Spring in my step

Just like Eric Berger, I am taking the leap of faith in the cessation of frost for this season. I had brought home some warmth-loving marigolds from the neighborhood nursery and hung them out in my boxes as a welcome banner for spring.

The area wildflowers haven't emerged from their freezer burn yet, so I believe I have the only blooms for hundreds of yards around. I guess this is why the bees were partying at my place this past weekend. I hope there's no such thing as a hangover from binge nectaring.

Also this past week I've felt as if I'm reclaiming running as part of my life again. I've got jog intervals lasting as long as a mile out on the trail now. At this point my oxygen levels go into debt faster than the federal government and my knees have been praying for mercy towards the end of church service. It really is like starting all over again.

Here's a simple tip for beginners or (re-beginners): Simply imagine that your shoelaces are tied together. This has been keeping me from overstriding or trying to push the pace too fast. Also, if you trip and fall, you can tell people you're not clumsy, you're just really good at visualization.

For those of you who were following my Houston Running Calendar blog, I apologize for the lack of updates. Being sick had "taken my head out of the game" so to speak. A refresh for March and beyond is something I want to do very soon.

Personally, I am just happy to have a run event as a participant in my future again. See y'all at Rodeo Run -- giddyup!

Takes a Licking....

Readers who have been paying abnormal attention to my long-distance race reports in the past know that my pace always fades at the end. Sadly, I am the master of the positive split. With the Katy Fit training season officially under way, I've decided explore the possibility that a run/walk training path might actually lead me to a better pace.

After arriving later than intended and scrambling for a parking space at Terry Hershey Park, I jumped in with a small Red sub-group led by Coach Doug on a two miler using rough 10:1 intervals. Today this worked out to yield one walk break in the middle. This was followed by stretching and the workout finished with some plank holds. After mere seconds the planks had me wincing as my core was licked; I definitely have room for improvement there!

My door prize karma decided to show up today as my number was drawn for a CoolMax fabric Timex cap. The "keeps on ticking" slogan on the back could become a new mantra for me as the season moves forward.

Additional Notes:

• One of the post-workout speakers was there to spread the word about an anti-slavery 5K being hosted by Kingsland Baptist Church -- the Just Run for a Just Cause.
• Due to Marathon Sunday coming to Houston a couple weeks later than usual in 2011 and because of the uncertainty of the Chevron/Aramco lottery, Katy Fit will be keeping registration open well into August.
  
• After coming home I checked on my beer-bottle marigolds this morning and was pleased to see that one stem has sprouted root hairs in just plain tap water. There will be a transition to potting mix in its near future.
  

Can I propagate marigolds from cuttings?

The renovations in April threw a kink into my plans for the patio this past spring. The stress from being moved around and stuck indoors killed off all of the flowerbox plants except for one gold marigold. After being put back out in the sun, it flourished for a while, but now appears to be succumbing to some sort of disease.

I've had very limited success in sprouting replacement from seed -- as in exactly one plant from a whole envelope of seeds. So I'm going to take a shot at propagating new plants from cuttings. From this healthy parent plant, I snipped off three stems, nipped their buds, and immersed the cut ends into brown beer bottles filled with water. I used wadded paper napkins around the stems as stoppers to discourage evaporation and any chance of mosquitoes using the containers to breed.

Will I get roots in just plain tap water without the aid of fertilizer? Will the brown glass of the Abita bottles be enough to keep light from interfering? We'll find out in a few weeks.

B-b-b-back inside

One of the side hobbies that sprouts from running is obsessive weather watching as race day approaches. The first ten-day forecasts including marathon Sunday in Houston started appearing yesterday. Weather.com shows showers and lo-40s/hi-50s for the weekend that I'm to run the Aramco Half.

It certainly could have been worse. I have genuine respect for the runners, volunteers and spectators that will show up at Sunday's USA Fit Marathon and Half Marathon in Sugar Land. An arctic airmass arrived yesterday and is expected to push nighttime temps below freezing for three days straight. Yikes!

For now, I've retreated to the comfort of the treadmill. I managed a ten-miler on Wednesday night. This included several breaks for calf stretches to alleviate some nagging discomfort from the same achilles tendon that gave me bigger grief earlier this year. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty good. I think I want to sneak in one more in the double-digits before race day.

In advance of the cold snap, I evacuated my hanging pots (strawberries) and flower boxes (nasturtiums) off the patio. As far as they're concerned, this week will be a balmy one as they spend time basking in the fluorescent glow of the kitchen lights. One strawberry plant is even in the middle of fruiting.

I'm already thinking ahead to what I want to do with the patio when warmer weather returns. Part of me thinks that just sticking to flowers would make my life easier. The tomatoes did somewhat OK, but demanded daily watering. Leafcutter worms massacred my Swiss chard. The most successful food crops out there in 2009 were the green beans and green onions.

