bgrow_gardens's Blog

Whack that plant - Not even close!
Feb 26, 2008 | 11:31 PM PST

Well not much new in the garden other than rain for a couple of days and being sick enough to lay me out for a couple of days in bed. On the up side all is looking better, the sun ventured out and I am feeling much better. I ventured out to feed and water the rabbits. Checked on the seedlings out there too. Nothing else has sprouted yet. Everything feels like it is in limbo-la la land for the moment.

The only faithful bloomer I have is still my pineapple sage which is monstrously huge. I just don't have the heart to whack it back. Basically it took me forever to find it locally!! Yeah it hangs out right by the gate of the front entrance so you rub/bump against it on the way in. Love the fragrance of this plant. Get a little smell of Hawaii every time  you go in and out of the gate love them pineapples.. However, on the other hand it does annoy DH since he BBQ's all year round outdoors. Said plant continuously bloom's it's head off from late July through now. Not too mention it also invades, and competes with his space for said BBQ. So a month or so ago I re-tied up the plant to keep it from wandering into the "BBQ area." Not to mention all the not so subtle comments of you oughta move, or whack that beast of a plant down....suggestions from my other half. Well said plant suddenly had my favorite little visitors. Hummingbird's of course. They won't touch the feeder, but they sure do like this plant. They finally discovered it this year of all things. It has been sitting there for about a year now. I lucked out well sorta (I was sick in bed.) I happen to hear loudly from the front yard (cause DH was BBQ'ing outdoors as usual) when all of a sudden there was a "hey honey you should see this!!" I guess said hummingbirds were sampling the tasty flowers and could care less about the BBQ, smoke, or DH cause they were out in force. Needless to say DH enjoyed the dinner show, and thought the unexpected dinner guests were pretty cool too. So needless to say I have not heard a whole lot of complaints about the pineapple sage for a while. Which is a good thing cause the plant is really happy where it is at and pretty much perpetually blooms for me. Much to the delight of everyone.

What a great day altogether...
Feb 17, 2008 | 8:30 PM PST

So today has been an interesting day altogether for me. My finches presented me with their first egg. Boy was I surprised about that! Eventually I ventured out into my garden.

I found that the lettuce, basil, and quite a few peas, had all sprouted for me.  I also planted 2 clematis vines (both President variety). Then I planted 2 canna's called 'Lucifer'. I also started my worm factory if you want to call it that. Basically an old rubbermaid tote container shredded paper, cardboard a large scoop of dirt and bunny manure. My incentive was that I had put off cleaning under my bunny cage til now because it had been raining for a while off and on there and things tend to get a bit hectic round here anyways. So long story short his hutch is off the ground enough to easily get a rake under there and clean it out. Much to my surprise and incentive for starting vermicomposting adventures was the fact that I found a whole bunch of red wigglers enjoying the good life out there in all that bunny poop. So I just happened to have a bucket conveniently nearby and took advantage of the situation at hand and voila. I now have my own worm bin going. I just hope it is successful. I then walked up the street to the grocery store whom just happened to have a built in Star buck's also. I heard about their grounds for gardens, and I picked up 2 nice fat bags of used coffee grounds while I was shopping at the grocery store to boot. How convenient is that?! So all in all it's been a pretty good day for me. I got to fiddle around in the garden most of the day, and my finches are doing their first attempt at parenting all looking fine and well. Now if I can get the worm bin productive, I can hardly wait for the compost!

You don't always find flowers at the park...
Feb 13, 2008 | 7:17 AM PST
Tag: You don't always find flowers at the park...

 

 

Well this happened a while ago and I forgot to mention it so I thought I would share it while I happened upon it - just an interesting story - that happened to me.

Hoffman comes home, JUNE 24,2007

While enjoying a "field day" at Ancil Hoffman park. We were working other ham radio stations around the U.S., and Canada and around the world for the day. We were operating a battery powered station, and well we were enjoying the day. I saw some little bird flit down under the picnic bench I was sitting at while reading a good book. So I peaked down when I notice that I had moved my foot and yet nothing had fluttered off like birds will tend to do. Wondering if he had taken off while I hadn't noticed? I looked down and saw of all things, a zebra finch. I recognized him after having worked a year or so at a local pet shop... I was surprised to see him out and about and thought for sure that he would fly off any second. Much to my surprise he was begging food and was greedily gobbling up our crumbs. He was also quite bald and beaten up to boot. The wild birds must have been giving him a really hard time, cause he did not fit in with the normal crowd of wild birds of course...

I think the poor little guy was on his last legs for sure. I don't think he could have reasonably flown away, or he would have for sure.. So I put a towel down over him and carefully scooped him up and took him home. (Oh God what am I going to do? I can't let anyone, human, or otherwise go hungry!! ) Not too count o.k. we have 9 cockatiel's, and a blue&gold Macaw!!! Do I need more?? NO!! However, they are all my DH & son's birds so I guess there is always room for 1 more? So thank goodness I always keep a couple of spare cage's on hand for emergency's, most importantly to me fires. So into a spare cage he goes, complete with food, dishes, and water. You never saw such a happy bird. He was actually excited to be there, boy did he chow down like there's no tomorrow. So he spent the better part of the week out in the garage on top of my freezer in temporary quarantine. He is always happy to see me, and would beep at me excitedly whenever I went into the garage. I guess I was adopted by him. So I thought he was lonely, and I decided to go get him a pal. So off to the pet store I went, and promptly bought him a girlfriend. I brought her home and put her in the cage with him and watched them to see how they got along. They really got along terrifically, and were buddy's quickly. Now it is November and finally Hoffman grew in feathers. Well much to my surprise was that what I thought was a he is actually a she! Well the feathers never quite grew back in straight. As a matter of fact, they are every which way like she was caught in a violent windstorm. Of course we named the other little finch Ancil so now they are really are a pair. Just shows you that some things just find you in the most unexpected ways. I was just there for the field day, BBQ and of course flower seeds. After all those poor plants need deadheading too...