Another New Friend in the Garden

Today I was out in the back of the garden behind my shop/lab weeding the disaster zone that I have been ignoring all summer. I pulled grass, weeds and wild morning glories that were taking over my storage area. Because of this, stuff just gets piled around the yard and taking up valuable works space. I found a huge infestation of aphids and other small bugs feasting on the morning glory vines. While smashing and ripping off th vines I found my first praying mantis trying to hide from me on my wood fence. It didn't work...

Got A New Composting Bin Today

Sunday afternoon we were out looking for some lawn furniture and we stopped by WalMart to check and see what they had left. Since its almost the end of the season, Walmart had dropped the prices on most of the items in the garden section. By the register they had an end cap display for the Super Composter for only $45! Walmart's and Sams both had these composters for 80+ through out most of the season.



After looking the display model over, I decided it was worth a try and it is a lot nicer than my are.

The composter is packaged in shrink rap and the instructions are pictures only on the back of the label. So do not damage the label while opening. The first step was to seperate the parts and make sure I had all the parts. Next I put the for sides together. Next add the corner brackets. Followed by installing the door and hinges. Putting this together will take about 30 minutes or less to put together. It is poorly designed and I would love to able to have screwed/nailed something together. The composter is injected molded thick durable plastic. But the sides do not line up well and the looking tabs will lock completely. The lid is durable and has sturdy spring loaded hinges. Once the composter was in place it looked real good.



Today I added a large bag of fresh grass clipping, shredding paper, coffee grounds/filter, bone meal, blood meal, and alfalfa pellets and mixed in. It is to early to recommend this item. I will see if this composts faster than my homemade units.



I will keep everyone up to date on my findings.

First Pepper Of The Season!

Today I came out and was moving some of my pepper plants around I found that my sweet banana pepper has a nice young pepper on it!




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Created Another New Bed Today

For the last few weeks I have been trying to figure out what was eating my garlic bulbs. Last night I caught the thief. It was my little lazy garden helper! She such a traitor. I found her with a face full of mud and doggie breath that smelt of garlic!

So to fix that I went to the local big box store and bought 6 cinder blocks and set them under my garlic pots. This will put the post just high enough that she can't jump up and get to them. If she does the pots will fall over and she will get caught in the act and I can train her not to go over there.

Before starting my project I tied back the Oleander. Its taking over the whole area. But that project is for another post. Sorry guys!

When I went out work on the yard, I noticed that it was time to move all the plants and cut the high grass down. I really HATE this. Moving a hundred plus plants around in 95+ degree weather sucks! So at 8:45 PM, just after dark, I decided to setup some lights and turn this area in a bed with hardwood mulch from the city green project. First I laid down newspaper and then threw over a hundred gallons of hardwood mulch over the newspaper. Once that was completed I then sprayed down the bed with an insecticide to kill any bugs that got into my mulch from the compost area. When I hit the big box store tomorrow I will get another large bottle and spray again.

I had plenty of light for light duty work. I setup 2 shop trouble lights and a clamp on Desk lamp to light up my work area. Tomorrow if I have the time I may setup some more yard lighting. I have a couple of Christmas lawn decoration spot lights that will work great to light up the dark spots in the yard so I can work past dusk when it is cooler.

After getting my area of mulch down, I placed 6 cinder blocks down and put 3 pots down on top of them. I think once I get the Oleander tied back I will put some stepping stones where the pots are and push the garlic back a few feet and add some plantings around the pots to high those ugly blocks. Maybe some lantana or something that trails.

Once I get the bed finished and I have more mulch I think I will pull my herb garden up and complete the project under there as well. Eventually this bed will rap around the entire Oleander bed and remove most of the grass in that area.

Update on my Veggies and the garden

Its been about a week since I last posted. Its been so hot outside, I haven't done much. Right now I am in the middle of prepping a 10 x 10 shaded bed. So far I have ammended the soil with, top soil, donkey manure, composted mushrooms, landscaping mix, and humus. Before I started that bed was rock hard. I took me hours to get the bed ready for planting. It still needs a little more tilling but right now its in good shape and I will be adding new plants shortly.

