Category Archives: Gardening

March 30, 2018 · 3:07 pm

Between Deluges

The Nourished Soul

I almost didn’t recognize the huge orb in the sky this morning. It’s been at least a week since we’ve seen it, and it was truly a glorious sight. On one of the many ‘walk-the-doggies’ trips I’ve taken today, I took some pictures of my veggie garden.

 

We built our raised bed veggie boxes with drain holes, but we’ve been getting SO much rain relentlessly, I was afraid I would find the boxes washed out and the veggies on the ground. Happily, everything seems to be doing well.

 

Here is iceberg lettuce and some onions.

 

This is the north side of the garden. You can see broccoli, spinach, onions, iceburg lettuce, and romaine lettuce.

 

Here’s a better pic of some spinach and some romaine lettuce, plus some onions.

 

This is the south side of the garden.

And here is the first group of tomato plants. I plan to plant more in a couple of weeks to extend our harvesting season.

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March 28, 2018 · 1:02 pm

Between Rain Storms

“Raindrops on roses….”

 

 

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March 28, 2018 · 10:26 am

Before the Rains Came

Before the rains started last week, things were sprouting all over the yard. This is the lovely black elephant ear plant that Kay got me for my birthday, plus some iris and some phlox.

 

Amber hasn’t discovered the other hyacinths in the yard yet, so she has ONLY eaten one…. Also some iris and a rose bush.

This hydrangea is sprouting in one of the two brick planters we have to demolish soon.

 

The rose bush on the left is the Joseph’s Coat climbing rose bush that Kay gave me for my birthday. We’re hoping it will climb up the wisteria truck next to it. The plant on the right is a camellia that will soon have blooms.

 

Some of our twice-blooming iris!

 

A close-up of one of the branches of our redbud trees.

 

Surrounded by redbud branches….

 

This is one of the 6 or 8 redbuds we have in the yard.

As we stay in the house, or run through the rain, it’s nice to have so many reminders that wonderful weather is on its way.

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March 26, 2018 · 10:03 am

Believing in Tomorrow

Audrey Hepburn via GrowingBolder.com via Cathy Ruggiero

 

tomato plants

“It was such a pleasure to sink one’s hands into the warm earth, to feel at one’s fingertips the possibilities of the new season.” ~ Kate Morton

Raised Bed Planters – Row 1

“My green thumb came only as a result of the mistakes I made while learning to see things from the plant’s point of view. ” ~ H. Fred Dale

 

Raised Bed Planters – Row 2

“In every gardener there is a child who believes in The Seed Fairy.” ~Robert Brault

We’re due for rain starting this afternoon – going from “Thunderstorms,” to “Heavy Rain,” to “Showers,” to “A.M. Showers,” to “Thunderstorms” through Monday of NEXT WEEK! My biggest concern now is that my sweet plants will come up out of the ground and flow out of the squares and boxes and end up on the ground below…

“You can bury a lot of troubles digging in the dirt.” ~ Author Unknown

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March 24, 2018 · 11:10 am

Happy Saturday

Trendzified

Good morning!

I’m feeling happy and grateful this morning.

We’re having a nice weekend weather-wise here in Greenwood, Arkansas. The highs will be in the 70’s and no rain until tomorrow evening (although it LOOKS like it could rain today). Because rain is forecast for every day from Sunday evening through Thursday next week, I’m trying to get as much accomplished in the yard as possible. Yesterday I planted tomato plants in one of the brick planters beside the house. The wind was gusting so hard I began to wonder if I was going to be able to plant!  I did finish, though, and will check on the plants again this morning.

_______________________

Things got busy around here, so an hour or so has passed.

The doggies demanded I take them out, so we walked all over the yard. We saw the veggie garden with its automatic watering –

 

 

 

 

we checked on the new tomato plants –

 

we took pictures, and played a bit while enjoying the really nice morning.

Just a few minutes ago my husband suggested we drive down to see if the mail had been delivered. We also took the “Rabbit and Easter Egg” mailbox decoration when we went, exchanging it for the leprechaun for St. Pat’s Day.

We drove down to the church at the end of the street to turn the truck around and met our good friend Carla, who was walking her two doggies, Nikki and Rubie. Thank goodness I still had a couple of dog treats in my pocket so we could greet them properly. (Carla said she didn’t care for one.) :0)

Today’s big project is filling the wheelbarrow with top soil and trying to fill up all the holes (or as many as I can find) that the moles, voles, and other ‘ole’s’ underneath the surface caused our doggies to dig to try to get them. We only actually saw one ‘victory’ so far. We’re not sure WHO got the ‘critter’ we found, but SOMEONE had given it a very hard time.  Anyway, between the underworld critters and ours, the yard almost looks like something from a bad horror movie. I’ll try to get them filled so that the rain can make the soil sink down and stay put, and then maybe we can mow without falling into a hole or twisting an ankle.

I hope your morning has been a fun one!

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March 22, 2018 · 12:04 pm

Young Veggie Garden

Our spring raised bed square foot garden is off to a good start. We have six 4’x4’x8″ boxes at about my chest level in our vegetable garden. (We also have two brick planters on the other side of the house we use for our tomato plants.)

