Garden Revival

For a while it was touch and go with the garden plants. I didn't have much hope, as most living things I touch tend to recoil, shrivel, and die. I'd already lost a tomato plant, and the second one was looking like this:

Yikes!

But I kept watering and fertilizing, and this week have finally seen some new growth!


And it's still producing tomatoes, so I think there's hope.



The watermelon plant has also finally produced flowers!


It was looking a little wilty for a while, but then we got rid of the aphids and it's grown exponentially!


I couldn't even fit it all in one picture. Here are the trailing ends:

(I think Coco is finally growing into her ears!)

Coco is such a good gardener. She keeps it free of pests, like this helium balloon that floated into our yard the other day.



After barking at it for a few minutes, she grabbed the string in her mouth, only to discover the balloon started chasing her around the yard. She was a brave little girl, though, and finally rid us of the evil yellow monster.

And yes, I know our lawn looks like it's never been watered. We do live in the desert you know. Plus, the sprinkler system broke and the whole thing needs to be dug up and redone. And Ralph just isn't quite willing to do that in 100° heat. Can't say I blame him.

Aphids in the Garden and My Avengers

My watermelon plant isn't doing well. Sure, it's growing, but it's also become completely infested with aphids. (At least, that's what I think they are.) And the ants are having a ball with them.


The picture's a bit fuzzy because the dogs kept trying to lick my face while I was taking the picture. Coco decided she would try and help by stomping on the aphids.


Thanks for helping, sweetie, but I don't think that's gonna help all that much.

I thought Blue might try to help as well, but he gently reminded me that his job is simply to sit there and look pretty.




All in all, I think this little guy is going to be my best bet.



I've seen him in and around the plants when I've been watering. Right now he's taking a quick break from aphid eating to gain some warmth from these bricks. Recharging for the next attack, you know.

I decided to spray down the watermelon with some soapy water as well. We'll see how that works.

The rest of the "garden" is doing okay, considering one of my tomatoes up and died in less than 24 hours. I mean, it went from green and thriving to wilted and on death's doorstep overnight. The other tomato is trying to hang on.


It looks a little sad in this picture, but it's grown a lot. And the lemon balm has exploded:


Not so much my little green pepper:


But I haven't given up hope yet, as it's finally spurting forth a couple of pretty white flowers.

Ralph told me that even if we can't harvest anything, he thinks I should still consider this experiment a success in that I actually manage to keep these things alive. That is actually a huge accomplishment for me.

Maybe my thumb's not so black after all...

I hope I didn't jinx myself by the title, but I actually have things growing in the back yard that aren't weeds!

In trying to make less of an impact on the earth and move towards a more sustainable lifestyle, I thought I'd try my hand at growing my own food. Not that I think I can completely supply the family with fruits and veggies year round. Plus, I've been known to kill more plants than I've saved. But I have to start somewhere, right? So I bought a small, really random assortment of plants a couple of weeks ago. It seems like these are the most likely to survive out here, as they were really the only selections. I got two tomato plants, one cherry and one Roma, a green bell pepper, lemon balm, and a watermelon plant. I know, random. But amazingly, they've been growing.

Here are the cherry tomatoes on their merry way:


You'll notice the brown leaves. I read after the fact that you shouldn't water the leaves of tomatoes. The leaves higher up are fine.

The watermelon is coming along too, producing longer tendrils each day.

The watermelon originally had only three little leaves. I'm so proud of my babies!

These ants, however, do not share my joy.

If you look closely, you'll see they're carrying their larvae away from the "flood" that descended upon their home. I left them scurrying for cover en masse on the fence.

The Roma and bell pepper haven't really done much yet, but at least they're still green. That's a success in itself.

I realize this is nothing compared to most gardeners, but I'm happy that in my little desert back yard, I finally have a bit of green. It makes the dream of being more sustainable a possibility rather than just a dream.

Green thumb image from KGW Going Green.

Compost Away Your Worries About Identity Theft

The other day I was happy to read about putting shredded paper on compost. I don't know why I didn't think of it before, as I'd heard of other paper products in compost. I guess I'm just so used to seeing my parents using mostly garden waste in theirs.

As long as it's not glossy magazine paper, I can shred my bills (I suppose I should pay them first), old bank and credit-card statements, and junk mail (which I'm having a heck of a time trying to stop delivery). Plus, I don't have to worry about anyone finding account numbers, etc., as they'll be buried under leaves and other debris.

