ChrisBorders's Profile

I'm a transplant from Pensacola, Florida...and still trying to get used to a new planting zone.  I'm starting a vegetable garden for the first time in many years.  I'm planting all the way through the alphabet from beans to zuchinni! I'm even throwing in a few fruit trees...I want to learn to preserve fruit...make jams and jellies...just like my granny did.  As a child, I would help my granny...who had a green thumb all the way up to her ears...put up every bit of produce from her massive gardens and fruit trees. She was a one of a kind...very down to earth...very basic woman. And she made the most sinfully delicious Orange Kumquat Marmalade!

I previously worked in sales for a local wholesale nursery that specialized in perennials and found my passion...I LOVE PLANTS! I lived for going out in to the fields and watching everything grow. It didn't take me long to realize that I wanted more so I enrolled in a local technical college...taking Horticulture. What a blast...although I must admit that the start was a bit shaky. I really didn't want to know all the Latin terms and grunge basics we had to take...but I perservered with it.

I've been married to a wonderfully understanding man for the last 9 years and we have a teenage son. Together we have two really sweet dogs that love to dig up moles!  One is a knock-off of a Red Bone Coon Hound named Beemer...the other is a Red-nosed Pitbull/Yellow Lab mix named Badger. The hound will "talk" your ear off by moaning at you and the Lab mix will flop on you till you suffocate! Together they will turn my backyard into a large tilled-up area if we don't keep an eye on them. Who needs a tiller when I've got them...all I have to do is point to the ground and say "Look!" and they go at it. Lately, I've toyed with the idea of renaming them...Roto and Tiller!

We just added a homebuilt greenhouse to our little homestead...we used a portable carport frame...given to us by my father-in-law...the two end pieces...and a big sheet of clear polyvinyl. My hubby "found" (dumpster diving) a counter with storage space under it for me to use as a potting table. All this and it hasn't cost us a dime. Of course once I start adding in all the necessary items such as seeds...potting soils...peat moss...fertilizers...and such....oh well.......I'll still come out ahead!

A Rose By Any Other Name...
I saw the most wondrous sight this morning as I was sipping my first cup of coffee...one of my newly planted roses, that had six fat buds on it had produced two beautiful blooms sometime during the wee hours of the morning!  Two gorgeous ruffle...

The Ten Commandments of Gardening
I’ve asked a number of people why they garden and their answers are wide ranging.  But the common thread among them is they love the feeling of satisfaction knowing that they grew their own produce and didn’t have to bend to the whims of their local ...

Hi...I'm Chris and I am a gardening addict...
A close friend recently told me that I'm a Dr. Phil intervention waiting to happen.  I thought...how can this be?  I'm not into gambling or drinking excessively (it's for medicinal purposes only) or into doing drugs.  No, my addiction...as she pointe...

Last trip to Lowe's...yeah...right!
Famous last words...I've made my last trip to Lowe's!  As good as those words sound, I know all too well that I'll be back there...again...sometime next week.  And why not?  I've got to make sure that there aren't any new plants I haven't seen or tou...

Whew...I'm tired...but tickled....
I love it when everything starts falling into place.  After my run in with the rain dumping greenhouse roof this week...I started to wonder if life was just making fun of me...I learned the hard way that life has a mean sense of humor!  Thank goodnes...