 

You can see the sprinklers and hoses that run over the top of the boxes on either side, making up the irrigation system. I added the timer a few days ago to the outdoor faucet, so the garden gets watered for 10 minutes each morning. There are drain holes in each box so that excess water runs out freely.  I’ve planted onion sets, iceberg head lettuce, romaine lettuce, broccoli, and spinach so far. I’ll plant some radishes later, plus bring out starts of celery from the house.

This year, except for the onion sets and radishes, I decided to only plant one plant in each square. There are only two of us eating salad in our household, so 4 lettuce plants to a square is too much for us to eat and the plants grow rapidly, crowding each other. I’m experimenting to see if this spread out version works better for us.

 

The spindly plants around this lettuce plant are onion sets. The tops of the onions don’t look great, but I’m hoping that the actual onions are doing well. I won’t know for a long time.

 

Here you can see broccoli in the foreground, a spinach plant in the middle, and lettuce toward the back.  I’m planning to start the tomato plants we bought very soon.

 

 

This is

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March 22, 2018 · 11:31 am

While Walking the Doggies….

White hyacinth and frog

The daffodils are starting to fade now, but the hyacinths I planted last year are bursting forth now. Such a showy, happy flower.

 

Purple hyacinth and kind old gentleman

 

 

New Joseph’s Coat Climbing rose birthday plant and camellias.

 

 

Purple hyacinth and hydrangea.

It’s a good thing I planted several purple hyacinths, since Amber ate one of them.

 

Hyacinths

glorious purple hyacinth

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March 22, 2018 · 11:21 am

A Beautiful Birthday Present

My friend Kay brought me this beautiful black elephant ear plant as one of my birthday presents. (She also brought me a Joseph’s Coat climbing rose bush plant)  I finally got this planted yesterday, in one of the tall brick planters beside our front porch. It will be as protected as possible from the gusty winds we have at times. It’ll get sun in the afternoons. I hope it will be happy here.

 

If it isn’t happy here, I’ll transplant it to one of the brick planters along the front of the house that we’re having to take down and rebuild. That may be awhile, though.

 

I think this is a beautiful plant and I hope it does well. I thanked her, and then Kay told me not to – that to thank someone for a plant was bad luck for the plant – or the person – I forget which. I held my mouth shut the rest of the time and will have to HOPE that I didn’t jinx one or both of us with my thank you…

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March 17, 2018 · 4:08 pm

Irrigation System Makes Us Thirsty

article from Buzz Feed Partner

We just came in from two sessions of repairing our irrigation system in the front yard. My husband created a system from PVC pipes, elbows, and knees :0)  and hoses with clamps. When we turn the system on – on a timer once we start watering every day – the water comes through drilled holes in the PVC pipe. We used to spend almost an hour with hand-held hoses, trying to give our poor, thirsty plants enough water to keep them alive. We lost a lot of plants before we came up with the system we use now.

As with anything out in the sun, the hoses become brittle or break from a kink, develop leaks, etc. Today we fixed the two worst parts of our system. We’ll probably find places where hoses have burst, connections come loose, etc., when we turn it on, but we KNEW these two areas needed basically to be redone.

I was going to work out in my greenhouse, but when I saw what my husband had started, I dropped my plans and played ‘helper’ and ‘go-fer’ instead. I was also planning to change the filter pump in the aquarium and clean the whole thing out – since we got the new pump and filter inserts today at Wal-Mart, but that’ll have to wait until tomorrow.

While we were out getting parts and running other errands, we got some lunch to bring home. We also brought home a rotisserie chicken, so all I’ll have to do tonight is reheat that and make a salad. Wonderful!

I’m going to go drink a bottle of water and rest a bit now, since we worked for about three hours outside today, not counting the errands. A good day for old folks. :0)

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March 17, 2018 · 10:09 am

Greenhouse Organization Progress

I made some progress on moving things around in the greenhouse yesterday.

The FIRST thing I learned, after plugging in the extension cord inside the greenhouse, standing on my head pushing the extension cord out of the hole in the back, stretching it out across the yard, attaching the 2nd extension cord (being careful to install the big plastic green protector that goes over where the two connect), then stretching the 2nd cord out to get to the receptacle on the back of the house, was that I didn’t remember that there was a male connector hanging down from the power strip inside the greenhouse, and that I should have used THAT instead of plugging in the extension cord the way I did, so it was all backwards. I had a female end where I needed a male at the house. Good start, huh?

I pulled the cords up, back to the greenhouse and reversed everything. This time I could plug it in. The automatic vent/fan combination was on when I walked back to the greenhouse! The thermometer said it was above 80 inside, and the fan is set to come on when it hits 80 in there, then go off whenever the temperature is below that. I turned on the ‘people fan’ as well and checked that the light we installed was working. I propped the door open on the opposite end of the greenhouse to increase the venting.

It would be nice if we had run electricity to the greenhouse, rather than using 200 feet of extension cords, but that costs a fortune. Since I’m an amateur (although a fairly NICE one), I don’t need ‘fancy.’ I’m just trying to be able to start seed earlier and get a jump on the season. I’d also like to be able to grow things not offered in our area and hopefully be able to start a fall crop when NO plants are being offered.

