Brightside
I just spent half an hour or so trying to prune roses and weed flower planters. I’m embarrassed that some of the weeds are taller than the flowers! Of COURSE it’s hot outside – it IS August and this IS Arkansas, but the humidity makes the heat index 103 and it is still morning! So, I’m TRYING to spend a bit of time outside each morning to try to get things under control. So far, the weeds are winning….
Filed under Gardening, Mother Nature
DripDepot
When I went outside to check on the tomatoes and weed a bit in our flower planters, I noticed that everything suddenly looked really wilted.
I got my husband and we turned on each section of the irrigation system, and went around to all the planters, making sure all was getting water. Some weren’t getting anything at all, others were getting too much – it varied all over the place. Once we got the back finished – with a lot of the things you see in the picture above, we switched to the front, where it’s mainly actual hoses and controls.
We think we got everything going. We are inside now, drinking ice water and resting. The heat index this afternoon is between 106 and 110. We’ll stay inside until at least dinner time before trying to do anything more out there.
I hope that YOU and your PLANTS are getting enough water today!
Filed under Gardening
Animal Wallpapers – Desktop Nexus
Mother Nature is giving us a reprieve today – the heat index is ONLY 100 right now.
SO – my husband is out mowing the lawn and I’ve been weed whacking around the garden and behind the shop where his riding mower won’t go. It’s going to take several sessions to do what I need to do today. I work for 20 minutes to half an hour, then come in, rest, and drink water. I’ll keep doing that until the job is done or I decide to give it another day. The sun is behind a cloud right now. As soon as I go back out there, the sun will show its face again…
I hope the weather where you are today is comfortable, or that you have a good place to rest.
Filed under Gardening
I’ve just spent half an hour or so assassinating fire ants after donning my cape, goggles, gloves, and mixing 2 gallons of EIGHT bug killer in my sprayer.
These are the odious fire ants that are the bane of my existence for the past couple of years. I never really thought about them before until I happened upon them in one of my garden boxes (about 3 feet up in the air) and they swarmed all over me. biting/stinging me and causing my poor body to turn bright pink, swell up, ache, and itch all at the same time for about three days before starting to subside.
I have since looked up information, thinking that, before I set out to murder something, I should at least know if they do anything good for the environment.
According to extension.org, “Beneficial Effects of Fire Ants. Collectively, ants are beneficial insects in our environment. Their nest-building activities reduce soil compaction and help aerate the soil. Many ant species, such as imported fire ants, are omnivorous (they eat just about anything).”
I’m sorry, but the fact that also eat ME make aerating the soil a very low priority for me, particularly since we don’t need that around here.
I read a nice article by a lady who suggests that you pour a teakettle of boiling water down the hole of the mound and that will take care of the problem. That may very well be true, but I don’t think she is trying to treat a garden of veggie plants who would be upset at having boiling water poured on them or almost 8 acres of ridge line rocky soil. The EIGHT spray works well. The fact that the co-op guy in town recommended it highly, after me telling him I was planning to spray it on things I hoped to later feed to myself and my family, and that I didn’t want our pets hurt, went a long way to convince me.
There is Ant-Man from Marvel Comics and the super hero movie genre, but I don’t think he is murdering ants. I’ll just have to fill that gap.
Filed under Challenges, Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Gardeners Path
This quote by Clare Booth Luce is said fairly often around here. So many things that should be good things seem to backfire or cause us harm.
The latest was yesterday when I was working in our square foot garden.
I’ve been feeling guilty because I haven’t been taking care of things out there as well as I would like to, so I made a special effort to put in some time, pruning dead leaves off our zucchini plants. I lifted one last plant up to get to some dead stuff and was suddenly covered with fire ants.
I rapidly brushed them off my arm, pulling off my weeding gloves and getting away from the source as quickly as possible, but ONE got me.
I rushed inside, took two Benedryl tablets, washed the bite and slathered Benedryl ointment on it. It still swelled up, but not as badly as I have in the past. I DO learn from mistakes….