I had a full bin from the shredder that was waiting to be recycled, so I gleefully dumped it onto the pile. The dogs were kind enough to help me tamp it down:

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Call 1-800-DIG-DIRT

All my top-secret information is now decomposing under a gigantic pile of some purple, viney plant I cut back in the front yard. Now I know what to do with government secrets if I ever become a spy...

Weekend Project: Compost Pile

So I decided it was time to turn our plethora of garden waste into a compost pile. We have a very large yard, most of it wild, and there are always some kinds of garden clippings that are just waiting to be turned into mulch. (In waiting, I mean laying around on the ground in heaps.)

Understandably, Ralph didn't want it out in the open as an eyesore, so it got relegated to the space behind the shed:



I beat back some of the weeds and leveled out the slight slope, then marked it off with tree branches from our tree that fell in a storm last year (just lying around waiting...):




Then I got some hay that we had used to insulate the dog house in the winter:


(I swear, I think the dogs are making their own compost pile in the dog house.)


I put some twiggy branches on top of the hay and then added some green branches from the tree from the front yard (which just got shorn):



I think there's also some ice-plant type of plant in there that was growing under our fence from our neighbor's yard. To this layer, I also added some coffee grounds and egg shells I'd been saving:



At this point, Blue, who had been haphazardly supervising me, came over to investigate the new and delicious smells:



After deciding it was too hot (and being scolded for trying to eat the egg shells), he decided it was best to continue supervising from the shade:



Ralph contributed some fresh-cut grass (which also helped cover up the egg-shell scent):



And I scrounged up some dead leaves and twigs:



A final layer of more grass, and a final tamping down by Blue (note the footprints):



and our compost pile is ready to start it's glorious transformation into mulch. I'm going to have to wait a while before I put any more food in there, at least until it's deep enough to where I can bury it without the dogs investigating.

After a long day of composting, we all retired to the house, enjoying a rest after a hard day's work:



Coco decided she needed a rest from the day's events, too. Keeping an eye on every person and every dog and every bird and every insect is very stressful.


Whew! What a day!

Frugal Friday ~ Free 'n easy gardening (well okay, the water will cost you)

In the past, I've gone the way of trying every type of pretty and expensive plant I could to beautify my home (I didn't have a garden at the time). I've tried (and killed) orchids, sacred hearts, lilies, and every kind of houseplant imaginable (except those amazing pothos!). Now that I have a garden to play in, my success hasn't been much better. Until I put myself on a budget and simply couldn't buy those pretty, delicate plants anymore. At first I bemoaned not being able to make the garden as pretty as I'd like. But then I realized that there are plenty of robust plants in our yard that are actually quite pretty after a good pruning/sprucing up. These are the plants that actually do better when neglected, which means they are perfect for someone like me to take care of them. They also yield so much foliage that I can fill in the holes in my garden with their offspring. Two plants that are especially happy in our dry desert climate are the succulents (jade?) plants lining our back door:

These started out only a few inches high!

The other is the "elephant ear" plant (I believe that's the scientific name) by our front door:

This also started out as one plant about a foot high

As I was cutting back the jade plant the other day (to keep it from overtaking the doorway) I realized that I should put all the cuttings to good use. We had a ugly blank space by our fence that I'd been wanting to fill with flowers but had just left blank. So I took the cuttings, along with some extra ears of elephant, and voila!




Not only do they fill up the blank spot by the fence, I also know that I don't have to do anything special to them, as they will naturally take over that area on their own.

I've also been known to cut cherry-blossom branches off the trees lining our neighborhoods' streets (is that illegal?) for bouquets, as well as ask neighbors for their extra cuttings for our yard. They are always happy to give away their "trash." And I've learned to work with what I've got instead of trying to "force" a beauty I've conceived in my mind onto my poor, unsuspecting garden. Our garden may not be the most varied or most beautiful, but it's full of green growth, inexpensive, and easy to take care of.

For more amazing frugal tips, stop over at Biblical Womanhood.

Using Pool Water in Your Garden

I was all excited to write my first Works for Me Wednesday post over at Rocks in My Dryer, and then I saw that today is "What DOESN'T Work for Me".... Well, I've got plenty of those!

Most of the time what tops that list is trying to rationalize with a "tween" or expecting to keep a clean house with three boys (ha!). Also, my recent " 'no poo" experiment isn't going so well, either, but I digress.

