The little garden

Good morning!

This week around my little container garden I transplanted some potatoes. I don't know if they will survive, not sure if you should even do that, but we'll see. They were in a little bucket that was way too small for them. :( Anyway, here is hoping they will survive!

I also fertilized and watered my two little tangerine trees that I had received for Christmas a couple of years ago. They seem to be doing ok and even have a couple of little blooms on them. I don't expect fruit for another year or so though. We also had a surprise tangerine tree show up next to or old oak tree in the front of the house. No one even noticed the littel thing until this year. It has the sweetest fruit on it ever! Thank you little birdies for depositing that little seed. ;)

The strawberries are doing well although not producing, lol. They are a pretty plant.

My nephews and niece were on Spring Break last week so we went to the water park. It was fun and I got some good joint therapy in by swimming the lazy river. We packed our lunches and ate by the main pool and people watched. The kids went down most of the slides and had a blast. Back to school for them today though.

I have my grandson during the week now as my daughter had to go back to work. :( It was hard on her but I think she is adjusting and has a goal to work towards now. She wants to be a SAHM and be able to be with him every day. He is a good baby and a joy to be with. We also have a Baptism date coming up in June. It is going to be extra special because we are having a family reunion the same weekend so he will have extra family there that normally would not be able to make it.

I guess that is about it for now. No pictures today as my camera needs a good charging but next time. Click on the button below to join in the Ban Hop or just to check out what everyone is up to. Have a wonderful week!!

Mom-isms and more...

So my mom & I were riding in the car today, out doing some errands, and I was talking about being at the water park in town earlier in the week. I was saying that I like ‘walking’ and swimming the lazy river because it was good exercise and very easy on my knee and joints. This is what the conversation was like:

Me: “I think I will go to AI again very soon and since I have an annual pass, it is free. Free is good”.

Mom: “Yep but if you wanted, you could swim in the lake and wrestle with the alligator. That would be good exercise”.

Me: “Uh, no”.

Mom: “I wouldn’t want to either. Alligators are evil I think. They were born grumpy too”.

Me: “how do you know they’re grumpy mom”?

Mom: “Just look at them, they just look grumpy…and evil”!

LOL, I love my mom and am SO blessed to be able to ‘hang’ with her. Thank you GOD!

Needless to say, (and much to my nieces dismay), we do have an alligator swimming among our lakes. He/she will come and go between them until she breeds or lays her eggs or whatever it is she is here to do.Everyone who lives on the lake has been warned.

We haven’t been swimming in the lake in years anyway, due to pollution and the jet skis mucking up the water. I guess that’s life in the ‘wild’ of our little 8 acres in the suburbs, lol.

In other news our owls had twins! Can you spot them in the tree?

Unfortunately they also killed a couple of Pileated Wood Peckers. (I think that is what they were anyway). Decapitated them, can you believe it? Mean old grouches! I guess they were offended by the color red. I think the woodpeckers had babies too which is unfortunate too. L I don’t know what to do about them. I suppose there is really nothing to be done. It is the circle of life, but they didn’t even eat them, just killed them.

Our Sandhill crane that was injured is gone. But this is good news as our neighbor knew someone who comes out and picks up hurt animals and is nurses them back to health. The mate is gone but I am not sure if she took her with him/her or not, lol. She said if she could, she would bring them back. I keep hoping to see them but haven't so far.

That is about it for now. I am hoping to have a garden update in time for the Barn Hop on Monday. See you there!

Here we go again...

Another week has slipped me by, lol. I have been so busy, just being busy! How was your Easter/Passover? Ours was delightful! The whole family came over and we enjoyed time together. The TV was off and it was ever so nice! My niece wanted her hair braided in little braids all over her head so my daughter and sister sat her down and about 4-5 hours later it was done! She has long blonde hair and is a tomboy and (being a pre-teen) would rather not brush it, lol. They did take a break for dinner, feedings and bathrooms though. ;)

We had a yummy spiral ham, scalloped potatoes, artichoke & tomato casserole and angel eggs! My daughter also made a great Easter cake. Everything was very yummy!