Priority on today’s list is murdering fire ants. I don’t care if they perform some wonderful service to us. I want them gone. I will mix up some EIGHT spray and hose down the whole garden area, plus any ant hills I find, plus our tomato planters today. The EIGHT is really good at killing bugs, but is safe to spray on veggies and other plants and won’t harm our pets. I can’t say enough about this product.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I’ve been working on our garden, trying to get it cleaned up after I had to neglect it for about a week. My husband came out there with me today – a rare and delightful thing – and we did a good amount to prune and clean up. I have another session to do out there, but it will wait.
There is always more to do in the garden, but we improved things a lot today. I pulled up my radishes a couple of days ago, the last time I was out there. For some reason, they didn’t make successfully this time. I was disappointed, because I got spoiled with a really super crop with the last batch I planted in the spring, having enough to give to my friends and having lots for me to enjoy. I’ll concentrate on trying not to be greedy. I’ll plant another group soon.
The zucchini plants are still looking healthy, although I’m having to read everything I can get my hands on to figure out what I’m doing.
We have lots of these small cantaloupes! I didn’t know they start out green, but we made sure each one is now sitting in a plastic bowl to keep it out of the dirt, as I read they like. Fingers crossed that they actually grow into something delicious to eat!
Red onions.
Our weather has been really different this year. Our tomato plants are looking pretty sad right now. I have no clue whether we’ll get more or not. We’ve had such a good crop this year. I hope I can extend the season some. I took bags of ripe tomatoes to our friends at Lunch Bunch this morning, and then another bag to our hairdresser on the way home. I love it when we can share the wealth!
Obvious Fun
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
It’s been about a week since I’ve been able to get out to the garden. Needless to say, there is a LOT to do out there now.
I did some weeding and harvested this zucchini and some tomatoes. I’ll go back out there later and prune a bunch of stuff and do more weeding.
We have some cantaloupe! I used several plastic ‘bowls’ with holes in them that allow the cantaloupe to grow while keeping them off the soil. I have no clue if we’ll actually get anything edible, but I’m like a kid waiting for Christmas watching them grow!
I’ll try to get some pics of the garden later to share.
Filed under Gardening, Healthy Eating, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Our ‘nook’ planter (the planter between the porch and the back of the house that we converted to a square foot planter) is providing us with a wealth of tomatoes now! My husband just asked me to cut a cold one up for him for a snack.
We have been extremely lucky this season, even though it has been a weird one weather-wise, and we feel truly wealthy in tomatoes. :0)
If you come by the house in the next few days , I’ll be happy to share them with you!
Filed under Gardening, Healthy Eating, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Today’s tomato harvest with more to come tomorrow! We are truly rich in tomatoes this season. We’re enjoying them for lunch and dinner every day. From a really shaky start, when I thought that the long tomato planter’s plants would die when they suddenly turned yellow, and that all we would get was greenery from the plants in the nook planter, we’ve had a wonderful season.
This is what is in our fridge now. I will share these with friends this week. :0)
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I can finally declare victory for the day in the project of shoveling the saved potting soil back into the newly rebuilt planter!
I had just hauled the bricks that held the edges of the tarp together to the area behind the well house when my husband fell. (He is doing better – though his leg is pretty skinned up and we found a new little cut on the bottom of his big toe). He has rested this afternoon, eaten, had cold tea, read a whole book, and is now thinking about taking a nap.)
I decided – since the weather forecast is for possible rain tomorrow morning – that I wanted to get the potting soil into the planter by the end of the day. It took several short sessions, with lots of panting, water drinking and resting in-between, but I did it. I had just taken the tarp out to our burn barrel and was walking back to the house when my husband came out with both doggies.
He didn’t know I had been shoveling, and so was properly surprised that the job was done. The tarp you see in this picture is now gone, and a bare spot on the lawn is all that is left of the ‘save-the-potting-soil’ project. I still need to weed whack, since we couldn’t do a very good job without damaging the tarp, and I need to add a few more bags of potting soil to top off the planter, but basically it is ready to plant! We have leftover bricks from the project, but we’ll decide what to do with them later.
I’ll take more pics when we’ve found some good things to put in the two planters.
Filed under Gardening, Housekeeping - Maintenance, Lewis projects
I told you that two of the 14 brick planters we have built up on top of our ridge line collapsed suddenly. We knocked the rest of the bricks down and tried to prepare ourselves to rebuild them.
