Jagger's Fruitful Adventures

 Today I visited the grocery sections of Walmart, Target, and Publix. Below is my review of them.  WALMART: Going to Walmart, I know the quality may not be the best but the selection is good and this idea shined through. The benefit to Walmart is that you can buy a lot in bulk. As seen in the pictures below, there are bags of fruits and vegetables available for purchase as soon as you walk in the store. I appreciate this layout as it allows for people to have a wide selection while saving on some costs too. The refrigerated section was decent but needed to be restocked more often than it is. The variety is pretty normal, nothing special with all the fruits and vegetables you'd expect to find in a grocery store. If I was looking to cook for a party or was a food shop owner, I would frequent Walmart when looking to buy groceries for the week. TARGET: This was by far the smallest grocery section of the three, which shouldn't come as a surprise as Target is more of a department st...

Tonight, I visited the Walmart garden center in Butler Plaza and walked through their plant selection. I chose Walmart on purpose as I have a love, but more so, hate relationship with Walmart garden centers. When I am gardening at home, if I need something quick I'll go to Walmart because its close and cheap. The plants they sell however, are questionable at best. I have previously bought tomatoes from Walmart to plant in my garden and they died within the first two months. I wanted to see if the plant problem was a local one or a chain wide problem.  Upon walking into the garden center, I must say I was surprised by the amount of green there was. Below are pictures of the vegetable section and it looked great compared to what I was predicting. They had a nice selection, ranging from herbs, tomatoes, and other greens, and they all looked healthy. The second picture below is the tomatoes they were offering and they looked better than expected considering the growing conditions and t...

STRAWBERRY UPDATE Coming in almost four weeks after my last strawberry post, I've have seen less growth than I thought. There was a new sprout, however, the main stems are weak and flop over. Although they are still alive they refuse to stand up on their own. I don't know what to think as I know that this plant likes to have runners so hopefully they grow out, but the lack of growth is semi concerning. I have since moved it inside and am waiting to see if it makes a difference. a   BROCCOLI UPDATE The broccoli has grown a lot! I am starting to see the center leave start to come in and am excited with the growth. I may consider moving it to a bigger pot in the future, as there are multiple seeds in the pot, but that will be a later problem. Right now I am happy to see it grow and will monitor for improvements.

  After being outside and watered for about a week and a half, the growth has been insane. After starting with one leaf, two new shoots sprouted and the total leaf count is now nine. This quick growth has given me confidence that there will be flowers sooner rather than later. I though it would take much much longer for the plant to adjust and develop but it seemed to have rooted within the first few days. I am excited to see the continued growth in the coming weeks.    As a bonus, the broccoli seeds I planted at the teaching garden, when I received the strawberry plant, have sprouted. They germinated much faster than I thought they would, about five to seven days after planting. My biggest worry right now is keeping them upright but I have faith that they will get stronger and harden as they grow. I am considering using a stick or trellis to keep them upright but will do more research into whether its necessary or not.

  Today for class, we all met outside in the teaching garden and everyone received a strawberry plant. I've always been interested in Strawberries as they seem to be on the easier side to grow and the idea of replanting runners seems like a infinite plant glitch to me but I guess we'll find out. I put the plant outside on my front porch and it seems to like the location.