Category Archives: Gardening

Out & Gardening & Putting Together

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My hubby and I went out on Saturday together, with the eldest son, being 14 now, the one in charge at home.

We went to Ikea and that is a one-thing for me. I mean, it’s like walking a million miles for me, so a one-thing-trip, nothing else should be done. That was not all we did though. Walking, walking, going more. [I'm still an introvert, of course. Like that would ever change :wink: ]

We ate at Fox Sports Grill in Atlantic Station (Atlanta, GA) which was nice. I had a Blue Cheese Burger, very messy, but very, very good. I also had a “Grand Stand Lemonade” which is a drink with Amaretto, Jack Daniels, Pineapple Juice, and Sweet & Sour in a tall glass over ice. The drink was nice, not heavy, but got more “thick” nearer to the bottom and was over tangy, not as nice as the rest of it. I was done eating, and hubby ready to go anyhow, so I didn’t finish the last inch or two of the drink.

We also went to Whole Foods Market (we try to get there at least 1 time a month, it’s an adventure in it’s own right) which was more than I could muster up energy to think about what to get by the time we were there for very long. I did see the plants outside before we went in, and I took the time to look at the herbs and tomatoes and choose a few to get. Nice organic plants, good prices.

I had finally gotten a hanging tomato thing, the topsy tuvy that does tomatoes & herbs. I’d never had one before. I didn’t thing well of it when I saw the first commercials for it sometime ago. But last year I saw more value in it, and this year I decided to go with it since I now have a cottage shed in the backyard which I’m building my gardening things around. I’m hanging it off the side of the cottage. I previously had several plants to put into it, but wanted more and the Whole Foods plants help a lot to get me nearer to having enough to fill the topsy turvy with. Looking at the instructions for it I noted that I could get more than 9 plants into it since it says you can get two plant into every port …

Hubby helped me set it up this afternoon. I thought I might need to get a few more things for it, I don’t have quite all the herbs I want. Home Depot had some that I got earlier, so to get something else it probably won’t be “Organic” since I picked through stuff like that there already last couple of weeks.

At Ikea we got a bunch of little things: Magazine holders (now I need more for the Magazine that will be coming from Maghound in the next months [just for the ones I keep, Organic Gardening, Hobby Farms, Hobby Farms Home, Martha Stewart, Southern Living, Mary Janes Farm, Scrapbooks Etc., as well as my subscription to Creating Keepsakes mag.] hooks, little kitchen things, of course more wooden hangers too.

We saw a cabinet there that I immediately thought of as perfect for my scrapbooking space. I then went online once home and found a few pictures of it on Flickr, in a MA Ikea store setup as a ‘craft room’ … there sat my desired red cabinet filled with craft stuff.

For “Mother’s Day” my hubby took me back to Ikea yesterday and we bought the cabinet and a few other things.

I put half of the cabinet together yesterday in the basement before giving up feeling overworked/overheated … which makes me quite ill and only rest and hours of sleep every restores me from that state.

This morning I was able to get more of it done. It’s in place, just the hardware for door hinges needs to be finished, and get the doors on. I have the shelves in, and some things inside already. I bought a package of light that will go into the top of the cabinet, but I’ll need to work on that to get them installed, not a “plug ‘n’ play” thing at all.

I need to make sure my Topsy-Turvy planter is still hanging well. It rained the past couple of days, very hard yesterday, so it’ll be very heavy. FWIW

My Garden 2009

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I have a garden started, not much yet. It’s a raised bed made with retaining wall paver sort of stuff. I’m supposed to have 4 of them eventually, just 1 for now. Tomatoes, green onions, and pole beans are what I have in it thus far. They are all growing and I got some structure up for the beans yesterday and they should start their winding/climbing action fairly soon. I have to thin the onions and just haven’t really grown these before by myself so I have to look up what exactly to do with them. The tomato plants are mostly all flowering and some have set baby tomatoes.

I also have more in my barrel planter now. The old perennial onion chives I planted some years ago is thriving, I have a few other tomato plants in there, as well as oregano, parsley and thyme. My old thyme died back and only a teeny-tiny bit is now starting to come back.

I have ants in my barrel since one big rain in the last week or two. I have to find my de-whatever-earth stuff that I have to deal with those critters. I was trying to find something to get rid of them with that’s safe and organic and totally forgot about de-whatever-earth, which I do have in the garage somewhere.

I want to grow more, but don’t either have the space set up, or don’t have the plants, have seeds but don’t want to grow everything else I want from seed, and want to have Red Peppers mostly, but never have had success in growing (red peppers) to eat any of them.

