Back To Gardening We Go….Wanna Come Along?? :)

After a long hiatus, I am back!  I have done research for weeks now, searching all sorts of things about gardening.  I’ve learned new techniques, gardening tips and all about heirloom plants.   So far, the things I am most excited about are square foot gardening, heirlooms and olla watering.  I’m sure I’ll be discussing all these things as we go along.  We’re doing a great big garden at my parents.  I will upload pics as soon as I have them on my computer.   I’ve got lots of help and am hoping that my excitement will be “catchy”.  🙂  I talked earlier about my “all or nothing” gene and I’m excited to say that my daddy is the reason for this….I think. 😉   He is gardening right along side me and I have a feeling my poor mother wants to hide the checkbooks.  🙂  (especially since we’ve picked out heirloom seeds to grow….and our cart gets fuller and fuller by the minute)  We found an awesome website that sells heirloom seeds!  It is www.rareseeds.com.   You should check it out.  I would have NEVER believed the kinds of fruits, vegs, herbs, etc that are out there.  So much more variety than your local stores.   It’s absolutely amazing!!  We’re hoping if we can get things going that we can show and sell some of our homegrown goodies!  Who doesn’t like a farmer’s market?!   I hope you’ll follow along as we start out on a grand adventure.  Please feel free to add any comments or suggestions…or just to say hi.

Garden Envy ….need I say more??

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  Lori’s garden is doing awesome considering she just dug some holes and planted some plants!  🙂  Look at the SIZE of her basil leaves!!  Well…her herb pot in general is just amazing!  The sage is huge too.  You can see her standing behind her pot which makes you realize how big it is!  Her heirloom cherries are awesome too with their color striations!  WOWEEEE!!  And her cubano peppers!  My pics show NO peppers and we planted at the same time!!!  Can you say ENVY??  😛  Miracle Grow…here I come!

Blogging Lesson Learned

Ok…I learned this morning that unless you want to look like a complete idiot….when you “preview” your posts you actually need read what’s there and not just look at it.   Seriously.   My worm article was all switched around so it seemed like I didn’t have a clue and just rambled about aimlessly.  Anyway…I fixed it now…and it starts where it should!!  😛  Sorry bout that!

Vermi-what?? And I have to touch worm poo??

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While starting my garden this year, I was doing research on fertilizers and came across a vermicomposting article. Hmmmmm….VERY interesting. 🙂 I’d been looking into composting awhile ago and now looking into fertilizing. LO and BEHOLD this would accomplish both things at once!! I am super glad that worms don’t gross me out. I got over that a long time ago when I decided that if I wanted to fish….I would HAVE to touch worms-even tear the poor critters in half. ……GULP… :S Well anyway, that’s another story. 🙂 Back to fertilizer….

I found that one of the greatest fertilizers is worm poo. 🙂 And worms eat your kitchen waste….well, to a certain extent. They love fruits, veggies, egg shells, coffee grounds, etc. No meat or fat or anything. They are vegetarians. LOL Oh…and they also LOVE cardboard like egg cartons and just regular old box cardboard. They also love newspaper. Oh and they like greens (like leaves) but most interesting is that they like dryer lint!! Who’da thought?? It’s amazing how much they can eat!!! They can eat at least their body weight in a day! And also interesting is that their poo contains 8 times the micro-organisms (great for your plants!) as what they eat! They lay eggs and when happy, reproduce like mad. Put a thousand worms together in a dark room with lots of food….and all of the sudden….you’ve got way more than 1,000! 🙂 I think the greatest composting worms are “red wigglers”.

So…that’s probably all more than you wanted to know, huh?? Well anyway….I’ve harvested the poo once and it’s so crazy because your mind conjures up all sorts of grody things when you think of worm poo. BUT it is like potting soil almost. It doesn’t smell bad!! It’s a very “earthy” smell….almost like dirt! I mixed it with some soil and put it around my plants and they’re doing quite well all of the sudden. Watering helped too, I’m sure. 🙂 I also put some worms in the soil around the plants. I’ll talk about that more in a gardening post. I’m gonna add a few pics of my worms and also worm eggs so you can see what they look like. Really they look like a teeny lemon seed. They can hold up to like 20 babies but usually not that many hatch….so I read. 🙂 Well, I guess that’s all for your worm session for now.

