Pages

Friday, January 27, 2012

What's the Buzz?

Since it's almost the end of January I figured it was time to pop in and give some progress updates.

I was looking for something one day and came across the public library web site.  There I noticed an interesting, and free, class.  It met several of my lofty criteria:  I wasn't doing anything then, it's only a month long, and it's something I know nothing about but like might to try.  The class was Introduction to Beekeeping!

For the last month once a week I've been trekking down to the library and learning about queens, workers, and lazy boy drones.  Drones like to sit around the house all day and eat all the food, don't do a lick of work, and leave the toilet seat up.  But you want to know about the stinging.

Of course there's the low high probability of getting stung...if I don't take precautions.  Things like wearing the big white suit and getting the neighbors to gossip about what I am doing.  All in all it was a good class.  I will be getting a hive going but not for a few months.  This means there will be no honey this year but that's o.k.

I haven't seen any more classes on the library schedule that I want to take but that's o.k., too.  I've decided to learn German on my own.  That's for a post 18 months from now.  Yes, I have a post planned for 18 months from now.  And you thought you were organized.

Now you are also probably wondering about the garden.  Here's the latest pics.

 Winter Honeysuckle
 Lavender
 Atomic Red Carrots
 Kale
 Sorrel
 Mignonette Bronze lettuce
 Green Onions
 Cabbage...or Cauliflower...oops
 Leaf lettuce
 Radishes
 Spinach
 Collard Greens
 Found growing in the yard.  Must've dropped a few seeds.
 Swiss Chard
  Micro Greens in back and more lettuce in front.

Last but not least.  An easy way to personalize your tea.  This is hot Rooibos tea with honey and frozen cranberries.

 Auf Wiedersehen!

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

First Planting Day

In my journey to become a halfway decent gardener I decided to make a plan.  I sat down with all my wonderful seeds and cataloged them in which order to grow them.  This is serious grown up gardening.  I planned and plotted on the calendar and looked up last frost dates. 

So todayish was the day to start planting things for the 8-10 week mark.  I have added a little extra time for some things because my plants are always pokey.  I don't know why and a lot of the time I think I would be a natural at Bonzai gardening.  I'm great at growing things in miniature.  Except the year before when I had the stupendous season of tomatoes. 

Yes, gardening is hard.  I won't lie.  The ads you see on t.v. are all lying.  Don't be fooled.  It is not easy and if I had to survive on only my garden I would get to eat one meal per week. 

But this year will be different!  This year I will have glorious blog entries of mammoth vegetables.  They won't even fit into the picture frame they will be so huge!  All because I have a plan this year.

First up I started 3 seeds indoors.  Calendula, eggplant, and orange bell peppers.


I'm planting these in my compost mixture with the rabbit poo mixed in.  And no, it doesn't smell.  It looks like this...


Afterwards, I spent another hour planting, raking, and watering  these lettuce, mustard greens, and carrot seeds.


According to my master plan I don't have to plant anything else until the middle of February.  By then all these seeds should probably have reached their maximum growth and I'll be watering them with my tears of failure.

~The Pessimistic Gardener