Saturday I sewed a lot. I made a nursing cover for my daughter (she left the other at the mall accidentally), 2 car seat covers and 3 table runners for my mom. They were all fairly easy but I had to make a few adjustments yesterday on the nursing cover when my daughter was here. She loves it though and it matches her car seat cover for her car seat. J

The garden is not looking so good. I don't know; I must just be one of those people, lol. You know the ones with a black thumb? I have one tomato plant that gave me five tomatoes and then just died. They were small paste tomatoes and were good though. I did try something though and so far it has worked! I have seen a lot of people restarting celery and green onions so I thought I would give it a try and it worked! I had tried once before but the green onions died, but this go around it looks like they took! Can you see them there in the dirt? There are six of them. One or two are doing a lot better than the others, but hopefully they will continue to grow. We don’t eat them too much around here but it would be nice to have when we wanted them.  

For the last week the weather has been absolutely beautiful! I went out this morning to a wonderful 65 degrees. It will get up to 83 later and hopefully the humidity will stay away. We are having to water though for lack of rain. We have well water so we aren’t as restricted as others but we are careful not to over water.

Potatoes

Tomatoes

The herbs seem to be doing really well. I use the herbs quite regularly in cooking. I made scalloped potatoes for Easter dinner and used the fresh thyme, yummy! I still need to get to the garden center and get some more herb plants though. I do so much better with herbs than vegetables.

The Strawberries are really growing big and looking so pretty. I love a plant that will reproduce from its self, lol.

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That is it for around here. I hope everyone was a stupendous week! This post is linked up to the Barn Hop.

Have a great week!

Garden Update

I can’t believe how long it has been since I have been on this blog. Sad really.

It has been really hot here (already). *sigh* I can’t imagine what it will be like in summer. This week it will be in the high 80’s with no rain in sight. The humidity will be ugly too. Now that you’ve had a weather report, let’s get to my little container garden.

My tomatoes are lacking also. If anyone might know why, please let me know. They are pretty but for some reason they look like they are getting ready to give up.

The herbs seem to be doing really well though. I have used them in quite a few recipes lately; especially the Thyme. That has got to be my all time favorite herb. The Hunan peppers (in the back) are coming back too. I thought they might be long gone, but they are making an effort. I still want to get more herbs. I just love them.

The lavender is making a great comeback as well. If you look closely, it looks like it is getting a few tiny blooms.

Radishes aren’t doing so well, but it is probably too hot for them. The Oregano still needs to be ‘cleaned’ up and I am going to do that today. The Strawberries are alive and producing small little berries but they aren’t really sweet so I let the birds have them.

The green beans are doing pretty well. You can’t see it in the picture but the vine is going all the way up to the top of the trellis. I can’t wait to get beans!

That’s it for around here. Click on the badge below to join up to the Barn Hop! There are so many interesting things to read about and learn!

Have a blessed week!

Barn Hop!

Well, it's that time again. Time for the weekly Barn Hop! Click on the badge below this post to join in or just read along. It is so much fun!

Here are my veggies! 

Can you spot my tomatoes? There are four of them nestled in there.

remember what my chives looked like a couple of weeks ago?

Rosemary looking better after a trim!

Lavender looking good!

Basil!

My favortie, Thyme!

My mom's fav, Radishes...

Green Beans, week of the 20th...

green beans today...

Strawberry this morning...

Strawberry plants...the birds and squirrels love them, lol

Our lone little Azalea blooming on the patio!

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The Homestead

We had a little excitement on our property back in December. A pair of bald Eagles came to live on our property. I first noticed a strange chirping and whistling in the evenings. The next thing I knew there was a huge eagle flying over the house and I could see him (or her) collecting sticks (not twigs, lol). We found the nest just to the north of our house! It is huge also. I guess a beautiful bird like that with a wingspan of about 6 feet would have to have a huge nest, lol. You could go outside and see them flying together too. They were beautiful.

Eagles nest

Can you see the nest?

Unfortunately, the Eagles have been run off the property by the owls that live here.

I know! Meany's! Both birds are predators and I guess the owls figured they had priority on this piece of land. Owls eat all kinds of things, but Eagles primarily eat fish so I can’t figure why they would run them off but they did. The owls made the worst racket at night until they finally left. L Sad. It would have been nice to see the little babies.  

