Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas! I hope you all had a wonderful day! I'm so tired right now that I can't think of anything else to write, so I'll leave you with a paragraph from my other blog.


Every Christmas day, before we check out stockings or open presents my Dad reads the Christmas story. It is a great reminder that Christmas is not about the presents we receive or give each other. Christmas is about the gift God gave us when He sent His son to take human form and live on the earth. As you write notes thanking others for their gifts, take a moment to thank God for His gift.


I'm making plans to get back to regular blogging next year, so stay tuned!

Sarah

Green Thumb Sunday 12-13-09

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

As I was sorting pictures today, I found this one of our fall decorations.

GTS 11-22-09

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Every Sunday I think to myself "I should really post something for Green Thumb Sunday." Then I do nothing. Yesterday I thought about it, and decided to try and take some pictures today. Nearly all the flowers have died, but I found these snapdragons and Calendula plants in my Mom's garden.

Tomato Survey

Check out the tomato survey at Mother Earth News. I just took, it and it was very interesting to read the results. The most interesting result was that most people who've taken the survey preserve their tomatoes by freezing them. There is nowhere near enough room in our freezer to freeze all the tomatoes. I usually make pizza sauce with most of the tomatoes. Most years I try to save seeds, but since the blight struck so early this year there wasn't any decent fruit to collect from.

This year I grew two heirloom varieties: Illinois Beauty and Rose. I also grew my now-favorite saladette tomato, Juliet. The Rose tomatoes were huge, like the Brandywines that I grew for a few years. I liked the Illinois Beauty a lot better. They had a nice, uniform round shape, about the size of a softball. They also stayed shorter and didn't end up sprawled all over the ground. Although I use tomato cages, the Rose tomato plants were twice as tall as the cages and a lot of the fruit ended up on the ground and was cannibalized by slugs.

Earlier in the year, Gardener's Supply Company sent out the Grow What You Eat Challenge. The challenge is to plant a garden that will produce at least 10 pounds of food. It has been very interesting to weigh all my produce. Even though I had a lot of trouble with the weather and early blight, I got 39.5 pounds of tomatoes. I was again amazed at the produce from the Juliet plant - 2o Pounds!

More on the Grow What You Eat Challenge coming soon!
Sarah

GTS Pineapple Sage

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

The weatherman is threatening frost for tonight, so I tackled the potted plants. Among others, I repotted this Pineapple Sage. It was too big to bring into the house, so I cut off the oldest branch, loosened the roots. and put it in a smaller pot.

Before

After

How Does Your Cosmos Grow?

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

 

Miss Sarah, thy plants self-sow,

How doth thy Cosmos grow?

Why, five feet tall

Like my Sunflowers all.

Ok, poetry never was my best subject in school, and I am ripping off a nursery rhyme. My cosmos is about five feet tall, though. Just like my sunflowers.
Happy GTS!

 

GTS 8-30-09

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

I can't believe that it is almost September! There really hasn't been much interesting going on in my garden, hence my lack of posts. Today I harvested over 8 lbs of tomatoes (4 lbs were from my cherry 'Juliet'), and since I already had frozen a bunch, made a batch of tomato sauce. It's still cooking down, so I don't know how much it will make.
My poor tomato plants...

Prep work: I use Farmgirl Susan's recipe, here. The only change I have made (besides quantity) is to add an appropriate amount of dried Italian Spice Mix (any brand will do) and a small pinch of red pepper flakes.

Cooking, and cooking, and cooking....

GTS Good & Bad News

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

 The rain finally stopped long enough for me to check out my gardens today. In the vegetable garden, the zucchini is growing, but all the blossoms have fallen off.

I was able to harvest this lettuce, but most of the other lettuce plantings went to seed. (I still haven't figured out how that happened since it has rained nearly every other day this week, and been chilly on top of that.)

The half of my tomatoes that are huge (and have some small fruits growing) already have Black Spot.

The Cherry Tomato looks great, but it's attacking my two potted pepper plants so I have to move them someplace else.

The snap peas are growing long nearly empty pods, but three of the cucumber seeds have sprouted. I planted them under the peas because there were only about 4 pea plants at the time. About a week later the rest of the peas sprouted, and I had no idea what happened to cucumber seeds.

 My flowers look nice, but the leaves are starting to yellow from all the rain.
~Sarah

GTS 7-5-09

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

A picture of my flower garden:

And a closeup of my Yarrow:

Happy Green Thumb Sunday!

GTS - Clematis

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.