I can hardly wait to get some fresh beans on the dinner table though. It’s been a long time since I had a real garden, and that is because of needing to amend places for one in our backyard (it’s horrible georgia clay which isn’t good for growing most veggies.) My first garden spot in this yard I abandoned, and the seconded as well. The third I didn’t abandon really, but it just faded away sort of. I was to have a grand garden in 2007 but it never got going though I had things for it. I wanted to also do it last year and never got to do it. So I made it happen this year. :)

Crepe Myrtle killed back, waiting for re-growth

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Crepe Mytle I’m awaiting my Crepe Myrtle to re-grow. In 2007 the April 17th-ish freeze killed back all the then Crepe Myrtle spring growth. It was rather far along with nice little leaves showing … then black goo from the two days of freezing temps. It did put out some puny leaves after that, eventually, that’s all.

Next year it had nice leaves, that’s all.

This year (2009) it was putting out little buds to open into leaves and then blam, an early April freeze, just barely, again. But this year the freeze was lesser than the 2007 April freeze by far and wide with the Crepe Myrtle very early into it’s growth for 2009, and noticeably affected just barely, but within a few days it was just brown dried up stuff where the leaf buds were. That nice new growth starting cut off. :(

I’ve looked online and found info from 2007 about freeze damage, and the basic consensus is to leave the poor trees alone, and when another warm spell of a few days lasts it’ll put out new growth again.

Thing is I’m hoping for more than growth, but nice leaves and actual blooms for once. I supposed it’s a young Crepe Myrtle and perhaps hasn’t liked where it is, in the South with the drought, and in the front with not full sunlight all day. It’s where the landscaper we hired years ago had put a Crepe Myrtle on our landscape plans, and we put it in finally a few years ago. It’s supposed to get lilac color blooms. We’ve had plenty of water the last few weeks, and that’s a plus, hope the Crepe Myrtle see it that way.

There are a few suckers coming up that I need to get rid of, and perhaps I could do a little tiny shape pruning, other than that, there’s not much I can do. I sure won’t top it off, no way. That’s a very mean thing to do to a Crepe Myrtle and I bet 75% of the Crepe Myrtles I see around the NE GA area are topped off every year. Horrid.

Garden 2008

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There is no garden in our backyard this year, again. There is supposed to be, but it just hasn’t occurred.

Our backyard is overgrown right now, and we’ve had trouble with the mowers, so it’s kind of “status quo” dormant.

Last year I was supposed to have a good garden. It didn’t happen. I was pregnant and Frank was going to help me but getting the ground ready, and then also help me planting and caring for things. Well, that’s the past. This year I wanted to use what I had left, any of the seeds I’d purchased for 2007.

It’s now July.

I have time, really, since this is The South. But it’s imperative to me that it happens NOW, so I can get tomatoes going, for one. And green beans, and be ready for later when I can plant the end of the season cool vegetables.

This then is what I need to convince Frank of: to get something cut short and de-nuded of grass so that I can plant something somewhere out there. Please, dear? :smile:

36 Weeks today

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I’m 36 wks + 0 days today …

I’m getting much closer, and time seems to be going faster and faster …

We ordered our Birth Kit yesterday, and hopefully it will arrive before our Home Visit on June 4th (when I’ll be 38 wks 0 days.) We also need to get some other supplies for the birth together still (and have them ready for the HV also.)

My midwife gave me a nice chart listing all the days of my pregnancy and the week+day information for each day.

Here are two links to the same OB Calculator which will list your weeks+days of pregnancy in a chart, according to the information you provide:

Last Menses + day cycle, or
Date of Conception, or
Due Date

http://www.floridamidwife.com/calculator.html

http://www.vgio.com/midwife/obcalc.php

Both calculators are the same, but the first link is to one that is customized for a midwife (so has some text added, but just an extra title on the chart produced) and the second link is a plain calculator (and no extra title on the chart produced.)

Hubby is out again this week, and has promised to take off Friday and start getting the flooring installed and finish it that weekend. It’s a holiday weekend, so we’ll see what can be done. It’s just our master bedroom and the hallway we are going to do the flooring on, and plan on doing the other two bedrooms on the same floor of the house later.

Also my garden has never been dug out, hubby wanted our eldest to aide us and get the grass layer off of part of the area so that I could get a few of my plants in (the ones that are still alive, I’ve lost several that we bought, urg!) but DS balked and wouldn’t do it, and hubby didn’t do it, so now I have another week to see if I can keep the few remaining plants alive until planting (which will be when?)

I do have space in my whiskey barrel, to put a few things, but I wanted to get that moved to another spot before playing with it, and the plants that have died are mostly herbs that I bought for the barrel, not all though, and the only ones alive are a couple of bell peppers, and one herb or two, and a tomato plant which wasn’t happy but is re-growing where it did seem to be dying before.

Most of my intended plants are still seeds, and I still am glad I’ve never gotten them started in their little peet pot tray thingies … since I have no way to transplant the many things I would have started. I also have beans and a few other things that are best planted straight into the ground. I was going to get at least two teepee hills of beans planted yesterday, but alas that didn’t work out because of the lack of garden dug out-ness. :sad:

I really want that garden fully planted soon though, and need for that to be completed before long, before the baby arrives for sure!