| T O P I C R E V I E W |
| TheSoapMaven |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 05:47:50 AM
I started a few herb seeds yesterday - actually kinda late with them. And planted strawberries. I see little spears poking up thru the soil in the asparagus bed. We are still enjoying cabbage and lettuce from the raised beds (coldframes). Jerry planted potatoes the day after Valentine's Day. We planted Russian fingerlings. I will set out onions in a day or two when I can get the bed worked up. Can't wait till I can set my geraniums out in my window boxes and plant poppies and sunflowers...not to mention I am planting hollyhocks this year!!!
Tell me about your plans!
Blessings & Bliss!.· ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.·´ .·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ .·´ -:¦:-~Susan~
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´*
Wife, Mother, Natural Woman, Savonnière, Writer, Baker, Gardener.
Soulmate to Jerry for 30 years
Mom to Zach, Gesikah, Nathan, Hannah, Rachel and Benjamin
Yetta to Sam
"It's no bad thing to celebrate a simple life" ~ Bilbo Baggins
If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you need to seriously re-examine your life. |
| 19 L A T E S T R E P L I E S (Newest First) |
| jpbluesky |
Posted - Apr 03 2005 : 7:37:26 PM
I am a night owl too. When I worked full time and had family at home, it was the only time to work on projects. My hubby is used to it, and he goes blissfully off to sleep at nine, while I stay up until..... I try not to clank around too much. So much can get done in the late night hours - quilting, folding clothes, stitching, writing, reading, and sometimes I sit on my porch and listen to the sounds of the night. I love going to sleep having things done so I do not have to get up and do them the next day!
jpbluesky
"Keep us here, all simply in the springing of the year." From A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost |
| Aunt Jenny |
Posted - Apr 02 2005 : 9:37:32 PM
You sound like me..I am so bad about being a night owl!! And I love the extra night hours. I love to do my milking and a little garden work after supper and hang out with my critter friends! I better set my clocks back right now before I forget. We will be leaving in the morning early and the time is an hour earlier where we are going.....so we won't really deal with the time change until we get home!!
Jenny in Utah
Bloom where you are planted! |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - Apr 02 2005 : 5:55:10 PM
Thanks jp for the reminder! I always have trouble with the spring time change. I stay up to the wee hours at night and that lost hour in the morning is a killer for about a week. But I do enjoy the extra daylight for working out doors!
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| jpbluesky |
Posted - Apr 02 2005 : 4:49:07 PM
Well, for most of us folks, let us not forget to Spring forward tonight! Daylight savings time is here. More light in the evenings, more dark in the mornings. I less hour of sleep unless we all turn in early. :)
jpbluesky
"Keep us here, all simply in the springing of the year." From A Prayer in Spring by Robert Frost |
| Aunt Jenny |
Posted - Mar 15 2005 : 1:19:23 PM
Wow....that will about put you into shock..weather changes like that...it hasn't been above 75 here yet and hasn't snowed for a few weeks. I don't know if we will get more. But I wouldn't bet on it. How fun to work at a garden center!!!
Jenny in Utah
Bloom where you are planted! |
| LeslieAnne |
Posted - Mar 15 2005 : 07:29:19 AM
We're having crazy weather here in west Texas... Saturday, it was nearly 90 & today it's snowing!!!.. we cleaned ponds Saturday at the garden center where I work & today, my day off, I can't get out in my own yard to do any gardening... yuck...
LeslieAnne...westTexas |
| Aunt Jenny |
Posted - Mar 14 2005 : 8:33:58 PM
WE had such a warm last couple of weeks that i was feeling like spring was here..and then the past 2 days it hasn't been over 40 degrees...brr. It was down to 17 again last night. I should know better than to count on an early spring. At least I have the daffodils!!!
Jenny in Utah
Bloom where you are planted! |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - Mar 14 2005 : 5:51:54 PM
Oh Susan! I can just picture your lovely geraniums in their window boxes! They spell true home to me! I am sooo ready for warm days again and green all around!
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| Kim |
Posted - Mar 14 2005 : 4:12:08 PM
I can just picture it, SoapMaven! It keeps me going knowing spring is around the corner! At least the snow we had today didn't stick!!
farmgirl@heart
Be at peace with yourself and the rest will follow |
| TheSoapMaven |
Posted - Mar 14 2005 : 3:53:33 PM
Hi! Thought I would give you all an update. Onions look good...still picking lettuce & cabbage. Planted more lettuce today. Getting herbs ready to set out of the greenhouse. Geraniums are in their window boxes. Potatoes sprouting really nicely. Going to plant carrots tomorrow. And peas. Just thought I would say HEY~
Blessings & Bliss!.· ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.·´ .·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ .·´ -:¦:-~Susan~
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´*
Wife, Mother, Natural Woman, Savonnière, Writer, Baker, Gardener.