Well, the spearmint is a runaway success, too, but I'd like to find more uses for the leaves other than generating an endless supply of mojitos!

Fall opens with a bloom of bullet points

• There's no doubt now; autumn is firmly in gear. The air is cooling. The calendar has flipped to October. Pumpkins and (artificial) Christmas trees are prominently on display at the local plant nursery.
  
• I've updated my running calendar blog with a lot of events coming up in October and November, many of which seem to be new -- at least to me. H-Town runners, have fun scheduling your weekends.
• I've already signed up for the Celiac Run and the Energy Capital Run; it's always nice to be able to support races that are in easy reach of home. I'm still far, far off my peak speed from the spring. Anything below a 40-minute 5K will be acceptable right now.
• Spearmint has earned my respect. A plant which I thought had been neglected to death during the brutal summer heat on my patio has sprouted fresh leaves as fall has started. I'm rewarding it with a larger container that won't be so prone to drying out.
• My crop of Swiss chard was totally overrun by some sort of leaf miner bugs that ripped holes in the foliage, then stripped them clean. It only took a week. The devastation was so complete that the barren stems that remained reminded me of those pictures of the timberlands surrounding Mount Saint Helens after the mountain blew up. After raising the white flag, I've planted nasturtium and cilantro seeds in those containers instead. Maybe they'll be less appetizing to pests.
• Speaking of seeding, fall is supposed to be the proper time to sow wildflowers for next spring's bloom. Within the view from my patio, there is a patch of earth just outside the apartment complex that is just growing some very ordinary weeds at the moment. I am having thoughts of doing something to help it become more interesting in the future....
• I'm glad to see a new season of The Amazing Race. I'm still hoping that the producers will shed the manufactured drama that infects just about all "reality TV" and revert back to a focus on team logistics and problem solving that brought me in as a viewer in the first place. It's a faint hope, to be sure.
• The CR-V clocked its 175,000th mile this week. I'm looking forward to posting a long-long-term test drive report in a few months once she hits her 10th birthday. It's been a pretty good ride so far.

Even Eden had a serpent....

Whose idea was it to live next to a gazillion acres of parkland again? Oh, yeah -- that was mine!

I was crouched down, tending to the bean plants on my patio when I heard a faint hissing. Looking down, I saw a tan-colored snake just inches away from my leg. I reacted by springing up and back, and then quickly ducking back inside the patio door.


Once I reassured myself that I was out of danger, I grabbed my camera and took the photos above. As I prodded my unexpected guest off the patio with a broomstick, a funky odor filled the air. I thought a sewer line had backed up somewhere, but after a little online research, I found that this was the "calling card" of the water diamond back snake. It releases a stink when it feels threatened. While this critter wasn't poisonous -- this area's venomous snakes are the copperhead, the cottonmouth and the coral -- it did do a good job of startling me!

Just earlier in the month, I came home to find a migrating colony of bees swarming around the same patio. Yup, living closer to nature has been interesting!

Otherwise, the patio garden itself is chugging along with production. The swiss chard is producing its first broad leaves, which I used as the foundation for a salad. Atop the chard and baby spinach, I piled on apple slices, strawberries, and raisins:

And green bean production is in full swing. Here's the season's first harvest, sauteed in olive oil and garlic before being paired with a cajun blackened salmon filet:

The only crop that hasn't made it to my plate yet is the roma tomatoes. They have some small, green fruits on the vine, though. So far they seem to be requiring a lot of effort to tend and water, so I'm interested to productive they turn out to be.

Berry fresh

With the transition from spring into summer, the apartment garden is definitely looking productive. My previous worries about what might grow on my half-day-sun patio have melted away as the mercury is hitting the upper 80s on a consistent basis. It seems so obvious now, but all the plants were simply waiting for warm weather to truly thrive.

I picked my first two fruits from the Quinalt strawberry plants. They were luscious, tender and had a really nice fragrance. The roma tomatoes are developing small green fruits of their own. Down on the pavement, the Contender bush beans have sprouted their first pods and the Swiss chard is finally starting to resemble some real eating greens. I look forward to sampling these in the next couple of weeks.

Meanwhile, to celebrate the first "harvest," I had a little ice cream. I took some scoops of Breyers vanilla and topped them with sliced almonds, banana, and the just-picked berries. After drizzling a little maple syrup over the top, it was perfect!

Rising

Last weekend's planting of shriveled up bean and Swiss chard seeds have turned into this weekend's tender green sprouts in my patio containers. Life rising is a beatiful sight.

