Our First Garden

After the breakup...Comes the makeup! Yeah!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Sat, 31 Jan 2009 14:54:00 +0000

Ok, so here's the dealio.

We sucked.

We sucked hardcore last year. Our garden was puny, wimpy, unproductive, dried out, weedy, hot, and generally a huge disappointment. So much so that we haven't even had the desire to write about how horrible things were. heehee

But after every breakup, there's time to heal and forget the old wounds. We remember what could have been and the glimmer of hope of a future utopian botanical getaway is daring to brighten our spirits again.

We are ready to makeup, garden. But we are NOT ready to jump back in the deep end. This time, we are going to take it low and slow. This time, we have boundaries.

1) We will begin seeds no earlier than 4 weeks before last frost.
2) We will do as much as we possibly can in containers on the deck - eliminating that
horrific weed situation.
3) We will invest in *compost*.

Until such time as we decide to give our precious time to you again, garden, we will be busy with the interior of the house. Bombay Mahogany kitchen cabinets.

But-- We might just flip through those seed catalogs later on tonight....

Inspiration from a Strawberry

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Sun, 27 Jul 2008 18:12:00 +0000

Oh Weak! It's been over a month. Super mega quadruple weak. lol

Here's the thing... the planning, preparing, sowing, transplanting, etc. of a garden is fun. The whole 'waiting for it to grow' part? Not so much. Boooorrring, we say.

Right now we're just in the growing phase, but even more so, the weed maintenance phase -which we haven't been too vigilant in actually maintaining. Even though we've been picking small handfuls of veggies every now and then things are still boring. Plus it's as hot as you know what out there.

Anyone else at the ho-hum stage?

Yesterday I discovered the Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake on CBS morning cartoons. Yeah, that's right. I freaked out. I went to the website to play games and watch videos, and what do you know? Miss Strawberry herself giving out garden inspiration.

http://www.agkidzone.com/ss_videos.action?asset=sweet_dreams_garden_grows_vi_ss

Yahoo! I love Care Bears and Strawberry Shortcake. Now if they would just play the Gummi Bears... I wish I had known about these cartoons last week when we were doing the Nielsen Ratings diary. They would have gotten my endorsement.

(Oh, by the way, have you been to kodakgallery.com? You can make an actual physical book with your photographs in the pages for not that much more than getting them in prints. LOVE IT!)

Anyway, back to weeding.

High: 86 Low: 64, sunny; Lunar Phase: Waning Crescent, 28% of full.

Low-Tech

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Sun, 22 Jun 2008 14:40:00 +0000

Hello everyone! We've been on a tech-vacation and haven't even looked at a computer for a week. Have you ever done that? I like to pretend I'm from another era sometimes where nothing is plugged in. The only thing about that is that we missed GBBD, but we didn't have much to show anyway. At any rate, we're back now.

Nothing really happened in the past week except we got all the rows of the garden tilled finally (the last one on the first day of summer). I've got to say, I'm kind of disappointed in how long it's taken to get things planted. I thought we'd be this far along way back at the frost-free date in May but all the rain we've had every other day put a big hamper on the operation. I still need to till an area for our sunflower forest, if it's not too late.

Oh, remember that hot pepper from last post? It was the hottest darn thing that's ever, I mean ever, touched my lips. I thought it was gonna be a banana pepper, but --oh no! Fire!! It was creeper hot too. At first it started out tingly, then it grew to very alarming, and then I rushed to the mirror to look for chemical burns. Lastly, I ended up planting my lips on anything in the freezer they could reach. It was one of those hot peppers that is fun at first, then it gets scary and you think it's never going to reach the hottest point until it does and you panic over it. heehee

There's another kind of little pepper growing and it looks like a jalepeno. I'll be more careful with that one.

We also have three different kinds of tomatoes showing themselves. I can not wait for a juicy red succulent tomato....

And everything else is growing just fine. Seriously, that's how boring it's been here. Just watching things grow.

High: 79 Low: 60, cloudy to thunderstorms; Lunar Phase: Waning Gibbous, 86% of full.

Tomato Volunteers

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Wed, 11 Jun 2008 17:01:00 +0000

I was out weeding the pepper beds (long overdue) yesterday and suddenly came face to face with a rogue tomato plant. I couldn't believe it at first, but there it was. Then I looked around some more, and found that there were actually 5-two looking pretty large.How awesome is that?! They could be either Roma or Cherry because that's what we grew last year in our little test garden patch. Being lazy paid off after all...

I also pruned all our 'cultivated' tomato plants last night. I hope they do well. I was nervous about cutting on them. We should have little tomato buds soon.Check out this fatty hot pepper. It's about 3 inches long and thicker than a thumb.

AAAAH!! Extreme Closeup!!

My -yes, my--mine, mine, mine -ornamental corn is coming up too. I got impatient with all this wet weather and put some patty pan squash, zucchini, bush beans, and even pole beans in the area along the back fence.