Soulmate to Jerry for 30 years
Mom to Zach, Gesikah, Nathan, Hannah, Rachel and Benjamin
Yetta to Sam
"It's no bad thing to celebrate a simple life" ~ Bilbo Baggins
If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you need to seriously re-examine your life. |
| free bird |
Posted - Feb 20 2005 : 05:44:20 AM
SoapMaven--kalanchoes are a species of succulent plants--popular as houseplants elsewhere but grown in flower beds around here--that have thick broad leaves and lots of bright red, pink, yellow or salmon flowers covering the tops of their stems. Shrimp plant is a popular low-growing shrub with salmon-pink flowers that look just like shrimp, longish and slightly bent in the middle. (Also available in yellow flowers, I think.) Kalanchoes make very good houseplants anywere, they just need a lot of sun, and they like it on the dry side. Down here they bloom in January and February when the days are shorter. My hunch is they need need a certain short day-long night-length requirement to bloom, like poinsettias and Christmas cactus. That's why they would be great houseplants for sunny dry rooms in winter for you folks in the north who can't plant anything outdoors yet. You might even find them blooming in home and garden centers now, or anywhere they sell houseplants.
I love my chickens |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - Feb 19 2005 : 1:54:51 PM
Freebird, That is really a HUGE snow for south Texas. I'll bet that was quite a picture seeing snow on the Spanish Moss. I have always thought that the moss hanging from the tree down your way looked beautiful but a little eerie at the same time. You have recieved more snow this season than I have up North in Kansas! It has been ice which I really tire of... But any moisture is a blessing because of a long drought spell. By the way...what are shrimp plants and kalanchoes? Enjoyed your story about your grandfather!
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| free bird |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 4:47:01 PM
SoapMaven--I have an uncle who lived for a long time near Many, LA. He was a preacher there (now lives in East Texas). I used to go up there with my family on summer trips to see him. Also my grandfather lived near Coushatta--isn't that pretty near Many? I remember those thick pine woods. (So different from South Texas!) My grandfather had a truck farm near Coushatta. I remember very fondly his busy roadside farm stand next to his huge truck garden and his house. It was right on a bend in the highway and there were always cars roaring by the stand. Cars would stop, and I remember that if Grandpa wasn't in the stand (he often was in the garden or working at the house, he was a very busy man) they would honk their horns to let him know they needed service, and he'd run up he road fom the garden to the stand. which he ran in the 1960's and 1970's till he died in the late 1970's. "Pop Jones" was what everyone called him. I guess that's partly where I get my green thumb.
People are already having to start mowing their grass again down here in South Texas. Everything's greening up nicely. The subtropical plants we have here are starting to bloom-- kalanchoes are blooming, shrimp plants have been blooming, and all my aloe plants are going to bloom soon, some have buds on them. I have tomato and pepper and eggplant seedlings sitting outdoors getting sun. (Though I did bring them in tonight because it's kind of cool, mid-50s tonight.)
Believe it or not, here in sunny South Texas we actually got 12.5 inches of snow (Victoria, Texas) on Christmas 2004!! It was a once-in-100-year event. It was really kind of eerie, like something out of a gothic romance, to see all of our famous 500-year-old live oaks down here, some of them with long Spanish moss hanging on them, draped all over with heavy snow. Have you got that much snow in Kansas so far this season I wonder, MeadowLark? Maybe I've had more snow on one day in South Texas than you've had all season?
I love my chickens |
| TheSoapMaven |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 3:48:56 PM
OH come on Bramble...July is nothing - try August! WHEWwww. But honestly I wouldn't live anywhere else. I like my year round gardening and almost perfect weather. I don't mind the heat so much. That's what our air conditioner is for!
It's cool and dreary this evening. But won't be long till we will be mowing!
Blessings & Bliss!.· ´¨¨)) -:¦:-
¸.·´ .·´¨¨))
((¸¸.·´ .·´ -:¦:-~Susan~
-:¦:- ((¸¸.·´*
Wife, Mother, Natural Woman, Savonnière, Writer, Baker, Gardener.
