Hi! Just saw this team when looking for one centered on growing plants. Nice to meet you all!
I'm Elaine and my "gardening" is done inside my apartment and on my patio. My ideal living space would be a close to a dome-like conservatory as possible with the rooms necessitating privacy on the inside of the home and the rest of the home being an open layout with plants everywhere. I think I could live quite happily in a big greenhouse as long as the interior core were set aside for private areas or areas not needing light (mainly bathrooms, closets, etc). Then I could have access to every type of light all year round and fill the perimeter of the home with abundant orchids, tropical plants, herbs, etc. With that much space, I could probably even fit in an organic garden. Of course, staying strictly organic's hard when you're bringing new plants in - like new orchids. They sometimes come with hitchhikers.
My current apartment has south facing windows on the end of it containing the living room & dining room. I get direct sun (and the reflection off the pond out back) in the winter and no direct light in mid-summer. So my orchids sometimes grow on a schedule opposite to the climatological seasons. Ha! I have about 20 orchids - both high and low light, too many spider plants to count (aka cat fodder), 4 plumerias, 2 Christmas cacti, 3 polka dot plants, 3 Haworthias, 2 tillandsias, and a sansevieria for good measure (which needs division). I also like to grow herbs but couldn't get rid of some sort of soil mite on my peppermint when I brought it in for the fall so wound up getting rid of all my herbs. I've got fresh potting mix and plan to plant seeds (rosemary, thyme, basil, & catnip) in them in the next few days. If I don't get the seeds in soon, I'll lose the direct light and then I'll have to grow them outside if I want to start them. After having trouble getting rid of the outside bugs this year, I don't want to move my herbs out for the summer if I can avoid it. Oh - when I keep up with it, I also have a small dish of rye grass growing for my 2 cats to chew on. They sure love that!
I'm on SP with the same goal as most people on here - to be healthier. For me, that means increasing my physical activity level, socializing more, and eating healtier. At first, I was obsessing over losing weight - counting all my calories, etc - and now, I find that if I take a lower keyed approach to it, I lose even more weight just by relaxing and doing common sense healthy behaviors. It's ironic but, for me, taking the pressure off the weight loss aspect, is helping me feel the freedom to engage in the very behaviors that promote weight loss.
I look forward to learning about plant-growing and sharing support on this health journey with you all!
-Elaine
| current weight: 248.6 |
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