Sandhill cranes

We have this pair that comes to the pond to feed most days. They like to come to the door also. You see they like dry cat food. J Yes, I know, “don’t feed the animals”, lol. I can’t help it they are so adorable. They are aggressive though so you have to be careful. The other day they were on the patio and the cat saw them. He ran all the way across the room and jumped into the sliding glass window, lol. I felt sorry for him, but it was funny. The birds were startled, but they are smart too because when they saw that he was stuck inside, they came closer to the window taunting him, lol. 

Enjoy your week!

My little Garden

I decided to grow a small garden this year. Last year I tried a bigger one and it, along with the weather, was a disaster. So I am trying container gardening again this year. I had success the year before, so why not?

This is my basil. :) Sweet, sweet basil.

 My lavender. It is from last year and is looking kind of scraggley, lol.

I am hoping for a miraculous recovery though!

These are my little onion chives. I almost pulled them out of the dirt before I realized what they were, lol. I think they will do quite well this year.

Roma tomatoes! I have 2 of them this year.

Oregano. It still needs to be weeded and cut back more.

I will get to that this weekend.

Rosemary, looking a little scraggley too. I trimmed it up and watered it well so hopefully it will be full again soon.

Strawberries. The four on the left survived from

last year, yay!

Thyme. My herb of choice. I could walk around with a piece taped under my nose all day if I wasn't afraid of being locked up in the looney bin. *sigh* I love the smell and it cooks well with almost everything!

I still have potatoes to plant and may do some jalapenos, but probably not much else until summer. Then I really want to grow some yellow squash. I am determined to grow it this year since it was a complete failure last year. Not going to let it beat me. I love yellow squash! yum!

What are you growing in your garden?

Have a great week!

Barn Hop #47

This week has been awesome weather wise. I thought it was supposed to be a cold and rainy this winter in Florida, but I guess not. At least I hope not. I know it can still sneak in there but I bought some plants anyway.

I worked on getting my beds ready to plant this weekend. We had 74 degree weather today and the sun was bright. I had a surprise (or four) in my square garden bed too. Four little strawberry plants that survived the hot summer months & multiplied! I had them in a pot, but it got knocked over and I thought they were goners but they just rooted themselves and continued to do well. I actually bought another one today (there were two in the pot) and planted those right along with the others. So now I have six total. I am not sure how much they will produce, but they sure are pretty!

I also bought two tomato plants (Romas), a basil and a thyme plant. My oregano had taken over the area so I cut it back and will dry those leaves. I also had a nice little surprise in that my chives have also survived. My rosemary is looking kind of 'stick' like, anyone have any suggestions on what to do? Should I just cut it back? At least it will fill out more, hopefully. :)

It was supposed to get down to 46 tonight so I brought the tomatoes and herbs back in the house, but they got some sunshine today. I don't think it will get that cold, but that is what they are calling for.

I am not going crazy this year on gardening. I tried to do too much last spring and nothing worked out well, so I got discouraged early and didn't do any fall gardening. But I am getting back on the horse and trying again. Small this time around. I am going to grow some pole beans this time around as apposed to the bush beans. The bush beans did ok, but I am hoping for better luck with the pole beans. I found a latticed piece of board that I will use for a trellis. Yay, free is good.

Speaking of beans, a friend of mine told me about a good recipe for them. Here is the recipe for "french fried green beans". I haven't tried them yet, but my friend swears they taste like french fries.

green beans
olive oil
salt & pepper

Lightly 'oil' the green beans as evenly as you can but don't saturate them (like other roasted veggies). Salt & pepper them and then roast in 350 until crisp. She said it took about 30 minutes. That is it!

I will definitely be trying them this week. :)

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Barn Hop #10

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This week around our Homestead things are going well. The weather is HOT! We are watering every day already and the veggies are growing very nicely.

Mom was able to mow a little bit today. She waited for Saturday to do the "big mow" for Easter. She is very excited to be able to get back out there. The family came over and we had a casual Easter dinner after church. Lots of relaing was had by all. ;)

Tomato

Watermelon

cuke bloom

Herb garden

Hibiscus

Lavender top

Potatoes! (Yukon Gold & Red Cloud)

Squash Blooms

Strawberries

I started my garden later than I could have and I am really hoping I didn't wait too long. It gets really hot form now until August and I am a little worried that the plants might get too much sun. Is that possible?

I have been thinking about possibly starting a small community garden for me & my friends to work together. What do you think? Have you participated in a community garden? Any suggestions? Thanks for reading.