Plants for Budgies

I suppose I should give some feedback on how my plants are doing.

The white clover plant outdoors was doing very poorly for unknown reasons, while the plant indoors was doing well under a full spectrum bulb. They enjoyed chewing on clovers and the clover flowers from time to time. It takes about a month before you get flowers and you don't get many flowers. I think this one is best for outdoor in the ground sort of planting where you have more room to grow it. The seeds are not expensive either so reserving a part of your yard to grow this is nice. I sure wish I had a yard...

The pot containing carrots and radish did not fare so well when a mushroom kept popping up in there. I kept removing the mushroom since I don't want it to spread to my other pots. In the end, I took out 4" of top soil from that pot and now use it for the 2nd Jack-Be-Little pumpkin plant. My dogs sure enjoyed the radish tops. Even the budgies got it from time to time.

I also have another Jack-Be-Little pumpkin plant in a large pot outside of my patio. This plant has been growing well and has been a bit difficult keeping it on supports so it goes upward. It has been flowering for over a week now, but it is hard to say if any are the fruit bearing ones. Pumpkin plants have flowers of separate genders. Most are of one gender, the non-fruit bearing ones. So we will have to wait to see if I get any pumpkins before the season is no longer good for the plant. As mentioned above I have a smaller plant still on the patio. Once it grows up more I will put it outside.

The last of the plants are the greens. They are the broccoli, red chard, mustard, and spinach. These are not as big as I hope they would be so I will just leave them to grow some more. Maybe I need cooler weather for them too, so I may grow some more a little later to see how they fare. Either way I do pluck leaves from time to time for budgie entertainment (or dog chewing).

I do have millet and canary seed plants, but they haven't been doing much. They grew out like grass then nothing. Maybe they need more direct sun or something they are not getting on my patio.

All in all, growing plants for pets is a lot of fun. I do wish I had more room to experiment or even a yard. Lack of direct sunlight sure is hard to deal with at times and is limiting.

Fly Free

...

It is hard to say that my little Kon had passed on today way before his time. He showed no sign of being ill that I noticed and was fine when I went to work. I am very heartbroken that it happened suddenly and I don't know why. =( He was so young still. Benu will miss him dearly. =(

Fly Free Kon...

First Meeting

Benu and Kon meet each other face to face outside their cages yesterday. I set up a plastic container as a temporary play gym. It took a while before I got both of them to stop flying off it. They had some spray millet and finally calmed down. It was a nice chance to see personalities. Benu was quick to feel relaxed and started walking around. Kon was still frozen in place and was slower to warm up. Kon gives Benu the right of way. A few times they were touch beaks with Benu then preening Kon. I have yet to see Kon preening Benu. The day ended after about an hour of outside time. I am so thrilled that they both get along right from the start.

Quarentine is Over

On Tuesday the quarantine was finally over and Kon was put in the living room where Benu is. For now I have the cages stacked on top of each other. Kon has the bottom one and Benu has the top. I am also changing some of the interior of the cage adding more foraging and toys for amusement. I will wait some time for Kon to settle into the new arrangement before giving both of them some time outside the cage to socialize. I plan to keep them caged separately.

Dutch White Clover: Day 42

It has been 6 weeks now since I planted my white clover seeds. There was one plant indoors and one outdoors. Below is a picture showing you the development difference taken September 1st.

The large leaves are from the plant being grown indoors under a full spectrum lamp. The smaller leaves comes from a plant grown on my shaded patio. Same soil and watering. The quarter gives you an idea of the size the indoor leaves are growing. They are MUCH larger than the leaves of a wild growing plant. I am sure it has to do with lighting, but I think temperature also has an effect.

Here is today's picture showing that there is finally flower development. I will be watching to see how fast a flower fully develops and I hope there will be more to come.

I have been chopping clovers off as they are reaching too high towards the lamp bulb. Some are also provided to my budgies as a form of entertainment. Next week we will see how things go.

Dutch White Clover: Day 29

Plantings Update

It has been 2 weeks since I planted a bunch of vegetables and other things. So here is the update on the progress.

Above is a pot of white and red millets from my budgies seed mix. They are growing quite nicely.

This is a pot of canary seed grass which is also from my budgies seed mix.

This pot has radish and small carrots. I read that if you grow them both together, the radish will be ready before the carrots. We will see. The larger leaves are obviously the radish and the tiny slender leaves are the small carrots.

This pot was mainly for the Jack Be Little Pumpkin plant. It is probably too late in the year to grow it, but I figured it was worth a shot. Also, it seemed some of the corner space is going to waste so I put in some Spinach (upper left), Mustard (bottom left), and Chard (bottom right).

This pot has a ceramic little frog watching over them. It has Spinach, Mustard, Chard, and Broccoli (upper middle and upper right).

Well this pot was not planted 2 weeks ago but long ago. I can't recall when. It is my dandelion plant. You would have thought it should be growing crazy, but it is going slowly. I wonder what I am doing wrong growing this weed.

So it is time to try growing a few more things for the benefit of my little budgies. I just got my dwarf sunspot sunflower seeds today so here are the 3 pots.

Check back later to see how my patio garden grows. Also, soon Benu and Kon will be seeing each other for the first time. Kon will finally have his cage in the living room and be done with quarantine next week.

Dutch White Clover: Day 29

Ops, 1 day late doing an update. I am trying to update this progress every Sunday.

So far the indoor clover plant is growing awesome with huge clovers, but still no flowers. I wonder at what point flowers start since it has been about a month now. Oddly enough, the plant outside has very small clovers and low growth. I guess it doesn't like too much shade and needs light. More light, bigger the clovers I assume.

Dutch White Clover: Day 21