Flower Power!

Trin's here posing with my bleeding heart plant (it's a bulb that comes up every spring and surprises me with it's beauty..love it.

This is my porch garden, well it's in front of my porch and I don't know what else to call it. Most of the plants were already there when we moved in. I've added mums (because I need color in the fall too!) and some evergreens (no I don't remember the name of these plants but as soon as I do, I'll let you all know what they are ;)

And this is a pot with some plants in them. I know, descriptive huh? Well, the one with the pink flowers is a strawberry plant of some sort..though you can't eat the strawberries

A closer look and you can see a strawberry at the bottom.

The End..for now

So trashy

Well, it's been a few weeks since I've posted. It's been a busy few weeks and also, my external hard drive has been holding all my pictures hostage. So, I took new pictures...so there!

Here's me hammering the chicken wire onto the board with a nail.

As you can see, I did end up using scrap wood from our wt pile.
And yes, it looks trashy...but serves it's purpose.
SEE! My romaine are now protected!

A try at a Temporary Fix

Ok, I do think of gardening as my drug of choice. But that's not the kind of fix I'm talking about.

As I told you in my last post, the "Runny Babbit"s (this book will make you baugh your lutt off!) have decided to eat my lettuce for me. Well, I decided they didn't need to. So I bought some chicken wire and have yet to actually buy the wood for the completion of the project. If I actually buy the wood (might not cuz I'm cheep and might have to get wood that's sitting in our "wt" pile...though I'm fully aware that wood does not cost much at all) this will be the first year I've had a framed garden. So we'll see.

So this afternoon, while my husband was at a friend's Man Cave watching Wrestlemania (his grandma got him into WWE, formerly WWF, when he was 10 yrs old hehe), I decided to work on my temporary fix for the bunny issue. Here's the tools I used. I did decide to use some scraps of wood TEMPORARILY to weigh down the chicken wire and keep it from blowing away. It will blow away out here! You can use garden staples, which I was going to do and probably should have done. But I got way too excited taking apart a pallet that has been sitting around in my backyard. Maybe if I hadn't wasted my time with that, I would have gotten the project completed before the storm blew in. Oh well.

Ok, back on track. I used chicken wire 2'x50', wire cutters, zip ties, a measuring tape, a marker (which I just realized is not in the picture), hammer and nails (used if you are using wood. If not, add garden staples to this list and delete nails. Keep hammer for staples)


I first measured my garden. Then measured the chicken wire to what I needed. I needed 3 sheets measured 2' x 7 1/2'. This would cover the top and two long sides. The ends will be 2' x 2'. I still have yet to cut all these sheets out. I did however get one long side, the top, and one end cut.

After cutting, I bent the pointy wire ends inward so as not to get poked at when working in the garden..and on this project. Then I lined them up on the ground and began zip tying them together.
This is all she wrote because, as I worked, the wind became more and more fierce and then I noticed the clouds above me were very ugly. And soon, the rain came and I had to scramble and get all my supplies inside and my project under the dismantled pallet.




*sigh* This week is supposed to be a cold one. I'm not looking forward to it. We've had a long winter. Ok, a long winter for Tennesseans. And I'm ready for the weather to be beautiful and for Spring to be here for real...minus tornadoes. Which reminds me, I've got to go check the weather channel. So see you all!

Compost, roses and Max...the dog

A year and a half ago, my good friend Amy gave me a double knock-out rose bush. They are very popular out here in Tennessee and it's beautiful. And the best thing about it is that it's maintenance free! I love that because in California I had 7 rosebushes that I had to trim. This one maintains it's self. That is what I'm talking about!

One problem though. Max. Oh Max. He thinks he's being so helpful... watering my rosebush and all.




























Well, onto compost. I finally moved my compost pile. I kind of messed up last year. I put it near the house, next to the dryer vent. The mice and rats came...and you know where this is going. 11 dead mice and one drugged rat later, I think I will move the pile now! lol Oh well. We live and we learn. Oh and my husband gracefully replaced the dryer vent with a metal one...one they can't chew through.

So anywhooo. I know nothing about compost. Well, hardly anything. I just throw a bunch of rotting veggies, veggie scraps, coffee grinds, leaves, etc.. in there and hope for the best. I rotate it here and there. But that's about it. I just bought some chicken wire, so that's what's going to go around the pile.



















Again, here's my anorexic looking Whippet, Max, supervising. He likes to do that...better than him running out of the yard ;)














Well, here's what it looks like so far. I put up the fence so the dogs won't get to it. I made my compost spot. I'll be tilling the area between the compost and existing garden in the next few days...when the weather starts acting right, that is.

But now I've got to put up chicken wire because the bunnies have already been munching on my lettuce. How cute! They thought I bought that lettuce for them. Well, they thought wrong!

Prep continued...AND I GOT TO PLANT SOMETHING!

Good morning everyone!

Yesterday I decided to give my seedlings some sun. They love being outside as much as I do! WooHoo! Loving me some Spring!!! ...sorry guys, I got a little excited there. hehe

Actually, I'm hardening these baby plants so I can transplant them soon. I'm going to wait till the middle of the month to transplant them. But I figure the slower I harden them, the better they will be.


Well, back to preparation. My preparation started with adding food to my already lush garden soil. Then, because the package told me to, I raked it into the top 3 inches of the soil. And then I had a blank canvas to work with.




















I bought some romaine lettuce plants. I think these will be the only plants I dont' start from seed this year. I chose my spot for them..and then transplanted.



There are 2 cauliflower seedlings coming up just in front of the lettuce. Can you see them?


















Yay! I was so happy I could finally plant something. I'm dying to do more planting!














I dug out a pathway. It was full of weeds and I have a "sink hole" in my yard that constantly needs dirt put into it. So this seemed to be the most logical thing to do. After I dug out the path, I filled it with wood chips I had near my wood pile. If you don't have the pleasure of wood chips being in your yard, you can go buy them. I'll be putting more wood chips around the garden just to keep Matt from having to weed-eat around my precious little plants and throwing weed seeds onto my weed free soil.



Ok dogs! Stay off my plants! I think it's time to put up all my garden fencing!














Let me know what all of you are doing with your gardens (veggie or flower).
I'll be posting more later...
Katie