jennycatar's Blog

Yay!
Mar 24, 2008 | 2:34 PM PST
Tags: seeds , Hyacinth Bean , daisy , hummingbirds

Yay! My new seeds arrived today. Twenty-five each of  red and white Hyancinth Bean seeds. I already have the seeds for purple ones, well, Rick's mom does I can't find mine, they must be in a box in the storage unit, which is a mess right now. So I'll share some of these seeds with Rick's mom and his Granny and next year we'll all have tons of the seed. The hummingbirds love this plant, and so do the butterflies. 

 I planted my freecycle vinca the other day, but I"ll be surprised if it survives. It poured for two days following my getting it, and it may have gotten too dried out. If it makes it cool, if not, well, it was free so I'm not going to be totally devistated. It doesn't look like the vinca I had planted last year or the year before either. This is an actual vining plant, the other stuff was mainly flowers with little greenery. We'll see what happens. As I said, it was a free plant and you gotta love free plants.

Hopefully sometime this week I'll get my big flower pot out of the storage unit and I can get the tomato cage I used last year as a trellis for the Hyancinth Bean set up in it, and the feeder hook/pole I'm planning to put in the middle of the pot set up and I can get those seeds planted soon. I also want to get the daisy seeds I have planted too.

Yay for spring!
 

Gotta love Freecycle!
Mar 15, 2008 | 9:46 PM PST
Tags: freecycle , vinca , Hyacith Bean

Rick and I belong to our local Freecycle list. A few days ago someone was offering free vinca plants. Put in a request and tomorrow I go pick up some purple vinca. This will be my first plants of the season. 

Tomorrow or Monday I order my red and white Hyacinth Bean seeds. I've already been planting the purple ones, Rick's Granny gave me a ton of seeds, which produced a ton of seeds. 

Spring is finally nearly here!
Mar 13, 2008 | 1:48 PM PST
Tags: spring , herbs , butterflies , hummingbirds

Thank goodness! I've discovered I've become the 'wuss' I've teased Rick and my in-laws about being in regards to the cold. I HATE it! Don't much care for the extreme heat either, but at least the heat doesn't cause me no end of agony. Been having a hellacious time with my arthritis, spending a lot of painful days and sleepless nights. I'm looking forward to warmer weather and less pain. 

Working on planning my garden for the coming season. Since my space is so limited I've decided that I'm not bothering with vegetables this year. The yield is just so not worth the hassle. I'm going to focus on flowers and herbs instead. One or two plants of any of the variety of herbs I use on a regular basis will be plenty for two of us, but 8 green beans do not a meal make.  I'm thinking of doing plants that attract hummingbirds and butterflies. And since both are usually attracted to the same plants, it'll work well with my limited space.

My main concern with that is I know a lot of butterflies like to lay their eggs on herb plants. Last year I lost my dill and cilantro to caterpillars. I'm thinking about having Rick help me make some kind of screen tent to cover the herbs I want for cooking ... the man can rig up just about anything. I can add some dill and cilantro and other herbs to my flower plantings for the butterflies to lay eggs on, then herbs for everyone!