Right now the bed currently has some English Ivy that is has some starts in it and ground cover that produces little purple flowers. It starting to take up a large part of the bed. I may pull that up once I get the bed established. I planted Ajuga that I received from a gardening friend in Copper Canyon and some coleus that I never got around to planting earlier this year. I eventually want to fill the bed w/ some ferns.

I did lay a soaker hose down. It took several hours to get it right. I do have several spots that stay dry but, that will be that way until I can raise and level the bed. But thats a different story.

On Sunday I mixed of some compost mix and added to my veggies. This mix has 3 parts donkey manure, 2 parts mushroom compost 1 part peat moss, 1 part landscaping mix, I then added several large hand fulls of bone meal, blood meal, and alfalfa meal and mixed it up. Took that mix and added to my winter squash, sweet potatoes, cuccumbers, zucchinis, tomatoes, and peppers. I added this mix to around the plants and worked it into the top layer and covering all surfacees for each pot. I then watered each pot. Today I checked on the plants and they are greener and look healthier. Tomorrow I will post pictures of my plants.

I Have A New Guest In The Garden!

Today I was out watering when I noticed that both of my new 4 inch pots with small passion vine starts were stripped to the main stem. When just yesterday it was looking promising... After being a little noisy looking for pest I can across our new guest and he is more than welcome to as long as he likes!

Gulf Fritillary

Tulum Mexico

Last year, my wife I honeymooned in Tulum Mexico. We stayed at the El Dorado Seaside on the Riviera Maya Mexico. If you ever spend time in mexico near Playa Del Carmin, Check out El Dorado. They have great food, great staff, great view, and great hotel.

The view from our porch .

On the beach near our room

Green Thumb Sunday



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Tyler Rose Garden May 17th 2008

I finally found a way to post slideshow /gallery using flickr and blogger. Its called PictoBrowser Builder. All you have to do is put your username in the fields and pick what album you want to use, set your theme, and cut and paste the code to your blog . Anyways I finally got around to working on my pictures from this weekend. I found that my camera malfunctioned and most of the pictures did not come out. I believe it was a combination of the hot weather, bright sunlight, and a lot of operator's error! I At least have some of my favorites came out. I will be going back for Rose fest in October.

Tyler Rose Garden is huge! We walked out on the entrance from the balcony and we were amazed at the size and where to start. Once we got started we found a lot of the rose were already spent. Their rose beds needed to have all the spent roses cut back and it looked as if the roses were burnt and needed more water. We went from bed to bed taking pictures and taking notes for our future rose gardens we are planing. When we finished up with the rose gardens we took some time and hung out in the shade of the Meditation Gardens and shade gardens.

I spoke with some of the locals and they said we came about a month early. They did mention that the garden will be out of the growing season and will be blooming by the time Rose Fest starts!I promise better pictures and better review.

tylerrose.JPG

tylerrose.JPG, originally uploaded by element321.

Just setup Flickr. I am testing their posting feature with blogger. I am not sure I like. Their website is very slow and I haven't the time nor the patient to figure how to create linkable sideshows or how to post from their posting feature with multiple pictures. I as for this picture I will post more about this photo album tomorrow

Giant Cloneflower Finally Bloomed!

Last April I received a Giant Coneflower in a plant swap. It doing good. It isn't as big as is it suppose to be but its getting there!

Rudbeckia maxima "Giant Coneflower"

Just broke 1000 Page Views

I broke 1000 views today! Anyone who reads my blog and has a blog, please comment and ask me to add you to my blog roll. I am always looking for more blogs to read!

Went to Minneapolis for the weekend!

Last night I was to tired and it was to late to post about my travels. On this trip my wife and her family met up in Minneapolis MN for one of their cousin's wedding. We got to spend most of the day last Saturday visiting the sites. My favorite sites there is the Minneapolis Sculpture Gardens. We did not get to visit but a part of the gardens and museums, on our next trip we will visit the rest. Here are some pictures of the gardens.

"Big Damn Spoon with a Cherry on Top!"

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