As it turns out, that was a good thing. My daughter in Colorado had been having serious car issues, and in October, her 12 year old Passport just totally died. We started looking for a used vehicle down here, as Hubby wanted to be sure she got something safe. My son, who worked briefly at a car dealership a few years ago, came with us to prevent rip-offs. He saved us at least 10 grand; we ended up buying a new Chevy Silverado and giving the Dodge to my daughter. This meant, of course, that someone (yea, that’d be me) had to drive it all the way from south TX to Colorado, so off I went to stay until just after Thanksgiving.

Things didn’t quite work out that way. My other daughter decided she’d had enough after her son and husband nearly came to blows. I flew home to rearrange my house to fit 3 extra people – no easy task in a mobile home, let me tell you! Hubby and son went to FL the weekend before Thanksgiving, loaded the truck, and turned right around and drove all the way back to TX that same weekend. Then we had to cram a bunch more stuff in an already jam-packed house.

We immediately started looking for a bigger place, but ended up just moving to a bigger mobile home in the same park in mid-December. We’re still house-hunting; this place is better, but still way too small. The kitchen drives me to distraction, and occasionally to drink…

In between moving and rediscovering the “joys” of teenagers – 2 grandsons – all over again, I did a bunch of garden reading. Paul James, the used-to-be Gardener Guy on HGTV (before they went all “landscaping” and “curb appeal”) mentioned a book called “The One Straw Revolution” written more than 50 years ago by a Japanese farmer named Masanobu Fukuoka. Paul said it changed his perspective completely; he might even go so far as to call the book life-changing. Of course I had to read the book after a recommendation like that! And he was right; it did change my perspective completely, and set me off on a research binge that has been most enlightening, and maybe even life-changing.

I read a gazillion web articles, watched Youtube videos, and Googled any number of gardening things. The most useful book I found is called “Gaia’s Garden: A Guide to Home-Scale Permaculture (Second Edition)“, written by Toby Hemenway. Found it as a pdf on the web, and was so impressed I spent the money to buy it from Amazon. IMHO, every gardener should read this book. In fact, it ought to be required reading in every high school biology class. Also found Rosalind Creasy’s “Edible Landscaping (Second Edition)” to be very helpful. I’m going to be adding pages about these books, and the garden ideas that result, as I have time.

After we were more-or-less settled and Christmas was gone, it was time to translate all the new garden ideas from abstract to stuff we can eat! Though my plans keep changing (a gardener’s prerogative, of course), I started a ton of seeds and started making garden beds. Had a bit of a setback when we had a 3-day freeze, and even some (very little, actually) snow, but Hubby’s brilliant idea saved all my container plants. He told me to move them all to the picnic table, then he hung two big high-intensity work lights in the roof. Wrapped it all up in a big ole tarp and turned on the lights. Even when the power went out, it was warm enough in there (though NOT so much in the house) to keep the plants all above freezing. After it finally warmed back up, we unwrapped it all, only to have to wrap them all back up again a week later when we had yet another deep freeze. Never in the almost 40 yrs. since I first heard of the Valley have I ever heard of weather like that down here.

So, to make a very long story much shorter, I’ve got some garden beds started, more in the planning stages, and a gazillion baby plants growing bigger every day while they wait for me to get my tush in gear and make them a home…

I’m about out of steam for tonight, so I’ll quit for now and continue this novel another day.

Anyway, yesterday I posted a pic of the pot of Gazania. Decided it was overcrowding the pot. I bought a 6 pk at the nursery last year for $1.00, cuz it was darn near dead. They survived the horrible summer, and the freezes this winter. Seemed to like it, actually. There’s also a verbena in that pot, but the gazania were crowding it out. So today, after the water came on, I took out three of the gazania, moved two of them to balance the pot, and trimmed back the verbena. Hated to do it, cuz the gazania was already blooming, and the verbena had buds. Have to give the roots time to establish before they bloom, though.

Here’s a pic of the repotted and separated babies…

Hubby decided that we are definitely moving out of this park and into a house. Told me to start looking. He got thoroughly fed up with the high electric bills – a mobile home is like living in a solar-powered oven, especially down here in S. TX, and the AC bills get outrageous. Besides that, the town we’re in charges the park the commercial rate for water, which is very high. On top of that, they charge the park sewage rates for every lot in the park, occupied of not. The occupiers (i.e., us) get assessed a share of that every month, too. So, yea, the rent sounds great, until you add in all the rest of it. DH finally figured out we could be in a much nicer house for the total of what we’re paying here.

Upshot of all that is, I’m going to be house-hunting, packing (YUK), and moving, which means not much gardening’s gonna get done. I’m glad he decided now, instead of a month from now, before I put too much into the garden. Containers are much more portable!

