thank david suzuki (my version of god) things are sprouting!

 passing on my love of Coleoptera!

 poor guy was on his way out

 first time i saw him want bites of a sandwich so i just gave it to him! his taste in food changes drastically from week to week

one of the 3 zucchini seeds i planted has started! all i need is one!

I noticed the seeds on the ends of the baby shoots and i think these are the spinach rather than the lettuce.  the smaller round leaves could be the lettuce. oo i just googled it, it is the lettuce!

some of them are quite large already

these are carrot seedlings and that big thing might be a weed again...

put some eggshells down around my tomato plants..supposed to provide nutrients and ward off slugs. my poor tomatoes...not sure how many are going to make it. i didn't "harden them off" properly...they got bleached in the sun. i was leaving them out too long too soon. mostly out of forgetfulness and being busy and scatter brained. i still have a couple in pots inside that i can try again with if these all die

leeks

onions

then i saw a few flying insects landing on the garden...and decided to get my tulle out to protect at least some plants. the wire was from the dollar store and this stretch of tulle was 8 bucks so I think I will get 3 more for the other rows and cover them all like this

I start my experiment tomorrow! We are still doing it, just without the tanks. Instead we gave the ammocoetes a refuge to hide under and sectioned off the tank so that they can either swim around in this small area or hide under the refuge. The swimming time and their behaviour before and after the stimulus is released will be the deciding factor as to whether they can be behaviourally controlled by chemical repellents

after running trials with tanks and no refuge and sand and no sand and lights on and lights off we finally came to the conclusion that this was the best way because they felt safe under the refuge AND we can see them, which was a problem in even 2 cm of sand...they would dig in and completely disappear.

I will most likely be defending the fact that this experiment is artifical and not what they do in the wild, but all we are looking for is a VISIBLE response to a chemical repellent, and this is the only way to find out. Many experiments have tested animal responses in artifical environments and been published, such as one my professor showed me about crabs and their response to predators, which was conducted in a large plastic tank with no substrate.

germination!

I will be spending a few hours this week absorbing everything on this website. I am sad I didn't find it sooner!! I found it through these guys who are also awesome!

I just checked on my "soil patch" and it has officially become a garden! germination has begun!

 Radishes

 I think this is a weed...will know soon lol. Reminds me of "feed me" ..the plant in Little Shop of Horrors haha

 Cayenne pepper and used coffee grinds...supposed to keep animals away..we'll seeeeeeee

 Either lettuce or spinach..my mom said probably lettuce

 Cayenne border and between the rows. Should I have put it right ON the rows? Dunno.

my yearly spring cold has arrived...ugh

 doubt you can read my chicken scratch...modified garden plan...scaled down a LOT

 downloaded a new ebook..The Night Strangers

Ahahah best of Dan Aykroyd was on while I was at work....sketch comedy was sooooo different back then...compared to the "i'm on a boat" digital shorts that we have now lol

i soaked my seeds and then it poured rain and the power went out and i had a test to write and studied all day so they never got planted yesterday...soaked for an extra night. the lettuce and spinach already starteds germinating overnight!

zucchini, bush beans and radish

leeks

Now I am boiling a natural insecticide that I can spray around the garden on a daily basis. Any strong smelling plants like garlic ginger and mint boiled down and strained, add cayenne pepper and a tablespoon of castile soap per litre of liquid.

Whipped up an asian soup even though I had no appetite because of a horrible head cold that started yesterday and spread from my chest. Not fun!

Despite feeling like crap I finally sowed my seeds in more or less the layout I had written down (but in a much lazier fashion). I didn't really make perfect little rows of fingerholes and then gently drop the seeds in each, measuring the distance between them. It was more like throw fingertip-fulls of wet seads into the soil and then brush them around. Especially for the wee tiny seeds. We'll see how the lazy man's garden looks if anything actually grows, haha

Cucumber went here

There it is. 

I put bone and blood meal (nitrogen and phosphorus) in yesterday before it rained. Also hoed out the walkways and made mounds for the planting rows. I'm not sure how much that will help the sandy soil. I also bought some organic vegetable food that I can add to the dirt around the seedlings once they start growing.

The tomatoes are going to spend a few more days climatizing and then they too can be put out. I have one of those little hand garden shovels somewhere...

I also bought one more bag of manure and compost to transplant the peppers into bigger pots and they're going to stay inside in the mini greenhouse with me.

day 3 with no....some....caffeine? hehe

Ok so I drank a Diet Pepsi last night and I had some Vanilla Chai tea this morning. But neither of those have as much caffeine as coffee, both have less than half in fact. I don't feel like i NEED it to get through the day but i crave enjoying a hot drink or a cold drink at certain times of the day. So its mostly just habit breaking that i need to do. I had some dizziness and headaches on the first day and after those went away i experienced a lethargic and groggy feeling, but that also passed. That will be the only caffeine drink I have today and tomorrow I may not have any. I upped my water intake by a lot as well.

 my hang for the next year..and my microwave...should i learn to play foosball?

 classroom door over there

 loungey

 mmmm tobasco jalapeno hot sauce

 came home to a crime scene yesterday.

 SOMEONE (my cat Loki i assume) pulled all my pepper plants that took so long to germinate out of the pot...sigh

But some new ones have started! Not sure if you can see that, this was yesterday

 This is this morning!

 I had one surviving plant in this pot so I literally taped the saran wrap down. I hope that deters her.

My tulle covering my perennials (which are amongst grass and hard to see). Can't tell if it stopped the insect damage yet or not, it's still too early. Will have to find a way to prop it up higher soon as the plants grow

I have two major assignments due by Thursday and the preparations for my experiment are progressing. Going to be a busy two days. And then its the long weekend. I will be working and then going to David's Bridal in Michigan to buy a bridesmaid's dress with one of my best friends and the rest of the bridal party!

We sort of hit a road block with using glass beads as a substrate (the ammocoetes cannot burrow into them) so we have to use sand and maybe make the tank thinner so we can see their behaviour under the sand. It's sort of neat to be involved in something that's not really been studied before (I have seen studies about ammocoete movement under sand with tracking devices but never their reaction to "danger" chemicals)