Blogging again!

I'm back to blogging again everything has calmed down around here and I'm with out a computer so I'm using my phone to post so if anyone has any advice about using your smart phone to blog  I would love to here it.

Let Spring Begin!

I started some lettuce, broccoli, tomato, pepper, and parsley seeds indoors using peat pellets that someone gave me I was a bit worried about using them because I kept hearing how they were bad about causing damping off but my tomatoes started sprouting in 4 days.  I  followed the directions that came with the pellets about adding warm water to them but that is pretty much where I stopped following directions after I watered them with warm weak chamomile tea to help prevent damping off I let the pellets sit for about a day and made sure they were wet all the way to the middle and also to get my nerve up to plant seeds in them like I said I was not real sure about using them but they worked great.  I will have to pot them up soon because I don't think the pellets are big enough for the roots of the plants.  I also will go ahead and pull the netting off before I pot them up because I found a picture of what can happen if you don't remove the netting.  I also heard that watering was an issue but once they expanded fully I covered them with clear plastic and I didn't have any problems.

Roots on a pepper

Here are my tips about using peat pellets to start seeds:
1.  Make sure they are wet all the way to the middle.
2.  I used warm weak chamomile tea to water the peat pellets.
3. Keep them covered until you see the seeds sprouting up.
4. When you pot them up remove the netting, it pulls off pretty easy.
Here is also a video that is really good.



I hope this helps anyone trying peat pellets for the first time.  

Having a pity party

   I know it's been awhile since I posted but life got in the way and I have been having an awful case of empty nest syndrome and my 18 year old is still living with us (at least I think he is). My garden has mostly been put to bed for the winter except where the walking onions are planted and the cold frame still has lettuce and spinach growing in it so there isn't much to keep me busy outside. I let myself get pretty down about stuff that really doesn't matter. I felt like the kid that nobody wants on their kick-ball team. My hubs said it was because I have never done anything I wanted to do I was always doing what the kids wanted to do and he also said something about me having ADD and not being able to sit still for a even a minute but I blocked that out and I'm just going with the I'm sad because I don't have anyone to play with anymore (my kids have grown up and found new friends) Thanksgiving and Christmas came and it made me think about everything I should be thankful for and what a Debbie Downer I have been and I am getting back into the swing of things.
   On a better note I have been getting gardening catalogs in the mail everyday which is basically like porn to me so I have been busy drooling over all the different varieties of veggies, fruits, and flowers. It is getting close to start winter sowing some seeds if you haven't tried it you should because it is a pretty easy way to start seeds and and you don't have to buy any fancy lights or kick you husband out of his man cave because that is the only room with lots of south facing windows.  Here is a good site about winter sowing they will even send you free seeds.  


I had a small harvest of green onions, spinach and some herbs from the garden this morning!

12-27-2011 Harvest

I hope everyone has a great New Year!

Garden Update & Lamp Shade Redo.

We had a little relief from the triple digit heat  that we have been having, yesterday we got a 1/2" rain....woot woot I was catching rain in anything that could hold water...(I have got to get a rain barrel).  I took some pictures of my plants growing in my yard and I just remembered I didn't take any of my tomato plants I have been picking a few ripe tomatoes.  I think maybe the heat is causing them not to ripen like normal because they look healthy and I have a lot of green tomatoes on them I will have to do a little researching about ripening tomatoes.

Eggplants and Peppers 

Sweet Potatoes

Yolo Bell Pepper

Blushing Beauty Bell Peppers

Lavender Touch Eggplant

Basil and Mini Bell Peppers growing in whiskey barrel

Hibiscus

I have been getting up at 5:30am....(yessss 5:30am) to water everything and do any yard work before it gets hot so I have been stuck inside in the afternoon and thought I would start to organize my sewing and craft room which only last until I find a treasure I forgot about having and then all organizing goes out the window.  I found an old lamp shade and I needed a lamp shade for my craft room I decided to "kill two birds with one stone" since all my money is going to the water department  I couldn't go out and buy a new one so I made me a cute one for my craft room with out spending any money which makes me, the husband, the plants all happy.

Sorry about the blurry picture but my creative juices were flowing.

Lamp shade before

                              

Treasure

Some of the fabrics and lace that I used for the lamp shade. The dress I bought at Goodwill a couple of months ago I just bought it for the print I knew I could make something out of it.  The quilt blocks were my great-grams they are all hand stitched she could sit and piece quilts while babysitting all her great-grand-babies and cooking and cleaning and whippin all our butts with that damn flies swatter or whackin us with that damn yard stick nothing got by her anywayyy..... I took the ones that had stains and used them on the lamp shade since I could hide the stains on the lamp shade. 