No telling when I’ll be updating again. Try to make it sooner rather than later; can’t promise, though.

As for the garden, just been keeping up with the routine chores. It’s been hot, so watering is critical, and been cleaning aphids off my peppers every other day. Been cleaning them off everything, actually, but they seem to really like the peppers.

Got a few more cukes coming along, one will probably be ready tomorrow, the other the next day, and more shortly thereafter. I did harvest an actual ripe Heatwave tomato, too, and more are starting to ripen. The Silvery Fir Tree tomatoes are a major disappointment. The tomatoes are tiny, and split every time we get a little rain shower. Admittedly, that’s all too rare, but still…

As soon as the few tomatoes left on the plants ripen, I’m pulling them out and replacing them with another variety of bush tomato I started a few days ago. They haven’t even sprouted yet, and won’t be ready for a while, but I’m hoping they’ll do better than the others.

And now a few pics of garden progress since my last post:

The Kentucky Wonder pole beans I planted to grow up the arbor thingy are finally doing so. The french filet pole beans are not doing well at all, and the bush beans are even worse. The Contender beans bit the dust a while ago. They look like they have some sort of disease, and something still keeps eating just the leaves. KY Wonder have some disease resistance, so that may be why they are doing better. I bought some bush beans that have good disease resistance, and have them germinating in paper towels at the moment. I’ll put them out soon as they sprout. The other ones will probably end up being my post for Garden Blogger’s Death Day this month.

As if keeping up with the watering, harvesting, and debugging weren’t enough, it’s already time to be planning my fall garden. I’m supposed to have planted tomato and pepper seeds to put out come late August for my fall garden. I did start the tomato seeds, but am undecided on the peppers. Mine are just now starting to blossom and fruit, and should last until frost, if we ever actually ever get one. Unless, of course, the aphids eat them before then! If I start more, I may have to pull producing plants; if I don’t and the aphids kill them I’m SOL. What would you do?

I have to be thinking about all the cool season crops, like lettuce, parsley, potatoes, etc, and still find room for the fall hot weather crops. Gonna be a tricky juggling act, for sure. Then there are all the perennials I want to start, too…and the herbs…Oy, giving myself a headache thinking about it!

That’s about all the garden news, so here’s a personal note…

Today is my middle daughter’s birthday, so Happy Birthday, Chrissy!

My son and his girlfriend were here from the Thursday before the 4th until yesterday. He’s moving back here, as he’s applying to a local police force. My brother-in-law’s son has a relation on his wife’s side who is already a cop there, and he says they really need people. So I guess Mike will be staying until he actually gets hired, goes to the police academy, and actually starts working. Be nice having him here; he’s my “baby” and I like having him around – most of the time!

Whew! Think that’s just about enough for this post. Didn’t start out to write a novel; hope you didn’t get too bored!

Thoroughly enjoyed my trip. Colorado Springs is an amazingly beautiful place, and there is so much to see in the area. We went up Pike’s Peak, visited the Garden of the Gods, saw the Air Force Academy, and went to Seven Falls. Saw lots of other stuff, too. Spent a lot of time with my wonderful, adorable grandsons, which was the best part of the whole deal, apart from watching Jen graduate.

I took more than 200 pictures, which I will be posting in a gallery eventually. I took one of them and made the wallpaper below:

Click the thumbnail to see full-size and download.

Now, back to the garden. Got lots of baby tomatoes, the cukes are starting to fruit, and some of the peppers have blossoms. The plants are starting to grow up my arbor, as planned. The bush beans in the garden are being eaten by something, even with the cage, and they don’t look so good. It’s not snails, slugs, or any caterpillar I can find, and it just the leaves that are being eaten…completely, I might add. Not in bites or chunks, but the whole leaves(not the stems) just vanish…very strange.

The cantaloupe, watermelon, and zucchini are growing and blossoming, too. All in all, it’s going quite well. No time to relax, though, as it’s almost time to start the seeds for the fall garden…

Hubby got bored while I was gone and decided to build a really cool picnic table. It’s done but for the sanding and staining; I’ll post a pic when I remember to take one before it gets too dark.

Gotta go, got stuff to do…
Later…

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…

On the garden front, still got lots of seedlings with no place to call home, as we have to go get my compost, or they charge $3/mile for delivery. Haven’t had the chance to get out there yet, as it’s way far away. Bummer.

And I still haven’t gotten most of my seeds; the old ones just aren’t growing. Surprise, surprise, right?

Not gonna be much of a garden, at this rate.

On another note, my poor daughter in Colorado Springs is getting blizzarded on, and I’m sweltering in 88 degree temperatures. Tell ya one thing, if it wasn’t for AC, there’s no way in H$ll I’d EVER live in TX.! I’d rather have the blizzard any day.