We found that 25 years or so makes a huge difference in our stamina and ability to work in the heat. We ended up mixing one bag of mortar each day, laying one layer of bricks with it, then cleaning up for the day. We did this for five days, finally completely the first of the two planters. We put the potting soil we had saved back into the planter. My husband recently redid the plastic PVC pipe irrigation piece for the first planter, so technically it’s ready to plant. With a heat index of 105-110+ degrees, we have ignored the problem.
I’ve been trying to find a real brick layer to rebuild the planters. We had the bricks and the mortar, so it was their time, labor, and expertise we were paying for. The only man who came to give us an estimate knocked our socks off with how much he would charge for the two planters. We told him, ‘no thank you,’ and built the first one ourselves.
As you can see, it looks pretty awful. It DOES hold the potting soil. The picture doesn’t show the new irrigation piece, but it’s ready for planting now.
This is the second planter. We have been mowing and weed whacking around this the whole spring and summer, hoping to find a brick layer.
FINALLY, yesterday a wonderful man named Jose Aguirre came up and looked at things. He rejected the mortar we had bought, both the sand version and the one with small pebbles, and gave us an estimate. I was overjoyed that it was reasonable, AND we can do it!!!!
He will come out tomorrow at 8 in the morning to do the job!
I can’t tell you how relieved I am that my husband and I don’t have to do it. I was trying to gear up for it mentally, thinking that when we start getting up at 6am each morning (trying to adapt for the school year with Alessandro, our 16-year-old soccer playing student from Italy comes to live with us and go to school this year, starting August 6th) – that we could get right out and lay one row of bricks each day while the temperature was still in the 80’s.
If our wonderful luck holds, tomorrow we will have a newly rebuilt, good-looking planter to enjoy!
I’ll take pics. :0)
Filed under Challenges, Changes, Gardening, Housekeeping - Maintenance
This is this morning’s harvest.
My husband and I are totally – delightedly – SPOILED, having ripe tomatoes for lunch and dinner every day. I don’t know how long our luck will hold out, but we are grateful for every bite!
I haven’t been out to the garden yet – just to the tomato planters beside the house. I’m trying to figure out a ‘suit of armor’ – since hosing down with Deep Woods Off didn’t keep the fire ants from getting me two days ago. They apparently LOVE the stuff, drinking it like a wonderful, rare wine before they bite/sting me. :0( My arm is almost back to normal now. I can wear my watch loosely today. My arm is still pink and a bit swollen, but the welts are gone.
I would like to get the garden under control today. I know it needs weeding…
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
oncecellonelightradio.wordpress.com
This picture is a bit over the top on what I’m actually going to do, but the motivation is there.
I went out to finish weed whacking around our burn barrel this morning. I then hauled all the weed trees I cut down a couple of days ago, putting them in a pile we will burn later. Then I went back and weed whacked some more, trying to give us a good margin of safety.
While I was doing that, I apparently ran into an ant pile. All of a sudden I noticed I had ants on my arm around my watch. I stopped everything and brushed them off, but not before they had bitten/stung me. Since I came in, I have put on Benadryl and then some anti-itch ointment. My arm, plus the top of my right foot, are now pink and swollen, with raised welts. Oh, joy.
I wouldn’t be surprised if I hadn’t practically bathed in bug repellent spray before I went out there.
Later on today, I plan to mix up two gallons of Eight, the spray I use to kill all kinds of what I consider bad bugs, and plan to murder as many ants as possible. I don’t know that ants do anything important in our ecosystem. If they do, they’ll need to transfer their operations somewhere else.
I will also spray the area around the burn barrel with KillsAll, the stuff that is wonderful at keeping growth of greenery down. This is an area we can’t mow, and don’t need to have any grass or anything.
Picture me as Arnold Schwarzenegger, armed with a KillAll sprayer in one hand and an Eight sprayer in the other – taking on all comers!
Filed under Gardening
Good news and iffy news from the garden today.
GOOD NEWS – more ripe tomatoes and it looks like lots more to come. The radishes and sweet red onions seem to be doing fine.
