R.I.P Stevia….and it was doing so well

I mourn the loss of my Stevia plants with a frustration and irritation. I have read all over the place that Stevia is hard to grow from seed, however, after searching for almost a month to find some seeds locally, I purchased a pack of ten measly seeds for almost four dollars! Are you kidding me, these things must be like gold. At that same time I also purchased a pack of Spearmint seeds, which for some reason, are also incredibly difficult to come by in this region. To my dismay, the Spearmint also contained very few seeds. I planted my little seeds and diligently cared for them as they sprouted and grew. As I read more I learned how lucky I was to have four strong little seedlings from those ten seeds I planted, and nearly all of the Spearmint seeds had germinated and I think I had eight or ten baby Spearmint plants as well. Tonight, the dumb-arse cat that I am cat-sitting, knocked down and killed all of those healthy little seedlings. They are smashed behind a greenhouse table and a window and any attempt I make to rescue them is going to result in their complete demise….so I must say so long, and hopefully I will find these seeds again. (clearance season on seeds, so I will rush out tomorrow and hope they are not all gone). I am irritated by a general lack of respect for my plants and garden by my visiting pets parents. Every single time someone brings a dog to my house, a plant gets destroyed. Now the visiting cat is joining the torture. I love animals so much, but I am tempted to just ask people to leave their animals home at this rate. Today alone, two different visiting pets managed to destroy over twenty five seedlings….Grr….Argh! How do I get my friends to understand how frustrating that is, how much time, energy, and money I put into raising those little things? I cannot get that time back. There is nothing I can do about the lost Brussels Sprouts and Stevia plants. I really put a lot of heart into them and as they are destroyed, I don’t think it’s cute the way your dog is standing in my raised bed! Please manage your pets or leave them home! Well, there is always next year I guess. I do still have a patient part of my that thinks maybe I can try purchasing greenhouse plants of theses varieties yet for this year, but they are so much more expensive, and so much less gratifying!

On a happier note, I had a fantastic day building gardening planners for one of my girlfriends and I. They started out identical, and we are gonna sit down and compare them in a year to see how we have modified them. I think that will be quite interesting really. I put in a few pertinent charts, and made is realistic for outside use by placing everything in sheet protectors. She was pretty excited to get hers, and I started prettying mine up as soon as I had a chance.

I am anxious for the holiday weekend to come and go. I am hoping that with the onset of the last frost date, we will also receive some good, hot, sunny weather. We have a gutter leak that drowned some of my little Cherry tomato babies the last two days. I hope they dry out. So far they are hanging in there, but if we don’t get some sun soon, they are gonna wither and dye. I am anxious to get out to the beds and finish up my planting in the next couple of weeks, and I look forward to experimenting with the greenhouse and succesion planting. Well, I guess that’s it for now, it’s late and I should be sleeping. ‘night.