Deirdre's Blog

Well this is all exciting!! Every day I go out to check what's new!

We have squash, radish, green beans, thyme, rosemary, basil and green onions sprouting.

I'm a little worried about overcrowding..part of it is I didn't expect everything to sprout and the other part is my dog stepped all over the bed after I sowed everything.

Squash

Radish

Green Beans

Wow!! I did it!! We filled the veggie garden with soil and planted our 2 tomato plants, 1 hot pepper plant and 1 basil plant. I planted some carrot, green beans, squash and some herbs. It may be too late for some of them but it's worth a shot. I covered it all with a bird netting. I forgot to put it back last night and my 2 blueberries are gone..snif snif. I think the bush will produce more next year.

 So I bought way too much soil apparently so we're putting it in the front yard. I want to do it before it rains in the next few days. Right now I have no border at all there but what can I do? We're almost done moving it for the bed out front. I'm not sure anything will get planted in there this year but it will be ready for next year.

I also did that red, white and blue thing we had talked about in the forum. I had too many of them, so I planted some in pots. I've had them for about a week and they are doing great with daily watering. (i put some in the top pot though)

  I also did break down and bought the weeping pussy willow tree. It's in a pot and will remain in a pot until I decide if I want to plant it..and where.

Last but not least, here is the rain chain I got. It's definately not copper but i think it looks ok. I just need to find a way to anchor it now.

Well my garden definitely didn't advance as fast as I thought. But I had a little money so I bought 2 hydrangea plant for the front yard to go in the bed with my witch hazel tree. I'm going to mulch my tulip bed because nothing else happened.

Oh well, we will see how they do.

I also bought a tomato plant.

Pictures to come!

I am not giving up hope that I'll have the garden that I imagined! I'm trekking along!

So YESTERDAY, I finally finished piecing together my veggie garden. It took 30 minutes with an extension cord, a drill and a sledge hammer. It was a piece of cake compared to the first half. I have no angst of making another box later on!

So why did I put yesterday in all caps? Well, I started this beginning of April so it took me forever. School was hard. I thought it was going to kill me.

I'm leaving Saturday for France to see my parents and I won't have time to get dirt to fill it. I still haven't gotten a hold of anyone who can deliver a truck load and I don't have a friend with a pickup either. I'll get it done..eventually.

 Well I'm disappointed. None of my seeds turned out. I think they go bogged down with too much water where I put them. I am disappointed also in the fact that I bought this hanging thing that is supposed to have butterfly friendly plants in it and it's taking forever to grow! I've had this thing for like 2 months! It didn't take long for it to sprout at all but the growth is so slow! It's in a very sunny area and I make sure it stays watered.

So when I finally get my garden with dirt...the question becomes....do I plant the seeds I already have or break down and buy plants after my earlier seed failure?

On the upside, I did put a blueberry bush in the corner of the veggie garden. This is how pathetic I am: I have a few bags of potting soil so I cornered off a corner, put soil and put the bush there. Now I just need to fill the remaining 99%...lol Someone will be giving me a strawberry bush soon and I also bought some of that invisible netting..i hope it works because I already saw the squirrel hanging out on the edge of my garden....

 
I weeded my tulip bed. There are a few things in there that I'm not sure if they are weeds. I squattered some seeds but I may be watering weeds or old perenials. I noticed last year, things were coming up in that area. I may go buy some annuals and pray they survive when I get back (if I have the money). 

I am excited about my witch hazel tree that will be here in 2 weeks. 

I'm leaving on Saturday and I have so much to do! So much to clean and my daughter has a dance recital. Tomorrow, dress rehearsal and Friday, recital, saturday morning, we leave....*phiew*   

Well, I started the veggie garden. I went with a 16ftx4ft row. Eventually we'll put 2 of those with 2 ft in between to walk and a trellis with the wisteria on it (I actually saw a wisteria trellis at lowe's....will have to buy that when I have the money).

Ok so don't kill me but I bought landscape lumber. I started assembling them but I screwed up yesterday and just nailed them together instead of getting the log cabin stacking going so I'll have to go get one more timber cut in half for the ends.

I have never done anything like this before and I have to say that I have learnt a few things: drilling a bigger hole makes for easier nail insertion and that you may need a really really long cord so your drill can actually reach the back part of the garden :D

I thought this was going to take me forever because i was drilling holes too small at first. Once I started drilling holes on the top and bottom timber and bigger holes at that, everything went a lot faster.

