I keep a copy of my blog running on my PC at home, and always try out new stuff there before I screw with the online version. Anything can happen, and I sure don’t want to kill my blog…

Also time to be making some more monster pots. Been putting this off because it makes a giant mess I have to clean…but it’s time to start the flowers I want, so I gotta do it. The pots I made back in April or so are holding up well so far, so it’s time to try again. I need a few 14″ pots, as well as a small trough in which to plant some creeping thyme and other herbs. I’m gonna use the top of a small BBQ grill as the form for that one. Wish me luck!

Later, time for Hubby’s birthday cake.

EDIT: Well, so far so good. I’ve updated and the blog hasn’t crashed. Now I’m trying a new toy, a video player… just a little e-card for Hubby.

[See post to watch Flash video]

I went to HD to buy some electrical conduit pipe and some more ugly orange buckets to make more SWCs, plus some more of the stuff I need to make the potting mix I wanted to use. Well, guess what? HD, the only place where I could find anything even remotely similar to what I needed, has decided not to carry the stuff any more. So now what do I do? I just hope I can find something somewhere that will work.

On top of that, hubby broke the coffeepot, so I had to go buy a new one before I went into caffeine withdrawal! Yea, very bad thing to have a dead coffeepot.

As if all that wasn’t bad enough, our AC broke YET AGAIN, and it got up to 97 degrees in most of the house. My poor little window AC in the bedroom just could not cope, so it got close to 90 in there. Can you say YUCK? Left a message with the manager’s office, and I sincerely hope they send the guy to fix it pronto. Be nice if they just replaced it with a new, more energy-efficient AC unit instead of patching the old one all the time. Yea, right, like that’s gonna happen.

I had intended to make my SWC’s today, on my kitchen table…yea, I know, but it’s too hot outside to be messing with stuff like that. Hard to be building stuff when the sweat’s running down your face and dripping in your eyes, or running down your glasses making sweat trails you can’t see through. Hate it when that happens. Didn’t do it, though, as the same thing would have happened in the kitchen.

So all in all, almost wasted garden weekend. I did finish my two Monster Pots, and transplanted the night-blooming jasmine and some filler stuff into the styrofoam beer cooler pot.. We’ll see how it holds up. Was too generally pissy to think about taking pics. Will have to remember to do that tomorrow, maybe.

The 36 baby basils are growing nicely. Spent a few minutes trying to sort the “flavors” today. Found at least one lemon basil, and a couple cinnamon, I think. Kinda hard to tell when you’re sniffing 36 basils…lol. I started moving the babies I want in the garden to spend an hour or so, in their peat post, in the garden spots I have for them. Figured it’s best to get them used to the full sun and heat they’ll have to grow in, unless I want them to fry soon as I plant them. They lasted about an hour and a half before they started looking a bit wilty. It’s a start.

I should probably start doing that with the baby peppers, too. They’re not as close to ready to plant as the basil, but might as well get started anyway. I’m impatient. Besides, I need to get that stuff in the garden, get the irrigation thing done, and mulch. Hopefully all before I leave on the 14th for Colorado. Uh, huh…doubt that!

Sigh. Like I said, not a great weekend. Hope yours was better…

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. We don’t get to see them as often as we’d like, so it was a nice visit. After we ate, we went to the BIL’s house for a “plant consult.” I answered my SIL’s questions, and took some cuttings from some of her plants.

Years ago, when they first built the house, my BIL planted some ordinary red geraniums in a little garden spot next to the shed, in memory of his grandmother who used to grow them. More than 10 yrs. later, the geraniums have grown into a huge geranium bush, as we have had no hard freezes to kill them. Unfortunately, they’ve also grown long woody stems that flop over and look very untidy. It does have new growth coming up from the roots, so I told her to just cut the woody stems down to the ground, and let the new growth have a chance.

Weird thing is, most of the geranium is red, but there is one stem that produced a mutation and grows pink geraniums. Anyway, I took cuttings from both stems, which I hope will grow. Any geranium that will survive 10 yrs. with minimal care is one tough plant!

I also took cuttings from two shrubs she has. One has pretty dark blue flowers that butterflies and bees just love; I just saw one at Home Depot the other day. Name starts with a “D” but I can’t remember the rest of it. Hers gets huge, and they have to cut it back every year to keep it from eating the house and garden. I’m going to keep mine in a container, assuming the cuttings take.

The other one only blooms in spring, with tight bunches of tiny white flowers that have the most heavenly spicy scent. Have no idea what it is, and she doesn’t remember, but I will find out eventually. Just have to do some googling. I took softwood tip cuttings and some from more mature wood, so we’ll see if they take.

Other than watering baby basils and peppers, and checking on flower seeds, that’s all I did in the garden yesterday. I did play with Monster Mud yesterday; the rosemary pot is finished, I think, with the exception of leveling the bottom so it stands up straight, and touching up the rim to make it look smooth. After it dries about 24 hrs, I’ll waterproof again. When that dries, I guess I have to decide what color to paint it, or maybe just leave it as is.

I also put another layer of Monster Mud on the styrofoam thingy, as it was still too light. Wind’s blowing today at 20 + mph, as it has been for the past day or so and will be for the next couple of days. If I put a beer cooler outside in this wind, they’d find it in the next county very shortly! I think it may be heavy enough now, especially after I fill it with soil and a shrub…

That’s it for now. Got laundry to do, a house to clean, and dinner to think about. No clue what to cook yet. Anybody got any ideas?

