ladykatza

Try and try again.

That seems to be my motto when it comes to vegetable gardening. I’ve had two attempts at veggies since I have lived in this house. The first attempt was a commando style where I planted a few things here and there in the few bright sunny spots. Logistically, this was not the greatest of ideas. All the things I planted in pots on the back porch did great. Anything in the yard was overtaken by weeds or pests. In some cases I just plain forgot where I put stuff.

So, I skipped a year. LAST year I tried a traditional row type bed in an area that I thought might actually get enough sun. I was off by a good bit, because I wanted it closer to the house and not further away. This one tried to do well, but again, I got overwhelmed by how labor intensive it was and everyone else in the house is like plant kryptonite. Second try, fail.

Nuts.

Well, when were were in the apartments in Kennesaw, I did a pretty successful container garden. I did some lettuce, tomatoes, and bell peppers with pretty good success. Recently, I found out about a method called square foot gardening. Some guy came out with a book in the early eighties, I think. You can read most of the book here. Well, this actually may be just what I was looking for. I have a very small area on the side of my house next to the driveway that gets about 7 hours of direct sunlight a day. The ground itself there is not conducive to tilling and planting because of drainage. BUT a raised bed like you use in a square foot garden would work just fine. And it is higher off the ground so I won’t strain my back as much. And I can build my first 4 foot by four foot planter, add dirt and plants, for less than 100 bucks. That’s 16 squares to plant in. And it will be right next to the front door and the driveway, where I walk by ALL THE TIME.

I’m a bit excited about this, can you tell? The other great thing is I don’t have to worry about watering restrictions because food gardens are exempt. And because I live in Georgia, our growing season is phenomenally long. Not as awesome as California or Florida, but close. I am also trying to curb my obsessive nature and keep it simple. I will only do one planter box. IF it works out well, I will add a second one later. Two would be the max. After that I run out of full sun space options and have to look at cutting down trees.

I’m going down to visit Mom and Dad this Saturday and I plan on hijacking Dad’s workshop to make the planter. With his help of course.

So here’s hoping the third time will be the charm.

This past week was my short work week, so I had four days off. Wednesday night I went to Kip and Jen’s, but they had left for some Ohio convention early and it was just Ben. Considering I was already in a dark mood, I felt slighted. But it was just me. It also didn’t help that the antibiotics I was put on seem to give me a headache.

Thursday I canceled company plans and had a night in. A good bit of that was spent with daecon. :D Yes, it was some much needed us time. Friday we finally got to visit with D.J. and Rhonda and see there boy, who had a rather traumatic entrance to life. He is doing very well. A strong and strapping young lad. Rhonda was definitely looking a bit stressed out. I told her to not be afraid to call me or visit because support networks are key.

Saturday I iron-manned it. I didn’t get to sleep that night and instead of canceling our visits that day, I went about in a dazed sort of manner. This also meant that I spend a day in the sunshine. The world is so bright when you’ve seen only night time for so long. Simon and Felicity were with us to see Eddie’s twin girls. And then we met up with a friend whom I hadn’t seen in 2 and a half years. She had gotten divorced, remarried, and had twins in that time.

In my circle of friends and acquaintances, daecon and i were one of the first to have children. We lost touch with a great number of people because our inability to go out and just the fact that we had children kept them away. Now that so many are having children of their own I find that I’m being reached out to for advice, but mostly just a sympathetic ear. This is an odd turn of events for me, but I like it.

Meeting back up with Janel has been great too, because she has a similar mix of techie/geek/hippie as myself. We started discussing the amount of sunlight that she has in her backyard and I offered up some seeds from last years attempt at a garden. I also offered my help, since she is very close now. I felt they were greeted with a good bit of enthusiasm. Of course, its also made me start pondering what to plant in my front flower beds this year.

All in all it was a very lovely weekend, though I’m still tired from staying awake so long on Saturday. So, I will be heading to bed now.