What I did was drill the hole all the way through the top and it went through and made a mark on the bottom timber. Then I made another hole in the bottom timber. The nails I used are a little longer than the 2 timbers on top of each other but I don't think it's going to hurt anything.

This may seem real obvious to all the diy-ers but to me, a novice at all this, it was an epiphany.

The red brick is where my twig in the mud is (wisteria) which actually has some leaves coming!! I put the brick around so I would know where it was (HA) and so the dog would stay out of it. Works well on both counts. The brick is definitely not a permanent fixture.

I put the 3rd timber at the front to show the final height that it will be (i need to get that extension cord to finish). Part of me really really wants 6 inches to be enough but I think 8 inches will be better for the veggies.

PS: be gentle :D

Well not much has been going on. Everything has come to a screeching halt because of lack of funds :( I am not sure my WS is going to work. I feel that I should have had more results by now. I got a butterfly hanging basket thing and plopped the seeds in and wouldn't you know that 4 days later I had sprouts! But my WS stuff..bah! I have a few sprouts in the white petunias and a few others.

On a better note, my tulips are coming along. Here are some pictures:

One of them has 3 flowers on one stem, i've never seen that before!

Well look at my tulip bed now! It's coming along! I think I may have planted them too far from one another? I'm not sure. I'll be adding the rest later on. There is going to be alysium and other things. You can see the daffs on the front coming too! I randomly planted several variety of tulips and I have no idea what's what now.

The red is chili powder. I found that a stray cat has been pooping in there! I'm going to get some mulch..as much as i dislike the look of it.

OH, I saw sprouts in the lavendar, petunia and something else (WS). They look so skinny, i hope they didn't drown in the rain the other day. We shall see. 

Well I planted the Wisteria where the arbor to the veggie garden will be. It looks stupid right now. One twig in the middle of the yard with bricks around it for now to keep the dog out of it.

I am happy that my tulips are growing and I can see flowers arriving. I can't wait to have everything in that bed to make it look pretty!

It's gamble because that bed is facing north but looks good so far. The only thing is that my daff's haven't even sprouted yet. I'm going to dig one up to see what's going on but looks like things are sprouting closest tot he house first so it may just need some more time.

 p>

Well I am annoyed. I got my wisteria tree today which is about 2ft tall but it looks more like a twig. I thought it would be a little more tree like. Maybe a little thicker and already started to train it be in tree form.

Well anyways, it's soaking now in a bucket because I still have no place to put it. I had the perfect spot for it and I started digging a whole and low and behold, a french drain. I had no idea it was there. We don't have any in the front so I didn't think anything of it. I knew something was wrong when I hit a bunch of little rocks and then I saw it...grrr!

 I dug this hole 2ft from the wall and it's 1ft deep. So now I'm trying to figure out what to do. I really want it there. I know how wisteria can be and I know you have to stay on top of it. When I was in high school, we had this huge trellis in front of the living room with beautiful wisteria blooms. That's what I want to do but I figured that until I can actually afford a trellis, I can plant it there and keep it in tree form and then one day, let it go and let it climb the trellis. I know it's backwards but I'm making due with what I can.

 I may just plant it closer to the house and train it to come away from the house. In the end, when the trellis is up, no one will notice that the trunk goes forward.

Who knows, in a few years, I will laugh about this when I finally see the beautiful trellis with flowers. Too bad it takes forever for those things to bloom.

 One thing I didn't know though: the pods are poisonous to animals and kids! Good thing to know because my dog eats everything! 

Well today is a big day. I actually starting planting things. I am trying my hand at winter sowing. I was going to buy some turkey roasting trays but then I saw an alternate way of doing it using 1gal freezer bags and I thought that would be easier to keep things separated so that's what I did. I only have 10 bags and I probably put too many seeds in some of the bags but we will see what happens.

Most of these plants are going to finish off my Tulip/Daff bed.

A few are extras I'm going to work in the beds in the front. I ordered a bunch more seeds for my flower beds in the front. It's going to be 2 beds made for shade with bleeding hearts, hostas and more.

I'm afraid this isn't going to work at all but if I don't try, I won't know and who knows, this might work!

My tulips are still sprouting. The daffs haven't although I have seen them growing in other people's yard...Across the street, they are already in bloom but mine are facing north so I did expect some issues but we'll give it time and see.

I'll take a picture of that soon.