I’ve set up this table on the left side of the greenhouse as a seed starting area. I’ll show you a new method for starting seeds that I read about when I start my first batch.  You can see that the weed barrier we put down on the floor is no longer clean and pristine. Each time it rains, the water comes in under the greenhouse. It goes across the floor and pools under tables on either side of the greenhouse. I’m being careful not to put anything in these areas that will get upset being wet.

I brought out the roll of carpeting you can see in the top picture, but I’m thinking that’s a bad idea. Now I’m going to try to make a pathway in front of each table out of the brick  I hope to salvage from the break-down of the two brick planters that are failing that we’ll empty/knock down/rebuild – hopefully hiring a brick layer who knows what he’s doing to redo them. If we can’t find anyone willing to do this for us at a reasonable price in a good time frame, we’ll do it ourselves. (The ones that have failed are over 30 years old. New ones – even built by US – will last longer than we will.)

 

Here you can see the automatic fan/vent in the ‘doorway’ shape on the end of the greenhouse opposite the door. Yesterday it came on as it was supposed to, because the temperature was above 80 in there. When I went out this morning to take pictures, it was off.  You can see the one six-pack of tomato plants on the table. I have to consolidate more to get the table as clear as possible.

 

This is the table on the right side of the greenhouse. I still have the jumble of supplies here to go through, but I’m trying to set this table up to hold the plants I need to dig out of the failing planters, hoping they’ll survive the demolishing and rebuilding process. I brought some big pots out that I hope will be large enough for the plants.

It may get too hot in here, even with the vent/fan going, but we’ll just have to wait – with fingers crossed – ‘holding our mouths right.’

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March 16, 2018 · 9:14 am

Working on the Greenhouse

When we return from Lunch Bunch, my plan is to start actually getting my greenhouse more organized. These pictures are from when we just finished it, when all was clean, pristine, and the weed barrier on the floor was in one piece.

Over the months since we finished building it, I’ve transferred lots of things into it, just  moving things from our garage, the garden area, etc., so that it was at least in the greenhouse. I’ve been in and out on almost a daily basis, putting plants in there that I bought from one place or another and holding them until I could get them into the garden. A six-pack of tomatoes is in there now, but everything else has been planted in the raised bed square foot garden. I’m getting some good exercise because the only place we had to build the greenhouse is on the opposite side of our property from the shop and the garden.

Now is the time to at least start getting organized. I want to create an area for starting seeds. I want to consolidate a bunch of supplies, taking up as little table space as possible because I’ll need to bring more plants in when we demolish the two brick planters that have cracked, and in the future will want space for growing seeds, and staged growing plants as I try to get them ready to plant outside. I’ll have to be careful what I store on the floor under the tables on each side because water collects there when it rains. It’s exciting to finally start scheming and planning how I want things to work!

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March 14, 2018 · 6:40 pm

Teeth and Roses

We devoted 3 hours today to driving to Fort Smith, each of us getting teeth cleaned, and driving home. On the way home, though, we stopped at a local plant nursery, looking for the Rio Samba rose bushes we wanted. We FOUND some! We got three of them and stopped to grab some lunch to bring home

This planting was HARD. We had a yellow forsythia bush that had been here for years. It grew like a mad thing, spreading branches and rooting in all directions. It produced fewer and fewer yellow blooms for a shorter amount of time each year. I spent a lot of time trying to keep it from taking over everything in the planter. I finally got tired of it and asked my husband to take it out and replace it with one of the three rose bushes.  He used a shovel, an axe, and a pry bar, then got a come-along from the shop and attached it to the trailer hitch on the truck to pull the plant out. We still had to cut back roots and keep digging, but we finally declared victory and planted the rose bush in its place.

 

Unless I was needed to help get the forsythia out, I was digging holes and planting the other two Rio Sambas. It was a straight forward job, but I had to dig all the way down to the concrete floor to get the hole deep enough for the gorgeous plant’s roots. This one is beside the top of the driveway, beside the garage.

This planter is off the front porch. It was a fairly easy job, too, except that this old broad doesn’t dig a lot of deep holes these days…

 

I think I told you recently that my friend, Kay, from Lunch Bunch, got me a Joseph’s Coat climbing rose for my birthday. We planted it today right next to a wisteria at the far end of the house. The wisteria is pretty much a bust, not having produced like the one in the front yard, but hopefully it’ll be a dandy thing for the rose to climb on. I can’t wait to see all the roses bloom!

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March 13, 2018 · 6:57 pm

The Spring Garden is Started!

I got my plants in this afternoon. This picture gives you an idea of where the garden is in relation to our shop.

 

We have six 4’x4’x8″ raised bed boxes in our garden. It is surrounded by fencing, with chicken wire also around the bottom. I’ll run some bright surveyor’s tape around the perimeter about chest high and also down each of the guy wires at the corners to warn critters that there is a structure here.

 

I’m planting fewer things this year, with wider spacing. I planted 12 broccoli plants, 12 romaine plants, 12 spinach plants, and 12 iceburg lettuce plants. I had already planted two bunches of onion sets. I have several empty squares. I’ll plant some radishes, plus celery transplanted from plants started in the house later.  I’m going to play with growing some gourds because my friend Kay brought some seeds to Lunch Bunch recently. :0) I also have a six pack of tomato plants still in the greenhouse. I’ll wait a couple of weeks to plant them.

