The Garden Spiders are Taking Over..

We left to dinner at 1812. When we got back around 2012 THIS HUGE WEB with the HUGE ugly yellow and black spider had sprung up outside the patio door. Terrifying.


Made Blue Cheese (for him) Feta (for me) and red pepper stuffed chicken breasts for dinner tomorrow, along with spinach and cream cheese stuffed white mushrooms.
Crammed in a couple loads of laundry; ignoring the dishes best I can. Got super fat on the Asian Passport food at Sweet Tomatoes. 


My poor garden... The vines are starting to turn yellow. I think I'm not watering enough, so I poured so much water on them today that I thought I might DROWN them: but the soil kept taking and taking it without pooling on top. I have to see how they are in the morning. I hope the yellow and slightly dry edging on one leaf (per plant) doesn't sabotage the whole plant. The turnips seem to be doing ok, though a couple of them seem to be coming in crooked, (the turnips too!) I'm now convinced the weird thing in the middle MUST be a cabbage. Works for me, since I managed to not chart my spreadsheet right when I came in.
I have two broccoli coming in, in the egg carton, and one cabbage. I still can't seem to get those chives to come in.   So, on the whole, partial success if I can keep what IS peeking alive. Photos when I can remember to!


OMG... THERE'S SPUMONI IN THE FREEZER! BYE!

Lazy People: I tagged a Civic for being Backed in & the owner came out. He asked, I explained that next time he'd be towed. He went inside & left it that way!

Saved 3k gallons, and Garden Sprouts!

Water bill came in. My new miserliness dropped water usage from 6000 gallons to 3000 gallons, and from $19.47 to $13.45. *It's not about the money paid, it's the gallons saved :)

 

 I want so badly to post every day the growth I see in the garden. Is it weird that it makes me so excited? Both of my Cucumber and Winter Squash seeds sprouted (I sowed two per hole), so I'll have to thin them. I'm only moving them a little though, I'd love to have WAY too many squash and cucumbers. My celery, chives, and cabbage haven't spouted, and I'm a little worried since everything else did. I'm thinking about seeding them inside this week and just transplanting whatever grows. I got my broccoli in the mail, and thus in the ground. I also got my carrots in the mail, but haven't made the tote up yet. I'm going to just turn the tote into a garden for them, since the Square Foot plot in the back wouldn't be deep enough. Supposedly I can do potatoes this way too, but we shall see. I'd love to just start planting EVERYTHING, but I need to make sure I can take care of this harvest first! So far, so good.

 

I need to get the trellis up, and sooner than I thought. The cucumber/squash are getting tall FAST. I read they should start being trained to trellis at around 6". It will be a little longer than that, as they're in the middle of the square foot and probably wouldn't do it any good to bend it back that far yet. The netting that arrived isn't the netting I thought it was, but I'll make due :) Should work for the plant and just be hard to clear it off when the plant is done. Course, I'm not sure how THAT all works yet either.

 

My workweek is now 40 hours, all from Dusk til Dawn V^^^V. With the class being at night too, I'm simply training to be nocturnal. So far I'm only a little tired, but adjusting.

 

My Half-Marathon training is, going. I basically skipped a whole week. Between digging up the whole garden (ooh.. my back...) and throwing myself into driving 12-hours a day for those 3 days straight (hisss... my ankle!) I was just sore and petulant. I ran 4.5 last week though, and knocked out an EASY 3 miles today :) So I must still be progressing. Disney Princess Half Marathon.. I'll run you yet!

SLASHED Water bill in Half

Water bill came in. My new miserliness dropped water usage from 6000 gallons to 3000 gallons, and from $19.47 to $13.45. *It's not about the money paid, it's the gallons saved :)

First Sprouts in the Garden!

I went out to potty the dog and water the plants and saw sprouts!! I ran back in the house yelling "I'VE GOT TURNIPS!!!"

Turnips!

Cucumber stalk!

Beets! Almost missed them!