IFFY NEWS – I have a lot of ‘greenery’ and blossoms from my zucchini and cantaloupe plants, but the actual veggies and fruits are looking wimpy. In three days of my concentrating on other parts of the yard, the weeds are trying to take over. The heat index is 105 today, so I’ll have to wait until dusk to do anything out there. I’ll weed as much as I can and then put some extra fertilizer over things and see what, if anything, happens.
I absolutely LOVE trying to grow veggies and fruit. I have a wonderful set up, with chest-high wooden 4′ x 4′ planters filled with Mel’s Mix (peat moss, vermiculite, and several kinds of compost) and an irrigation system for consistent watering. I have unlimited hope and enthusiasm, but little expertise, though I’m reading and learning what I’m supposed to be doing on a regular basis. Thus far, the list of things NOT to do again is growing much faster than the successes, but my motivation is still strong.
Each lunch and each dinner features fresh, ripe tomatoes from our own garden. I ‘spiralized’ (made spaghetti-like stuff with the aid of my kitchen gadget) from one pregnant-looking zucchini from our own garden and my husband pronounced it ‘yummy.’ Next year I plan to grow yellow squash, too. We’re spiralizing that, too, and my husband is shocked that he enjoys both of these. He did say, though, that he’ll TRY some as a substitute for actual pasta, but doesn’t hold high hopes for the idea yet. I’m hoping I can convince him. :0)
Steemit
I have just finished about an hour and a half of weed whacking in the yard this morning. I have probably one more session of weed whacking and then the leaf blower to clean off the sidewalks and garage pad before I’m finished.
My husband mowed the lawn yesterday, so the grass looks good. All the edges around everything were ragged, though, so I decided to get outside early this morning and see if I could clean things up.
With the heat index, it’s ONLY 95 right now. Since the index is supposed to get to 105 this afternoon, I decided it was best to get out there while it was COOL. :0)
The new-to-us riding mower we got recently from a wonderful friend and neighbor does a really good job. When the civilized part of our yard is freshly mowed, weed whacked and blown, we actually look pretty good!
With all the yard work this morning and bowling with good friends tonight, I’m not even going to feel guilty about not ‘exercising’ today. I’ve learned that the work I do uses different muscles than the ones used for more traditional ‘exercises,’ but when I’ve worked and played this much in a day, I’ll call it good enough.
After we got back from relocating the raccoon this morning, I went to check on the tomatoes and the garden. I harvested these from the larger planter – the plants I thought were going to croak earlier because the leaves were turning yellow and falling off. These plants still don’t look ‘healthy,’ but they are producing delicious tomatoes. The nook planter beside the house has only two plants in it and they are HUGE, green, and leafy. I’ve only gotten two ripe tomatoes so far. There are lots of green ones, though, and lots of blossoms. There might be a lesson here somewhere, if I can just figure out what it is. I would appreciate some opinions from people who know what they are doing in the garden.
In the larger square foot garden, I couldn’t do much because the irrigation system was going. I have large, leafy-looking zucchini plants now with large yellow flowers and a few actual zucchini! I harvested one pregnant-looking one so far. I have several now that might get large enough to harvest.
I also have the cantaloupe plants whose arms are spilling out over everything with lots of blossoms. There is one small cantaloupe that I have supported by a plastic round thingie with legs and holes in it. I have no clue whether we’ll actually get anything worth eating, but it’s great fun to watch the progress. \
The onions are expanding, even though their tops were so damaged in several storms I elected to cut them off.
I need to do some weeding out there and then I’ll take pics to share.
Filed under Gardening, Healthy Eating, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I’m feeling spoiled and rich after going out to check on our tomato plants this afternoon.
We’re enjoying sharing one or two (depending on their size) for lunch and again for dinner each day. I already feel that our crop has been worth every penny we paid for plants, cages, food, bug spray, bone meal, etc. How could one feel down when looking at such a beautiful sight!
Filed under Gardening, Healthy Eating, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
This is our garden, minus two tomato planters on the opposite end of the house. It’s a raised-bed, square foot garden.
“Raised bed” – because we built six 4’x4′ wooden boxes, put them on top of metal supports (like tables) at about my chest height, so I don’t have to get down on my hands and knees, or bend over double to garden.
