Tag: vegetables

Progress

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

It seems lately I’ve only been posting about our garden, but truthfully, that’s what we’ve been working on the most. We’ve gotten some decent rain lately, like today it’s been raining all day, so the plants have really taken off.

The squash and radishes are getting so big. I had to use Google Lens to see what one of the plants was because there seemed to be several popping up and they didn’t look like the traditional weeds I see normally. Turns out it’s Morning Glory which can be very invasive, but if it’s grown on the perimeter where no other climbing plant is, is is a great pollinator.

The tomatoes, zinnias and basil are still doing well. Donny went in and pruned all of the sucker stems off of the tomatoes so that should help them grow taller.

We decided it was time to build the trellis for the tire cucumbers since they have gotten so much bigger.

We also added bamboo stick so the potted cucumbers will have something to adhere to.

The cats have started digging in the raised beds so, even though it’s not pretty, we put some of the reclaimed wood across until the plants get bigger because they don’t seem to dig where there are larger plants. There is a lot of unplanted areas in the purple beds because I still need to plant my seedlings and we needed a space to do that once they get to the stage where they can live in a larger bed.

How do we know that the warm weather is here to stay? We have a seasonal cat. Monkey stays inside as soon as it starts getting cold. When the weather starts warming up she will only go back outside once there is no chance of cold weather. Every. Single. Year.

And I don’t know if I have mentioned it on here, but I despised my watering can. It is supposed to sprinkle water out, but it sprinkled out of the top holes and poured out of the bottom ones. Drove me crazy!

I found a different one at Walmart and it’s works perfectly. Just the right amount of sprinkle that doesn’t drown my plants. It’s also in my favorite color.

I also wanted to add that I have NEVER been able to grow cilantro from seed. I now have two plants that are actually looking like cilantro finally.

This ‘n That

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn Home lifeLeave a comment

First I want to start by saying we had a scare last night. Hannah and I went to workout and got home about midnight. I was checking on everything when I heard the neighborhood dogs barking like crazy. I looked up and there were two huge coyotes just walking down the middle of our street. If the dogs hadn’t alerted me I wouldn’t have even known they were there because they were ninja quiet. I start yelling at them to go away because our two male cats were outside. Donny heard me and came out to see what in the world was going on at that late hour. We hopped in the car and started chasing them around the neighborhood to get them to leave. They did not want to leave and kept circling back to our street. We had the windows down yelling at them and honking. They finally left but I’m sure they will be back. We have a feral cat colony across the street and it breaks my heart when there is a missing cat.

Fridays are like every normal person’s Sunday for us. It’s like the end of the weekend because Donny has Thursdays and Fridays off. Since we did all of our running around yesterday today was home day. While he was cleaning out and fortifying the chicken coop (we had a possum sneak in the other night in the wee hours) I was painting one of the old tires that we had in the backyard. Donny had used it for planning potatoes a few seasons ago and I wanted to spruce it up and use it for cucumbers.

My cucumbers are almost ready to be planted. I don’t know how well they will do in the front because it is just so dang shady. I’m going to plant some in the full sun and some in the shad and see how it goes.

That’s some of my tomato plants in the round containers next to the cucumbers.

I may have overdone it with the tomatoes, but who knows if they’ll all live.

I have 3 that I cheated and bought at home Depot. They are still living so that’s a plus.

My watermelon is finally sprouting. Those are my babies because I love watermelon and buy so many during the summer. I would just love to be able to pick them from my garden.

So far everything is going well. Fingers crossed it stays that way.

As soon as the compost is ready I’ll be spreading that all over. For some reason Making compost has always intimidated me. We made it all the time at our house in Bryan. I have no idea why I felt this way. I decided that if I don’t do it right, that’s okay, but so far it’s been really easy. I also found that using the weed weasel thing to mix it up is so much better than the hoe and stick I was using.

Sorry about all of the garden talk it’s just that I am trying to record everything so I’ll have the records for next time and it’s also what took up the majority of our day today.

