RIP Marigolds

So on April 15th at 1:01pm my mother said and I quote, "It's hard to kill a Marigold." So with that being stated by mother (whom has never steered me wrong) I went out and bought two 6-packs of marigolds for like 3 dollars at a local flower market. With the tornado, work and everything else I have not had time to plant them so the night before the tornado I had brought all my seedlings into the sun room as it had been raining for 2days and I thought for sure my plants were going to float away. At the last minute I brought the marigolds in as well, there was no room on my grooming table turned plant holder, so I set the marigolds on the floor figuring they would be fine there!


Ummm, not so much! So yesterday when Anthony came to see me at work, he says, 'so we are less some Marigolds.' I said, 'why, did they die?' thinking that maybe they got to much water from all the rain and had quietly drowned on the floor in my sun room! Turns out, Anthony left Maddie Grace and EmmiLou out in the spare room while he ate his breakfast in the living room. Which leaving them loose in that room is completely fine, however shutting the door from the spare room to the sun room is key to keeping them from getting into trouble! So while Anthony was enjoying his breakfast, Maddie Grace and EmmiLou where enjoying some dirt and Marigolds for breakfast. So it turns out it isn't that hard to kill a marigold just ask the girls!

Next, the AMAZING BLUE BALL! So I looked back through my blog and found that I bought this ball on March 7th and this is what it looks like today!

I am truly amazed this ball has lasted almost 2 months at MY house, with the TOY KILLERS! So with this excitement, while buying dog food on Monday, Anthony and I bought another one! Here is the new AMAZING BLUE BALL!(Mom, next time I am at that pet store I will buy one for you and send it to your monsters!)

Lastly here is them together! While the older one has some serious teeth marks it is still completely intact. (Minus a little rubber around that the top, but that's nothing)

Normally, I buy these other balls called Devil Balls and Planet Balls and they last 2 hours tops. The orange ball below used to have horns, feet and was completely whole. See below, not so much!


Lastly, I explained to Kirby the other day that Mommy and Jeffypoo would be coming to visit him in October, he got really excited! Since then this is what he does...

If you can't see he is facing the front door. I find him like this a lot when I come home from work too. I think he gets up there and waits for me to get home, or he is on guard just in case there is a break in, he is on the job!

Look at the face, he is so cute!

All for now, hope everyone has a good day, I have to do laundry and clean! BOO!

Garden Update!

Final bed with the 'KEEP OUT' dog fence! Thank you wonderful hubby! Brussel Sprouts are closets to the front, then zucchini and squashes, then a big gap and lastly cucumbers, 3 types: lemon, pickling and slicing!

Zucchinis!!!

Cucumbers!

Peppers are coming along nicely!

Added 3 more tomatoes to the bed! I don't know how they are going to do, as the ground has alot of clay and is pretty heavy we will see!

These are my herbs, I bought at the Herb Society Sale. One of them is a Stevia (it's on the far right)when it gets a little bigger we are going to cut some leaves and then boil them to make sugar! Who knows it might be great!

Potatoes, I learned that they have to be in the ground 120 days so its gonna be a while I guess. In the meantime at least it is pretty green foliage!

My peas! I have pods, I think the phosphorus helped so I will keep at it!



My garlic is starting to turn brown! We are getting closer!

Tornado damage! I have called the power company twice!!! They could come out anytime now!

These are my baby tomatoes it will be a couple more weeks before they get to go out in the garden!

Artichoke seedlings!

EmmaLou in 4 years time!

Toni Bologna and EmmiLou!

These next two pictures probably represent some of my biggest wins ever!


My little fish!

If there is water she is in it! Doesn't matter what time of year it is, she is part fish!

This is Emma at 2 years!

Look at that cute face, who couldn't love her!

Emma at 6 months!

Baby Emma, I think she was like 6 weeks old here! So cute!!

New Discovery!