 

Last year I  lost some produce because the plants got too large and crowded each other out in the squares. This year I’m only planting one plant per square (other than the onions) and we’ll see how that works.

 

In this picture you can see the line of trash cans along the back of the shop, plus the blue tarp, etc. The light gray trash cans are filled with the components of Mel’s Mix (peat moss, vermiculite, mushroom compost, barnyard compost, and cotton burr compost.) I have our personal composter toward the house. The darker gray trash cans hold supplies for planting.

I had some trouble with the end of one of the irrigation hoses being messed up. My good husband came out and replaced the messed up end of hose with a new end and then we could water the garden! We won’t put the system on a timer until we’re sure all chance of frost and  freezing are past.

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March 13, 2018 · 11:11 am

Taking the Plunge

Belgian Nursery

My husband goes outside when the weather forecasters tell him it’s raining in Greenwood – on the Lewis’ house – right now.  I have a bit more faith in their abilities, though we both realize that trying to forecast the weather is a complicated task. I just looked up the 10-day forecast for Greenwood on the net and see that today was the last forecast freeze through the 23rd. I’ve decided to go ahead and take the plunge, planting the veggies we are holding in the greenhouse.

 

Gardening Know How

I have iceburg lettuce, spinach, romaine, and broccoli plants, two six-packs of each.

I have my raised bed planters filled with Mel’s Mix and the string stretched across in two directions, creating the squares for planting. My planters are at about chest level so I can just walk up and plant things without having to bend over, get down on my knees or back up again.

I planted Texas Sweet Onion sets a couple of days ago. It’s such a pleasure! I’ll take pictures when I get the plants in. I’m excited to be starting a brand new spring crop!

I’ll watch the weather carefully, leaping up to put sheets over the plants if they say it’s going to get near freezing for the rest of the month.

 

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March 10, 2018 · 10:07 am

1st Planting Lesson of the Year

The Rusted Vegetable Garden

Well, shoot!

I was looking for a photo of onion sets and came upon their suggestion for giving your onions a good start when you plant them: Soak the sets in water for 15-30 minutes to make them easier to pull apart and prepare the roots for planting.

The sad part is that I planted yesterday and just found the photo and suggestion above today –

I feel good. My husband and I mixed enough Mel’s Mix yesterday to finish topping off the two brick tomato planters on the east side of the house. All the veggie planters are now ready for planting. As I said, I planted the two onion sets we bought. I planted 4 in each of 30 squares in the raised bed square foot garden. I need to make markers now to stick in each of the planters, but the onions are in!

The forecast is for scattered showers during the day and heavier showers this evening, so hopefully they’ll get a good, thorough watering. We won’t hook up our irrigation system until all chance of frost is past, March 30th or so.

Monday I hope to get more plants. (I’m hoping to get spinach and broccoli). I’ll probably keep them in the greenhouse until it’s time to plant. I found a nice guide to planting today –

The plan this year is to grow fewer things, but try to do succession planting so that we have a longer harvest.

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March 8, 2018 · 7:06 pm

Ready to Plant

This afternoon I stretched string across in two directions to create the ‘squares’ of the square foot garden in the six raised boxes. I’m now ready to plant! I’ll go get some onion sets because they can go into the garden directly. I also have some iceberg head lettuce plants, but I need to wait to plant them until all danger of frost is past.

Tomorrow I’ll mix up some more Mel’s Mix to top off the two brick planters on the other side of the house that we converted to square foot planters for our tomatoes. It’s supposed to be a beautiful day tomorrow, so I’m anxious to get this part finished before we get rain Saturday.

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March 7, 2018 · 10:46 am

Smiling Daffodils

As far as I’m concerned, you can’t have too many daffodils. Happily, this year, they’re pretty much in full bloom right now, not having been caught by a freeze (though one is forecast tonight.)

 

After years of spreading them around, they are finally going all the way across the front yard. I’m trying to move some each year to the rest of the flower planters and across the back yard, if I live long enough. :0)

 

This was the original patch of daffodils I planted beside and around the base of the well house. Then we decided to dig them up and plant them elsewhere around the yard. No matter how many bulbs I did up and plant, more come up here each year.

 

This is Debbye’s bouquet that I told you about recently.

 

These are in one of the two brick planters we’ll have to take down and rebuild.

 

We have a trio of planters that divide our driveway area from our front lawn. This is one end of it.

 

This is the middle of the trio.

 

You can get an idea of the trio here.

These are some growing in the back yard.

I absolutely love this time of year where old friends sprout up and smile at me.

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March 6, 2018 · 12:19 pm

Mel’s Mix – Day Two

This is a much grander version of what I’m going to be doing this afternoon, but it gives you the idea.

We were able to get the components of Mel’s Mix (a ground soil alternative made from 2 parts peat moss, 2 parts vermiculite, 1 part each as many different kinds of compost as you can find – I use mushroom, cotton burr, and barnyard, plus our own homemade, when we have it.)  Recently we tried the very used cement mixer we bought to mix the components together before putting them in our raised bed garden boxes. The mixer is GREAT. I’m using a small bucket, but I can mix TWO batches of Mel’s Mix in the mixer at one time, then dump some out into a plastic yard basket for transport to the garden and into a box.  Now that I know how to move the mixer up and down and what to expect, I can do this any time I would like. I love feeling empowered!