I also found out that something that I assumed was a weed around the place was really a wonderful flower. Of course you know that I don't know the name of it. Don't care. I'm calling it popcorn. Now I know not to pull those again. lol

Ok, that's it for now. Gotta save some for GBBD.

High: 87 Low: 69, sunny; Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 61% of full.

Flood

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Sun, 08 Jun 2008 00:34:00 +0000

Our town got over 6 and a half inches of rain before noon today, and that's not counting the big storm that passed through before midnight last night. No worries here though. The hill kept us nice and dry. Our pool was overflowing, the garden got pretty swamped for a while, and our front street became a raging river, but everything is fine now. Remember how I said the ground was wet on Wednesday? Well, it's not had time to really dry out, so saturation happened very quickly in the area and surrounding counties.

Our hometown was not as lucky as us. They got about 10 inches this morning and large portions of various sections are under water. Our parents are fine, but many people are displaced tonight, Matt's sister included. Although her house was not yet under any water, she was evacuated by rescue workers via boat-and had to leave her dogs behind. (A pet owner's nightmare, of course.) If it weren't for the fact that Matt's brother lives near the high school where they sent the evacuees, she would have had to spend the night there. Her husband is stuck in another town to the south and at last word, they had closed all northbound entrances into where she is. We are still waiting for more info on her situation. Most of the town is without electricity for safety reasons.

A small town to the southwest is 90% under water. There was a section of the highway closer to here that was closed due to a giant mudslide that washed a bunch of old growth trees all over the road like twigs, leaving a few houses precariously close to the edge. Mudslides in Indiana! Needless to say, we are under a state of emergency here.

Our hearts and prayers go out to those who lost their homes today, but we are also truly grateful that not one life was taken by the rising waters either. Hopefully as the flood crests, that lucky streak will continue. I'm sure tomorrow there will be more information as to how to help the victims.

High: 88 Low: 71, strong thunderstorms and then sunny and hot; Lunar Phase: Waxing Crescent, 24% of full.

Mrs. Nurse

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Mon, 02 Jun 2008 14:18:00 +0000

Well, we still didn't get any more tilled. Boo. Matt hurt his foot messing around in the garage and he hasn't been able to do much of anything for a week now. I've been playing Mrs. Nurse. I've also tried to post at least twice this week, but got swept up in other things. Life just won't stop for our garden.

Except for the day that we got our little pool set up.

They're so easy and fast. We didn't put that sand there, but we'll use it.

We also have 3 green beans growing. I staked the tomatoes today in between thunderstorms. The ground is w-e-t.

Everything else is in growing mode except for the carrots that never came up. What's up with that, doc?

Anyway, I'll try to get back on a real schedule for posting again.

High: 82 Low: 72, thunderstorms all day; Lunar Phase: Waxing Crescent, 2% of full.

Making Up Names

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Tue, 27 May 2008 04:35:00 +0000

We had a great time at the Indy 500! No wonder it's called the greatest spectacle in racing! We've been to the Kentucky Derby before, but this blew that away. There's nothing like having a car fly by you less than 10 feet away at over 220 mph. (And did you know that they use ethanol fuel and recycle all the tires?) I tried to upload a slideshow of our pictures from the event, but it's not working. If you'd like to see them, here they are on Imageshack.

We spent a quiet evening at home for our anniversary. We needed to relax for a while.

Yesterday I got back into the swing of things. I started by doing a check of everything. There are now pumpkins and sweet corns growing in the corn bed. Some melons popped up. We have good looking hot peppers on very unimpressive hot pepper plants. The peas are almost at the first crossbar of the pea trellis. The green beans are getting blooms.

The vining seeds have sprouted along the fenceline. The bunny has been kept at bay....

Things are good!

Aren't these just so gorgeous? Love them! Don't have a clue what to call them, but oh wellsies! If I do find out what they're called, I'll call them that, but otherwise they are going to now be called 'Oh Wellsies'.

They're by the road, right next to these.

Matt says these are a weed, but I always think of weeds being an offensive plant with nothing good to offer. Obviously this plant has interesting purple cones and therefore couldn't possibly be seen as offensive, one would think. Then, I realized that most weeds have pretty flowers and blooms on them. I shall call these 'Coneheads'.

Yesterday I thought it would be a perfect time to weed our swimming pool area, which is just a big ring of deep sand. Things like to grow in it. It took me 4 hours (!!!!) and I sort of got lazy at the end and let some stuff go. Here's a really interesting "weed" that's growing in there.

Isn't that a great flower?! It closed up when the sun got too hot in mid-afternoon. Now this one, I'm truly clueless about. If I don't find the name of it, I'm calling it 'the Neato plant'.

Today is the best day to get the tilling finished finally and that's the plan for this evening. I need to get my sunflowers, broccoli, cauliflower, and squash in immediately. Immediately, I say! (By the way, have you seen the Miracle Fruit yet? -See? Anyone can make up names.)

High: 77 Low: 47, sunny; Lunar Phase: Waning Crescent, 34% of full.

