The Catnip Project

Our cat does very interesting things when she gets catnip.

So we must grow catnip just to help her do very interesting things!

The favorite method of dosing is to smear some catnip on the bottom inside of a very large paper grocery sack and leave it out for her to find it.

She loooooves her grocery sack!

But our catnip plant developed a weird growth.

Not sure if that was a fungus or a mold or residue from aliens visiting the catnip from outer space, but it didn't look healthy.

Ewww! I don't want that in my greenhouse. Not sure I want my cat to have any of it either.

But I must have catnip. So today, I learned about starting a plant from a cutting of another plant.

First, I get a cutting. And remove the leaves from the bottom of the stem. After all, that's going underground.

This is optional, but my resident start-from-cuttings-expert recommends it: add root growing hormones.

This is an old package. 

Coat the stem with the hormones. Shake off the excess.

Give up all hope of having a hormone-free hallucinogenic drug for the cat.

Then carefully plunk the hormone covered cutting into a hole poked in the dirt of a planter prepared for this very purpose. (I want to leave the hormones on the cutting, not spread them around the dirt. I want roots on the cutting, not on the dirt!)

Repeat as necessary. Water carefully. Put it in the sun for a while.

Note: The one in the bottle is the control for the experiment.

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Hmm. Not a good thing. 24 hours later, everything was wimpy:

It froze overnight, and these are up against the (uninsulated) window. That might be part of it.

Today it's bright and sunshiny: it's now pretty warm behind that (uninsulated) window. That might be part of it.

Let's see how this turns out.

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OK. This is turning out better. Give 'em plenty of water, and wait it out.