Category Archives: Gardening

Daffodils are now Thriving

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Our daffodil population is exploding. Every day more and more are popping up. Today our first white & yellow daffodils opened. They are lovely.

Gorgeous Daffodil

It’s very hot again, and this week the humidity went to Southern Summer types. Bad enough outside, but inside it is worse right now, our A/C is totally not working (only the fan will come on, or the Heat Pump [like we want that right now :roll-eyes] – it’s too old and needs overhauled — really needs to be hauled OUT. We need new, better, the one we have NEVER worked awesomely, never was up to snuff most of the summer. Too small and wrong for the space we have.

Spring and Daffodils

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Yoshino's Blooming

A view of our Yoshino's in full bloom

March is nearly over already. Wow! Time is moving fast. Partially that is because Spring started so very early for us this year. Our Yoshino cherry trees are usually in Peak blossoming right now. They are done blossoming, have been for awhile. Our largest of the 3 we have still has many blossoms at the top half of the tree, but all the trees are leafing out and the blossoms that are still there are mostly hidden. Overall, the two smaller trees are done with blossoms, and the larger tree has many, but not even a 1/8 to a 1/4 of what it had in full bloom.

We got some daffodils planted this year in the front yard. They were supposed to be planted in November, but got lost in the garage and it wouldn’t have worked out in any case. I found them in the shed a few weeks ago and was surprised to find them there, buried in a corner. They were nice bags that we got at Costco, 80 bulbs in each. I opened one up and the bulbs were sprouting roots a little and growing upwards. The other bag was the same. A few bulbs seemed no good (that would be the case whenever we would have opened it in the Autumn.) Since they probably spent most of the Winter in the shed, I guess they were treated to enough cold to grow and do their thing.

We have a Mantis, but it was out of service in the Autumn, so we hadn’t done any prep for new flower beds or anything at all. My daffodil bulbs were a great buy, but bad timing. Anyhow, we got the Mantis in for service late February, but couldn’t pick it up until just a week ago. I found the bulbs and with that status find and the early spring we were having I was anxious to get them planted immediately.

Our yard is the typical Georgia one, clay and weedy grasses. Hard, awful. It had rained previous to start digging the grassy surface off of the dirt, so that job was a bit easier. It would have be heaven to have the Mantis at this point, loosening the earth to get it amended and moved to get the bed of bulbs in place. It was a messy thankless job without the Mantis. My husband did most of that work in the end. I didn’t do the digging, I’m not capable of it. I started laying the bulbs in, but grew sick of it with the condition of everything and left it for my husband to finish. I hope all the bulbs ended up pointing up properly.

Close-up of Daffodil emerging from the Earth

It seemed forever until one green pointy thing poked through the dirt. It was forever. It was the only one for a long time, then another and another. A few days later a couple more, then it rained and I didn’t look yesterday, chilly day that it was, and very wet. Today I went out in early morning and sure enough, more and more and more are coming out. Still nothing like should come up, but it’s a start. Other peoples daffodils are up and blossoming already (for some weeks!) Ours say on the bag “bloom mid-spring” so what does that mean exactly in our case? If they were in the ground since November, they’d be further along now? Probably, I guess. I’m hoping these daffodils will naturalize. I did have some before that never came back. It was several years ago, but not as many or even as nice bulbs as the ones we just planted. Mid-Spring is what though? I guess we’ll see in coming years.

There are at least 4 or 5 stalks from these bulbs which are forming blossoms in their tops. Some are supposedly full yellow, others yellow centers with white petals. I’m hoping to get the area fully finished (dirt moved, mulch applied, etc.) so that when the flowers bloom I’ll have some good photos to get.

2011 Spring – Chives from my Barrel Garden

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Chives from my Barrel Garden

Originally uploaded by CrazyMaisy.

My Chives (Onion Chives acutally) are from a long time ago, I am not exactly sure, 2004 or 2005. I had them in a ground garden first year or two, then moved them to the barrel when I got that a few years ago. They are perennial, faithful lovely chives.

They are looking sprite and growing a lot this past week.

I need to get a few more herbs for the barrel, I have some Greek Oregano that stayed the winter, and some kind of leggy weird Thyme that also did (but I don’t like.) I need some nice thyme varieties and a good basic Basil and some thing else like it in another variety or something or other. Sounds vague, yup, that’s how it is until I find what I want at Home Depot or Whole Foods Market.

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. :)