Indy 500 and Googly Eyes Gardeo

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Sat, 24 May 2008 15:27:00 +0000

Remember the carpenter bee that was harassing me on the deck? Look where his lady nested: Right under Green Man's chin! That's pretty clever. Yesterday I saw sawdust falling from his beard.

Our peas are looking so cute. Their little arms are wrapped around their guiding sticks so tight.

Lavender is going to town.

The blossoms don't smell, but the

leaves are very fragrant. I thought it would be the other way around, but I'm pleased with this arrangement because the leaves last longer than the blossoms.

Irises are also still looking great.

On my way out to water the Impatiens tonight, I found these three outside of the square bed. I didn't plant them. They are another pleasant surprise. Tomorrow we are going to our first ever Indianapolis 500 race. We got free tickets and we're taking Matt's dad and uncle. None of us have ever been. We've been to the Kentucky Derby, but not to the 500, until now that is. They say there are 300,000 people expected and the race will be televised to more than 375 million homes. This should be fun. Wish us luck!

Since we won't be around tomorrow to show a gardeo, here's a link to a really funny one starring Christopher Walken on SNL. I tried to load it, but it keeps crashing blogger. It's worth following the link though, trust me. Happy Memorial Day weekend everyone!

High: 74 Low: 49 sunny; Lunar Phase: Waning Gibbous, 79% of full.

Admission

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Wed, 21 May 2008 13:25:00 +0000

I know I said I'd show you more pictures on Sunday, but we got tired and it's been raining and not garden weather lately. Besides that excuse, I've been in denial for a while -but now I'm ready to come clean.

I killed 5 of 7 of our tomatoes. (Insert frowny face here.)

Yep, only the Striped and the Yellow Pear are alive and Striped is on the borderline of replacement. I think the fatal blow to them was that I didn't bother to harden them off before putting them in the ground. Sunday, Matt wanted to play more than work, so we went to Lowes and got replacements for the dead ones. They are Bush Goliath, Early Girl, Sweet 100's, and Super Fantastic. Bush Goliath had tomato hornworm eggs on it that we noticed and (hopefully) removed before planting.

I'm quite disappointed in my seedling efforts. Only 6 of the 19 different kinds of plants are still doing well. At this point, we are looking next year at starting seeds up to one month later than this year's bunch. The tomatoes just got too tall for their own good. And the Canival Mixed Bell Peppers seem to be stunted at a pitiful growth stage, but are already producing peppers.I also never had any luck producing good broccoli or cauliflower for long. They all died. The catchflies - well, you've seen them. The hot peppers and the one green pepper are in the same growth stage as the bell peppers but instead of peppers, they are making new leaves. That's good at least.

Also Sunday, I picked up 3 6-packs of Impatiens just to throw in our corner beds. They are supposed to get some shade and moist soil, so it wasn't the best decision, but I guess we'll see how well they do out there with full sun and infrequent waterings. We also threw a watermelon and a squash plant out in the front flower bed just for the heck of it. Wouldn't it be cool if it grew there?

The peas are getting bigger since the bunny situation has been resolved. They are trying hard to reach the trellis.

We put our wedding palm out on the deck to rinse the dust off and get some good sun in. It usually gets very indirect light, so I don't know how long it will be able to stand the deck like that without a shade umbrella to hide under. It needs repotted bad. It's 2 years old. Our anniversary is on Tuesday of next week.

And look at the lavender opening up. They make me happy.

High: 63 Low: 46, sunny; Lunar Phase: Waning Gibbous, 98% of full.

Mowing, Tilling, & Sowing

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Sun, 18 May 2008 01:14:00 +0000

Today, I mowed the yard for the first time ever. Not the first time ever that I've ever mowed, but the first time ever here that I've mowed. As I was getting the lawnmower over to the east side of the house, look what I saw trying to hide out in the grass.Oh, it's so close that you can see the light brown of it's eyes. It didn't move until after I shut off the camera and the lens closed. I wonder if it knew that I had been waiting to take a picture of it. I wonder if it reads this blog...

It's amazing what you find when you are the one who mows the yard. This is the same as in our Camping post. That's funny that I've never noticed it before. It's behind the garage.And this Iris was down by the street right beside an electrical thing.There's a lot of Irises in the east side bed that I've never noticed. It's just always been a space slated for renovation and nobody ever bothered to pay attention to it. See the weeds and rocks too?Here's one hamming it up for the camera from the street corner bed.But most importantly, we borrowed a tiller to do our garden. Matt is doing all that though.It works great. We got the corn bed tilled and sowed. I put the sweet corn in 4 rows, 6-10 inches apart. Then, I made hills and planted 4 hills of pumpkin, and 4 hills of butternut squash. I also put in 6 nasturtiums. When the corn has grown a foot or two, I'll sow beans around them and dill too. Here's that bed after the first round.You can see the next row there? That's watermelon. I planted four seedlings there 2 days ago, but the bottom leaves are yellowing on each one. I might dig them up tomorrow and have him till it up real good. More pictures of nicely tilled and sowed rows tomorrow, if it doesn't rain.