“Square foot garden” – because the only ‘soil’ we have up here on top of our ridge line was trucked in so we could have grass around the house. We tried to have a regular garden, enriching the soil, etc. and it was a dismal failure. After several years I was delighted to find Mel Bartholomew and his book, Square Foot Gardening, where he explained that we could ‘create’ a growing medium much like soil ABOVE the ground and grow veggies!
We surrounded our garden with fencing, since we do have deer running around. Usually I have bright neon-colored tape running around the outside to warn the deer so they don’t run into the fencing. The rains and sun deteriorated the tape and I haven’t put more up yet. We have chicken wire around the bottom to deter rabbits and other cute critters from breaching the fencing, although I would think it would be difficult for them to climb up the metal legs to get to the veggies. Our garden door is looking a bit sad these days. We’ve had so much to deal with after losing so much of our electronic goodies in the recent storms that I haven’t bothered my husband with it. You might get a giggle out of the sign on the door. We did that when we first got the CNC set-up in the shop, where we can do computer-guided cutting of sheet metal. That was one of the first things we cut out. The poor thing is rusted now, but it’s one of my favorite things.
This sweet, oddly shaped thing is probably the world’s smallest cantaloupe. I have no clue whether we’ll actually get anything edible, but it’s fun to try.
I’ve never seen zucchini growing before and I’m fascinated. We may not get much of a crop, but I’m eager to check what we have each time I go out.
With all the rain and strong sun we’ve had, I can’t keep the weeds out of here, but I’m trying to keep them down as much as possible so the sweet red onions have room to grow.
This is the latest group of radishes. I’m hoping they do well. The last crop was better than I’m able to get at the store.
Here is today’s harvest. I was so pleased to see more ripe tomatoes. And these, except for one, all came from the plants in the long planter that had yellow leaves and were looking spindly recently. I added bone meal and some tomato food, and they have responded well, although they don’t look as healthy as the two plants in the planter beside the house. MAYBE it’s a good thing to have much less greenery – leading to better production of tomatoes….
And this is my first zucchini! I have no clue why this one looks pregnant. The ones at the store don’t look like this. It’ll be interesting to see if it tastes good or not.
I was planning to spend more time outside this morning, but the wind picked up, the skies darkened, and I heard rumbling thunder. I hurried inside, closed the garage door, and prepared for the coming storm. My phone was even sending me messages about lightning and heavy rain right outside of Greenwood. We didn’t get the storm! NOW the sun is out again. Go figure.
Filed under Gardening, Healthy Eating, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Last week, before the awful storms hit and we lost so much stuff, I was telling you that I was worried about the tomato plants in our long brick planter at the side of the house. They were really sad-looking, with yellow leaves and dead branches. I put bone meal into the soil around each plant and then gave the whole planter tomato food and crossed my fingers.
With all that has been going on, today was the first time I went to look at the plants. This is the first of what I HOPE will be a really good harvest. The tomato cages were bent over, so I went back and got some rods and anchored them, hopefully making it so the plants will stay upright. I cut off more dead stuff, but the plants were looking much healthier. There are lots of green tomatoes on those plants, plus the two really lush looking plants in what I call the nook planter between the porch and the back of the house. I guess the difference in the amount of sun the two planters get is the difference on what the plants look like. It’ll be funny if the puny looking ones produce more tomatoes than the lush looking ones…
Guess what will be part of OUR dinner tonight!
Filed under Gardening, Healthy Eating, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
It’s as black as night outside right now, ready to storm. Before it got dark, I got out and took some pictures in the yard I wanted to share with you. This is one of our Rio Samba rose bushes with Impatiens around the base. We have two other Rio Sambas, but for some reason, their leaves are turning yellow. I’ve sprayed them with fungicide plus all purpose rose bug killer, hoping that will help them.
I love the red roses on this bush. It seems quite happy at the moment.
This is one group of phlox. I love these. They come in a lot of colors. We have a lighter pink shade and this one. I’m afraid if it rains hard, these will be beaten down.