One of my Clematis has finally bloomed! This one is 'Blue Angel'. The color is more of a pale lavender, as I noted last year. It's also interesting to notice that my new camera renders the color better than my old one. In last year's picture the flowers actually look blue!
~Sarah

GTS - Plant Invasion Continues

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.
The plants that are still invading my room; mostly flowers, with a few herbs and a couple of extra peppers. The flat was started in the basement under the grow lights my Dad set up for me. The plants weren't doing overly well, so after planting most of what was on the tv trays I moved it to the window. The problem was either not enough light (we don't have a timer yet) or not enough water.
~Sarah

Good News & Bad News

The good news is that the rain let up enough this afternoon that I got my tomatoes, peppers, Four o' Clocks, and Calendula planted. 

The bad news is that I didn't start enough tomatoes. I'm supposed to have 8 plants of each variety. I have 6 of each variety. I spent some time calling around to see if anyone sold either variety. There is one place in Webster, and no one in my family can tell me how to get there. MapQuest, here I come!

Sarah

PS The picture is from 5/10/09. They are the seedlings that invaded my bedroom. It wasn't as bad as last year, because my Dad built a light shelf for me! Pictures soon. 

 

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GTS - Daffodils

Green Thumb Sunday

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

I'm convinced that I bought late-blooming daffodil bulbs. All around my neighborhood, daffodils are blooming. And Me? I have one. There are approximately 4 daffodils coming up in my Perennial bed. I thought I had more, but maybe a critter came along and decided to have lunch. Daffodil bulbs are now on my bulb-buying list.

As you can see, I'm still playing around with Picasa. I think today is my second time using it. Maybe one of these days I will get around to sorting pictures and posting some on my blogs!

~Sarah

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.




It seems like forever since my last blog post! I have my new computer, but still have a few wrinkles to fix. I'm currently trying to decide what to use for a photo editing program. I"m trying out Picassa, but I'm not sure I like it very much. If you have any suggestions, please leave a comment!

Today I went to the 35'th Annual Genesee Region Orchid Show and Sale. After 3 years of saying "I'm going to buy an Orchid this year" I finally bought one! 

I had at some point decided that my first orchid was going to be a Phalaenopsis (fayl-eh-NOP-siss). This is not a Phalaenopsis; it is a Dendrobium (den-DROH-bee-um). I picked it partly because of its color - I really wanted white - and also because it's more upright than 'Phal'. It's called 'Love Memory 'Fizz''.

 

 

I also picked up this book and culture sheets. The sheets cover the basics of each variety of orchid. The book is titled 'Your First Orchid' and is published by the American Orchid Society. The chapters are:

1. Where to Grow
2. Watering and Fertilizing
3. What Kind Is It
4. Repotting Orchids
5. What's Wrong With It?
6. Diseases and Insects
7. So You Want More

I've only read bits and pieces, but it looks like it will be a very informative book. If anyone wants to recommend any other books, leave a comment, and I'll be sure to look for them at the library.
~Sarah
PS - I did take pictures at the show, and will try to post them soon!

Broken Computer

Last week my laptop decided that it didn't want to turn on the backlight for the screen. The new laptop won't arrive for a couple of weeks, so I won't be blogging for a while.
~Sarah

GTS Bamboo

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

This is (currently) the only plant in my room. I've had some trouble keeping bamboo alive in my room. Part of the problem is lighting. A couple of weeks ago, I moved it, and it seems to be doing okay so far.

This bamboo plant is in the bathroom. It must like all the steam, since despite an apalling lack of regular watering, it is thriving.









Happy GTS,
Sarah
PS - The bamboo is not true bamboo, but the bamboo marketed as 'Lucky Bamboo'.

Green Thumb Sunday 2-22-09

Green Thumb Sunday
Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

 

This is our other Amaryllis. We bought it last year, and it survived the summer outside. It has been blooming for a week and a half. So far there have been 5 blooms, and there are three more buds that haven't opened yet. For some reason I didn't write down or save the name of this one, so if anyone knows, please leave a comment. The last image is with my Macro setting.

 

 

 

GTS 1-25-09 Amaryllis

Green Thumb Sunday
Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

Mom and I have two Amaryllis plants this year. One I managed to successfully care for over the summer. The other was an impulse buy at Walmart. The Walmart one has bloomed, and the other has sent up a shoot. A picture of it from last year is here. The second two pictures are with the macro setting on my camera.
~Sarah

GTS 1-18-09

Green Thumb Sunday

Gardeners, Plant and Nature lovers can join in every Sunday; visit As the Garden Grows for more information.

I just got a new camera, and gave the macro setting a try this afternoon. This is my Mom's Christmas cactus. After it finishes blooming we plan to re-pot it, since it has been in its' current pot for many years.
~Sarah