High: 72 Low: 52, partly cloudy; Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 96% of full.

GBBD

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Thu, 15 May 2008 21:29:00 +0000

Yay! We have stuff to show for Garden Bloggers' Bloom Day! This is our first time being able to participate, so we're excited.

Thanks to our visiting friends, we know that this gorgeous flower is a Columbine.

And I think these are irises?

I'm not impressed by the catchflies, but I do love that bright color.

One marigold has started to bud. I put the rest of the bag of pine bark nuggets along the pathways between the rows of the garden. I like it.

Why is it called a Cherry Plum tree? This is why.And the best thing: New lavender blooms!!There's way more than last year!

High: 61 Low: 52, cloudy, sprinkles; Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 85% of full.

Vining

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Wed, 14 May 2008 14:42:00 +0000

Yesterday it took me about 8 hours (with small breaks) to sow all my passion flower, cardinal climbers, and morning glory seeds, and I still have a whole bunch of the latter two soaking in jars. Today it's raining and wet, but I'm not wasting those seeds. They're going in. Oh yes, they're going in.

First I let them all soak in their individual jars overnight and then sowed them all along the edge between the fence and deck. It gets sunlight there for a little while a day, and if they can make it to the top of the deck they'll be fine. After all that, I had only used a fraction of all the seeds, so I kept going. I put some cardinal climbers by the garage door, around the pole at the front door, and around the corner of the front entry. I also put some pretty multi-colored ones by the garage door closest to the front door.

Continuing around to the west side of the house, I focused on using as much of the ones that Matt's mom gave us as I could and sowed along the foundation and all down the fence line. I'm sure this would be more interesting if there were something to look at.

Here is something to look at: The utility company came back to clean up their mess from the last time.They smoothed the ground out a lot, re-seeded, and put down hay. This is a lot better than it was. Thanks guys!

But anyway, anyone wanna take a guess as to what the heck these are? They grew by my front walkway. They look like dragon heads to me, or dinosaurs. I guess the previous homeowners did have this place landscaped, but the weeds just took everything over so bad that most of everything had to go. As you can see, we still haven't managed to get to the store for mulch. Maybe this weekend.

And finally for now, the blueberry bush is taking off.Considering what this plant looked like out of the package, I'm pretty impressed by the growth it's been able to make for itself. This picture was taken Monday I believe, and there's already more on there today.

We are behind on our sowing schedule and need to get going on it. It seems that this year is rainier than last year though. But, that's a good thing.

High: 67 Low: 56, cloudy, wet; Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 74% of full.

Camping

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:33:00 +0000

Whew! I'm sorry it's been a week since our last post!

We went camping at Shakamak State Park this week.

We like to take hikes along trails in the woods. Don't you just love finding flowers in the woods? Wild flowers. Just flowering because that's what they were made to do.

The forest makes a nice seat for hikers.

Can you see the little bee working here? It's hiding.

Everywhere you turn there's something pretty to look at.In retrospect, the May Apples seem to have been trying to give us a heads up about the incoming storm last night.

Everything turned out ok though.

Sod Fish

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Mon, 05 May 2008 02:04:00 +0000

So many things to talk about. Let's go for a walk. Where should we start? How about the street corner bed.

Still got a few bloomers. The Crimson King turned from brilliant crimson to a deep, rich red.

I don't know what these are, but they're getting blooms too.

(By the way, a very sincere thank you to all our visiting friends who are gracious enough to share their knowledge of the various plants that we show and don't know the names of. We really appreciate all the assistance you all give on id's.)

There's some new flowers on a transplant from Matt's mom that I didn't even bother telling you about several weeks ago. I thought they were grape hyacinths, but they bloomed a significant white flower. Unfortunately, I forgot to take a picture of these when I was out there weeding today. The small tree that I pruned blindly last fall is doing very well, other than a ugly wart-like condition on the leaves. Surprise -I don't know what it's called, but it has those little seed pods that fall like a helicopter landing.

Shall we stroll into the backyard? The cherry plum tree is fully clothed now. It turns out that all the rain we've been getting lately had really invigorated the thistle problem in the south-side bed that housed the peas. I say housed because we had written them off based on the evidence of being a bunny buffet. However, the thistles must have been protecting the little stumps of pea plants and they grew! There's about 6 going pretty good right now and I sowed seeds all the way to the end of the trellis this morning.

Yesterday was also first mow day for the backyard (and second mow for the front due to a craftily designed dandelion coup d'etat). It needed it. Spring rain is nature's Miracle Gro. Matt, being a manly awesome husband, does the mowing and he saw the bunny high-tail it (pun definitely intended) to behind the compost bin. So I checked it out and indeed there is plenty of room for a bunny bunker between the fence and blocks.