Lamp Shade after

Me----New lamp shade

Hubby --------No money spent

Two birds with one stone.

Update: 07/28/2011

I was so excited about my lamp shade I forgot to post my little harvest from yesterday.

Harvest 07/27/2011

Linky Parties 

Garden Update 07-11-2011

Most of the plants in the garden have been producing pretty slow because of the heat, we have been in the triple digits and under excessive heat warnings a lot lately.  A lot of plants have a hard time setting blooms in this heat and some just completely stall out. All my tomato plants are showing signs of heat stress.

Heat stressed tomato plant

To get my tomato plants to bloom in this heat I watch the future weather report and when I see we are going to have a so called "cold front" (when the highs drop back down to below 95 (92 is perfect)  for the daytime and around 75 at night) about 4-5 days before this cold front comes through I feed my tomato plants with bloom booster it works out really good.  You don't have to use bloom booster because the tomato plants would probably set blooms any way but I like the extra insurance. 

Heat Stressed tomato plants with blooms!

Tomato bloom!

 

 

I love bell peppers and I always plant Blushing Beauties because they keep producing even in the heat.  When we have a more mild Oklahoma summer they will have more peppers than leaves on them.

Blushing Beauty mini bells

Yolo Bell Pepper

No garden is complete without some bugs!

Hot Peppers

butterfly on a Zinnia

I did have a good cucumber harvest this morning so it looks like it is Spicy Bread and Butter Pickles time!

Harvest 07-11-2011

I'm linking up with Daphne's Dandelions Harvest Monday.
Stay cool.

 

Squash Bugs, Grasshoppers, & Father-in-laws!

 I have been biting my tongue this weekend because kicking a 65 year old man in the shins on Fathers Day  would not be good but my father-in-law picked and took my FIRST RIPE TOMATO!!!!!  I would go out to the garden just waiting for that moment of perfect ripeness.  I was so ready to slice into that tomato and taste it but when I went to the store my father-in-law went and helped himself to my squash, my basil, cucumbers, and some onions and the one ripe tomato that I had.  I know I sound awful but I have tried to help him start his own small garden I always take him all kinds of goodies from my garden and I would let him pick what he wanted if he would just ASK!  The man says he doesn't want a garden because he doesn't like messing with one.  HE JUST HAS TO ASK!  I hate going out there and thinking I'm going to pick something to toss in a salad or dip in some batter to fry up for dinner and it's gone he does this all the time I'm so tired of it!            OKAY...... my rant is over... now a 65 year old man will not get kicked in the shins.

I did get to harvest some despite squash bugs, grasshoppers and FIL.

I'm linking up with Harvest Monday @ Daphne's Dandelions

I hope everyone had a great weekend and the bugs stayed away!

Garden update June 3, 2011

I took some pictures this morning of the garden and  some of the little critters that have been hanging around.  My gardens look like jungles more than gardens but that is how I like it.  The hubs would prefer neat straight rows with no flowers in the veggie garden.  I told him when he grows a garden he can layout it out how ever he wants.... then he just walks away muttering under his breath that is pretty much how every gardening season starts and that is about all I hear about it until next season.  He does plant the potatoes so he gets to plant them how ever he wants (I'm not a total garden bully).

I harvested my garlic a little to early but I was worried they would start rotting in the ground with all the rain we got.  It hasn't rained one day since I harvested them.......go figure.

Garlic harvest

Leaf miner on a bean leaf

Aphids on a potato leaf

I have no clue what kind of eggs these are.

Squash bug eggs

Squash bug

All I can think of now when I see a squash bug is "I'M RICK JAMES!"  it's like that song that you can't get out of head once you start humming to it on the radio.  Thanks EG for putting that in my HEAD!

Waved light fly on a squash plant

These are just a few of the visitors I have had in the garden so far,  I saw the first squash vine borer moth of the season so I will be on the look out for squash vine borer eggs now.   I have a couple of pest hunters for the garden, they might be old but moles, rabbits, squirrels, and maybe a cat or two don't last long in my garden.

Pest gitter #1

Pest gitter #2

Squash plants

Cucumber Plants

Crap I cram in the garden

Pepper, Pole bean, and Potato plants that survived the flooding

Onion planted by the tomatoes

more pictures of the onions planted with the tomatoes

Well that is about where I'm at in the garden.

I hope you all have a great weekend!