Here I was, just THINKing these were pretty little white butterflies…

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Boy was I wrong!! I’ve seen a lot of these pretty little white butterflies around the garden lately. Thought it was neat. 🙂 Then I got to reading about what was eating my plants. (I 😦 Grrrrrrrrr The caterpillars are called Cabbage Loopers and do more damage. So much so that its suggested to pick them off and squish them. :S I haven’t had the heart to do that yet….. I’m posting pics of what these little plant munchers do to your plants! 😦

FINALLY a female gourd bloom to pollinate!!!! Yahoo!!

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any and every thing….even grass blades! 🙂 Crazy little things. I see more female blooms to come so I cannot wait for them to actually open! onto have been grabbing. Their little grabber vines all of the suddencould run right out and pollinate it! 🙂 I am nature’s little helper!! I hand pollinated, taped up the female and then took pics to share! The gourds are doing really well  iexcited tonight to see a female bloom this evening so that  soooooooI was

My love affair with gourds….

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For some reason, I have this obsession with gourds. 🙂 It really….is a sickness. Ever since I started crafting with them, I’ve painted them, carved them, grown them and …purchased them. lol I haven’t grown them for a few years so I’m soooooo excited to grow them again. Just the thrill of not knowing what you’ll actually get is so exciting! Recently, I acquired an enormous amount of gourds. I’ll post that picture later. There were so many that I had to store them at my parents. 🙂 (THANKS Mom & DAD!)
They really, are the coolest thing. Just how they grow, then mold and harden to a wood like shell is amazing to me! Maybe after watching mine grow, you’ll want to grow some of your own…?? There are endless varieties to choose from!! Some look like snakes, caveman clubs, penguins, apples…etc.

Really…..why I should blog

Really….I should blog because everyone says I never answer the phone and I’m never available.  I AM a self-professed busybody!!  (not in the “nosey” sense – but the “have too many irons in the fire” sense)  So…this is for all of you!!  If you can’t get ahold of me….I’m probably busy doing one or more of the things I will blog about!!  😛  At least you’ll know I’m still alive and you should just keep calling.  (This is where I sing that little song to you where Dory sings about swimming in Finding Nemo)  “Just keep calling.  Just keep calling.  Just keep calling, calling, calling”.  Dory\’s Swimming Song  Yeah. You’ll be singing that for awhile now.  You’re welcome.  😛  Eventually…you will catch me.  I promise!  🙂

Oh…and someone asked me why I do this “…….” a lot.  I guess I just must pause a lot when I talk in my head because that’s what it translates to on paper.  LOL  Or…just because I’m….um….unique.  Yeah.  That’s it!!

Who needs a shrink, when you have a garden?!

Hmmmmm….already feel self-conscious about writing.  I guess I will just pull up my big girl panties and get started.  🙂

GARDEN THERAPY

I have decided that gardening is sooooo therapeutic.  That is, until, you take pictures to post and see weeds.  Funny….I must be so busy looking at the actual plants I’m growing that the weeds don’t stand out to me until I look at the photos.  So….to spare myself further embarrassment, I decided to try to clear out the weeds and hopefully your eyes will be drawn to the plants instead.  🙂  I will upload before, during and after photos.  I will post weekly (hopefully) photos of various plants to watch their stages of growth.  I always appreciate photos when I am researching online!  🙂 

Confession.  I have a funny (to some of us, maddening to others) (not mentioning any names…ahem 🙂 Reid), quirk about myself.  I have some weird little “all or nothing” gene which tends to give me grief.  This seems to be an ever present issue. (sighing)  When I asked my hubby if I could dig up a “little spot” of grass in the back yard….well, I made a whole lotta work for myself (and Reid – due to various issues like cutting the buried dog boundary wire in TWO places-whoopsie).  I’m sure he has a slight panic attack every time I ask something like that….that may involve him in some way.  I guess if you follow me in my journey, you’ll see just how crazy I make my life!  🙂

Back Patio before - Stay tuned for Afters