Indoor gardening?

Well, crapola. I blew the interview. (waahhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!      )

I was having trouble sleeping the night before and so I turned the radio on to listen to BBC4, and darned if they didn't cover Rump's state of the state of the state speech. Now, rather than turning it off, like a moth to a flame I listened to the coverage. SO, about an hour's sleep, and was pretty much babbling when I walked into my interview.  I should have been able to "ace" it, as the tech test part was correcting grammar, spelling, and punctuation in a badly written paragraph, adding/subtracting/multiplying/dividing a series of two-digit numbers, and a mock mail-merge document. The interview part was where I blew it - seriously, stumbling for words, stammering.... darn it anyway. I ~HATE~ it when I do that in an interview.

Oh, well, the pain will be over in the next couple of days - they want to make a decision quickly.

And at least it looks like we've got another Kennedy in the pipeline. I do hope we manage to keep this one alive long enough to fix things. 

Hey, it’s not over ‘till the fat lady sings!  And at the very least, you’re getting some good interview practice. 

Yeah, that was a weird one, too. Brought me into a group interview in a room and faced me directly into the streaming sunlight (what there was of it) so I had to adjust my chair back a few feet to avoid the light.

Have another ap in that has just closed, for another job I could do well. We'll see. Note to self: take drugs if necessary the night before an interview to get proper sleep!

Well you never know Nan. Hang in there!

Nan, I recently had the biggest screw up interview of my life.  I know the pain!  I described myself as a GOAT.

But yeah, you aren't out until they say so. 

They let me know I was out after about 30 minutes.   

The fat lady bellowed. No second interview. The backup job ap also has just sent a "thanks but no thanks."  So, nothing in the pipeline now,  but am watching for suitable openings. May have to do as the lady at the NI office suggested when I signed up - contact a temp agency and work through them. Not to that point yet, though.

Back to the indoor gardening - our Jalepenos and Cayenne peppers are up (barely). The cilantro and parsley have come back from death's door and are doing very well, as is the basil.  I am really very pleased with this grow light!

The shelving should be here any day now, so I can get it properly set up and plant the bigger stuff.  One last shot - has anyone raised in containers a nice, black or dark tomato that is either determinate or semi-determinate, indoors? If so, which one did you raise and how did it work out? 

Also, has anyone actually purchased mint plants via the web? If so, were they worth it? (Did they actually do well for you? If so, which vendor did you use?) Dealing with trying to grow mint from seed is just a nightmare, so if I can find good stock I'd happy pay to have it shipped in.

Thanks!

Also, has anyone actually purchased mint plants via the web? If so, were they worth it? (Did they actually do well for you? If so, which vendor did you use?) Dealing with trying to grow mint from seed is just a nightmare, so if I can find good stock I'd happy pay to have it shipped in.

Thanks!

Yes, I have and I used the Victorian Nursery
https://www.victoriananursery.co.uk/Culinary_Herb_Plants/

I've only grown vine black tomatoes (big) so can't help you on that front, I'm afraid. 

Thanks. I emailed them about their compost and they were really helpful.  So if I don't get any other input from anyone, I'll go with them for the mints. 

The 5' tall wire shelves arrived yesterday, and the Daughter put them together for me. (She's been home with an evil cold, bored to death, so it was the high point of her day!) Light is up top, and I think I'm going to have to adjust the shelves a bit as the hot pepper plant we bought some time ago at Waitrose is already too tall for the bottom shelf as we have them set now.  The other plants are doing well, although now that their distance from the light has changed I'll have to wait to see if they stay happy.

The whole thing doesn't look toooo bad in the kitchen - I have a large piece of white muslin wrapped around it, top to bottom, to "keep the light" and warmth in - need to get one of those mylar reflecting blankets, I think, as it will be more reflective, although the white sheet is better than nothing.  Have also put sheets of aluminum foil on the floor underneath, so the light reflects back up to the plants.

Will have to see how it goes with the tomatoes. I was going to put a bucket next to the shelves and put the tomato plants in there, and then train them up the side of the unit. In the summer it will get a tremendous amount of indirect sunlight, but if memory serves tomatoes really want a lot of direct sun. So we'll have to see if the light can handle that. I'm hoping!

The Cayenne peppers and the Jalepenos are up and at the two-leaf stage, looking as if they are going to make more leaves soon.   Daughter wants to get some Nosferatu Pepper seeds, and grow one or two just for show, but I'm thinking that's a waste of our minimal space. But might do anyway.  We have the peppers started out, and later they will be transferred to by our front windows, which face south and get sun for a very long time all summer.  Had a Birdseye chili in the window since right after we came and it did fruit nicely - they are now dried and strung on thread and hanging in the kitchen "pantry". Unfortunately, we were unable to keep the plant alive over the winter.

Still not sure about tomatoes.  I bought some San Marzano seeds, and am now thinking that I really should go with Roma. They are not dark tomatoes, but they did very well for us in buckets. And since I can really only have two plants (that I'll have to keep pruned back), Roma made the smaller of the vines. And a lot of tomatoes. Hmmmmm.

Planting rocket and microgreens today.  Had Victoriana Nursery send a paper "catalog" of what they have, and it arrived over the weekend - photocopied pages of type, just as if it was 1972. Feel like I should have CSN&Y playing on the record player, since the daughter brought home Nag Champa from our local New Age Shop and I can just barely smell it. (It's sitting on a table in the hallway.)  Doing this is all very familiar. Granted it's 6,000 miles from the last place I did this, with photocopied sheets of plants, but.... 

Cool. The rocket is coming up. The  peppers are well up. The existing hot pepper plant is still making pods - apparently the fungus gnats are doing the pollination. I see a marigold today. The garlic chives are up.  The lily-of-the-valley plants are peeping through. 

Considering the weather guy says the next ten days are going to be brutally cold, it does seem like spring in my kitchen.