Garden Changes and Other Stuff

Flowering Hens and Chickens

The last several days have been busy, with a lot of cleaning projects and adventures. The kids have all been doing great in TKD, and all 4 received their 2nd stripe on their current belts last week. They are up for Belt Testing again next week. If the oldest 2 pass this belt test, they will be invited into Black Belt Club. I am so very proud of their hard work.

The garden is coming along nicely. I posted a video tour of the garden yesterday on FB, but then spent all day cleaning the back yard and re-potting some of my plants. I pulled up the sickly looking Pea plants. Their season is past, and I started 3 months too late. They were a pale green color ~ and I needed the dirt :D I moved 2 of the vine type seedlings into the 2 DIY containers I made (and posted a blog on how to make them, check it out!). I keep wishing I had done the same thing to the bucket my big tomato plant is in, but I have a different tactic for that plant. I will make that one today, and post it up separately when I am done.





Some of the dirt went towards the burial of the potato plants. I need to look up how deep to plant them, I left some leaves up out of the dirt for now, to receive nutrients from the sun. One of the potato pots is not deep, and I had to add walls to the bucket to add in the extra dirt. It shouldn't be a problem, as the sun will shine directly in part of the day, and it will encourage them to grow taller.





The bell pepper plant is on the mend! I posted before that it was suffering, and that I was clueless about what to do (I need to figure out how to add links). Well, I was so desperate to stop it from dying off, that I mixed up a batch of Mir*cle Gr*w (not endorsing a product). I gave the bell pepper and tomato plants a very generous watering with that. Of course, I put the open box away somewhere safe, so I can't find it for a follow up dose. 3 days later, I crushed up 1 T*MS (chalky antacid, with fruity flavors- high in Calcium) for each plant I was treating, and sprinkled the fine powder over the roots of each of the plants. I also gave each plant a tsp of Epsom Salts (gotta be specific on that one) and then watered well. The improvement is impressive.

4-6-13

4-17-13 you can see the leaf crumpling and curling happening. It was much worse, before it got better.

5-19-13 you can see the damage done from the leaf crumpling, the growing pepper, and the good leaves coming in on the top.

I used the last of my dirt to help cover some of my more delicate seeming plants. Now I am out of good dirt, and this is a bad thing. I have more containers to fill, more seeds to plant! *grin*

Since I am out of dirt, I might as well turn my attention elsewhere. I spent a LOT of time cleaning up the toys and trash in the yard. The patio area was as bad as some bedrooms can get! Seriously. I found an entire load of laundry out there! When it was done, everything had been organized, set up, and ready to explore. I had the play kitchen along the house, for an "outdoor kitchen", but moved it into the playhouse with the toys all contained in a bucket for them to play with. My 2 year old assured me "I love it mom!" as she was checking it out.



A plastic fruit garden in the window box, and a dish drainer. Right, so the plants get watered while you do dishes. *grin*



To end on a sweet note, I will show you our kittens :) They are doing well, but are still skittish. They are afraid of everything in the house, and not bonded enough to try to return if we let them roam the back yard.