Soulmate to Jerry for 30 years
Mom to Zach, Gesikah, Nathan, Hannah, Rachel and Benjamin
Yetta to Sam
"It's no bad thing to celebrate a simple life" ~ Bilbo Baggins
If your knees aren't green by the end of the day, you need to seriously re-examine your life. |
| Clare |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 10:15:54 AM
I agree, hollyhocks, at least the old fashioned varieties, are prone to lots of things. I have found that hollyhocks do not like or need much water. Treat them as a drought tolerant plant, keep them in a sunny location, and see if that helps at all.
****Gardener, Stitcher, Spiritual Explorer and Appreciator of all Things Natural****
"Begin to weave and God will give the thread." - German Proverb |
| bramble |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 09:32:31 AM
"... and talks of spring will lead to flights of fancy..." or something like that! Our frost date here is Mother's Day weekend so we are very cautious about any tender plants that go out ahead. Lots of toting in and out til all signs of frost are gone.
Susan you are lucky to enjoy planting at this time of year when all seems forever brown, but I've been to La. in July and it's like breathing underwater! no thank you ma'am!
Eileen-- what you are describing is called cedar-apple rust and if you have it, it's very hard to eradicate without removing a large variety of plants. Cedar and apple trees started out to be the host plants but it has spread to many plants since. We have tremendous problems here and gooseberries/currants are not grown for production due to the fact that they were acting as host and then affecting orchards on a large basis. It is very pervasive, and sorry to say by burning the leaves you most likely released more spores into the air.
I love holllyhocks too and have a clump my husbands grandmother planted and at the first sign of the brown leaves I cut them down to the ground and bag them up in the eco-lawn bags that get composted
at our recycling center. Not the best solution (disease free hollyhocks) but the best I could come up with to date. Sometimes the regrowth is completely disease free so I must be out of sync with the rust cylce.
I can't wait to start working out side again!
with a happy heart |
| Eileen |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 08:57:32 AM
Meadowlark, I have had good luck with portulaca for color and bacopa for white in my windowboxes. Also I add some of those wonderful water retainer pellets to the soil at planting time. As for Hollyhocks, I am a lover of those beautiful flowers too but am having a very difficult time getting them to grow herre with any success. I have tried different locations, different soils and plain neglect but still no matter where I have tried them they end up with this very ugly and deforming red fungus or rust all over the leaves. Some of them go on to bloom but are very straggly. I have cut them back to the ground as soon as I see the spots and burned the leaves, Have doused the ground around them with worm tea which is supposed to get rid of most fungus and does so very well on all other things prone to this but on my holly hocks I am at a loss as to what to do. Any suggestions.
Eileen
songbird; singing joy to the earth |
| MeadowLark |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 08:21:41 AM
Ditto on the envy for springtime!! it can be mid-May in Kansas before the temps are warm enough! I love your plans SoapMaven...the Russian fingerlings sound so good! My Hubby is half Irish and his Mom always plants her spuds on March 17, St. Patricks. I have my seed order filled out but have'nt sent in. The days are getting longer and my SAD seems to be subsiding (Seasonal Affective Disorder) or lack of light. I am a hollyhock fan also. Have you tried the double hollyhocks? They are pretty but I still love the singles for the nostalgic look. Give me a row of those "Alley Orchids" any day! I will be re-digging my rose beds and adding composted cow manure compliments of my 4 Dexter cows, and pruning. I put up windowboxes last summer and thinking of what to put in them. Any ideas? They need to be heat tolerant plants... I love geraniums but they suffer in the intense sun and dry winds here. Mediterranean herbs do well but I'd like some color. We all crave spring here!
"Out beyond ideas of wrongdoing and rightdoing, there is a field. I'll meet you there." Rumi, 13th century. |
| Clare |
Posted - Feb 17 2005 : 06:46:32 AM
I'm envious SoapMaven!!! Here in the Northwest we are at least 2-2.5 months away from even beginning to plant our gardens as the soil isn't warm enough to germinate seeds until then, although the days are a bit warmer now in the 40's and the days are increasingly longer (hallelujia!!)
I love my hollyhocks. They've been here since I have (26+ years)and they are naturalized everywhere!!! I even save their seeds. My neighbors think I'm odd allowing them to grow and encouraging them where ever the sprout up, but to me they are a symbol of the past, and hope for the future!
****Gardener, Stitcher, Spiritual Explorer and Appreciator of all Things Natural****
"Begin to weave and God will give the thread." - German Proverb |
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