Pesky weeds

One of the projects this summer was to clean out the overgrown raised bed in the backyard. I have a confession to make - I haven't made an effort to keep the backyard up as well as the front - because nobody sees the backyard except for the neighbors that look into my backyard. Also I normally am watching grandkids during the summer and I don't have a lot of time to do weeding. This year was a different story and I began to clean out the unwanted grass and weeds that have overgrown in my raised bed in the backyard, of course Stella, the lab thought I was playing with her.

Darn dog, now I have debris all over my yard. I decided I would work on it a little at a time especially if it is in the shade. It has been so darn hot this summer in the Pacific Northwest that suffice to say, I try to stay cool by doing things in the house, but even that uses up energy that eventually makes me hot. 

Now that summer is over I looked at what I have accomplished in the backyard and YIKES! the grass I had pulled up is now making it's way back to the surface. NOOOOOOOO----- I really need to get that raised bed ready to go before winter starts - but there are a whole gob of sticker bushes in one corner.  

I finally bit the bullet and spent an afternoon cleaning the overgrown grass out of the raised bed and cut back the sticker bushes. By the time I was finished I had 3 garbage cans full of the unwanted grass. Boy it looks so much better.

Than I laid down the bark that I got free from the city when they cut down overgrown trees. See the pile - my neighbor was supposed to help move it around the yard - but that hasn't happened. I should of known better than expect him to help.

Now after a couple of weeks I inspected the bark again and of course grass is finding its way through the paper and the bark. Saturday I added white vinegar around the edges of the raised bed hopefully killing the grass. I won't be planting anything out there in the near future in case the dogs decided to dig it up. I will move the painted wheelbarrow back into the corner and plant something there to see if the dogs will do damage and then will go from there.

Next project is to get rid of the rest of the bark, hopefully today so I will be able to get my car off the street and into the driveway.

Plants at reduced price at Home Depot

Do you ever buy plants that are on the reduced racks because they have seen better days? When I am looking for plants that is the first place I look. I have planted my front lawn (minus the grass) a couple of years ago with the reduced plants. I figure if the plants survive YIPPEE and if they don't survive I didn't pay full price for them. I bought 5 Gerber daisies for $1.00 a piece - 3 are surviving and 2 shriveled away - what a bargain. 

Recently I bought Petunias, purple daisies and Impatiens all at half price and they are all surviving, especially the ones I have actually planted. 

I must confess I have a bad habit of buying plants and then never getting them planted. Do you have this problem? Currently I have 6 Lithodora plants that are still sitting in their original black square plastic containers, 2 multi-colored Petunias and 2 purple Daisies all waiting to be transplanted.  I must confess I have had these plants for a couple of weeks and yes I am watering them. I also have 3 Verbena plants that are starting to give up the ghost - they are trying to thrive but I won't hold my breath if they don't make it and I paid full price for them, YIKES.

**UPDATE: I bought more reduced flowers today at Home Depot. These were only $.75 each. I only spent around $15.00 including tax. Look below - what do you think?

DIY - Homemade potting soil

Somewhere I read that flowers and veggies do better with a mixture of peat moss (keep moisture and air around plant roots), vermiculite (holds extra water) and compost (adds nutrients and holds water and improves plant growth) instead of regular plant soil. So I found the above staples at my Home Depot store (don't be shocked at the initial cost - the peat moss has lasted me 2 years - just be sure you seal the bag properly to save the material). I use a mix of 1:1 of each material in an empty plastic cat litter with a handle. This makes it easier to transport around my yard to add the dirt to plants that have depleted the required amount of dirt and also to replant store bought plants.

This combination works especially well with the reduced plants I buy at Home Depot at half price.

Silly alligator

Remember a while ago - I bought that relish dish in the shape of an alligator?

 Well I finally got around to plant something in it - can you guess what made it's way into the shallow trough of the body of the alligator? Well ..... here it is.

 

That's right - I put small chicken and hens into the trough and then put it in a window and hopefully they will survive.

Slugs and new plants

This year I am behind on planting my garden - YIKES - what is a girl to do. Well, I finally got a few plants that I bought into the ground, but a few days later noticed that they were being eatin. No way! - the slugs were making their rounds. So I had read somewhere if you sprinkle crushed eggshells around your new plants it will help keep the slugs away. That is what I did. 

