jennycatar's Blog
Jenny's Garden Blog
Last Post 32 days Ago
Apr 11, 2008 | 7:57 PM PST
Tags: storm , sunflowers , plants , daisies
The storms pretty much fizzled out and the worst of it passed to the south of us. We did get about a half a foot of rain in two hours and parts of town were flooded pretty bad. But all in all not bad.
Went grocery shopping today, drooled over some of the plants the guy was putting out. Some gorgeous petunias and double impatients, and pots of sunflowers. Think I want to use some of my garden cash to get one of those pots of sunflowers. Along with daisies and black eyed susans, sunflowers are my favorite flowers.
Plan on getting a cute dish planter and a variety of cacti and making a cactus garden. It can stay outside during the warm season and I'll find a place for it inside during the winter.
Hopefully this weekend I can get my daisy seeds planted and haul the pot out for the hyacinth bean vines and get those seeds planted too. I also need to hit Rick's grandfather up for some of his white daisies. From what I understand he planted a small amount and now they are taking over, so I can steal some without a problem.
Hopefully new plants this weekend!
Apr 9, 2008 | 8:16 PM PST
Tag: weather
The CCR song Bad Moon Rising is so totally stuck in my head right now because "It looks like we're in for stormy weather" Tomorrow is forecasted to be a repeat of last Thursday. I had planned on grocery shopping and lunch at my favorite Chinese Buffet place, but instead I'm going to be spending the day at Rick's parent's house. Even if the weather decides to be nice to us it's better than getting stuck driving in a thunderstorm (I try to avoid that, I'm extremely terrified of lightning - I have no problem driving with my eyes closed but other people might lol (j/k)). Rick's son, and his nephew have a dental appointment tomorrow morning, we're not even sending the boys to school. As important as school is, they're safety is much more important to me, Rick and his parents.
For those of my friends here who live in Arkansas, please stay safe tomorrow.
Apr 4, 2008 | 1:51 PM PST
Tags: rain , storms , tornado , vinca
It has been raining forever! Ok, maybe not forever, but it sure seems that way. Half the town of Searcy is flooded out. Yesterday was BAD. We ended up at Rick's parents until nearly 1 am because they have a storm cellar and we don't.Two seperate bad storm systems passed over us so we were down in the cellar at two different times, basically coming out during a lull to use the bathroom and get a snack.
I'm a big baby. For as long as I can remember I've been afraid of lightning, and now it's tornadoes. So I sit in the storm cellar rocking and jumping each time it thunders or I see lightning.
After the second storm we waited a while to make sure nothing else was coming up and came home. But being home was just as bad, every crack of lightning, every whistle of the wind, every odd noise made me jump. Didn't sleep well at all.
On a good and gardening note, my free vinca is doing really well. I need to cut back some of the longer vines because they've dried out but it's greening up really well and even have some buds.
Hope the rest of my Arkansan friends have weathered this weather
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!
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.
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!
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.
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.
Sep 5, 2007 | 6:19 PM PST
Tags: Rain , peas , lettuce , radishes
We went away for a little vacation this past long weekend. I left everything but the tomatoes were pretty much dead, the heat wave was not kind, even with me schlepping water every day. Came back, the tomatoes were done too. Yesterday started much needed rain, heavy at times, but steady. It's rained off and on today as well. Too late to save my plants though, but the grass and trees need it too, so I guess it's good.
As soon as the rain stops I'll be pulling up the dead stuff so I can plant peas in the pool garden. I've got two kinds: Oregon Sugar Pod, which I know I can use/freeze in shell; and Thomas Laxton, which says on the package is a heavy producer. I'm thinking from what I'm seeing on the package that these are a pea that I'm going to have to shell these before I cook them and/or freeze them. Anyone know if this is true? I'm also going to plant another batch of radishes. I'm not going to bother with the mixed lettuce/salad greens seeds I planted in the spring, as I wasn't really happy with them. Next spring I'll probably just stick with a green leaf lettuce and skip the other mixed stuff.