But, that’s not the only thing. Hannah and I went to Crunch to workout. I absolutely love this gym. No one cares what you wear. Everyone is so nice and helpful. We have started doing the circuit workout and then cardio. Tonight we found the holy grail of working out. It’s the sauna! We sat in that beautiful hot room and when we got out it felt like we had taken a sedative. That will definitely be our ending every time we go. I just can’t even explain how wonderful I feel after sitting on those cedar benches for 15 minutes.

Because Sprouts is in the same parking lot I had to run in and get some lotion. I am almost out of the patchouli buritti and decided to go with a new scent.

This is my favorite scent. It says floral in the description (I’m not a floral girly at all) but I’m not getting that from it. All of the scents that I have tried are really good, but the lotion itself is outstanding. Non greasy, soaks in and keeps my skin soft all day long. Highly recommend. Natural Grocers, Vitamins Plus and Drug Emporium also carry this brand.

Now I’m going to talk my cat Malley off the ledge because he is wanting to go outside. He can’t meow so it’s the grunting sound. Poor thing. He always settles down when he realizes he has lost the battle of wills.

Impatient

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

Yesterday I had to run to Home Depot to get the rest of the soil I needed to finish up filling the raised beds. The front garden is so shady that it takes forever for something to grow. I found out that Impatiens and Vincas do well in shade so I looked for some there. No luck so I headed to Walmart where, online, it said the flowers were available. I could not find any of those flowers inside or out. I did find some tomato plants. I do not like the beefsteak or any of the large variety tomatoes. I prefer Roma but the smaller tomatoes are so hard to find for some reason. I picked up the last two that they had. Even Home Depot only had the large variety. While I was there I also picked up some strawberry plants.

Strawberries in.

I really dislike buying plants and prefer to start them myself with seeds, but I was very impatient to see something growing the the gardens. I am nurturing my seed trays and making sure they get enough sun. I keep the lids on at night but I have to leave them outside just because we don’t have the space inside.

I added a few more seed trays to the bunch.

My celery is starting to grow. I just plant the bottom part that I cut off.

I don’t know how my green onions are still alive. I just left them outside during all of the freezing weather.

Since I have planted seeds in the raised bed where I normally keep the seed trays at night I decided to just line them up outside the border and hope no animal gets into them.

Two things really irritated me today.

I went to move the weed sacks and the bottom dropped out of the bigger one.

This is the biggest one that I just don’t know what to think about it.

The city is putting in new electric poles and changing out the street lights. The light across the street has been burned out for a few months. At first it seemed so dark but I got used to it and actually started liking it because we could really see the stars so clearly

The light that was there before gave off a wonderful amber glow like this one down the street.

Did they put that kind of light back in? Oh, heavens no. We got a blinding LED light that is turned the wrong way so it looks like aliens are trying to beam up my neighbors house.

I guess I need to be careful what I wish for because I did call the city to let them know the light was out. Why Longview why?!?

More Garden Progress

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

We have had the fenced garden for a couple of years now. It’s been okay, but always seemed a little messy. The dirt was always piled up in mounds. The stepping stones would end up buried. Part of the wood is rotting, but it will make it through at least one more season.

I was going to go get bricks to put up an inside border. It would have cost about 15 dollars which really isn’t bad, but since we are trying to use what we have I decided to cut some boards and use those instead. I didn’t like the plain concrete stepping stones so I painted them red. While those were drying I tilled up the soil and started spreading it out. After I dug the trenches for the boards and put them in I filled the space with mulch and laid the stones back down.

It looks so much neater now. The door used to close. For a while now we have used the rake to hold it closed. I bought some garden hooks at Dollar Tree. You get 4 per package.

Just looking at this picture I’m pretty sure I’ll be repainting the boards.

I used the other two to hang up the onions and the lantern.

Now I needed to get some seeds in the ground. I have tried all different kinds of plant markers. No matter what kind I get, they never seems to work. They either get moved, washed away or are just missing. I decided to make a diagram (poorly) .

The big blank space on the side is where the tomatoes will go.

I started filling in the planters with dirt from my really big pot and some others I’m not using right now.