Today there was no sign of them, even as the Cuddle Monster wedged his tubby body under the deck to hunt in what I just know to be a vividly imagined suburban safari in his mind. I expect some funny dream movements from him later. For some reason, every time I work all day in the yard, he thinks that means he needs fed 3 times more than usual. Like he's burning off calories via my work. I love that mutt.

Anyway, I broke the rule. The 'no-planting-before-frost-free-date' rule. Yep, I couldn't stand seeing the Tomatoes suffer any more. First, I dug out 7 of the 9 rows of the new garden. Then, using our old-school manual tilling thing that a family friend gave us...

(Look Ma! No pollution!)

we got 3 of the beds ready for planting. I couldn't help it. Well, frost-free is only a week away, so no biggy right? The farthest row back is Carnival Mixed Bells with one Green Pepper and also 5 Oregano in between. The Oreganos are small and might have problems being out so soon, but what the hey. Second row is Hot Peppers and 2 Marigolds. Third row is Tomatoes and 2 Sweet Basils. Companions, see?

I used Deb's trench method for all but one of the tomatoes, because it was the Large Red Cherry and was just as straight as an arrow. I figured that level of perfection deserved a deep hole. Some of the others were the 2-liter bottle second picks and after the plants were in the ground, I used 2 of the tops of those 2-liters to make small cages to keep them off the ground. A double-recycling. Yahoo!
I still had 5 leftover Tomato plants, so I planted a Yellow Pear in the south-facing pea bed, and the others, along with 2 peppers, are going to Matt's mom in reciprocation of her passalongs.
Are you wondering what we did with all the sod we removed from the garden? Well, a giant pile of grass and dirt is boring, so we made a temporary Sod Fish. This is it's beginning stages. If it stays much longer, I think I'll throw potting soil all over it and give that fish some color.
Pictures can't even capture the spirit of this Sod Fish, so this is the only glimpse of this legendary fish that you'll get to see for a while.

In all, things are pretty darn blissful here in the garden.

High: 64 Low: 40, super sunny; Lunar Phase: New Moon, 0% of full.

First Mow & Plantings

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Thu, 01 May 2008 01:20:00 +0000

Today was the first mow for the front yard only. It's the front yard only because it's a hassle to get the lawnmower into the backyard so they usually get mowed on separate days. We decided early on not to let the dogs know there's a way out of the fence and screwed the gate shut and now we carry everything into the back through the house. Yes, it's worth the sacrifice. Look at these beauties we found happily blooming away in the front bed (don't know what it is, it was leftovers from the rock removal). That got me inspired to get working on the transplants Matt's mom gave us 2 days ago. Really we were waiting to put down good soil and the frost-free date, but it seems we got into a time squeeze with these passalongs and something had to be done quickly. It was supposed to freeze last night, I don't know if it did or not, but I didn't want to pour cold water on new transplants only to have them be ruined. Today, however, seemed like the day.
Some spots had leftover good soil, but for most of the others I added good potting mix. I suppose we'll just throw mulch over it this year since it's already planted. Take note for next year: have soil ready just in case of passalongs in early spring.

I won't even pretend to remember what she said the names of them were, but here's the most interesting ones.

There's also others that I'm inclined to call hostas, and other things, but honestly I don't know their names. I don't know their names or their soil/light/water preferences or anything else, but in they went. Also finding a home today amongst the passalongs were 5 petite yellow marigolds and 5 empress of india nasturtiums that we grew from seed. Yessss! Oh, and one thyme for good measure. Now let's see how they all do.

Guess what I saw at precisely 9:00 p.m. this evening right off my deck? A small brown bunny with a fluffy, white, cotton ball tail. Bad idea bunny... Tomorrow I'll go around the fence and check for entry points.

Yellow scallop bush squash died in their planter, but that's ok because they were just a test batch for the garden. The real ones we will sow in the ground.

Also, today I took all the seedlings except the tomatoes outside and outside they will stay from now on. Deb had a great tip about planting tomato plants on their sides in trenches on her blog yesterday. We're gonna do ours like that. Fabulous tip Deb!

The Crimson King Maple has turned a brilliant shade of what else? Crimson red. I forgot to take a picture of it tonight though. Instead here's a picture of the robin's nest on the north-west street side of the house.

The weather is supposed to get nicer and warmer tonight so I left all the seedlings outside. I did put them on shelves instead of leaving them on the deck. I'm not going to make it that easy for the bunnies.

High: 64 (right now 58) Low: 37; Lunar Phase: Waning Crescent, 25% of full.

Mushroom, Blueberry, Pepper, & Rabbit

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Sun, 27 Apr 2008 02:09:00 +0000

Which one of these four doesn't belong with the rest? heehee

I need new batteries again, so there will be no pictures in this post. Sorry about that.

A robin has made a nest in the elbow of my gutter spout under the eave of the roof. I noticed it yesterday and tried to take pictures of it when my batteries gave out. The daffs and tuilips are almost done flowering and I'm wondering what to put in the beds next. Working on that.

