Overdue Updates

The Pool garden about a week after we first planted it.

 Well, I haven't spoken much about our garden this year.  This year's garden brought with it several new trials.  The lot we live on now (remember we moved back in November!) is extremely shaded.  We finally found a spot that got decent light and planted our plants.  Well, after watching our tomatoes and a few other plants begin to die, we did research.  Our lot has several black walnut trees and those were what was killing our plants! 

Baby cucumbers and melons.  Taken July 15, 2012.

To make a long story short, we began looking for cheap container garden options.  We discovered that some people reported having good results with pool gardens (kid's wading pools that is).  Since Meijer had the pools on sale for about 5 bucks, we decided to give it a try.  We transplanted the strongest of our tomatoes from the "big garden" into the pool and planted seeds of things we'd been having problems getting to come up and develop in the other garden.  Right before these pictures were taken, some creature took a walk through the garden!  >.>  I'm not sure if it was a stray cat or one of my dogs. 

The pool garden now, two weeks later.

As you can see, we've had good results so far with our cheap little wading pool garden.  Alot of the different herb seeds we sprinkled in there haven't really come up at all, but we've had a good turn out on the tomatoes, basil, onions, cucumbers and melons.  (Well, we haven't actually gotten any produce yet, just the plants seem to be coming along.)  I have to say, the pool garden is easier to manage keeping the plants watered.  It also is much easier to collect the walnut leaves from (also can poison plants).  We haven't really had any weeds in the garden yet, but I'm sure in time they will grow too.

The cucumbers and Melons.

The indoor plants are a different story.  I feel so terrible.  I'm not sure what it is, but I keep killing them!  Our house is full of windows and it always seems very well lit, but I get a good seedling started, transplant it into a pot, and within a week it's wilted and dead.  I have an ivy vine my mother in law gave me that is doing amazing, but it really likes low light situations so my best guess is that I don't have much light to work with in the house.  I really want to figure out a way to keep plants going through the winter so that I can have fresh produce all winter long.  I've actually been working on learning how to pollinate for this very reason.

A baby tomato!

Well, that and because our neighborhood is severely lacking in pollinators.  One of the biggest reasons I planted so much basil in the pool garden was to attract what few bees we have.  (Bees love basil or so I've read.)  We're currently deciding if we wish to renew our lease or not where we are at, but if we decide to stay, we've decided we'll have to do more flowers than the one small flower patch.  This has also led us to thinking that when we own a home of our own, we may consider bee keeping.  (Well, that and Mike's love of honey mead!) 

The "big garden" with zucchini, green beans, and peas.

On to the "big garden".  Our green beans are not producing as nicely as they did last year, but then, our garden this year is nothing like our garden last year.  We started flooding our garden (and I mean seriously flooding) and we've seen a marked improvement.  The soil here is even more sandy that our last home (and I didn't think that possible) so it drains really quickly and doesn't retain the water at all.  I think if we are here again next year we will have to do some sort of container garden for our own sanity.  This year, we transferred what we absolutely had to and have been trying to make do with the rest.  Our zucchini have been producing flowers for a few weeks now, but only male flowers so far.  I'm hoping to see a change in that this week or so.  The yellow squash just started producing flowers this last week and since we began the flooding, our peas have been making a come back as well.  We had a good crop of lettuce varieties coming in until ants swarmed them and devoured them.  I am now attempting to grow some in my kitchen window.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed! 

My potato plants are in the back ground of this photo :)

One problem I made for my poor house plants (and I'm mentioning this now because my potatoes experienced this as well) was my home made plant spray.  My house plants had been showing signs of spider mites so I read online about how easy it was to make plant spray.  I was extremely excited to see that Dawn is the preferred brand of dish soap to use in the process (the only brand I use for hand washing my dishes).  I quickly mixed up a bottle and began spraying my plants.  After a day I began to see a marked decline in their health.  It would seem that it is best to use plain dish soap and not dish soap with bleach alternative.  I haven't tried making a new batch yet (I just started some new seeds inside though), but I plan on trying again.  One thing I've made recently and had success with, was home made Fabreeze!  I saw this recipe circling on facebook so I decided (once again since I currently had all the supplies) to try it.

What you'll need:
1/8 Cup of fabric softener (I used Snuggle's Sweet Blossom & Pomegranate)
2 tablespoons Baking Soda
Hot tap water
Spray bottle 

Preparation:
Using a funnel, pour fabric softener and baking soda into your spray bottle. Fill spray bottle with hot tap water and shake well. Don't forget to twist the nozzle over to the LOCK position if you're using a Febreze bottle, or you might fall on your hiney. Now go spray every fabric surface in your house and take a nap on your very comfortable and now un-stinky couch. :)

 One thing I learned that the recipe (or instructions if your prefer) didn't tell me was that as you are shaking to mix, you want to occasionally open the lid and let some of the air escape.  Doing this prevented a mess when I used the spray the first few times.  I have to say, I LOVE this.  My opinion may be formed partially from the fact that I've never fallen in love with a Fabreeze scent the way I have this fabric softener, but I really do prefer this over buying Fabreeze.  It's also a lot cheaper (as you can tell by the ingredient list).  This stuff has conquered stink couch from dogs and hot days with little air.  I think this is a winner folks!

Racking our mead.

Our mead has been stored in the basement (in a brewing bucket) with our beer.  The beer finished and is in the fridge (we haven't really done a taste test yet) and our mead had stopped fermenting.  According to the directions we were using, it was time to rack the mead.  So, we racked the mead.  The funny thing is that we left it sitting in the kitchen for a few hours (we had some things to do before Mike could run it back downstairs) and it started bubbling (fermenting) again!  So we think our basement may have actually been too chilly for it!  (Seems insane to suggest that with as hot as it's been.)  So, we're letting it stay upstairs for the time being in hopes that it will ferment to it's full potential!  

A preview of a current project.

We've been working on lots of stuff around here lately.  Above is a picture of one of our current projects.  Hmmm, what does it mean?  I guess you'll have to wait around and see!  There should be lots of fun posts coming up soon :)  Take care for now!