We added a bunch of Mel’s Mix to three of the six 4’x4’x8″ raised wooden boxes that make up our vegetable garden. I may need to add more, but I’ll decide that later. Today I’m concentrating on the rest of the boxes. Once I get the Mel’s Mix into the boxes, I’ll stretch string between nails on the edges of the boxes in both directions to create ‘squares’ for planting. (In square foot gardening, you plant different numbers of plants in the squares depending on the plant. (For broccoli and cauliflower, for example, you plant one plant in a square. For lettuce, you can plant 4 plants in a square. For radishes, you can plant 16…) You spread out the planting so that you’re not planting the same thing in two squares right next to each other. This cuts way down on any insects or disease.

I’m not going to even think about getting plants until the boxes are filled and the squares are marked and the irrigation system is set up. The first thing I’ll plant is onion sets. I may bring home other plants to put in my new greenhouse, even though it’s not organized yet.

I’m excited to start another year of raised bed square foot gardening. I learn a TON every year – mostly things NOT to do next time, so far :0) – and I have SUCH a good time watching things grow. I’ll post pics from time to time to share how things are going.

Have a wonderful day!

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March 5, 2018 · 1:33 pm

A Good Monday

wallpaper-gallery.net

We have had a wonderful Monday.

First thing this morning we filled up the back of the truck with another donation to Veteran’s Thrift Store.  We stopped at our veterinary clinic when we got to Greenwood to replenish our dog food supply, putting the bags in the back seat. We dropped off the donation, then drove back to the co-op in Greenwood, filling up the back of the truck with all we needed to replenish our supply of the components of Mel’s Mix for the garden except for one more bag of mushroom compost, which the nice man at the counter is ordering for us. It amazes me that the man remembers my name! He’ll call us when he has the bag we need in stock. We grabbed lunch at the deli at CVs on the way to the house.

After lunch my husband backed the truck to the garden (not a chore for the faint of heart) and we unloaded the back of the truck, opening the bags and filling up the trash bins behind the shop, beside the garden.) When we got back to the garage, we unloaded the dog food from the back seat and stored the two bags in the bin we keep for that purpose.

We’re going to go bowling with friends tonight. Since Amber has been in the back seat of the truck, we needed to vacuum the seats, getting rid of all the dog hair we can. It was my husband’s turn, so I left him doing that while I gathered trash in the house. We put the bowling balls in the trunk of the truck and I just put the bags of trash into the back so that we can leave them at the bottom of the driveway when we leave tonight to pick up our friends.

Even the weather is wonderful – sunny and 68 degrees right now.

I’m probably going to do some other things this afternoon, like the elliptical and my yoga, but the biggest thing will be to spread out under a throw in my recliner and take a good nap after our morning’s work. :0)

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March 3, 2018 · 5:52 pm

Mel’s Mix 2.0

This is a picture of two of my six 4’x4’x8″ raised bed square foot garden boxes. We had an absolutely perfect day to work outside (sunny with a high of 68) so I threw my plans for the day up in the air and decided to start topping off the Mel’s Mix in the garden boxes in preparation for planting our spring garden.  (The mix settles during the winter. I can’t figure out where it ‘goes,’ but about half of the mix is gone.)  My husband came along to give me moral support – and to insult me while I learned how to use our new-to-us cement mixer. Our 91 pound puppy, Amber, came with us just because she likes to be with us and loves being outside.

Last year we bought the mixer, thinking it would help me get the components of Mel’s Mix combined better. (The components of Mel’s Mix are peat moss, vermiculite, and as many different kinds of compost as you can find. I use cotton burr, mushroom, and barnyard, with a bit of homemade thrown in. ) I used to dip out the components into a wheelbarrow, then use a shovel to mix it up as well as I could and then fight to get the wheelbarrow through the door of the garden fencing, shoveling out the Mel’s Mix into one of the boxes, scoop by scoop. It was a huge job.

 

My husband made a nice handle for moving the cement mixer around, if necessary, and we put the mixer behind the shop, next to the square foot garden, in the row of trash cans I use for all the Mel’s Mix stuff.  We put a tarp over the mixer and the long extension cord for it for the winter.

 

Today I put together one batch of Mel’s Mix, putting each measure into the cement mixer for the first time.  I saw that it would hold a lot more, so I added the components for a second batch. We plugged the mixer in and mixed the stuff for about 3 or 4 minutes. It was mixed SO much better than I could do with the shovel! We poured some of the mix into a large plastic yard basket with handles (about half full so I could lift it) and then I took it over and dumped it into a garden box.( It took 2 cement mixer loads to top off one of the raised bed boxes.) We kept mixing and dumping until we ran out of some of the components of the Mel’s Mix. (We topped off 3 of the boxes.)  Then, because my energy had run out before we used up the components, we went ahead and covered up the cement mixer again and put the tops on all the trash cans holding the compost, etc., before going to town.

The co-op apparently closes at noon on Saturday, so replenishing our supplies will have to wait until at least Monday. They usually don’t have the vermiculite I need and have to order it, but we’ll can get what we can and order the rest to pick up later in the week.

