be in my kitchen. I'm sure all of you know what I'm talking about, months of my kitchen being in disarray makes creativity and entertaining pretty much go out the window.

We are so close to being done now, I'm so excited. The multiple trips to Home Depot, blood, tears, and continuous vacuuming/cleaning are almost to a close. I'm hoping by May or June that we are FINALLY finished.

Our Progress So Far...

Power Plant: 3 out of 10 Sprouts Ain't Too Bad

Well here we are two weeks later and out of the 5 parsley seeds I planted in the Power Plant, only 3 have sprouted and are actually starting to grow. The 5 basil seeds I planted started to sprout... then dried up...then molded.  (Note in the picture: Mold is on the left side of the nutrient sponge)

You may be thinking "this is not a good sign Kwille's wife, you should start over" or "throw the stupid thing away, hydroponics is for fools". Actually this is the best "crop" I've had so far since Kwille got this for me in April.  I'll keep forging ahead and hopefully I will be having a homemade meal with my three sprigs of parsley soon!

Power Plant - We FINALLY have sprouts

Okay, so after a week I finally have some sprouts that have decided to live (for now).  Unfortunately, Boone  ate the paper cover that protects the seeds in the beginning stages, so I've had to come up with my own paper cover. 

My basil sprouted first, but then shriveled up and died. Luckily over the weekend my parsley sprouted and it looks pretty good now.

According to the directions, I'm supposed to add the humidadomes over the sprouts to increase their growth... we shall see...

The Taming of the Spice Cabinet

For years, my spice cabinet has a been a complete mess: doubles and triples of the same spice (cinnamon and ginger are aparently favorites of mine), expired spices, and spices that I have no idea why I bought them in the first place.  Kwille and I have been updating our kitchen and while I was prepping our cabinets for painting, I noticed that my spice cabinet is an absolute mess, plus it doesn't help having glass front cabinets but that's yet another project in my near future.

After doing a thorough inventory of my spices, I found really cute containers at Target and found some clear self stick paper.  Using Photoshop Elements, I created labels and printed them out on the self stick paper and cut each label out.

Then after washing all of the containers, I was ready to fill them up! They turned out really cute, I plan on keeping the ones I use more often out on the counter since and it turns out that the spice colors really go with our new color scheme in the kitchen.

Power Plant - In the Beginning

For my birthday, Kwille bought me a Power Plant (Indoor Plant Grower). I've tried 2 times to get herbs to grow and it just isn't working, so I thought I would try one more time and document it.  This product uses hydroponics to grow plants instead of soil.

I've decided to grow Parsley and Basil:

To prepare our power plant, we must first soak then ring out our nutrient sponge (this acts as the soil) in distilled water and the liquid nutrient provided by the company.

Next we add the seeds, at least one inch apart from each in the nutrient sponge.

Once the seeds are added, we place the sponge in the power plant.

Next using the rest of the distilled water/nutrient mixture we add it to the power plant until it is filled to the max, literally... make the little ball float to where it says max. Put the lid on and we're ready to grow... hopefully.

The instructions suggest an east facing window...I do not have an east facing window, so I'm picking the window with the most sunlight, my office window. Plug in the power plant to get the hydroponics started and cover the top of the power plant with their nifty paper cap that protects the seeds and I'm ready to go!

In about three days time, I should have little sprouts shooting up!!

To be continued...