Terrarium!
We’ve had this old, empty terrarium kicking around for years. Uncle B’s mum gave it to him. I’ve always wanted to plant it up, the problem is…I have a purple thumb.
That’s what my mother told me, anyway: everything I touch dies. That’s not really fair – someone used my cucumbers to put out a greenhouse fire. They were doing fine before that. After the incident, I lost the will to horticulture.
Plucking up my courage, I decided to give it a shot. Looking into it, though, you need a little of a lot of things – soil, gravel, charcoal. I gave up and bought a terrarium kit on Etsy.
I think Uncle B, talented plantsman and keen gardener, is a little disgusted with me. You pay *way* over the odds for everything when you do it this way. But I had it all parceled out for me, just right – see above – including four nice little plants.
And moss! I love moss.
I’ve planted everything up. When everything settles in, I’ll take an ‘after’ picture for you. Unless it all dies…then you’ll never hear a word about it again.
Tomorrow. Six WBT. DEAD POOL ROUND 154.
Posted: July 14th, 2022 under personal.
Comments: 11
Comments
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: July 14, 2022, 8:10 pm
Best of luck to you, Stoaty!
The lady of the house here won’t let me have a terrarium like I had years ago. It was a lovely thing built up in a small aquarium tank. It had four different mosses and some miniature ferns and several Dionaea muscipula, better known as Venus flytraps. What the lady objects to is the (almost) closed ecosystem I established by keeping a breeding pair of cockroaches in there, too. Every few days I’d drop in a piece of hot dog to feed the roaches. The roach poop fed the mosses and ferns. And every so often the big roaches made a passel of little bitty roaches to feed the flytraps.
Instant fun! Just add water!
NB: If you try this be sure to seal all cracks well to avoid loss of fauna.
Comment from durnedyankee
Time: July 14, 2022, 8:56 pm
There’s always Sea Monkeys!
Entertaining!
Teach them to do tricks!
I once had a green thumb, it fell off after being over watered.
Comment from QuasiModo
Time: July 14, 2022, 9:07 pm
I hear Chia pets are coming back into fashion if this doesn’t work out for you SWeasy 🙂
Comment from BJM
Time: July 15, 2022, 5:55 am
I have a couple of 10 gal lab carboys and they make fabulous terrariums. The trick is once it creates its biosphere and the glass clears…leave it be.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 15, 2022, 1:23 pm
I’m staring at your comment, Uncle Al. I’m not sure if I’m overcome with admiration or disgust. You choose.
Comment from 50srefugee
Time: July 15, 2022, 2:11 pm
The cucumber incident inexplicably reminds me of Spider Robinson’s story about a would-be courtesan in a society of plant-based aliens who simply could not be trained in high society etiquette. “You can lead a horticulture, but you can’t make her think.”
Comment from Some Vegetable
Time: July 15, 2022, 4:52 pm
🎶
This is the dawning of the Age Of Terrarium…
Comment from LesterIII
Time: July 15, 2022, 5:53 pm
I had a similar terrarium setup, Uncle Al, with the addition of a pitcher plant (of the cobra variety). I had a connected ant farm adjacent. Ahhh, the 80s!
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: July 15, 2022, 7:16 pm
Stoaty, I think the key determinant of your reaction would be your attitude about cockroaches. If you don’t go completely bonkers the way my wife does when she sees one, then you may well come down on the positive side. What I did, in essence, was move a little bit of “life in the wild” indoors. What was going on inside my old terrarium was pretty much what was going on down by the creek.
Comment from S. Weasel
Time: July 16, 2022, 10:10 am
I have lived in two homes where cockroaches were out of control. I’m not phobic, but I hate the little bastids.
I would have thought you’d end up with *way* too many roaches.
Comment from Pupster
Time: July 16, 2022, 11:06 pm
Nobody is going to ask how to extinguish a burning greenhouse with a cucumber?
Is this some bit of common knowledge of which I am ignorant?
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