The mixer helps a LOT, but doesn’t make it so it isn’t really physical work for this old broad. It does a MUCH better job of mixing the components. I now know how to move the mixer bowl up and down, so I’ll be able to do that now any time I want to.

We finished enough garden boxes so that if we find good onion sets at the co-op Monday, I can go ahead and get them. We already have some string for marking the garden ‘squares’ that will weather being out in the sun better than the stretchy nylon string we used last year. (That was nice to use, but deteriorated quickly.)

The season is almost starting – at least for onions! I’m determined to get the beds ready for planting BEFORE I actually get the plants this year. Trying to do the prep AND the planting in one day is too much!

After eating some late lunch mid afternoon, this lady crashed in her recliner…

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January 28, 2018 · 12:04 pm

Shhhhh!

I saw a set up for selling plants at the co-op as we drove by last week. I did some research and discovered that February is a good months to start onion sets in Arkansas.  We’ll check there tomorrow and see what’s what.  We had such good luck last year that I’ve been enjoying them since harvest and still have two nice hanging mesh bags of onions in the pantry. :0)

 

We have six 4’x4′ raised bed planters like this in our square foot garden. If we DO get onion sets, I’ll first have to mix some Mel’s Mix to top off a couple of the planters. We don’t have string strung yet to create the ‘square feet’ for the garden, either.  I’m not really in planting mode yet. I’m still thinking about how I’m going to set up my greenhouse so that I can get seeds growing. And I really wasn’t planning to start THAT until March….

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I’m still in cleaning out mode, feeling better and better as I get areas around the house finally cleaned out and decluttered.

I’m working upstairs today – the second day of working on my bookshelves on my side of the bedroom, plus the shelves in the guest room. I’m hoping to finish that today.  During this process, I found a bunch of books that I no longer need, so I brought them downstairs to the office. About a third of them were saleable on Amazon, and the rest I listed to donate to our local library.  I have to concentrate on the ‘cleaning’ part of this because I see a book on art, want to sit right down and look at it, drooling over the pictures…

My goal this year is to continually gather donations for our local library fundraisers and the Veterans Thrift Store in Fort Smith. I would like to be able to make a donation each month this year. I’m also trying to gather an extra large bag of trash each week. This week I’ll be putting out TWO extra bags!

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I hope you’re having a nice Sunday,too.

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January 13, 2018 · 11:35 am

Sow What?

mycraftilyeverafter

I’m gathering suggestions as to what to start when – and a bit on how – in my new greenhouse!  My goal is to be ready to start some plants the middle of March. I’ll have to see what the temperature is in the greenhouse, since I don’t have heat out there, but if it’s too cold, I can start the seeds in the house and move them out there later.

 

Our greenhouse is 10×14. It is not heated or cooled with electricity because it would cost us a fortune. We do have the ability to have lights, and we do have an automatic venting system tied to the thermostat, so we can get reasonable ventilation in there, particularly when I leave the door open at the opposite end of the greenhouse.

So far I just moved things out there and stashed them somewhere. I’m giving some thought now to storage and work areas.

 

I would like to keep as much table area as possible for either planting seeds or staging the plants I’ve started. If we have some warmer days (like in the 40s or so) I’ll try to start moving things around, trying to get organized for the initial planting. I’ll take pics as I make some progress and share them with you. I’m hoping that I can stretch my growing season, growing my own plants to transplant out to the square foot garden when they’re ready and the danger of frost is past.

 

Our square foot garden used to look like this, with two rows of boxes on the ground.

 

Now we have six 4’x4′ boxes at chest level so I can replenish the Mel’s Mix in the boxes, mark the squares with string, plant, weed, and harvest without having to bend over or kneel down on the ground.  The boxes have a fence all the way around them, reinforced with chicken wire to keep critters out. We have an automatic irrigation system set up.

I’m dreaming about plants, greenhouses, and glorious harvests this spring!

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January 4, 2018 · 12:41 pm

Who Knew?

I thought I had tried everything, trying to get Amber, our almost 10-month-old yellow lab to quit digging in the planters where we dug out old rose bushes and just left dirt for planting in the spring.  This was a daily problem, almost as if she made the rounds, thinking that it was her DUTY to leave dirt everywhere for me to come clean up.

Mary Lou, my sister-in-law from Charlotte, said that what she and my brother-in-law do to discourage their dogs from digging in the yard was distribute their poop where digging was off-limits.

Before the big freeze around here, I gathered a goodly amount of samples with a dustpan and put some in each of the planters. I then put some leaves in the planters so they would look like the other planters we had mulched around the yard.  This was about 3 weeks ago.

SO FAR, SO GOOD! No digging in the planters!  Even though it has been really cold around here, Amber loves to be outside. She has had several opportunities each day to do her digging. Hats off to Mary Lou for the wonderful suggestion!!!!!

 

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December 21, 2017 · 12:05 pm

Organizing My Greenhouse

diyntetwork

I wish that my greenhouse looked like this. Maybe one day…

Right now it looks like big piles of ‘stuff’ on the floor, on the tables, all over the place.

I’m starting to find some ideas, though.

I’ve got a couple of things that take priority right now, but very soon I’m going to start trying to move things so that I have a good place to plant my seeds in March.