Yesterday Matt and I went mushroom hunting in the woods behind his parent’s house. I found 10 woodsmans but only one morel, several old bottles, two snakes –a black snake (which Matt discovered by nearly stepping on) and a copperhead coiled up in the sun, and two ticks on my body (eeeeek!). My mother-in-law found several morel that were about 6 inches tall in the woods around her work. Today though, we took the dogs on a walk to the almost secret neighborhood park. It’s almost secret because only the neighbors know about it and go there. It’s very nice to be 2 blocks from real nature.

We got the blueberry plant planted today. The mix contains various sized pine bark, peat moss, some potting mix ‘plus’, and I also mixed in a handful of soil sulphur. From the packaging, I thought the plant was already about a foot tall, but when I opened it, it was mostly mulch mix. The plant itself has 2 small branches, but they were split about an eighth of an inch from I guess being roughed up during the packaging process. I propped them together using a piece of pine bark and hopefully that won’t make a difference to its progress. Anyway, it’s done.

The weather took a turn, or is taking a turn, and won’t be going back up until after Wednesday at the earliest, so I had to bring the plants in and back under the fake light. I’m not pleased with that because 3 hot peppers have blossomed and need the real light for flowering. Also, the catchflies bloomed 3 new flowers – all carmine pink this time. They’re very pretty after all. Another interesting thing is that being outside made their stems turn from green to purple. They look better now, like they have a tan.

As far as the peas go, I guess I may have been hasty in assigning blame to the ants of that bed. I admit that I used circumstantial evidence to convict them, even though I had not actually seen them in the act of being on the plants. After some investigating in the yard, I found some tiny black pellets. Rabbit? Really? With my dogs constantly around? That’s crazy. If this is true, and there are critters making their way under our wooden fence, they are playing a dangerous game. Tomorrow I think I’ll go around the perimeter ‘plugging holes’. I really don’t want to have my dog hand me a dead rabbit as a prize one morning.

High: 64 Low: 47, partly cloudy; Lunar Phase: Waning Gibbous, 65% of full.

Darn Diddly Arn! Diddly!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 15:06:00 +0000

A very important rule for me to live by:

*Never ever go gardening or messing with your plants as soon as you wake up. It's best to wait a while. Have a cup of coffee, immerse yourself into the day, and then go garden. Otherwise, you'll end up doing what you did this morning.*

The tomato plant I planted in between the deck and fence? Well, I had tied the top of the plant to the fence, which was fine. But then I noticed that dirt was piled up against the fence so I grabbed a stick and started going at it to get it away from the fence. (Huge mistake) For some reason, I lost all sense of what I was doing and while wacking away at the dirt, tore the tomato plant's top off. It was like some horrible medieval torture device - like stretching the poor thing on the rack or a hanging gone way wrong. Ohhhh! Maaaan!! I hate making stupid mistakes! Oh well, right? I guess it was just doomed to die one way or another.

The peas must have been in that group too because the ants ate every one of them down to nubs of green barely poking out of the ground. This was the biggest one 2 days ago. Now, it's just missing in action. You can see one of the leaves there drying in the sun.

"Why, ants? Why? That was very shortsighted of you."

Just two days ago they had chewed most of them in half, but now they are all ghandi (gone-dy). If I plant anything else there, I'm gonna rig it so they can't climb up the plant. Maybe like vegetable oil on the outside of a straw around the base of the plant or something tricky like that. That seems very Road-Runner-esque to me. Funny. Maybe I'll use an Acme product.

But, this lifted my spirits. Matt brought home a hops vine! This should be easy and I'm gonna plant it today. I also forgot to include Nasturtiums in the Class of 4/23/2008.

High: 81 Low: 58, mostly cloudy; Lunar Phase: Waning Gibbous 85% of full.

Class of 4/23/2008

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 01:10:00 +0000

Ok, I had planned on getting a real current count of everything that's growing, but I didn't. What I did instead was move most of the seedlings outdoors today. I know you're supposed to harden them off for a week, but it was just too nice out, so today was graduation day for some.

The first thing I noticed when I went out there this morning was that one catchfly had sprouted a flower overnight!After only one day in full sunlight, it bloomed! This is not at all what I expected from the package. It's supposed to be a plant that gets 18" tall (I was thinking it was about 4-5 feet for some reason), and sprout bright pink flowers. This is about 4-5" long and has a purple flower. Most likely the cause of this discrepancy was human error on my part, but it's still odd. My assessment- Pretty, but ultimately not worth the work that went into it. Maybe it can sway my opinion if I plant it somewhere and it takes off.

Here's everything that moved outside today.

Class of 4/23/2008:

All the marigolds, the broccoli and cauliflower (I've resigned myself to having to buy replacements in May), the catchflies, a few miscellaneous peppers, and the spare tomatoes went. Which brings me to the tomato issue. Remember the ones I picked as 'the ones'? They are currently about 2 feet tall and in dire need of being planted. Remember the ones I didn't pick that I later re-potted in 2-liter bottles? They are almost as big. So, 'the one' Beefsteak got so big that I had to re-pot it in a regular flower pot, but it wasn't looking so great. I don't think the soil it was in was draining. Well, the garden hasn't been tilled yet so it's not ready for plants and I just couldn't stand for it to be suffering anymore. What's a girl to do to save her plants? I dug a hole between the fence and deck and plopped it in. Now it is to the left of that stand and hopefully spreading it's roots out as I type this. Hey, it was do or die.