I’ve been planting babies into the garden, like cukes, stevia, and bee balm, or tomatoes into SWCs. I’d already put the two Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes into the 18 gal SWC, but this weekend I went to HD and bought 4 of the ugly, but cheap, orange 5 gal buckets. I also bought some white spray paint to cover the ugly orange, but mostly to help with heat reflection. So I built, painted, and planted those two with the two Heatwave tomato babies. Then I put the two watermelon babies into the milk-jug SWCs that the Heatwave were in. By next weekend, no doubt, I’ll have to make 2 more for the watermelon.

Here are a couple pics of the garden as of yesterday evening.

Made a ladder trellis of sorts for the moonflower vine. I’m hoping it’ll grow right up the tree and make a cheap old ash tree look like a moonflower tree eventually. There’s a Mexican Mint Marigold, or Mexican tarragon, plant, a dichondra, and 2 baby coleus in there too. I’m waiting for some hyssop and a Moonlight nasturtium to sprout and grow big enough to stick in the empty spaces.

The peppers, bell and hot, that I’ve been presprouting in paper towels and baggies keep sprouting in dribs and drabs, so I’ve been putting those all in yogurt containers. Ran out of room under the lights, so I moved all the growing peppers outside into the shade to start hardening them.

Trying to start flower seeds for containers, and have a bunch of those in yogurt and applesauce containers, too.

I love the smell of chamomile almost as much as basil, but if you’ve ever tried to grow chamomile from seed, you know how tiny they are. I sprinkled a bunch of seeds, and ended up with 36 tiny chamomile babies in one container. What is it with 36, anyway? Nevertheless, I had to VERY carefully transplant 36 teensy tiny chamomile into separate containers. Since I was almost out of yogurt cups, I put 4 in each, spaced as far apart as I could get them. I figure when it comes time to plant them out, I can just stick all 4 of them in the space I have for them, and they should be okay. I hope.

The basil babies were begging to be transplanted, but I had to go buy 3″ peat pots, cuz I have used all the yogurt cups. Thought I had enough, but I was obviously wrong. Tonight I transplanted 12 of them, and they are under the lights with the chamomile. Couldn’t do more cuz there’s no more room. Getting seriously short on space here lately! I’ll carry the chamomile and transplanted basil out into the shady spot tomorrow, just to make room for more transplants. Don’t know what I’m gonna do when I run out of space in the shady spots, too! LOL.

What else? Oh yea, I came up with a good idea for my pole bean trellis, and bought the stuff for that, too. It’s gonna require an extra pair of hands, and getting hubby out there to help hasn’t worked so well yet. I’ll post about that, with pics if I remember, when I get it done.

There’s a ton more stuff buzzing around in my head, but the post is already long, and I’m ready for bed. One more thing, I bought the ticket to Colorado Springs for my eldest daughter’s graduation from Jr College in May. I’m looking forward to seeing her and the grandsons I haven’t seen in ages, but I’m also afraid hubby might forget to water the garden while I’m gone, and all my hard work will die! I plan on leaving written instructions, and hope for the best.

So Saturday evening, I planted a few of the indeterminate tomatoes (ie, Roma, Big Beef, and TripLCrop) after it cooled off some, but before it got too dark. You know, for all the misery and threat of impending T-storm, another front blew in and chased the rain away. So, no rain and no relief from the heat.

Sunday I planted the rest of the indeterminates along the long side of the trellis, as well as some borage, dill, sesame seed plants, stevia, and a hot pepper called Pasillo Bajio.

This morning I finished up all the plants that were big enough to go in the garden. Got some more peppers, cukes, etc, to go in soon as they get big enough. Cukes and cantaloupes will go on the short side of the trellis. They’re outside hardening now, but aren’t ready to face the heat yet. Speaking of heat, it got up to 100 degrees again briefly today, about 5pm or so. What kind of lunatic gardens in this heat? Please don’t answer that, rhetorical question…Still way too early for that crap!

Was going to take a pic of my newly planted garden, but all you would have seen would have been those miniature-milk-crate-storage-cube thingies I used to cover the babies to give them a bit of shade and protection from the heat. I’m sure I’m gonna need those for a few days yet.

What else? Oh, the lavender in the container with the lantana and Blackie Sweet potato vine has joined the bloom parade. And, the sweet potato I’m sprouting in the house for slips is getting a sprout, just barely.

I’m gonna put two Heatwave tomatoes in the next one I build. Right now they seem very happy in milk-jug SWC’s I made for them, so there isn’t that much of a rush.

Okay, I’m done for now. Long post already, and I am very tired. Night, all!

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Went to Big Orange and bought some joint compound, paint, drywall tape, and a paint stirrer attachment for the drill. This was highly recommended, as it takes about 30 minutes to mix it by hand. Too much like work!
I covered my cracked 12″ terracotta pot with a plastic trash bag, then wrapped it in a layer of dry drywall tape, just to make sure I could get the pot out when I was done.

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Made only a small amount at first, to test the process without making a huge mess.

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Here’s what it looks like all mixed up.

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And here’s what it looks like after I used up all the mix I’d made.

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I let it dry, then painted it with masonry sealer to waterproof it. I figure it may help if I waterproof every layer. After that dried, I wrapped it in chicken wire for some strength.

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I made more goop and just slopped it over the chicken wire to give the tape something to stick to.

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Then I used up my remaining goop to start the next layer of tape. The rest will have to wait until I buy more joint compound and paint. Since this post is already huge, I’ll continue this in a new post as it progresses.

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