Tag Archives: the joy of gardening

July 27, 2018 · 9:38 am

Whining Zone

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One red wasp and I’m a mess – AGAIN. Last year I could say I had never been stung by anything – ever. Since then I’ve been stung by red wasps three times and a scorpion once. I can tell you I’m a very unhappy camper right now.

I have two small, deep circular bruises on the back of my hand where I bashed it against a palette of bricks flailing around trying to get the wasp off me. Surrounding those two and encompassing about half of the back of my hand is a lighter, swollen bruise. My arm is swollen all around the inside of my right elbow and very pink. In the center is a ‘head’ where the stinger went in.

The pain was such yesterday that I tried a bit of everything last night trying to get it to stop. I finally rolled on PainStop because that kind of deadens the nerve endings – I think – and makes other hurts hurt less. I had already put ice on it. I had also held a tissue with bleach on it. I took two Benedryl. I finally put Cortisone 10 on it, and that allowed me to get a bit of sleep, though I was awake several times last night. It’s still quite pink and sore to the touch, but just a bit itchy, so I guess that’s a good sign.

The weeds in the flower planters will have free rein until the swelling goes down. They’ll probably thumb their noses at me – with the remaining wasps in the area joining the chorus – as we drive by to go to Brunch Bunch this morning.

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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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