Today, it's all about the pool. Now, before y'all cringe at the thought of using chemical-laden pool water on your plants, let me assure you that any chlorine or other dangerous agents are long since gone from our lovely swamp pool. Ralph is usually really good at keeping up with the time-consuming chore of pool ownership, but during the winter, we put the pool in hibernation, and somehow didn't manage to get a cover for it. That usually wouldn't be too much of a problem, but with the fires in SoCal this past year, along with the hurricane-force (seriously, that's how the Weather Channel described them!) winds, everything from ash to our neighbors' tree trimmings found their way to the bottom of the pool, along with some very unlucky gophers. (I'll spare you any pictures of the results.) After trying unsuccessfully many times to filter out the crud along with the newly-blooming algae, we made the decision to start from scratch and take the drastic measure to drain the pool.

Now, we have quite a bit of grass in our backyard, and unfortunately the sprinkler system needs to be repaired. That is just simply not in our budget right now, so currently it looks like we live on a savanna with nothing but dry brush and foxtails (not good for the dogs!). So we thought, hey, we have 27,000 gallons of water we need to get rid of, why not drain it on to the grass? Ooh, we are sooo green! (And yes, I realize that having a pool in the first place isn't very 'green'; please don't send me nasty comments about how un-environmental I am.) Our decision made, first thing Saturday morning Ralph hooked up all the pumps and hoses and started moving them around to various parts of the yard.

The process was actually going quite well, until, unbeknownst to us, the drain in the back yard leading to the sewer clogged. At about 8:45 on Sunday night, our next-door neighbor came knocking on our door. "Do you have a burst pipe?" Ummm.... "Because there's an awful lot of water coming into our yard from your house." Uh-oh. He brought us over to show us the foot-deep lake that used to be his yard. He was worried that if any more water came in, the addition to his house might start to get water-logged. The water level was dangerously close to his top step. Yikes! We assured him that we had stopped the draining for the evening, and no more water was being pumped out. We were all a little worried, though, because his yard is at the bottom of a downslope from our yard. Water could still be moving in his house's direction. We all spent a restless night wondering what would happen to the water level. Even though I assured them we would take care of any carpet-cleaning (and possibly landscaping?) bills, I knew we were all hoping the water wouldn't go any higher than the top step.

Luckily, the next day, the water had never quite reached the house, and our neighbor told us it had receded to just an inch or two. We asked what we could do to help, and he waved us away with a smile, telling us not to worry about a thing. (Thank God for great neighbors!) Even though it was only a tiny gesture, we sent the boys over to do weeding for him; it was the least we could do!

Moral of the story? Draining a large pool into a yard with a clogged sewer drain does NOT work for me! Although I have to say, the grass is looking a little greener today...

Attack of the Killer Cactus

These monsters line our back 40.

It's killed before. Basketball carcasses litter our back yard. It's also maimed. Ralph attempted to take down just one of its siblings awhile back and came away with scars from its evil, oozing juice. Friday night it claimed another victim.

At 2:00 in the morning we were woken up with sharp cries from the puppy, who was spending one of her first nights outside. We had figured she would bed down with Blue in the dog house, since that's what she usually does (too cute!), but apparently a six-foot tall cactus seemed more appealing.

Blue posing for perspective with some of its offspring. They are well over
six-feet tall and at least five to six feet in diameter.

We actually didn't go out to check on her, as she quieted down really quickly, and we figured she was just crying because she was lonely. She seemed okay the next morning, if a little sad. Since she was still eating and drinking just fine, we left for the funeral after giving her a quick once over. (We were obviously a little preoccupied.) The next day she seemed really tired, and we noticed she was favoring her right front leg. Upon closer inspection, we noticed some sort of hole in her shoulder, and after a little poking and prodding, we were rewarded with a river of puss. Lovely.

Putting peroxide on it made her lick it and then roll in the dirt to get it off, making her look like a rabid dog foaming at the mouth. So it was off to the vet. A little while and $300 later, what was originally proclaimed by the vet techs to be a dog bite turned out to be a cactus wound as the vet extracted the inch-long spike and inserted a drainage tube.

A little blurry but you get the idea: ouch.

Coco was put on antibiotics and we fashioned her a little backwards skirt from an e-collar so she couldn't scratch out the tube.

It's going to be all the rage on the Paris runways this year.

While quite fashionable, the skirt ended up being fairly useless. While trying to push her way through the iron fence (which she'll only be able to do for a little while longer), she managed to rip out the tube and the accompanying stitches. Luckily she did that after most of the drainage was done, and she is healing nicely. Let's just hope she picks a warm body to sleep next to next time instead of a carnivorous plant...

Looking properly forlorn. (Tube was still in at this point.)