I’ve already learned from the beginner’s book I got on greenhouses a whole different way to start my seeds. I may be able to lose my “Serial Seed Killer” moniker, after all!

Meanwhile, the elephant ear and purple passion roots are safe in the garage, packed in peat moss for the winter. I learned that the greenhouse will definitely get below freezing without a heater. That’s okay. One lesson learned of many to come.

What I CAN do is –

  • create an initial set up for planting seeds
  • figure out which seeds I’ll plant and when in order to have the best chance of having good transplants to put out in the square foot garden when the threat of frost is past
  • decide if I have all the tools I’ll need to get started
  • cut my seed trays to fit into the turkey basting trays (explanation later)
  • clean up the floor out there (the water from rains comes in underneath and pools in places on the weed barrier for a few days. When the weed barrier is dry, there is dirt left there. There is also a place where Amber tried to dig, right in the middle of the greenhouse. I need to either put down another layer of weed barrier secured with duct tape or put rubber mats out there, or something to protect the floor from further rips.

I’ll take pics as I go. If you have suggestions, I’d be delighted if you’d write and tell me.

Have a wonderful Thursday!

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December 18, 2017 · 10:51 am

More Glorious Greenhouses

Brian Pargard

Those these greenhouses are drool-worthy, some of them do have some good ideas about storage. I’ll see if I can arrange for some shelves beneath the tables we have set up so that I can keep most of the table tops available for different stages of seeds.

 

etsy.com

Isn’t this a gorgeous ‘bringing-the-outside-in’ drawing?

 

 

indulgy.com

Isn’t this lush? I like all the brick and tiles, too.

 

instagram.com

This is another Taj Mahal of greenhouses. One might never come out…

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December 16, 2017 · 3:22 pm

Researching about the Greenhouse

barbaragroen.nl

I was hoping to find ideas about how to organize my greenhouse on the net. So far, I’ve found pictures that make my mouth water, where people have obviously put more money into the greenhouse than we have in our whole house –

 

 

blog.freepeople.com

 

 

politiken.dk

 

 

wrensgate.tumblr.com

If my mouth will quit watering, I’ll change my search terms and maybe I’ll get some suggestions on good tips for setting up MY greenhouse – not the Taj Mahal! :0)

 

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December 16, 2017 · 11:41 am

It All Started with Bird Seed….

I wish this picture were of birds in our yard. Aren’t these birds beautiful?

My husband is good about putting bird seed in the bottle we have right outside the dining area window. He likes it that the birds have to actually get into the gallon-sized bottle, pick up a seed, and then fly away. They’re really close so we can see them well as they eat breakfast. He also puts seed in the shovel bird we made and attached to the railing of the deck. Not so much the other feeders hanging about.

I noticed that the snowman bird feeder was almost empty. I also wanted to add another feeder, since our traffic is up with the cooler mornings.

I found one of our favorite feeders. It’s shaped like a ‘cabin,’ with plexiglass on both sides and a big root. There are places for suet on either end of the feeder. I discovered that one of the pieces of plexiglass was gone, so I put the feeder on the floor and will ask my husband if he can fix it.

I found another feeder, of COURSE on the top shelf in the garage. I got out the ladder and still had to get the grab-stuff-you-can’t-reach tool to actually get it off the shelf. I got the mud dauber’s nest remnants off, but it still needed a good cleaning. I brought it inside and had to unscrew the top in order to get the inner part out so I could wash it. A very laborious time later, the feeder was clean and ready for seed. I filled it and also filled up the snowman feeder and put them out. We’ll deal with the broken feeder later.

I then checked the greenhouse, finding that the elephant ear and purple passion greenery had not survived the latest cold snap. I went out to behind the shop and filled up two buckets with peat moss and took them out to the greenhouse. I cut off the dead parts of the plants and put the roots deep into one bucket of the peat moss, then filled up the bucket with as much as I could get in there and patted it down. The bucket is now on the counter in the garage for storage until I replant them in the spring.

Today is a pretty day. Since we have another cold front coming through later this evening into tomorrow (with hopefully some good rain) I’ll probably spend more time out in the yard, cleaning up as much as I can. The big area remaining is the planters on our deck. I couldn’t stand the idea of taking out the live flowers, so I just waited until the last front came through and did the flowers in. Now I won’t have any trouble clearing out what is dead. :0)

I hope you’re having a nice day.

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December 12, 2017 · 10:42 am

Cleaning Up

Our raised bed square foot garden is now completely cleaned out. I was hoping the lettuces would survive, but the recent week of hard freezes did them in. All is now ready for more Mel’s Mix in the spring.

I’m reading the new book I got about using my greenhouse most effectively. Since it’s WAAAAAY too expensive to provide heat or cooling to the greenhouse, I’m concentrating on extending my spring planting season, figuring out when the best time is to start seeds so that I’ll have good plants to put out in the garden when danger of frost is past. Since I’m new at this, I’m making lots of notes, trying to get my act together.

In the meantime, I’ll start getting my greenhouse better organized. Right now I just have things ‘in’ the greenhouse with no particular thought to where and how I’ll start seeds later. I’m going to see if I can find some information on the net and will start moving things around.