I’m so excited because my seeds are starting to sprout finally. It’s a fine line between watering them too much and not enough. We got a new hose and sprayer. It’s still very stiff and hard to maneuver. I was looking online for a hose holder. The one that I really liked was, unfortunately $80 so that was a no go. I saw some free standing holders, but the reviews were not so great. There are baskets and pots that hold the hose also, but I just didn’t feel like paying what they were asking. Then I remembered that we have a huge pot that we have had trouble growing things in. My Jasmine died. My begonias died. So I thought this would be the perfect solution and it was.

I didn’t realize that you need to soak parsley and broccoli seeds overnight. So hopefully I will get those in the planters tomorrow.

The sun was out all day with not a cloud in the sky so that meant that my solar lights were getting all the charge they needed.

The lights make all the difference at night. I can’t believe how far this side yard has come.

Day #40 – Sprucin’ It Up

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn 100 DaysLeave a comment

I had a few things on my to-do list today that I wasn’t exactly looking forward to but they needed to get done. I needed to mow first and because it was 79 degrees at 9 am this morning the morning glories were still open. Unfortunately the humidity was at 73.

I knew I needed to start laying the pavers. First I needed to paint them. I would have loved to do a bright color, but the only paint I had enough of was the warm cinnamon. That works.

Next I had to lay them out and dig out the rest of the grass and dirt to try and get them as level as I could.

This took quite a while, but it was so satisfying when it was finally finished.

I brought some rocks from the backyard to the front to just add that little touch to the all gravel part.

Nothing ever grows in the small pots I have hanging by our front door. Since we’ve had some good luck with wandering Jew I decided to try them there.

While I was planting those I noticed our house numbers were looking a bit faded. Since our house is old I didn’t want to completely take them off because who knows If I could even get them back on so I just used a black sharpie.

So much better.

The last thing I had on my list was to pull out the dying cucumber vine, stake up the tomatoes and plant the pumpkins sprouts and marigold seeds.

See the little cat on the left? That’s Monkey and every time I’m pulling weeds or planting anything, mainly when I’m a sweaty mess, she has to come and rub all over me.

I hope the cloches keep the pumpkin sprouts safe until they are bigger. I guess I’ll just have to wait and see.

Garden Growth

On By thefunkyfrugalistaIn gardeningLeave a comment

We did not do a big garden this year. I got the seeds started late, but I am proud to say that everything I am growing is from seeds. Not a big flex to anyone who gardens, but it is for me because I’ve never been able to do that before. Everything I’ve ever tried to start from seeds, except the cantaloupe last year, has died.

This squash is in the enclosed garden. It should be ready in a few days. I’m embarrassed to say that this garden is half empty. We do have tomatoes, tomatillos (they came up from the crop last year) and cucumbers. I finally got around to weeding this area last week because it was a mess.

This is the before.

And the after.

I do love my little front bed, but it doesn’t get as much sun as I would like. The cucumbers are starting to flower along with the tomato plants so that’s encouraging.

Donny planted this butterfly plant a few years ago and this year it has really taken off. I can’t wait for the hot pink flowers to really open up.

I have always bought a basil plant every year. This year I decided to try seeds and they are actually growing.

We even have a corn stalk. A piece of corn from the bird feeder must have fallen down and sprouted. I thought it was funny so I just left it to grow.

Our hostas that did not do very well last year, and we even thought they had died off, are going crazy.

I decided to plant some avocado seeds and I guess now I have a mini orchard.

We had some sunflower seeds that we had harvested from one of our giant sunflowers a couple of years ago. Donny planted them in the backyard and they are doing their thing.

I’m still trying to work on the back corner, but we’ve just been getting so much rain lately, I haven’t had the chance. I did make a little bell wreath for the patio on one of those rainy days.

So that’s the outside update. Fingers crossed that everything grows.

Months ago Jackson asked me to get these two cat pictures from a thrift store. I loved them so it was a yes. Last night we realized that they reminded us of Queso and Bailey so I guess it’s like a little tribute to two of the best fur babies there ever were.