Aug 18, 2007 | 7:38 PM PST
Tags: rain , heat
About 20 minutes or so after I hung sheets and towels out on the clothes line it started rumbling. Of course lol, because normally we're at my in-laws all day on Saturdays and Sundays, so normally I wouldn't be hanging laundry out on a weekend. So in came the still wet stuff to go in the dryer. And just in time too. About 10 minutes or so after I got them in it started raining. Lightly at first, but it turned into a hard downpour, lots of thunder and lightning, which used to scare the bejeezus out me. Thankfully as long as I don't see the lightning, it doesn't scare me.
It rained for a good couple hours, tapering off at the last half hour or so to a nice gentle rain. Enough to leave a nice reserve in the pool, so I didn't have to water the tomatoes this evening! Hooray!
Unfortunately it did NOTHING to cool things off. If anything it added to the humidity levels after the rain was done making it feel hotter. Thankfully though it's finally dropped from the 106 temps we averaged last week to the high 90s. Hopefully the first couple weeks of September it'll drop to the mid 80s and I'll actually be able to deal with being outside for more than 5 minutes at a time.
Aug 16, 2007 | 11:23 AM PST
Well, I’m a little late in starting a gardening blog, especially since this recent heat wave has pretty much decimated most of my plants. The only things really thriving are my tomato plants, which have put out another set of blossoms. My hyacinth bean vine is putting up a brave front, trying to survive but what the grasshoppers from hell haven’t destroyed already the heat is trying very hard to kill. My tarragon is doing ok too.
This is my first year doing veggies in Arkansas. I’ve only lived here for just over 2 years now. My first summer here I was so overwhelmed by the heat that I didn’t plant a single thing. My second year I planted a flower pot variety sunflower, which did well, my mother-in-law bought me a clematis, which didn’t bloom, but did ok until the worst of the heat. Later on when plants went on clearance I bought a white vinca with a pretty hot pink center. Turns out that vinca was food for the hummingbirds I didn’t know were visiting lol.
This year I decided to start veggies. I went small, since I’m in a small apartment and everything was going to have to be in containers. I got a bunch of 2-5 gallon frosting buckets for free from the WalMart bakery, washed them up well and filled them with potting mix. Bought a small kid’s wading pool to put the buckets in to help prevent water loss, and planted tomatoes, green beans and lemon cucumbers. The ‘regular’ cucumbers I planted came from saved seed and didn’t sprout. Later I planted lettuce and radishes in window box planters, and dill, tarragon, cilantro, parsley and chives in smaller flower pots. I’ve also got another vinca, a geranium and a petunia plant I put in sand buckets, the hyacinth bean vine and a coreopsis that a neighbor gave me. Everything did really well until the heat.
The other day I was walking past the ‘pool’ garden on my way back from hanging laundry out and found three huge ugly green caterpillars on my grape tomato. I scraped them off (icky) and stomped them, but they’d eaten the top foot or so off the plant. Hopefully they’ll still do ok, but this was a plant sprouted from the seeds of a tomato I used in a pasta salad back on Mother’s Day. My boyfriend’s grandmother decided to see if it would grow. I didn’t much expect it to do anything, but it’s got blossoms on it, so I may see a few little fruits.
My plan is to pull up the dead cucumbers and green beans and move those buckets out of the pool for now. I figure this will give the tomato plants more access to the water in the pool. I’m also going to plant peas when it starts to cool down again.
I’m not sure what next year will bring for me, we’re hoping to move out of this tiny one bedroom apartment into either a two-four bedroom house or a larger apartment. I’m not sure exactly how much space I”ll have. But my mother-in-law is planning to put in a raised garden bed for veggies, and since she can’t touch the fuzzy leaved plants (they make her break out big time) I’m going to be helping her over there. We’re also going to build some self watering containers … sort of home-made Earth Boxes … and we’re getting a couple trash cans to start compost piles in. Plenty of access to both fresh and aged cow manure, as the people who live in back of her raise cows, so we should have a good garden next year too.
