More buds a'poppin

Monday, April 20th: More buds are popping out! We've gotten a lot of rain over the past few days and I was considering moving them to a dry spot, but laziness won out. The rest of the week should be dry, so I'll keep an eye on them. I found that I have to turn some of them because the sun will only fall on half the pot. I still have broccoli, red onions and peppers to plant. I need to get crackin'. I'll see what I can do this week.

Unfortunately, most of my pics came out blurry (except Sandy-Loo!), so I will have to re-take them this week.

Bibb Lettuce




Butterfly plants:



Play time - this time let's wrestle with the green ball!

Cool sundial - wish I knew which way to turn it

The first buds!

Sunday, April 19th: Wow, I can't believe the first buds are popping out already!!!!

Here's the Bibb Lettuce

Here is one of the Butterfly plants:

I may be watering the plants too much. I read somewhere that I need to water them everyday, but my Dad said that's too much. And I need to pay attn to the Weather reports because I've watered the plants and it will rain the next morning. I'm concerned that the seeds will rot. We'll see what happens....

Second planting

Thursday, April 16th: Planted carrots, salad mix, parsley and dill today. Got the seeds from Sev. The idea came to me to put the seed packets in the pic so I can know what is planted in what pot. So here they are:

My spider plant (Mom named him Spidey) has been a lil sick lately. Stagnant, not responding to sunlight or water. So I decided to replant him in a bigger pot. I wish I had taken a pic of the matted root system I discovered when I finally managed to pull it out of the pot. All I saw were roots covering the entire sides and bottom. It felt like a fake plant made out of styrofoam or something. So I apologized for not taking better care of him and he got a new home!

Digging for Gold

Thursday, April 16th: Sooo, I came home today and found out Kizzie had escaped and had a grand ole time playing "catch me if you can" down the street. And while she was free, it appeared she went on a digging expedition too because her paws had dirt all over them. I played with her for a bit and went on to plant the new butterfly plants I just found at Sev. I'm chillin, planting, enjoying the fresh air. I feel a lil more skilled as I'm planting 3 pots of Butterfly plants. Then I get up to survey the progress of my other plants and I noticed a lonnng trench in one of the pots. Hmmm, that's strange. Then it clicked, "Kizzie!!!!" She at least had the decency to hang her head but she still seemed quite pleased with herself.



I saw a lone zucchini seed unearthed and exposed on top of the soil. I thought the plants were safe at least until they started growing! LOL No big deal, I'll just have to buy a fence sooner than I thought. Is she laughing at me?

Planting the first seeds

Saturday, April 11th: Ok, I got my supplies and it's a beeeautiful day, so let's get to plantin! I got every book I could from the library including: Container Gardening for Dummies, and went on countless garden websites including: http://www.caes.uga.edu/extension/. I was a lil nervous because I decided at the last minute to start my garden and so I didnt start any seedlings indoors. I chose to start everything from seed. Here goes:

I wasn't sure which pot to use for each plant, so I doubled up on a few. I realized that most of the pots were too small, so I wouldn't have enough. Oh well, I'll just plant what I can today. I was being stingy with the soil! I just kept thinking..."I only have two bags, I gotta ration". So as a result, some of my pots don't have dirt that reaches to the top.

Carrots

Zucchini, Squash & Carrots

Oregano, Basil & Thyme

Bibb Lettuce

Ok, now I have to purify the space so I am burning my sweetgrass and asking the Creator for an abundant harvest. Ashe'

Initial purchases

Wednesday, April 8th: I went to Garden Ridge to compare prices on gardening supplies. It felt good to be there because G.R. and I used to have a thang goin on back when I lived on Busbee. How can one store have so much stuff?? They got WAY too much of my $ back then. I walked around the entire gardening section, writing down prices and then thought, "Why don't I just buy it?". So I did (and ended up taking everything back!).

The tools, gloves and watering can were all cheaper at Wal-Mart. That was my next stop. I found most of my seeds there. Who knew they would have such an extensive organic seed selection? I thought I was going to have to go to Sevananda to get everything organic. I wanted to buy a bit of everything, but I restrained myself to just 11 packets: Thyme, Basil, Oregano (which I pronounce oreghhhano like Dr. Gillian McKeith), Zucchini, Squash, Tomatoes, Broccoli, Cucumbers, Carrots, Red Onions & Bibb Lettuce. Just 2 bucks each. I guess that's a good price. I couldn't find the Bell Peppers, Salad Mix & Spearmint that I wanted. I found Scott's Organic Potting Mix on sale and bought the Plant Food concentrate too. I can't wait to get started!

My First Post!

Greetings, welcome to natural4lyfe. I'm so excited - I finally started my blog!

I guess I'll just start with my latest project - my organic vegetable garden. My initial planting was on April 11th. I had to start cleaning a couple days prior to get everything ready. That took a lot of work. I had to walk around the yard, looking for suitable pots.


















And I had my helper tagging along - Sandy (or SandyLoo as I call her). She thought I was out there to play with her so she kept dropping her yellow ball at my feet. I was trying to use my newly acquired "Dog Whisperer" skills and telling her about boundaries. Calm and Assertive energy. It worked!

I gathered the old pots and dumped out all of the dirt. I didn't have gloves or anything. I thought I was doing fine until I was dumping out one clump and looked over at my left hand and it was covered in ants! I screamed a like a girl and SandyLoo and I took off running! Then I filled that pot with water to drown the lil creatures and then yelled again because SL started lapping up the water. I screamed, "There are dirty ants in there!" She kinda looked at me like I was crazy, like dude, I'm a dog. I swept and swept all the debris out of the corner. It looked darned good after I finished. One of the best pots I found broke - it fell like 5 inches to the ground and shattered. Gotta be more careful with the terra cotta pots. I'm grateful I was able to use these discarded pots because I'm on a budget! B. had a yard sale the prior week and didn't sell a vintage baby carriage and a iron spiral planter, so I rescued them from the junk pile and moved them to my new garden. They will work perfect! My garden looks eclectic and balanced.