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In My Garden 10-3-07
Posted on October 3, 2007 at 01:23
We have finally started working on our Fall To Do list for our yard and garden! Yay! First we had to wait for the weather to begin to cool … our highs are still in the 90s/upper 80s but that is much better than the 100s! Then we got sick and then we went to family camp (Very Fun!). We drained our pool this weekend and disassembled it. The lining is laying out in the yard drying right now. We also removed several volunteer shade type trees and palm trees from our garden along with 5 tomato bushes.
Before & After …
This picture was actually taken near the end of July, the trees had grown quite a bit since then.
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My poor sad peppers and roses. I think the bell pepper plant in the last photograph is the tallest pepper plant I have ever seen! It was hidden in among so many other plants that it had to grow long to get some sunlight. And the roses, lack of sun makes for sad looking roses! I need to prune and feed them … they will hopefully recover.
We still have so much to do:
- Box up pool and put in the garage.
- Remove the rest of the volunteer trees.
- Remove dead, dying and ugly plants.
- Remove all weeds.
- Prune all roses bushes.
- Add much soil to the garden.
- Level the yard and fill in holes.
- Seed the yard with Rye grass.
- Plant cool season veggies and herbs.
- Plant flowers … especially pansies.
- Add to this list as I remember what needs to be done! :)
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~ Rachelle
in In My Garden - 3 Notes - Link
In My Garden 9-6-07
Posted on September 6, 2007 at 02:06
Hello! I have been gone from this blog for some time but have decided to re-open it. Fall is coming, and here in Arizona, that means it is time to start gardening again. I love sharing pictures of my garden and Homestead Blogger is just the place to do that. :)
Here are some pictures of my garden taken today ...
~ Rachelle
in In My Garden - 2 Notes - Link
First Artichoke of the Season
Posted on April 19, 2006 at 12:57
in In My Garden - 5 Notes - Link
In My Garden
Posted on April 3, 2006 at 05:36
in In My Garden - 7 Notes - Link
"Leave that bird head alone!"
Posted on February 21, 2006 at 08:27
The above statement can now be added to my list of things I never thought I would say as a mother!! Saturday while we were doing some dirt work in the backyard my older girls found a bird skull. It does not have any flesh on it and appears to have been out there a long time. It is really neat looking and the girls hope to take pictures of it and post about it on their blog. I had them put it in a little cup so it did not get thrown away or eaten by the dog while were still working … it is still outside in the cup as I have not yet come up with a place to put it!! My youngest was over looking at it, talking about it and sounded (I could not see her) like she was getting ready to touch it so … the above phrase came out of my mouth!
When my brother in law came over on Sunday we gave him a tour of all the work we had done and that, of course, led to my girls telling him about the bird skull. I reminded them where it was so they could show him. It was kind of funny because he thought it was so gross and here my girls were all fascinated!
One of the things I love about Homeschooling is that we tend to look at most things and happenings as a new learning experience. :)
in In My Garden - 2 Notes - Link
I have a Hound!
Posted on February 16, 2006 at 02:00
Well, actually I have two. One is about 28 pounds and coming up on his 6 month birthday in a few days. He is a tri-colored Beagle named Amos. His picture, from last November, is at the top of my blog. :) But he is not the hound I am writing about today.
My other hound is a Weed Hound that I found at Lowe’s a couple of weeks ago. It is a green metal contraption made for weed removal. We are a 98% organic family when it comes to our gardens, lawn and trees. We have used a little round up on stubborn Bermuda grass in the garden where no food is grown but try to stay away from chemicals whenever possible.
Not using chemicals means no chemical weed killers in the lawn and that means we spend lots of time each year down our knees with a handheld weed popper (basically a metal stick with a handle) de-weeding the lawn. I am no longer physically able to be down on my knees for very long and that leaves almost all the weed pulling to my sweet husband and girls so …. when I saw the Weed Hound I was hopeful that it would work well.
Since Spring has already arrived here in AZ we got to try out our new gadget this week. It works Great! It does a good job on both dandelions and crab grass. It does take out a little plug of dirt but so does hand pulling. Here is our new best friend when it comes to weeds:
We can now pull weeds with ease! All you do is place a little rounded area on the bottom (bottom is to the right) over the center of the weed and push down with your foot, the long nail like spikes go down into the soil and surround the weed. You then lift the whole thing and out comes the weed. Hold the Hound over a trash can or pile and push the black knob on top and the weed pops off the Hound. All without hardly any bending … Yay!!