The only plants I have in the greenhouse right now are the elephant ear plant and the purple passion plant I dug up before all the hard freezes started. Of course, NOW it’s getting up into the 50s in the afternoon, so with my luck, they’ll probably die in there from getting too hot! :0(

I found some old pictures of the greenhouse as we built it –

The dimensions are about 10 x 14.  It has a dirt floor covered with two layers of weed barrier. The corners have steel rod welded to plates that we drilled holes and pounded into the ground with a sledge hammer. The plates were screwed into the wood. The ribs are pvc pipe. At first we held them to the wood with plastic pieces, but we’ve replaced several that couldn’t handle the strain with metal ones.

 

You’re looking at the north end of the greenhouse from the inside. We made tables from plywood and they go around both sides and across the north end. We left a spot in the northwest corner to hold a trash can filled with Mel’s Mix, plus brooms, and other tall stuff.

 

This is still the north end of the greenhouse, with the addition of an exhaust fan. When it’s hooked up to electricity, it opens when the temperature reaches a preset mark to draw air through the greenhouse for cooling.

 

This is the inside of the east side of the greenhouse. It will hold lots of supplies, though I’ll store as much of this as possible off the tables to give myself as much room to spread out planting trays and pots as possible.

 

Outside of the north end of the greenhouse. If you’ve been following the blog, you know that we had a break in the pvc pipe right at the top where it was attached to the wood. We ended up screwing large screws with rings onto the upright pieces of wood and arranging for guy wires to pull the end out, attached to a stake in the ground.

 

This seems like a really old picture, since there is now a 45 foot ham radio tower very close to the door on the south end of the greenhouse. You can see pieces of it in the left front of the picture.

 

This is the inside west side of the greenhouse. I’ll show you more pics as I get the greenhouse in some kind of order (I hope).  I’m hoping I can find good ideas for how to arrange things. Wish me luck?

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December 9, 2017 · 11:49 am

Last Harvest of 2017

Yesterday I had to wait half the day for the temperatures to get above freezing. When I looked at my lettuce at the end of the afternoon, it was clear that I should harvest what I could and call the end of the season.  We got a nice harvest of bibb lettuce, and we’ll enjoy that in a salad tonight.  This afternoon, when it warms up a bit more, I’ll go out and clean out the remainder of the lettuce from my square foot garden.

The only ‘garden’ I have right now is the tomato plant and the celery plants on my window sill in the dining area. I’m hoping that the elephant ear and purple passion plants will stay alive in the greenhouse.

Soon I’ll start planning what seeds to plant and when in my new greenhouse!

 

 

 

 

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December 8, 2017 · 9:57 am

Winter is Here

patch.com

In about 45 minutes my husband and I will go to Lunch Bunch – our long time, every-possible-Friday lunch with good friends. We’ve been doing this for years and I really miss it if we don’t go for some reason.

It’s 21 degrees F out there right now. I’m not even sure if I should just leave my lettuce covered up with a sheet until it gets above freezing or not. The high is supposed to be 42, I think. This may be a moot point, since my sweet lettuce plants may have croaked last night – sheet or not sheet. When it gets this cold, it’s beyond the frost or light freeze stage. If it’s gone, I’ll be a bit sad, but we’ve had a really nice crop this year and I shouldn’t be over-greedy. I’m looking forward to the spring when – hopefully – I’ll have some robust, healthy plants grown in my greenhouse ready to go into the garden.

I’ll see what the temperature is when we get back from lunch and errands and then make the decision whether to uncover the plants today or not.  I’m looking forward to seeing what mischief I can get into the rest of the day.

Stay warm and dry!

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December 3, 2017 · 2:21 pm

Composter

We built a composter a couple of years ago. I finally made a good batch of compost this year!

I say this as if I won the lottery because even though I followed directions I found in books and on the net, I ended up with the wrong combination of ingredients and ended up dumping it out (holding my nose) and washing out the inside of the composter with a hose.

I’ve finally learned to add a whole lot more yard waste and much less food waste in order to come up with something that I hope will be a good addition to the composts for the square foot garden.

I cleaned it out today because I don’t want to leave it in there for the winter. In the picture above, you can see that we used a plastic food container type barrel we bought from the hardware store. We poured a concrete pad for the composter to sit on, with stakes coming up out of the concrete. We pounded the legs onto the stakes to make a good, sturdy support for the composter. We cut the opening in the front, making it so it opens wide enough to put new items in easily or use the tool my husband made for scooping the compost out. The barrel is on rollers. We attached handles on three spots around the barrel so you can pull the barrel, rolling it over and mixing the ingredients inside. This way you can be sure everything is mixed well.

This is the tool my husband made. It’s rounded to conform to the inside of the barrel, making emptying it really easy. It has a rubber grip, and the tool is plenty long enough to reach all areas on the inside of the barrel. The tool “lives’ on its side beside the composter.

You can see one of the three handles on the top of the composter. The metal ‘wand’ keeps the latches shut and the door firmly closed. My husband made the handle for it on the mill. The end slides through the parts of the latches, or pulls out if you’re opening it up. The end also helps pry the ends of the latches up.

After cleaning out the composter today, the trash can under it is a little over 1/3 full. We can mix up Mel’s Mix behind the shop, and then wheelbarrow some out to add our own compost to the mix next spring.

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