Still under lights:

The hot peppers, green peppers, and carnival mixed peppers are all about 6" tall. They are looking very robust and healthy, as are the sweet basils. I left the tomatoes in there because I'm afraid that the real sunlight will make them grow even more and we're just not ready for that. I must say though, that our tomato plants kick Menard's tomato plants into the dirt. Yay us! I also left the thyme and mint in there too. 2 rosemarys have started so far (they are very slow germinaters), and I'm still waiting for the sage to come up. The oregano went outside late in the evening and the watermelon joined their friends, squash and beans.

There's also a male carpenter bee vigorously defending his territory, which happens to be my deck and lounge chair. I know they can't sting, but it's a little unsettling to have a bee stare you down from 2 feet in front of your face. The funny thing is, it works and I run away.

Oh yeah, here's another funny thing. We went to the store yesterday to get all the ingredients needed for our new blueberry bush and after we got everything together and started heading up to the check-out, I realized that I had forgotten my checkbook at home and we didn't have any method of payment on us. We had planned on leaving that store and getting something to eat, but instead we just went home empty-handed and hungry. There we picked up the checkbook and quickly made a run to Kroger before we became too light-headed to go on. So, I really tried to plant something on Earth Day, but we did get a re-usable grocery bag.

If you don't already know, Kroger.com has coupons that you load right onto your Plus card online. You can also do their 'Design a Bag' (it's really easy), and get a free re-usable bag the next time you go to the store. It loads directly onto your Plus card too. We picked our free one up last night.

Ok, I think that's it for now.

High: 81! Low: 56, sunny and wonderful; Lunar Phase: Waning Gibbous, 88% of full.

Earth Day Bonus

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Wed, 23 Apr 2008 03:32:00 +0000

Look at the lovely we discovered by the mailbox today. Isn't it gorgeous? It has a twin in the square side bed too. Now I know what that was.

In the same bed -These look to me both like innocent children looking up at me, and fried-eggs-over-easy art for your lawn. The petals are so white that they are hard to photograph with detail in bright sun.

Check out the corner street side bed. We got the mulch down this weekend and while I was out there by myself making the mulch go to exactly the right places, I had several strangers stop their cars and tell me how much they enjoyed passing by it every day. That felt good.Far fewer flowers came up than bulbs planted, but not bad for our first time, eh?

Cherry Plum tree started shedding its petals almost as soon as it came to full bloom. We had fun sitting in the petal blizzard. Matt actually caught one on his tongue like snow. It was funny. Now there are pretty purplish-marroon leaves sprouting out.And I moved some seedlings outdoors. Yesterday I took them out after their indoor lighting was done and let them spend the afternoon in real sunshine. To be nice though, I covered them with a sheet overnight so they wouldn't freak out. Today they got all day sun and are still out there tonight, but they had to go sheetless. Gotta toughen up.I'll try to give you a seedling update tomorrow. It's really more like an elementary school than infants in that nursery of a master bath. Sheesh, I'll be glad to get that space back soon.

It's been very warm and oh so wonderful here lately. My arms are just slightly burned. I love it!

High: 77 Low: 53, mostly sunny; Lunar Phase: Waning Gibbous, 93% of full.

Funday Sunday Gardeo -Blueberries In A Container

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 02:43:00 +0000

Uh oh! We impulse bought a Jersey Blueberry plant today while picking up mulch for our street-side bed (It looks fab-u-lous!). Well, it was only $2 something and we've been wanting one. The only thing is that we didn't know how to plant it. Now with all the ingredients needed, it's going to be about a $15 plant. Funny. It's worth it though if we don't kill it. Here's a gardeo about Blueberries. mmmmm mmmm good.

(Future reference - the street corner bed is 14 cubic feet.)

High: 65 Low: 46, partly cloudy; Lunar Phase: Full Moon, 100% of full.

Earthquake!

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Fri, 18 Apr 2008 11:15:00 +0000

Did you feel it?!? Huh?!?!

This morning at 5:37, West Salem, Illinois was the epicenter of a 5.2 magnitude earthquake. We live 162 miles to the north-east of West Salem.

We've experienced a tremor here before in 1987, as Carol of May Dreams Gardens recently discussed in a post even, but I didn't feel that one. I was on the back of a hay truck and never even knew it happened, so I felt jipped that everyone else got their first one and I missed it. Silly, huh?

I once lived in Oregon for a time and woke up to a small earthquake. My right foot wouldn't quit shaking and I thought that someone was deliberately shaking my bed. I got mad and told whoever it was to stop and then I realized that there was no person there. I heard the rumble too. It went on for what I thought was a long time, but that could have been just the adrenaline flooding my veins. I was like that Laverne & Shirley episode where they first move to California and experience their first earthquake.