While yesterday was a very eventful day...old lady plant sale, work, tornado!!!! Oh yes, yesterday afternoon we had the makings of a tornado! 70 mile an hour winds, torrential rain, black sky, it was horrible! I took the dogs to the basement and put them in heavy duty wooden crates that we have and then returned up stairs to watch the sky with Anthony. I was standing on my sun porch watching the black clouds roll in when just like that the wind and rain came along with thunder and lightening. Anthony yelled from the kitchen to go to basement so I ran down the stairs to sit with the dogs, I thought about climbing in the crate with Kirby and may do so, if the occasion should ever arise! I talked to my mom briefly before this and it was soon followed by a lecture about having an emergency tornado box. I guess I will start working on that in the next few days.

Anyway, onto my discovery, as many of you know my mother has chickens and loves them dearly. I too, want chickens! After being at a farmers market a couple of days ago and seeing a sign for $5 dollars a dozen for eggs, Anthony has decided that maybe chickens aren't such a bad idea! So I have got the 'go ahead' on getting some chickens. So I set out to decide on a breed, I decided on Plymouth Barred Rocks, black and white chickens that are both good for eggs and meat. However, I am still not sure about killing these little chickens. Anyway, I next set out on finding housing for these little guys...that is the tough part. Then, I discovered these houses called Eglu's! They are adorable, and I really want one. I guess I will have to save my tip money from Starbucks for about 6 weeks or so to be able to afford one, or of course I am always taking donations. LOL! Anyway check out the website (www.omlet.us), they look perfect what I need! I really just want to 2, maybe 3 chickens for eggs right now, maybe someday I will have a chicken meat operation, but not anytime soon.
Here are my mom's chickens; Beyonce, Oprah and Michelle in that order, they are so cute!

Webster Groves Herb Society Plant Sale!

I have truly crossed over to the dark side! There were multiple plant sales today, and I went to two. The first one was a total waste in comparsion to the Herb Society Sale. The greatest find was the Ice White Tomato plant I found. I am so excited about this tomato as I discovered them last year on the web, but read that they are very expensive and hard to find! It was $2.50, what a deal. I picked up some herbs and a few tomatos. What a neat sale though. Totally organized and ran completely by LITTLE OLD WOMEN, like I had suspected. I did inquire however about joining the society and was told there was 85 people on the waiting list and they would add me to the list if I so choose. WOW! I might be a little old lady too, by the time I actually get to join.

I had a great time and I know my fellow readers would have loved to join me on this adventure. Hope everyone has a great day I am off to work!

Weeds

'A weed is simply a plant whose virtues we haven't yet discovered.' ~Ralph Waldo Emerson

'If garden flowers were slaves to men, then weeds were emblems of freedom and wildness' ~unknown

'So what is a weed?...I found dozens [of definitions], though almost all of them could be divided into two main camps. "A weed is any plant in the wrong place" fairly summarizes the first camp, and the second maintains, essentially, that "a weed is an especially aggressive plant that competes successfully against cultivated plants." In the first, Emersonian definition, the weed is a human construct; in the second, weeds possess certain inherent traits we did not impose. The metaphysical problem of weeds, I was beginning to think, is not unlike the metaphysical problem of evil: Is it an abiding property of the universe, or an invention of humanity.

One mans flowers are another's weeds.

These last two pieces are excerpts from Michael Pollan's book Second Nature. I found the paragraph so interesting. Our weeds only bad because we make them bad? When we lived in South Carolina we had a vine called Kudzu. I found the vine very pretty, but when I expressed my opinion out loud to not only my hubby but to other long time Southerners, I was almost stoned to death. I was told that Kudzu was the devil and would over take anything, strangled it and kill it or bust through the brick in your house and would soon be a permanent resident IN your house. I found it so strange that such a beautiful vine could do so much harm. Later in the Pollan's book he talks about planting these Willow trees near a pond on his property. Years later he had a local excavator come out to give him an estimate for some work he wanted done. Pollan started to tell the older gentlemen about his prized willows, and before he could finish the man said, 'why the hell did you plant that WEED?' Speaking of the willows. Pollan explained he was speechless at the old man's question. I guess it is true, a weed is in the eye of the beholder!