My older girls and I de-weeded a good sized area of our backyard in a rather short amount of time. I am going to ask my sweet husband if we can buy another Hound so two of us can weed at once. Our front yard is already filled with teeny little weeds that should be ready for removal in a couple of weeks. Maybe we can have Weed Hound weed pulling competitions! Whoever can pull the most weeds in three minutes - gets a huge glass of ice water! lol
Three cheers to the Weed Hound! A wonderful invention!
in In My Garden - 1 Notes - Link
Yard Beautification
Posted on February 14, 2006 at 03:17
Backyard beautification has begun here at our house! My girls and I have been pruning plants & trees, raking up dead grass & leaves and removing dead/”ugly from frost” plants. I have begun trying to rehydrate the soil. We are in the midst of a drought here in AZ and it sure shows. Since we have Bermuda grass that was dormant for a couple months our yard’s need for water was greatly reduced for the Winter. We have a sprinkler and bubbler system that can be custom timed. I have only watered the main part of the backyard enough to keep the trees in good shape and grass alive in it’s dormant state. The planter is full of cold resistant flowers, veggie plants, scented geraniums and roses so those bubblers have been on a couple times a week.
The other day I noticed the grass is starting to green up, so … it was time to let the watering begin! Yesterday I ran each of the backyard sprinkler sections for 20 minutes and then let the hose run in the yard for several hours. We turned the hose off last night before we went to bed - the yard was a small lake! Today it is barely wet, the ground was so dry it just sucked it all up and several areas around the edges are still dry. We are hoping to finally put in the dog fence this weekend … we tried a few weeks ago but the ground was too dry to dig post holes … we need the ground to be dig-able.
My husband heard on the radio the other day that it is just about time to plant tomatoes. I have forgotten a couple of times and gotten them in too late only to miss out on the season. They must be in and fruiting before the really hot weather arrives to get a good harvest. I have not yet decided if I want to replace my pepper plants or wait and see how my current ones do. They did get some frost damage and are not very pretty right now but still producing peppers!! I pruned the yellow bell … I am hoping it recovers. The Anaheim is next. If they are not looking better in the next few weeks I will replace them before the planting season passes.
My artichoke plant is getting so big and pretty. It is kind of funny that we have one at all. We planted two last year and they did okay. They produced a hand full of artichokes and then both plants died. My second daughter pulled them both out or so she thought! One of the plants came off at the surface of the dirt but all the important stuff was still below. It regrew and is now a really lovely plant. My cilantro has bloomed all over. It has such pretty little white flowers. So delicate looking! The onions, that seemed stuck in time staying the same size for the longest time, are finally growing and getting big.
There is still much to do but things are looking much better. :)
in In My Garden - 2 Notes - Link
A/C Protection Fence
Posted on February 8, 2006 at 11:52
We have been working on turning one of our side yards into a dog yard for our 5 month old Beagle, Amos. It is one of my Goals for 2006 on my sidebar. A couple weekends ago we created a slide in fence thingie to protect our a/c unit from puppy teeth and paws. It still needs to be sanded and painted but I think it turned out well. :)
in In My Garden - 1 Notes - Link
A Walk In My Backyard ...
Posted on January 28, 2006 at 09:16
in In My Garden - 2 Notes - Link
Another beautiful day here in Arizona. :)
Posted on January 9, 2006 at 10:55
We all had a fun time this weekend picking out flowers for the garden. We now have ten six-packs of pansies and 5 six packs of petunias to fill up all those bare spots in the garden. We got such a lovely variety, our yard will soon be a bloom with color. :)
We also bought three new rose bushes to replace some sad looking ones out front. The rose bushes in our backyard do sooo well but the ones out front, around the porch, have been struggling for a long while. Our house is built on old farmland. I cannot imagine the soil had much life in it by the time our house was built. Also, when you build a new house they dump gallon upon gallon of termite poison all around the base of the house. I understand not wanting termites but I wonder if it does affect plant life. The lawn around the base of our home has always seemed to struggle too. Though the lantana have done great and they are also planted by the house? So, maybe it is not the poison just the soil condition. We have added things to the soil but not enough I suppose. I need to be more faithful with monthly feeding out front Â… fish emulsion is sooo stinky though! Lol
Hopefully, we will get all our lovely flowers planted today!! :)
in In My Garden - 1 Notes - Link