I have to tell you about my stupidity of the day –
I checked my veggie garden and noticed the plants weren’t getting enough water. My husband came out to help me trace the water from the outside rural faucet we have out to the garden. It turned out that I had forgotten about a “Y” connection of hoses we have and it was turned the wrong way. The water wasn’t going anywhere, much less to the garden! We fixed it and tested it. On the way back to the house, Mother Nature rained on us….
All spring it has either been heavily raining or SUPER hot with strong sun. Nothing in-between. Today I was only out for about half an hour, and came in huffing and puffing, wiping my head and face, and wanting to glug water.
I found these yellow leaves on my tomato plants yesterday. My friend, Laufrain, and I looked up the problem last night. It suggested bone meal and fertilizer. I just added both of those to the planter and watered. Fingers crossed they like it. I have nice green tomatoes and am hoping for a good crop.
This is our other tomato planter. As you can see, the plants are good and healthy. I have no clue what’s going on with the longer planter.
This is my first trial at growing zucchini. I have several that SEEM to be doing well.
Sweet red onions.
Radishes I just started a few days ago.
And THIS is the excitement for the day! It is a cantaloupe! Ta DA! If it doesn’t croak and continues to grow, I have a plastic bowl thingie with lots of holes for drainage and legs to keep the cantaloupe up off the ground. I’ve never grown one of these before. This was my husband’s choice of what to grow (other than head lettuce), so I’m really hoping we grow at least one and that it’s good.
On my way back in, I stopped to take a couple of pictures of the flowers on the deck. They make my heart soar every time I see them.
Now I’m very thankful that we have air-conditioning!
One view of our deck. We usually plant mandevilla in the 4 large pots, but we think the wave petunias this year are wonderful.
Another view.
We’ve enjoyed spending time out here, mostly watching it rain so far.
The roses I pruned are starting another bloom. (Plus, you can see the second planter we’re going to rebuild and the pile of potting soil waiting.)
More roses
Roses and phlox.
Stella d’Oro lilies.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening
My great day continues with listening to Steve Earle on YouTube while writing this. :0) I just came in from checking on the garden and planting a few more radish squares. I was actually FEELING the sun frying my neck, so I prudently decided to cut my time out there short.
Here are 3 of the 6 planters.
The remaining three planters. I planted 4 squares of radish seeds in the planter closest to you in the picture.
In the foreground is celery, and the rest of the picture is ONE cantaloupe plant vine.
Even though the onion tops are pretty trashed from recent storms, the bulbs are looking good.
Zucchini – there are 4 so far on this one plant.
This plant only has one zucchini. I have no clue what I’m doing, but I’m having a great time.
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
I’m hoping that we’ll have a good tomato crop this year. We have some good looking green tomatoes now. One of our very favorite things is sliced ripe tomatoes.
With all the rain we’ve had and then some pretty warm weather, the tomato plants in our nook planter really took off. I’ve given up trying to ‘control’ them. I’m just propping them up the best way I can and hoping for the best…
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
We’ve gone from torrential rain, to “pea soup” humidity here. Last night a cool front came through, taking the humidity with it. Right now it’s 80 degrees F. outside, bright sunshine, and absolutely wonderful. AHHHHH!
I took a walk around the garden and yard to celebrate and wanted to share –
GARDEN
You can see the HEIGHT of the zucchini plants here – well over my head as I stand at the planters.
Lots of vines, greenery, and blossoms. No cantaloupe as yet.
The zucchini is producing nicely.
The tops of my sweet red onions were trashed during the last few storms we had. I cut off the broken tops and trimmed the bent ones. The actual onion bulbs are looking okay, though.
FLOWER PLANTERS
Lilies
Phlox
Roses and Impatiens
Roses and Phlox
Clematis
I’ll show you the deck and our view in another post.
Home Guides – SFGate
The rain finally stopped! I’ve just spent an hour tying up tomato plants for better support and then weeding in our raised bed square foot garden. I used “Eau de OFF!” spraying myself heavily from stem to stern before heading outside. I forgot to wear my sweat band, but I’ll remember that for session 2 today.
I finished two more of the six wooden box planters in the garden. I still need to finish the onion box and then things will be pretty much under control again. I’m planning to take radish seed to get more started in several squares.