Winter Squash stalk :)

I still have to move the twine from over the Winter Squash, I didn't have my sharp the day I planted the seeds. Still no sign of the Celery, Cabbage, or Chives yet. Here's hoping they're not TOO shy!

I watered them from the cup again, each lil row/plant get's 8oz near/around them. I don't want to drown them. I watered them the day they were planted, skipped yesterday, and watered today. I'm not sure yet if that's good or bad, but I'll figure it out.

I had them covered the first night in case of hard rain (I didn't want the seeds displaced). Husband has convinced me to leave the Weed Blocker tarp off for this evening, as the sun is very little due to the coming rain. So... here's praying Mother let's me keep my seedlings :D

GardenKitty builds a Garden!

This place we moved into had an abandoned garden in the side-yard. Not big, overgrown with weeds, bordered by sad wooden barriers. It's an imperfect place: off to the side so you cannot see it even from the patio. There's also the Dryer vent hanging out the side, a twisted ugly piece of metal that Husband tells me cannot be cut down to be flush with the wall. I wouldn't impede it or anything, just, pretty it up. Grate it or something. When I started pulling the weeds out I found odd bits of garbage in it: some cigarette butts, fuses, bottlecaps, a sanding disk, couch foam, a toolbox full of screws with plastic washers or anchors.

Garden being built:

Funky space beside the house.

I think it USED to be a garden.

I pulled all the weeds!

It almost looks like a garden..

Pulled out the rotted wood.

Yay! New Wood!

Now it's a Square Foot Garden!

With more soil to give the plants something to root in this could be a good little garden after all.
I've got Natural Weed Block Fabric down over a smoothed out base, and then covered with a bag of Miracle-Gro Sphagnum Peat Moss mixed with Organic Miracle-Gro Gardening Soil. Two more bags of the Soil over that and the box still doesn't seem to be full!

I bought some bamboo poles (all they had left was black) and ordered some vegetable netting. These put together and secured to the wall just a wee bit should serve as a trellis for vines like cucumber, squash, and tomato! I'll update this page when I get that built up here soon.

The original area tear-down entry : Here.

EcoForms Store - Sustainable Pots

EcoForms Store Home Page: "- Sent using Google Toolbar"

I'm sharing this because I've been a week trying to find a pot for my Persian Shield, as the poor thing is getting finicky as it tries to outgrow the one it came in. I was shopping wood, as I dislike plastics and just wanted a natural feeling pot. Wrought iron is beautiful, but Persian Shield will need to be brought in for the winter and that can get heavy... I stumbled on these EcoForm pots tonight and love them! They say the pot starts to break down around five years and basically turns back into dirt. Fine with me.

For less than the base price, without shipping, of the cheapest wood planter I'd found, I got the pot, and a saucer, and it shipped. :D

Happy Kitty.

Society for Creative Anachronism accidently meets Farmville...

So, a weird thing happened. Yes, I'm playing Farmville, I tried, I really did. Anyway, I'm not all into the huge home building etc (unless I find some of those castles..) so I carved myself out a tiny camp in the middle. I surrounded it with the French vined walls (available yesterday), cornered the little farmer in with the well, churn, barrel, and rest tent they start you out with. I had purchased Quilts from the European thing (I like quilts) and today they re-released Southwestern stuff, and I scooped up Hanging Garlic (on a neat crescent moon pole) and a dutch oven over a firepit. Then it hit me.. I had somehow managed to make my little farm-home look like CAMP. (For you mundanes, Camp is the generic SCA term for "that place you chucked all your gear when you put up your quasi-period-probably-a-canvas-car-cover tent". O_O
Well, at least I seem to have built myself Camp Kitchen :D YUM!

Sweet Tomatoes' "Italian" week:

-Raspberry Rosemary Dijon potato salad O.O
-Irish Potato Leek soup. <3
-Three cheese tortellini soup
-Bruchetta Foccacia
-Quattro Formaggip Foccacia
-Chocolate chip muffins
-Apple cobbler
-And of course, all the staples I usually get.
Sweet Tomatoes, how I love thee!
I am so fat right now :D