Home and Garden Friday - 'Rooting' My Practices

While I have not yet ventured out into the yard to work on my CHAOS which abounds outside (nasty, nasty summer cold), I have been doing some inside gardening. 

My hydroponic unit has supplied me with a fairly constant supply of fresh lettuce. To date, I have harvested about 1/2 a pound of lettuce. While that might not sound like much, when speaking about lettuce it is a lot! 

A few weeks ago when I harvested some herbs to dry, I clipped the younger tips of the rosemary branches and stuck them in water to root. 

To be honest, I have tried rooting rosemary in the past without much luck. In fact, I think zero luck would be the most honest answer. The cuttings are about 4 inches long and I stripped the leaves off the lower portion of the stem and stuck them in a little half pint mason jar. It has been sitting on the hydroponic unit, so they get plenty of light. 

To date, I have eight cuttings which are sprouting. I am going to give them another week or so and then put them in a pot with some coco coir and potting mix. Hopefully, I can baby them along and have several rosemary plants to set outside next spring.

Another 'project' I have going on inside is with the ginger I brought back from the field day I went to on the 3rd of September.

I have 30 pieces of baby ginger all nestled down in coco coir. I have covered them with a layer of coco coir and there is a plastic 'dome' on the tray to help hold in moisture. I have a second small bucket where I repotted a small clump of ginger I had pulled up to use as an exhibit in a program. I trimmed off the existing leaves and hope the eyes on the ginger will sprout. So far, it seems to be going well after less than a week in the coco coir.

On my list of 'stuff' to do, I really need to go outside and look at my vanilla orchid. It needs some help, especially after the cats had gotten to it (they love the coco coir pole it was on). I will probably bite the bullet and cut up the orchid and try rooting the pieces to start over again.

I also need to take a look at my 'Queen of the Night' cactus and figure out what to do with it. It definitely needs some TLC - as in, repotting into some decent soil mix. 

But in the meantime, I am still trying to shake this stuff cold, or whatever it is. Maybe I should dig up some of my other ginger and make some nice, hot ginger-lemon tea and think about my to-do list.