So I finished my two Monster Pots, as I mentioned. Here’s a pic of the jasmine pot:

The other Monster Pot is for my rosemary. Here’s a pic of the finished pot and the rosemary for which I made it:

Here’s a pic of the baby peppers and basils sitting in their eventual garden homes, getting used to the sun. It took about an hour and a half, again, before they started looking wilty and I moved them back.

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?