Urban Gardening Update

So my second attempt at growing vegetables indoors is not going so well.  One of my cucumber plants died, the second one is sick, my squash plant is near dead--also sick.  Both the cucumber and squash are being killed by mildew.  I've been having an infestation of soil knats (they sure do love the organic soil I'm using) and I've been spraying often with a neem oil/dish soap/water mixture to keep them under control. In the meantime, unbeknownst to me, mildew is forming on the leaves of the squash plants from being sprayed with the mixture.  I can't help it.  I see one or a few of those buggers on the stem, and I spray to kill it.

Even though the cucumbers and squash have all but died, the cherry tomatoes are doing decent.  I have a few bunches between the two plants although one of the plants' health is questionable.  It seems wilt every other day and I can't tell if it's from a lack of watering (seems like I'm watering every other day) or something else that is causing it wilt.  When I do water, it perks back up within a few hours. 

Surprisingly (or maybe not), the sunflowers and the cosmos are doing awesome!  Can't say the daisies are doing too well but that is from a lack of watering.  I tucked the container of daisies into a corner and forget they are there most of the time since the vegetables plants tend to obscure that corner. 

Minature sunflower.

 Orange cosmo.  This is my new favorite flower. 

Plants and Zombies Sunflower!

This was a custom request plush from a friend for the Singing Sunflower from "Plants and Zombies" and World of Warcraft.  She's 12 inches tall, her head is 9" wide and the base with petals is 10.5" in diameter.

I've never made a plush like this before so it was a bit of a challenge for me to figure it out since I don't usually make plushies.  This was actually a lot easier and took a lot less time than I thought.  A while back I had bought some faux flowers from Michael's to make hair clips with and saved one of the bendable stems for a future project.  That stem came in handy for this future project as I shaped the ends to be able to hold up the sunflower head and also to make her stand.  Only her head has been stuffed with polyfill.  I was concerned that the stuffing might actually make her fall over if the base and stem was stuffed so I left the those the way they were.

All in all, I'm very proud of how she turned out and I see a lot more plushies to be made in the future :)

Hi! I'm Sunny and I'm a happy-ass Sunflower!

I made this adorable kawaii sunflower magnet for a coworker. Bronze colored seed beads were sewn onto the flower center to to give it more detail.