My Miles Game teammates on the RW forums likely will be relieved to know that I won't be posting a painted goose egg to our total this week. I've made a few short runs -- capped off with a four-miler at a steady 10:30/mi pace -- and haven't had any tendinits to complain about. I won't push it much harder or farther than that for at least a few more weeks. This weekend is all about new life and it does sort of feel as if I'm starting a new running life again.

As a sort-of random thought, Gran Torino was a great, great movie in my opinion. It's probably completely out of the cinemas now, but the DVD is supposed to be released in June. I know it might be strange to talking about a Clint Eastwood flick on this Paschal morning, but I was reminded of it because it's also a story of someone offering a sacrifice of self so that others might have life.

Happy Easter, y'all.

Crashing down

This past week I logged zero running miles. Not a one. I suppose it was bound to happen at some point, especially following a goal race like last week's half marathon. I could probably rattle off excuses, but I won't bother. If it bothers me enough, I think I'll be running again soon. It's that simple. I think just having to type this paragraph will be motivation enough.

In sad news on the patio gardening front, I think I have my first official casualties today. One of the ceiling hooks gave way and a strawberry plant came crashing down, taking a railing box down with it. I've attempted to re-pot all the plants, but I think at least one of the impatiens isn't going to make it after all of its stems were snapped. I'm not too concerned about that one, but if the strawberry doesn't recover, that would suck. All of the hanging plants are now suspended on stouter hooks set into a wood beam instead of drywall. Hopefully this won't happen again.

Belief of Suspension

Today I set up the third and final level of my patio garden. Last night I was thinking about how feasible it would be to suspend some ivy or other greenery. Then a couple of things happened.

First, after living here for several months, I finally noticed that there were three small hooks set into the ceiling above the railing. A previous tenant had saved me a little money/labor.

Second, I remembered that tomato plants are vines, ones we normally directionally discipline with stakes and cages.

So I picked up three hanging planter containers, more soil and one more plant -- a Quinalt variety strawberry. The Quinalt is supposed to be an everbearing that grows rootless runners. Joining the strawberry in suspension are the two roma tomato plants that were sharing the ground containers with Impatiens. I'm hoping that I'll be able to look outside my window at dangling fruit later in the summer. Since they're suspended in the air, I shouldn't need to stake any of these plants, nor worry about any pests having easy access to them from the ground.

The big wildcard remains the sunshine. I like my apartment's northeast exposure for it's potential to keep my air-conditioning needs to a minimum. But less than half a day of sunshine could hold back all the fruit-bearing plants. Ah, the suspense . . . what will happen to our plant-agonists?

The picture in this post was taken from the stairwell landing, looking down on my plants.

Ground Floor Expansion

Tonight I launched the second part of my patio garden. As I mentioned yesterday, I was going to attempt tomatoes despite having direct sun in this location for less than half a day. While browsing the starter plants in the garden department at Walmart, I recognized that one of the peat pots had more than one plant in it:



Who could resist a two-for-one deal? When I got home, I cracked open the pot, confirmed that these were indeed twins, and carefully untangled the root balls from each other:



I may have risked some serious root shock in both plants, but even if the gamble fails completely, I'm only out $3.50, right?

After a night of sleep, I woke up this morning, looked at the Impatiens I planted last night and had decided that there was no way having the plants only three inches apart was going to turn out well:



So I halved the number of plants in each box from six to three:



The evicted Impatiens were transplanted down into the new round containers sitting directly on the patio. The flowers' new assignment is to surround the tomato plants that I planted in the middle:



The Impatiens are now about ten inches away from each other. I bet they'll appreciate the extra room. Meanwhile, down in the round containers, I am counting on the Impatiens staying less than a foot tall, while the roma tomato plants shoot for higher altitude. We'll find out this spring and summer if they can all get along!

Growing Impatiens

Other than an outdoor thermometer, my apartment patio has been barren since I moved in. On a whim, I've decided to attempt to launch a little garden project out there to liven things up.


The challenge of this location is that it is an eastern exposure. And even some of that morning sun is obstructed by the nearby handiwork of the Texas Department of Transportation. Let's just say I'm not living here because of the view. In my online searches for easy-to-grow species for the spring/summer season that can tolerate both "bright shade" and Houston weather, one name kept appearing -- Impatiens.

Tonight I hung a couple of window boxes off the railing and planted some seedlings with a bright pinkish-red hue. Total project cost was a little under $50. I put six plants in each 24-inch box, as if I'm counting on some of them dying off early. In the event that all of them live, there's going to be some intense sibling rivalry in those containers.

So the patio garden begins with the Impatiens, or as I like to call them, my "safe bet" plants. The next move I'm plotting is a riskier one: I'm thinking of attempting to grow normally sun-loving roma tomatoes on the same patio.