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!
 

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!

 

Peas! and other stuff
Sep 18, 2007 | 9:36 AM PST
Tags: Peas , Mice , Weather , Hummingbirds

I've got sprouts! At least one in each of my plant buckets. I wasn't expecting to see sprouts so fast, but there they are. 

The weather has been quite lovely the past week. Not cold, but pleasant with no humidity. The lack of HOT has made it so I have not had to water the pea buckets since I planted them. Why? Well the buckets are in my pool garden, and the pool is still full nearly to the top with water from the previous week's rain. So the soil in the buckets is staying nice and moist, and I haven't had to do a darn thing to them. Gotta love it when Mother Nature actually does all the work for you.

 I believe I have stopped the mouse invasion. I woke up to #7 in the trap (well, we trapped 6 and I got that lucky ricochet shot with a seventh) and I've not heard or seen signs of another one. The landlord was up here today and I told him about the mice. He's checking the outside of the house for signs of where they may have been getting in, he replaced the screening over the dryer vents (even though there were no signs of holes), and is putting down poison in the crawl space under the house to hopefully prevent any more from getting in. I'm just glad that's over with. I can actually take the groceries out of the rubbermade storage boxes and put them away now.

The hummingbirds have returned! I'm so excited about that. I love being able to sit here at my desk while I work and watching them buzz back and forth between my feeders and the neighbor's feeder. Once in a while one will sit on my herb 'trellis' or the trellis support for my Hyacinth Beans and just chatter away. Since the weather is cool enough, I can keep the door open and listen. I was a little worried that I wouldn't see them anymore since there is a lot of noise coming from the gas drilling operation on the back property. Most of the birds left in the spring while they were cutting down all the trees and burning all the brush.
 

The nice days won't last
Sep 13, 2007 | 7:45 AM PST
Tags: weather , hummingbirds , Humberto

Tuesday and Wednesday were gorgeous weather-wise! After nearly a solid week of rain we had bright sunny skies and cooler temps ... well cooler as in low 90s, but that's much better than triple digits without the heat index eh.

So on Tuesday I managed to yank up the dead plants, stir up the soil in the buckets (some was quite compressed, I had a hard time getting a couple of the tomato plants to let go), and plant my two varieties of peas. Meant to do the radishes yesterday, but ended up doing housework instead. While we were gone on vacation, and then off at Rick's parent's house sitting and taking care of his son while his parent's were at the hospital with his nephew, we had some mice move it. At least three of them, probably coming in from the rain. I got a lucky shot with a pellet gun and took one out on a ricochete but the buggers are eating SOMETHING (can't figure out what though) and are clever enough to trip the trap without getting caught. I WILL win!

The hummingbirds are back too. Of course all my hummingbird flowers are pretty much dead now, but I've still got the feeders. Had to clean them up and make more food for them, but that was easy enough. Trying to hang the first one back out and I had two hummers flying around my head as if to say "Hurry it up there" ... hopefully they'll let me get pictures.

 It's already clouding over again, we're expecting rain from Humberto I guess today and tomorrow. One station says one thing, the other says something else. Wish they would get it together.