Now I will wait and see if this helps the slug problem and it can't hurt the cucumbers having a little calcium from the eggshells.

Drying Pepper Seeds

At this time of year, I should have my garden planted, but this year I don't. I'm really struggling on what to plant and where to plant items for my garden. Any way - every time I eat a pepper I try to keep the seeds from the plant, then I dry them and then I plant them in small pots and place them under my grow lite.

This is how I take the seeds and dry them from a bell pepper.

I first use up all the edible parts until I only have the stem filled with seeds.

 

 Then I flake off all the seeds onto a plate and let them dry.

After the seeds are dry, I put them in a small container with dirt, label it, then put it under a grow light until the seedlings pop up. Then I will move them outside where they will get the benefits of the sun and rain and grow into producing plants. And then the process starts all over again.

What do you do to get free seeds for your garden?

Weeds take over backyard

Since I live in the Pacific Northwest, the weather can be quite unpredictable to say the least and this year has been no exception. I look out into my backyard and screech - YIKES - look at all those weeds. A little bit of sun and a lot of rain - weeds grow faster than anything else around here.

 Everyday our Cocker Spaniel gets lost in the tall grasses that make up my raised beds. School is out in 1-1/2 and I will have to tackle the backyard. Of course not my favorite thing to do - but at least I can see improvement when I finally start pulling everything out. This year I won't be able to plant any plants out in the raised bed, our yellow lab likes to dig. I will have to take inventory once all the weeds are yanked to see what she has damaged or I even have any dirt left. Here is a couple of pictures of my raised bed and you can judge for yourself about how much work I have in store for myself. The pictures start from the right and go right down the row.

Can you see the hook with a lantern hanging off of it? 

The grass is engulfing the lantern - WOW!

 

Yes, that is a peony - amazing that the dog hasn't dug it up.

You can barely see the wheelbarrow that I finished last year.

Homemade Recycled Raised Beds

After pricing raised beds, I started looking at my old pallets I had used last year to plant in. I didn’t like the results from the pallets, so I was going to take the old dirt out and throw away the pallets. Aha – my brain started thinking about taking the pallets apart and making them into my own raised beds. I was forewarned that it might be hard to take the pallets apart since they are machine manufactured. I thought it would save me money if I could make it work. 

 

Emptying organic dirt out of old pallet

Starting to take apart old pallet

 So yesterday armed with a crowbar, a hammer and my old tennis shoes, 

I set forth to take a pallet apart.

As you can see from the pictures, some of the wood was worn where it had been out the weather and this part was much easier to take apart. When I was hammering away – another thought came to me – if I took all the slats off the whole thing would fall apart and this is not what I wanted. So I took some of the slats and nailed them to the ends of the pallet to keep the dirt on and to keep the box together. I even used the same nails – pray that it stays together. Some of the slats were hard to take apart, so I just left them – thinking of support. 

As I was laying down the final raised bed, I noticed all the morning glory roots that needed to be ripped up. This took a little time. 

 Doesn't look like a lot - but trust me it was covered.

Then I smooshed the organic dirt from the old pallet around the new raised bed to help it stay flat. Later this week I will buy more dirt and fill the rest of the raised bed. I am thinking of putting swiss chard, celery (which is growing in my window box, as we speak) and onions.

Now I have another pallet to reform into a raised bed - this will have to be for another day

Currently, I just started some seeds (romaine, kale, carrots and beets) in my grow light. Once they get healthy and strong – they will need to be split apart and then I will move them outside to be replanted. 

 Before I put them in plastic bags to promote growth and place them under the grow light.

Once this is done, I will begin more seedlings under the grow light (tomatillos’, onions (red and yellow), beets, sugar pumpkin, peppers and tomatoes.  I also want to start potatoes in a black plastic bag (my assistant has potatoes going like gang busters in a plastic bag), thought I would try it – can’t hurt – I am going to try Yukon Gold, Sweet Potatoes, Baking Potatoes and maybe baby reds.  What are you growing this year?