Catching up

I’m tired. It got hot. School’s out. It’s Saturday. The littlest still isn’t sleeping.

I’m tired.

Life’s pace just keeps getting quicker and time keeps getting shorter!

I’ve been sweating more but in a good way, since I’m back to getting my hormones balanced – at least for now. (Thank you, Arbonne!)

I have been weeding, amending soil with my compost, planting various flowers, sown wildflower seeds and watered, watered, watered several times a day, every day, for the past 8 weeks or so.

The front yard is showing amazing signs of growth after all my toil and labor. I had no idea wildflowers could get so tall! I’m eager to see how they will do when winter comes. If they die off completely, then I’m back to square one next Spring with that area of the front yard. I’m really hoping they’ll lie dormant then grow back even stronger next year, which means I’ll be covering other large areas of dirt and weeds on the property with wildflower seeds!

Growth and bugs and birds

While at Tazzina’s the other night with a friend (thanks again, Beth, it was a lovely night!), she asked how my garden was growing. Beth and her hubby are avid gardeners, so we swapped stories of what is doing well for each of us, and sadly, what isn’t.

My tomatoes continue to be the strongest survivors of the garden, although one variety is just now turning red and seems to rot fairly quickly. Not sure what to make of it; is it a disease, a bug, or do they just need to be pulled as soon as they ripen? D has already had his share of cherry tomatoes and loves finding a ripe one!

Beth and I both agreed that strawberries don’t seem to do very well here – she had tons of plants one year and only got about 30 strawberries in total all summer long. Our strawberry plant has produced about 5 strawberries, if that many. Tasty, yes. But small in size. I keep watering it, wondering if that’s all we’re going to see this year.

Garden update

This is my Bubbs making a bee-line for the strawberry plant after I told him our first strawberry of the season was ready to eat.

I discovered a tiny slug was burrowing it’s way in – didn’t ruin the whole berry though…  YUMMY!

 

My butterhead lettuce seedlings are doing very well…too well actually – time for thinning! I had the thinned seedlings on a salad tonight; delish!

The carrots, bell pepper and chard continue to grow nicely, as do the 4 tomato plants. One tomato plant has grown quite huge but has only produced one large tomato…I’m hoping there’s more to come! 

  My Impatiens and Begonias look lovely on the front
  porch, as do the Geraniums and other flowers I’ve
  planted but have already forgotten their names. 😦

I planted Celosium in the planters on the fence as well as in the front around this ghastly tree/bush thing we have. I’m hoping it brings more color to the front yard, other than green and white!

Thanks for visiting my garden today ~ I’d love to hear how your garden is growing sometime!

It worked

My compost pile appeared untouched this morning and, thankfully, there was zero odor. It was a very cool night last night, but still, I was kind of worried.

This morning I threw down the hammer at a few pieces of rebar, then wrapped some chicken wire through the rebar and around the pile. I was glad the “structure” wasn’t as flimsy as I initially thought it might be. If it becomes a problem, I can always wrap another layer of chicken wire around it all.

And now there are scraps of newspaper atop my pile. Apparently that’s compostable too!

Happy composting!

Let the composting begin!

Even though I threw a bunch of dead leaves, weeds and other “greens” into a pile the other day, it doesn’t mean the compost had actually begun.

Tonight begins the true test on whether or not this little deal is gonna work for me. I collected fruit & veggie scraps for the past few days and tonight I tossed them into the pile. Did a few turns with the pitchfork to make sure the food was buried enough. And now I wait.