Its been raining. I am happy about this because it means that my new plants and garden will be more likely to survive. Hopefully it will continue to give us a good 1-2 inches of rain a week for several months and help alleviate the drought. The other wonderful thing about the rain, everything outside the windows in my sun room looks like a luscious rain forest.

I have so much I need to get done this week. A good bit of organization, and some weeding in the garden. I also need to start my potted plants and herbs. And the hubby needs to mow the lawn. My roommate is getting volunteered for lift and carry while I’m doing gardening stuff, since I’m not allowed.

I, however, need to go take a shower and get my butt to work now that I’m done with coffee.

Current Mood: waking up

Current Music: birds chirping

The veggies are planted! Hooray! Simon and Felicity both managed to step on everything we planted. Not sure how, but they did. I guess it was exuberance.

I have wireless again! Slowly I’m reclaiming my laptop for what i wanted to use it for. While working for GOOOOOGLE I had installed linux on here. Really, it was too much work. I may work in the computer industry for a living… well that’s not EXACTLY true. I work in the ISP industry. I like dealing with networking and large systems monitoring. When I come home, I just want it to WORK. I get highly annoyed otherwise. I set aside time for studying, I study at work. The rest of the time I have other, more interesting things to do.

Now that my garden is basically done I can start on the potted plants. I need to get the herbs going and plant some more flowers out front. I also need to replace the bird feeder the tree destroyed. It was the one for the woodpeckers and other large birds. I think I will do humming bird feeders again as well.

I am also going to be on a search for patio furniture. And the garage needs to be cleaned out so I can make it a more usable space. A bunch of this is going to be made up into lists of things for the boys to do. Use your males wisely!

Well, that’s all for now, I must get some laundry done and the pot pie in the oven.

Current Mood:  energetic

Current Music: The Edge Of Wisdom -Beborn Beton

I’ve been putting vegetables in the ground. Well, not veggies themselves but plants that spring forth edibles at some point in the future. Hopefully they will grow and we will feast of fresh things.

I got distracted from planting however. My back told me “NO MORE” and when it talks, I pretty much have to listen. So we went out front to water the flowers. WE being myself and Felicity. She spotted a butterfly again. Again, I found myself crawling through leaves, sticks, and braving bugs to get pictures.

The first ones are from this morning, obviously still sluggish from the cool night.

Then after the planting there were flowers and little girls.

And Felicity hunts for more butterflies.

Current Mood:  sore

There’s a saying here that goes something like “If you have allergies before you move to the south, the pollen here might kill you”. I took a picture, I’m going to attempt more later. This is me writing on my black car.

“Little girls and butterflies need no excuses.” - Robert H. Heinlein

Felicity has just learned to ride her bicycle, without training wheels. This being the case she has been riding her bike as often as possible. She was out front this morning riding around and discovered a butterfly on the neighbors car. I had been talking to Mom and Dad on my cell when she came running up with one wing in her hand, although very carefully. It sort of flew out of her hand and I told her to not touch the wings this time, so she picked it up very carefully and brought it to the mailbox.

I decided I wanted a picture of this butterfly and had her run inside and get my camera. All this while still talking to my Mom. Then I handed the phone over to Felicity and proceeded to take pictures. I was on hands and elbows in the grass trying to get a good picture. Later on I realized this must have been quite a site for the neighbors, this crazy lady in the grass with her ass in the air taking pictures of a butterfly. But really, I don’t care.

(LJ people may need to click the link to my site to see the pictures)

And some bulbs I planted last year came up this year. I thought they had failed completely so this made me very happy.

Oh yeah, Felicity on her bike. :)

Current Mood:  pleased

Current Music: conference meeting

No seriously. Or at least three since I last used the tag. It makes sense though, as I’ve been out of commission for that sort of work for some time now. This year I feel up to it again and I’ve been inspired by the outrageous food costs to start a garden this year. We’ve also had a few trees come down that has opened up enough sunshine to get about 6 hours of direct light a day.

My new garden bed is 16′ x 12′ and the border is laid out, the weeds are mostly dug up. Now I just need to get some fencing to keep out the bunnies and deter the deer. I do want to build a Shishi Odoshi or “deer chaser”. I should be able to make one from easily found parts. Powering it may be the most troublesome part.

