Delicious Dinner

I know twice in one day, but I just had to share this, it was so fast and oh so yummy! This is tortilla pizza with fresh basil, green onions, cherry tomatoes, sweet white onions, and some cheese and bacon for funsies. For this all you have to do is preheat the oven to 400 F and saute the white onions in a little olive oil. While I was sauteing the onions I laid down a layer of cheese, bacon, basil and green onions on the tortillas. Then I got the onions off the heat, putting them on the pie, then some halved cherry tomatoes finished it off. Finally it went into the oven for 10 minutes to crisp the tortilla and melt the cheese. I took this time to clean up. Upon opening the oven the most heavenly scent poured out and I knew I had to share this. Bon apetit!

New Basil From Pruning?

So this morning I woke up way too early fretting about my poor little basil plants. I couldn't stop thinking about an article I read that said you could get basil to sprout new roots if you take the clippings and leave them in a sunny spot in water for a few days. We'll see, I really hope this works because if it does I can prune these sprouts correctly from the beginning and it should make my plants look bushier, when I'll simply have multiple plants in the planter next to one another. Cross your fingers!

Worms and Pruning

 So today, I decided would be a good day to add some worms to my little garden and give both the green onions and the basil a little trim. Since my last post I have had to cut the green onions down twice because they were getting so long they were folding onto themselves and I used some of the basil for delicious caprese salad and some are drying in my closet.
  My five little worms I got from a worm farm on campus and I hope they will be able to keep the soil my plants are in nice and healthy. The little guy on the right kept trying to escape the lid, it was quite entertaining.

 
So this was my little garden this afternoon, I admit I did a little trim this morning of the green onions that were just too long but I did a second trimming when I wasn't running late for class.
  Below is the image after the trimming of the green onions, which will sprout up just like before and the pruning of my little basil plants. Now I've grown green onions before and I know how to trim them, but I want my basil plants to be bushier so I don't have to worry when I need enough to make pesto. After searching various blogs and magazine editorials I think I have the right pruning method down.

  So most of the sites said to cut the basil right above a
good leaf emerging from the stem, and that should promote growth of more leaves and a bushier plant. Now I'm not sure of this method for my plant for a couple reasons:
1. I do not have many good leaves further down the stalk because I accidentally picked them for caprese salad without thinking, so my plants may die
2. and I am also unsure of how this relates to plant age, hopefully my plants are still young enough to be properly pruned, and hopefully I didn't cut off too many leaves.

This is a better image of where  I did my cutting on the plant on the far left of the planter, chopping off the top and leaving a nice large leaf. For each plant I left some good large leaves hoping if I cut too much from one stalk, at least I'll have another to maybe sustain it. We'll see how they do in a week or two, cross your fingers!

My New Garden

So today I decided to start a little garden. With winter coming up, my favorite spices are going to be harder to find fresh so I went out today and got some to plant. 

My garden with basil on the left, my green onions in the center and some cacti on the right

I love my basil, it smells so good, but I worry it won't grow because my soil doesn't drain too well and most sites say it needs well draining soil. My green onions should grow fine, if not I can put them in a glass of water and get a few regrows out of them. 

Birthday Surprise!

The top of the bags, full of little balloons and a few big ones

So I wanted to surprise my friend and roommate for her birthday. I looked on pinterest and found all of these balloon avalanche ideas but none of the ideas seemed to have enough balloons for my satisfaction. I pondered how to give her the perfect avalanche and finally I came up with a solution. In our apartment we have very high ceilings and our doors open into our rooms so, I decided to tape a bag above the door, taped to the door and the walls to prevent the balloons from falling out. I also taped the trash bag (and a few grocery bags) in a downward angle to help the flow of balloons onto her when she woke up and opened the door. I used mainly water balloons filled with air, one because I liked the colors better, and you can buy them in packages of 100 at the dollar store. It wound up really working and I was so proud! The only thing I would change about this would be the trash bag size, a bigger trash bag would have been easier, maybe the ones you would use for raked up leaves, so I wouldn't have to use the grocery bags.

The finished product, I used an old box to keep the balloons on her side of the apartment