I’m ready for winter — bring it on. I spent the entire day, from 9 in the morning until 11:30 tonight, putting my grow room together. I covered the walls and floor with heavy-duty plastic (to help keep the humidity up and the water out of the apartment downstairs). This was no simple job; I had to pull everything out, then work around the mess with huge sheets of plastic and a staple gun. I ran out of plastic twice and had to make extra trips to the hardware store. I put up racks for mounted orchids and my big staghorn fern to hang from, and re-hung the hanging plants. Then I brought 90% of my plants indoors, arranged them, purged them of bugs, repotted some, and watered all. The humidity was up nicely at 60% to 70%. If I can keep that going all winter, I’ll have lots of flowers and new growth on my orchids this year.
I did eat — Laird lured me out for a late lunch at an Irish pub on Bloor Street. On the way out, we waded through the Harvest Festival crowds one last time, and had a close encounter with an east Asian Elvis impersonator who was crooning ballads on a portable karaoke machine almost outside our front door.
Back home, I realized that moving things indoors meant everything on the deck needed to be re-arranged. So I put myself back to work and swung the corn broom around for a while. Though a bit less “dense”, the deck still looks nice — it’s just a little more roomy. I figure there’s at least another month to six-weeks of deck weather to enjoy.
I even paid “some” attention to my african violets tonight. I watered the droopy things, and spritzed them with Neem oil and insecticidal soap. They’re looking distinctly better…. maybe I won’t throw them away after all.
Yeah right.
POLLENATRIX 