sb158’s Valley Garden

sb158 | September 25, 2009

I updated. I keep meaning to update, but keep getting sidetracked by my kids on FB, playing The Beatles Rockband, or just life.

Totally OT, but The Beatles Rockband is a blast!

Anyway, things are looking up in the garden. We’ve finally gotten some substantial rain and somewhat cooler temps, and the plants are very appreciative (as is the gardener). The fall tomatoes, cukes, and melons are doing quite well so far, except for eaten leaves. I’m thinking snails or slugs, since I can’t find any other bugs. I mixed up a snail and slug bait I found on the Net, consisting of 1/4 cup of sugar and 1 teaspoon of yeast mixed into a quart of water. Put some out today in individual applesauce cups, so we’ll see what happens.

Got lots of flowers growing in all those lovely containers Hubby bought me a while ago, and more babies sprouting in the house under lights. Time to start the wildflowers pretty soon, too, but I need to make some free-draining soil mix for most of them. Plan to go get the ingredients this weekend, but if the stuff I have here doesn’t dry out, it may have to wait till it does. There’s no doubt it’ll stop raining soon; always does here! Found alot of cool containers on clearance at Dollar General, too. Shopping for that sort of stuff is MUCH cheaper this time of year than in the spring.

So here are a couple pics I took of the garden babies:

More later; I’ll try to be better about this…

Category: Square Foot Gardening, Veggies, containers | No Comments »
Tags: containers, flowers, Square Foot Gardening, Veggies

sb158 | August 14, 2009

It’s still too hot; Hubby’s weather gizmo says 111 today. Much as I hated to, I had to go out there and spray the aphids off my peppers again; gotta keep up with it, as the little buggers multiple faster than tribbles(Trekkie reference, y’all). I got myself soaked in the process, which was a good thing. Cooled me off in that awful heat; probably kept me from dying of heatstroke.

Got all my SWC’s cleaned out and mixed some new dirt, getting ready for Round 2, which should commence shortly. Got tomatoes, peppers, and some broccoli, among other things, big enough to harden off. I put them on Hubby’s picnic table, in the shade, but am slowly exposing them to a bit more sun every day. Really gotta watch ‘em, though; this wind and heat will fry the poor little babies faster than I can blink.

Got some seeds sprouting to fill a couple off my new containers, and just got an idea for another one last nite while I should have been sleeping. I’ll start the seeds in a bit.

A couple weird things, though. I was about to pull my cukes, as they just aren’t fruiting, and are infested with whiteflies, among other things. All of a sudden they have just started growing like gangbusters, so now I’m debating. The watermelons in the SWC’s are doing the same thing. For a while it’s looked like they were barely hanging on, so I was babying them along hoping the melons would ripen before they expired. Now they’ve started growing new vines and blossoms, too. We’ll see what happens.

Later…

Category: Planning, Seeds/Seed-starting, Veggies, containers | No Comments »
Tags: containers, flowers, seeds, SWC, Veggies, weather

sb158 | April 30, 2009

This Valley is gonna look like the icon here pretty quick if the heat doesn’t break and we don’t get some rain.

With temps in the 90’s and the wind blowing from the south at 20+ mph (more…)

Category: Seeds/Seed-starting, flowers, watering/irrigation | 2 Comments »
Tags: flowers, seeds, watering, weather

sb158 | April 27, 2009

A very kind blog visitor identified my Mystery Shrub as Ruttya fruticosa. Found some cultural information here and here.

Apparently it’s easy to propagate by seeds or cuttings, so I may try that down the road some time. Got too much other stuff going on right now to deal with it.

Yesterday we went to brunch with my brother-in-law, sister-in-law, and his son and wife. (more…)

Category: Experimental, Seeds/Seed-starting, flowers | No Comments »
Tags: containers, Experimental, flowers, geraniums, herbs, Monster Mud, seeds, shrubs

sb158 | April 22, 2009

I’ve mentioned that I bought a night-blooming jasmine and another shrub before. Been looking all over the net trying to find the origin and care for the second one, with no success. The nursery guy said it was called Rutaya, and was new. It must be really new, to be so conspicuously absent from the Net.
I’m posting a couple pics, in the hope someone knows what it is and how to take care of it. (more…)

Category: containers, flowers, herbs | 11 Comments »
Tags: basil, containers, flowers, herbs, seeds

sb158 | April 8, 2009

I finished most of my garden bed today, despite the higher temps and humidity. Surprisingly, I didn’t hurt quite as much as I thought I would. The bath in Icy Hot must have helped. LOL.
I have only about 10 sq ft to finish, but I don’t think I have enough “mixers” to finish. (more…)

Category: Personal Stuff, Square Foot Gardening, containers, design/build, flowers, herbs | 1 Comment »
Tags: containers, design/build, flowers, Square Foot Gardening

sb158 | March 10, 2009

I have an old tomato cage that had been used for an ivy to climb, but the poor thing died after one too many moves. I had an inspiration one night, to turn the cage upside down, (more…)

Category: Experimental, containers, flowers, watering/irrigation | 2 Comments »
Tags: containers, Experimental, flowers, irrigation, watering