Yesterday, after the rain let up I went out with Felicity and the one of the neighbor’s kids to work on our garden area. I stuck the shovel in the dirt and came up with a snake! Oui… what a surprise. I had gotten the end of its tail, the part that is often sacrificed to predators anyway. It was still alive, not moving much and the kids were very excited. I sent one of the kids to get Daecon to identify the snake. Turns out it was a garder snake, so Daecon took the shovel to relocate him out to the woods away from the house. The tail it left behind was still twitching and wiggling in the way that they do. The kids were soon distracted by earthworms.

I started this post last week and got distracted by… something. Since my days of working in the garden I have been paying the physical price with my back. Its one of the reasons its been so long SINCE i’ve posted about these things.

Current Mood:  sore

Current Music: Unlike Me - Kate Havnevik

i have to put flea powder down today while the kid’s are at debbie’s. the cat’s been treated but i’m finding flea bites on my kids. not good.

so, i had to go homedepot ANYWAY, so i went out of my way to go to the one next to my favorite blackberry patch. gotta check ‘em, you see. its getting to be that time. there’s several different types up on this forgotten section of government land, and the early ones are ripening. i think i picked a pound and a half from just a short section.

*grin*

Current Mood: sunburnt

its been raining for three days…

and the weather report doesn’t expect it to let up anytime soon. its dreary and wet and its befitting of my mood. i’ve had this malady of a mood for a month now. daecon getting a job improved it a good bit, and i think actually getting a second car will help as well. i feel a bit better since making the decision on that as well.

the upstairs bathroom is back in order. we bought new hardware for towels, toilet paper and such. there was no toilet paper holder, the hand towel rack was broken, and the regular towel holder was coming out of the wall. it will all come off again when i strip out the wallpaper and paint. yes, the bathroom is my next project.

the front porch light had to be replaced. during felicity’s birthday party it shorted out, and everytime we turned it on, the breaker would kick off. daecon took it down last night. original wiring, blech. so we got a new one, he rewired it and all is happy and good.

daecon had an interview on tuesday with a company called Ripple. they apparently are very small tech support company for small businesses that go on a monthly fee. now he has to meet the team. they decided the best way to do this is the rooftop beer party on friday. he wants me to go. i put in the request, i have no idea if i will get it.

the moonflowers are sprouting,
the morning glories are close behind,
the four o’ clocks got eaten,
and the nasturiums are fine.

Current Mood:  melancholy

Current Music: tori amos - past the mission

ok, so the damage isn’t as bad as initially thought. its not going to be terribly expensive to fix, just a pain in the ass and really really messy.

so on to other things.

i bought seeds. picked out ones i hope will do well in my shady garden. some oriental peas, some hairloom canterbury bells, four o’ clocks, morning glories, some sweet peppers (the colored kind), bibb lettuce and white pumpkins. i’ve been paying a lot of attention to spots in the yard that get a good six hours of direct sunlight a day. there’s plenty of them, little patches here and there that will get a handfull of seeds. so i might get my vegetables anyway, in a disorderly “hide and seek” sort of fashion. the kids were rather excited about the growing of vegetables.

a little hint, vegetables that like cool weather will do ok in the heat when planted in partial shade and kept watered, but not TOO watered.

i went here and bought two more bras. its a wonderful place to go if you are an odd size. just beware, its not cheap.

Current Mood:  mellow

i went out for a brief moment this morning to survey my handi-work in the yard. my ferns are happy in their new location, the flowers doing well in the outside containers. as i’m watching, i see a humming bird darting back and forth. i hold my breath and stand very, very still. it comes flying toward me and darts all around my legs making tiny chirping noises. it flies a little higher and i can see and hear the wings and little tiny chirping noises. it was a beautiful irridecent green and gold color. after a minute of hovering in front of me it flew away.

this made me happy, up until the refried jesus crispies came walking down the driveway.