My helper

Tom is one who gets things done.  Here he is cutting down an aspen stump.  This will give more room for impatiens.

Rescuing Basil with Alma

Alma and I met for our last (sniff-sniff) meeting regarding our class.  We meet at Whole Foods. I buy a tea and I just have completed a card to get a free drink.  I might walk over there today and.....

Anyway, we were wandering around looking for samples after we finished and we saw these basil plants. They did not look very chipper.  I said, "They left them out in the cold. You can't do that to basil.  They like to be hot (like all Italians).  They also need to suffer a bit (um)." WF had marked them down so we snatched up two.  Here is mine. I have not trimmed it yet because I might make something with pasta this weekend for our guests the Escobars. See the little container to the right?  I planted basil seeds in that and growth!  Hooray!

Rescuing an Azalea

I have never had one of these.  And as one person said, "They are in the deep South, right?"  In my usual way during the spring months, I had noticed plants outside the Rite Aid and somehow the car just drove into the parking lot. I retrained myself and I did not buy that delphinium or the salva or even the big columbine.  I wandered into the store for some other reason and saw this pretty pink plant.  i thought, "Now what is that?"  I started at it for awhile and noticed "75% off."  Whoa. that is like $3.00.  Is it worth an experiment?  of course, was my reply to myself.

I saw another lady pondering the other plant. (At this time, i did not even know it was an azalea.)  She took the words out of my mouth and said, "do you know how to care for azaleas?"  I said, "I do not." she replied, "Well, I have rescued quite a few azaleas."  I said, "Really? What do you do?"

"Well, they must be kept in diffused light, under a big tree, like in the south, under those big oaks.  I bring mine in for the winter and they bloom right through the year.  I don't ever prune them."

I went ahead and spent the $3.

I came home and transplanted to a bigger pot.

The next day, to my chagrin, the pink flowers had wilted.

Googling azaleas, I found out more important information. They like acidic soil.  I went to the pine tree and gathered up dried pine needles and started stuffing them into the dirt.  Then Tom mentioned to me, "Do you need any coffee grounds? I had made a lot of coffee for the group today."  I put some of those in and watered. I thought maybe the plant was having a little "transplant" shock.

4 days later, here is the  plant

Container Garden ideas

Containers are becoming more popular because you can control the soil and watering.  The expert suggested that you always add a good amount of new potting soil.  it gets costly if you put in all new soil each year.  instead of putting rocks in the bottom to take up space, smash plastic water bottle, soda or milk containers to take up space and keep pot from being so heavy.  i wish I had know this last year as my Italian container garden pots were pretty heavy that day i was trying to save them from the hail storm.

The master gardener at Tagawa Gardens (such a COOL garden store) only dealt with flower containers.  the motto is Thrill-fill-spill:  Never had heard of this.  So you get one tall plant (like a spike) and that is the thrill.  then you fill in with petunias or whatever.  You add something to spill over the sides for the spill.  Yes, those do look nice.

Also a note about pansies.  They are really nice but they don't seem to last much past the Fourth of July.  I am trying a new thing this year:  putting pansies in a pot that I can keep in the shade of the deck or even in the house if it gets too hot.

I keep moving pots around.  in the sun, out of the sun, near the house, in the house.  But, you see, I like doing this.

April 27 2012

Spring has come so early this year.  We are a month early, at least. I am looking out at green grass, smelling lilacs, the purple money plants, spring green garden bursting through the dirt.  How nice. I kind of hate to miss May in Colorado, but the trip will be good.  Just too bad it is winter there.

Debating on when to put the Dahlia bulbs back in the ground.  They are in the basement, in a "jellies container" (from Asian market), looking like alien creatures.  Dahlia bulbs look very, maybe, scary.  But as we all know, they are so beautiful when they bloom and you never know if they will. You put them in in May and hope for the best.  so like the garden.  You just never know.

The sugar snap peas and carrots have been really slow about sprouting.  I noticed the SSPs are starting but still no carrots.  attached dahlia picture.

March 2012 Seedling experiment

This blog is just for me. As I was working in the garden today, I thought, "I need to make notes." Pinterest is good but this might be better.

So here goes......

Seedlings experiment: pretty much a failure....except for the zucchini and cucumbers but will they make it? likely not.

I borrowed a seedling container from Laura F. I purchased the cells and the seed starting soil that I found in a video online.

One of the problems mentioned in the video was that the seedlings would get spindly. this is what happened. After 2 weeks in the container, I took the zucchini and cucumber seedlings out as I knew from past years that the leaves needed to be near the ground, near the soil.

Here are the survivors.  I plan to pass these around to Julia, Carol and anyone to "seed sit" while I am around.  Our house sitter Becky will have a couple as well.