__________________
Finished session 2. I’m still working on the onion box. I asked my good friend Reagan Opio from LinkedIn what I should do about the damaged onion tops. He said, “Leave the ones that are only bent. Cut off the ones that are broken.” So that’s what I’m working on now. As I type here, though, this old lady is huffing and puffing and guzzling ice water. So the rest will have to wait for session 3.
I wanted to share with you the progress on the zucchini! I’ve never grown it before, or seen it grow. The only thing I figured was that it was a vining type plant and would probably take up a lot of room.
The zucchini are almost like a ‘bouquet of bloom.’ There are actually FOUR zucchini growing on this plant.
More on another plant.
And two more here.
And three more here!
I’m about to head out to finish cleaning up the onion tops a bit, and then that’ll be it outside for the day.
I hope YOU are having a fine day, too!
Filed under Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
Wild Abundance
Our weeds aren’t QUITE as bad as these, but I’m having to really work to try to catch up. Our monsoon-like rains here have resulted not only in a pretty stellar veggie crop this year, but also ‘weeds as high as an elephant’s eye’ (“Oklahoma” musical paraphrase).
I just came in from pruning our rose bushes to encourage more blooms and weeding and cutting back in our trio of brick planters between the front yard and the driveway. There is always more, but they look as if someone cares now. :0)
Yesterday I spent about an hour weeding in our veggie garden. The sheer volume of weeds won. I’ll go out in a few minutes (wearing a sweat band and having sprayed with OFF!) – I DO learn from mistakes! – and I’ll see if I can finish weeding the boxes today.
This year it seems as though we’re always trying to get something done ‘before the day’s rain.’ Today we have a 50% chance of heavy rain. 80% tomorrow. 50% Friday…. you get the idea.
I told you yesterday that I would try to get pics of our tomato plants. I forgot, so I’ll go out and get some now.
It’s been a couple of days since I checked on the tomato plants. We have some green tomatoes!
We have 4 tomato plants in this planter.
And two more plants here. (These were so large I had to string wire to hold them up!)
This is one green tomato from these two plants.
Did I tell you I’m having trouble keeping up with things with all the rain we’ve been having?!?!
Heading out to the veggie garden to see if I can finish weeding there.
With all the rain we’ve been having, the weeds have gone nuts in my garden. I just spent about an hour pulling out spent broccoli plants and weeding. I forgot to wear a sweat band AND forgot to spray myself for mosquitoes, so came in hot, tired, wiping my forehead while grabbing a cold bottle of water, and scratching bites…
If you’ll look carefully, in the center of the picture is a cute little zucchini! My first! I’ll have to read up on what to do, but I’m excited. :0)
The main part of this photo is a celery plant, grown from a stalk I bought at the store. I’ll continue to try to grow some. I’m not sure when, but I’m supposed to bind the little stalks tightly together so they look more like what you buy in the store. More reading!
More zucchini vines and blossoms. They will soon take over the boxes.
Technically, it’s too warm for spinach, but I’m still hoping.
My husband wanted me to try cantaloupe. Since we both love it, I was happy to accommodate him…
This gives you a better idea of how LARGE these zucchini plants are!
I guess the hard rains we’ve had did a number on many of the green parts of my sweet red onions. I only weeded a small amount of the box these are planted in, but it looks like the actual onions are okay. I’ll work on it some more tomorrow.
I’ll also see if I can share pictures of our tomato plants tomorrow.
Filed under Changes, Gardening, Square Foot Gardening - Raised Beds
We have a really good chance of more severe weather this afternoon and tonight, so I got out and cut some of the lilies that are blooming in one of our planters.
Here are more of the yellow ones in the planter.
And I HOPING that this beauty won’t be harmed by the storms.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening, Mother Nature
Lilies
This is why we were working so feverishly trying to figure out why our irrigation system wasn’t working the way it should. All of these flowers were really thirsty and wilting from the heat. I’m grateful that my husband figured out the problem and FIXED it! :0)
Wave petunias
Periwinkles
We’ll go out tonight at 7pm when the front part of the irrigation system is supposed to start and make sure all the plants are getting watered, and then we’ll move to the back and check things out.
Filed under Favorite Things, Gardening, quality of life
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