Tuesdate: Microgreenhouse

Each year I have the best intentions to plant a small home garden. I see instagram photos of the latest harvest of tomatoes from a friends garden or pickle jars ready to be filled with homegrown cucumbers and dill, and I vow that will be me.

And each year I end up with the same handful of resilient succulents, aloe vera, and - a more recent addition - cactus, mocking me, since these three species probably exist on a top ten list of plants that are impossible to kill.

Last year I optimistically purchased bags of potting soil that I dragged up to my second story apartment, browsed the local thrift stores for flower pots, and researched plants that can thrive in low sunlight from our north facing windows. I set up a small window garden for beans and herbs. I carefully tended the plants, watering them only when necessary, and was well on my way to picking fresh basil all summer long. (I still use an oversized ladle as a shovel, and keep my gardening supplies in the cupboard next to the vitamins, but I'm trying here.)

Everything was dandy. Until one day someone forgot to close the bedroom door before he left for work... and we came home to find a botanical crime scene of soil and uprooted green beans dragged throughout the entire apartment. That's what happens when you have two cats hellbent on destroying all plant life.

Since "the incident" there has been a defeated collection of empty flower pots in a corner on my balcony.

A few weeks ago I decided to overcome my gardening trauma, and bought a SOCKER greenhouse from Ikea. It isn't the sturdiest of Ikea designs, and I suppose I could just make one myself, but it's inexpensive, the size makes it apartment-appropriate and adorable-looking, and - most importantly - it's cat proof.

Excuse my dirty window.

Which brings me to our Tuesdate this week. I know that, in terms of dates, this week was a bust (why do you think I just talked about gardening for over four paragraphs?). My excuse is that we had gone away on the weekend. We had a mountain of chores to do, so we spent the evening romantically sprucing up our greenhouse by transplanting a cactus, planting microgreens, and spray painting flower pots on the balcony (soon to be home to more succulents, I imagine).

Better date next week!

It's hard to stay mad at those sweet little faces.