The Ranch Winter Garden--Inside...

I'm always jealous of people who have a viable, real outdoor winter garden.  Someday (maybe not at this house) I'd like to have a greenhouse, or even a small "green box" so that I can grow spinach and tomatoes year round...but at the moment our winter garden is limited to what lives inside.  Not much food growing inside at the moment, maybe that is a project for this weekend.  I did impulse buy a packet of spinach seeds at Target the other day...thinking that maybe I can plant them outside in a few weeks?

This is my aloe plant.

I bought it, as a 2 inch tall, sickly, clearance item at home depot for about $1.  He has outgrown several pots and is well on his way to being sacrificed to the yard.  Although, since he is next to Liberty's kennel, occasionally Liberty helps by nibbling off branches.  Alice The Cat also likes to eat the aloe...maybe that is what makes her coat so silky.  Those are Mr. Ranch's ski racing gloves from high school by the way.  Yes, he does still wear them. Yes, they are held together with duct tape.  Yes, I have purchased many "replacement" pairs over the years.  Yes, he continues to wear the high school pair.

In the same category of rescued plants are these cacti and this ivy..both rescued from the clearance bin and dragged home--the cacti have actually outgrown their original containers and had to be replanted into the larger pot.  The pink flowered plant was a birthday present from the family.  I noticed after I took these pictures that the cacti are blooming--you can't see it in this picture, but they have pretty little yellow flowers now!

This container of dirt is actually cilantro...really.  I just planted it this week.  Last winter I had a decent crop, but when I harvested it realized how little there really was...but a nice addition to a bowl of guacamole in any case.

Then, we have this mysterious plant.  It is supposed to be a Christmas snowball plant, or something like that.  The first year I had it there were gorgeous (smelly) flowers.  Every year since then the green part has grown, but not flowers.  This year I wasn't sure that I would even get greenery, since it didn't even start to sprout until after Christmas.  We'll have to wait and see what happens, I guess.



And finally is my little pine tree...he was on sale at the grocery store right before Christmas, complete with little Christmas bulbs and a little star on the top.  We used to have a slightly bigger tree of the same kind, but Tigger kept using it as a litter box.  I'm hoping this one survives better on the counter. Tigger, you better stay away from this one or you might not survive to write another Christmas letter.  Seriously.