So last night, I was again asleep and dreaming, but this is weird... When the quake started, my dreaming mind recognized it by the shaking and deep rumble. At this point, my dreaming mind became conscious of the quake and set off warning bells inside me, but my body only became alert enough to be able to make a move -if absolutely necessary. Because, after all, one has to sleep, earthquake or not. Isn't that funny? I take my beauty sleep seriously. Heehee! Matt said he knew nothing.

For anyone who's never experienced a quake, the shaking is not like the shaking that occurs when you shake someone or a table leg. You can tell that the shake is whole-scale. And the rumble sounds like a mix between a large dump truck going by (but not fast enough) and a clap of thunder that comes from the belly of the earth that gets extended too long.

Our old love Louisville, Kentucky suffered some minor damage to a building downtown, but that's the only damage I've seen so far. Who else felt it???

UPDATE-- Aftershocks hit at 11:15 a.m., 10:55 a.m., 9:46 a.m., 9:36 a.m.9:15 a.m. and 9:03 a.m. The 11:15 a.m. quake, which had a preliminary magnitude of 4.6, was felt in downtown Indianapolis and across southern Indiana. The others were too small for most people to notice.

High: 75 Low: 52, partly cloudy; Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 96% of full.

Abundance

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Thu, 17 Apr 2008 16:49:00 +0000

Good News! The universe has accepted my apology, graced me with peace, and rewarded my acceptance with abundance. Look what I found today.

And lots more on the verge of emerging!

This one has had a rough road, but it still intends to fulfill its purpose. Life wants to happen.

The daffs out back are looking as good as they did in their post-emergence days.

And the Cherry Plum tree is at maximum bloom. Yesterday there were lots of bees pollinating the flowers and today it's sweet, sweet aroma is drifting across the yard and through the patio doors. The picture is blurry because that's your noses' view.

Aaahh... I feel so lucky.

High: 71 Low: 48, mostly sunny; Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 93% of full.

Grace

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 14:25:00 +0000

I'm obliged to admit that yesterday, I did not do so well in acceptance about my smooshed and disrespected flower bed. I ended up making a little sign that clearly stated my wishes to the school children (KEEP OUT!). I tried to let it go, honestly. Logically I knew what the deal was, but I just couldn't shake the resistance to the situation. So, I stuck the sign in the bed. Then I carried the whole thing around with me all day. Again and again it kept coming back to haunt me, and I felt even more weird that I had reacted to it with a silly sign.

This morning I woke up feeling freer from the emotion and went out to check on it. Sure enough, there were more killed. I got slightly angry- but only at the very surface, barely skin deep. Then, I was able to accept it and that's when the grace moved in. I removed the sign and peacefully went into the backyard to bask in the beautiful sunshine on my face. Have a great day!

High: 70 Low: 39, sunny; Lunar Phase: Waxing Gibbous, 86% of full.

Karmic Retribution

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 15:17:00 +0000

As a kid, I can remember going to and from school. I walked. Sometimes alone, sometimes with buddies. When I was with my buddies, we usually ran. Remember being a kid and just running with glee for no reason? Just to be running? Remember how it didn’t matter where you ran or played or goofed off with them because you didn’t have a care in the world? You’d run through people’s yards, around their cars, and yes, even in their flower beds. Sometimes you’d see a pretty flower and reach your pudgy little hand out and pluck it just to put it up to your nose and smell it. You wouldn’t think about the difference between a plant and grass, because they were both green. A flower was just a flower. -Then, you couldn’t understand why so many old people hated kids!

“OH, WHY, KARMA?!?! WHY?!?!”

There's much more of the massacre, but it's too sickening to show. The worst part is that I was waiting for Garden Blogger Bloom Day to take their pictures, so some of them I never even got to see blooming. Oh, it's just sooooooo ..... :(

I'm trying to accept the situation (non-resistance) and not add more discomfort to it, but it's hard. I know, it's all just temporary anyway.

That's why I am officially putting it out there to the old people from my youth, the world, the universe, and the Divine…..I am sorry!!! I am sorry I trampled your flowers. I am sorry that you worked so hard on them and I didn’t see their value as they were. I am sorry that I thought you were just a crazy old person who hated kids. Now please make the school children stay out of my flower bed. My lesson has come to a complete circle. Thank you, Jen.

Funday Sunday Gardeo -To The Garden

noreply@blogger.com (Matt and Jen) — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 17:41:00 +0000

Ok, yesterday was fun, but I think we can amp it up a notch with video. Garden video (gardeo for short) to be exact. Therefore, I am declaring Sunday to be Funday Sunday Gardeo Day, to be participated in whenever I feel like it. Feel free to join in Funday Sunday with your own gardeo find. Could be anything related to plants and nature. Could be a how-to. Could be....a cartoon. To kick off the first ever Funday Sunday Gardeo Day, here's 'To The Garden'.