While cleaning up the yard these past couple weeks, Anthony and I have been pulling up this particular weed that can be found EVERYWHERE in our yard. So yesterday before we spent all the time in the yard, we went to a few nurseries and discovered that our annoying weed is actually I type of mint! UGH, I already had a notion that mint was the devil, in plant clothing, but this definitely confirms it. I grew mint once for about a week and than after reading more about it, I gave it a way to the first poor soul that offered.

Tomorrow is my first Herb Society Plant sale! I am super excited!!! Anthony and I have settled on growing 19 tomatoes total, why that many I am still not sure but I will do my best!

All for now! More later, Happy Gardening!

Longest Post EVER!!

So this may be the longest blog in recorded history, but I wanted to share all of the moments we had today!

Ready, set, GO!

So these are all my little seedlings!!

My first little Zucchini! Isn't she cute! (She is a girl, because she bears fruit behind her blossom, the males are just the blossoms on a stem)

Hope at the beginning of the gardening day! It is her semi-Lucy pose.

First I planted Broccoli...they are really hard to see in this picture, but I promise they are there. Fingers crossed...this is my third time trying to grow Broccoli!

Radishes

My poor peas...they have blossoms, and I have two pea pods, but their stems are just so wimpy. The leaves are pretty green, but I just feel like they are wimpy.

Will I have blueberries this year?? I hope so!

My garlic is huge, I love it. I can't wait to harvest them!

Hope doing her part of the gardening...holding done the tarp! Just in case the wind was to blow, she is ready!

Onions

Corn, I think I have about 8 rows, and about 10 plants in each row. I am going to have lots of corn but super excited to freeze it and have MY corn year round.

Taters. I believe these are just little Red Potatoes. I planted Yukons as well, but they are in the ground next to the onions, and they are just now starting to come up. I discovered them today actually and was so excited to see the little leaves.

Master Gardeners Maddie Grace, EmmaLou and Anthony. MG Anthony is multi-talented he can weed and talk on the phone. The dogs were so helpful today, luckily they are super tired tonight!

This is my one and only Eggplant. The dogs and Anthony love Eggplant, so I grow it for them! Once again this year this little plant is a different variety then the year before. These are going to be purple with white stripes! I have grown the Japanese long purple ones, (that was the first year) and last year I grew little round white ones.

Peppers, originally this bed was going to be sunflowers, then it was going to be herbs, well, now it is peppers! Your welcome my wonderful hubby!

My first tomatoes! These are called Early Girls! A little box of 6 was only 3.95!!! Hopefully they will do great in there new home.

Snakes!!!! This is one of FIVE, that Anthony and I found under the black tarps in the yard. Just little gardener snakes, but still I made Anthony catch them and put them over the fence. Yes, I know they are probably just going to slither back but maybe, JUST MAYBE they got the hint that I DID NOT WANT THEM!

Emma pointing a bird. You can just barely see the little bird near the fence. She was dead still for a quite sometime, until Maddie Grace ran towards the fence and flushed the bird up. Emma gets so mad at her for chasing the birds away!

The yard from the sidewalk!

The Master Gardener weeding. Bless his heart he did 3 whole garden beds. I was busy planting, but I did do some weeding at the end to help him finish the last bed!

Tulips in my yard.

Flowers in the neighbors' yard. This house is actually vacant, and I would love to go over there and dig them up, however I am pretty sure that is stealing, so I guess I will just have to settle for pictures of them.

Here is my LOVE/HATE tree, now it has pretty green leaves. AND yes mom, you were right it is a Magnolia Tree.

This is one of my flower pots on the front porch.

My lone tulip! It is in the front yard, and it was the only one to come up there.

My Hens are FINALLY starting to have Chicks!! WOOOHOOO!!!

Hope at the end of the day. She had a rough day, and this is how she feels about weeding!

Today was a great day, it was beautiful outside and we got tons done! Breakfast was amazing this morning and a great way to start off the day. Tomorrow I have a hair appointment and then maybe some baking as it is suppose to rain all day, yuck! Hope everyone had a great Earth Day. I am headed to bed as I am very tired and am sure I will feel all of my gardening tomorrow!