Down on the Farm part 2

WE HAVE GROWTH!

Well, it's been 4 weeks now since Mountain Man and I planted our vegetable garden
Things are a sproutin'! So I guess we did something right.

Here are the tomato plants.
We lost a couple of them.
Not sure if it was due to just a poor plant or the enormous amount of rain
we got right after planting. Seriously, I was afraid all of the seeds would have washed away, that's how much rain we got.

BUT, it was all worth it because we have blossoms!
This is the first tomato blossom I spotted.
There are a couple on another plant too so I know we'll at least
have SOME tomatoes if not 24 plants worth of them.

Next to the tomato plants, we have zucchini squash.
These were the first to break ground and I had to pull out one or two plants from each mound to make room for the more healthier plants. This was done according to package instructions.
I hated to pull out those plants (it's called thinning) because there was nothing wrong with them. I actually contemplated transplanting them to another section,
but decided I was being silly and didn't do it.

This is a close up of one zucchini squash plant.
I'm waiting for the squash blossom. I heard they are beautiful and the zucchini will grow right from it. I've never seen this so I'm excited to witness it.

This, although very similar to the zucchini, is the pumpkin plant.
It's also a squash but the large leaves appear pointed at the end... like a heart.
I love pumpkins so I was disappointed that not all of the seeds germinated into seedlings.
I think we dug six or seven holes but only four sprouted pumpkin plants.

And here is the corn.
Although we bought the seeds from our garden center instead of using
the packaged ones from the supermarket, we did use the directions from the package.
It said to plant in 4 short rows of 4-5 plants each.
I also read online that corn should be planted in blocks to help with pollination.
But we couldn't stop with just a small 4 row block of corn!
We love Silver Queen Corn so our block is 7 rows of 7 plants.
Hopefully they'll be our Lucky 7!

And last but not least is the Yukon Gold Potatoes.
I was getting worried about these guys because they were kinda late sprouting up.
I also wasn't sure how to plant them since my seed potatoes' eyes
had already sprouted long stems and I wasn't sure if they were roots
or the stem of the potato plant.
Did they go into the ground sprout up or sprout down?
Well, all I can tell you is that most were planted sprout down
except for the last one... which was the first to come up.
So my advice is to plant sprout up!

Actually, that isn't the last vegetable we planted.
We also planted carrots but so far these have not come up so I have no pictures to show you.
I thought I saw sprouts but the garden has been overrun
with weeds since all the rain we've gotten.
3 solid weeks of rain right after planting all our seeds!
But this past week has been beautiful sunshine with periods of thunderstorms.
I guess God is taking care of watering my garden for me!

I'll try to remember to take pictures as the weeks go on so you can see how successful (fingers are crossed) we've been with this garden.

In addition to the vegetable garden, we've also decided to spruce up around the pond in our backyard. The brick walkway was pulled up and redone.

Isn't it pretty?
We still have to mix the cement and sand to brush in between the cracks.
I wanted a wider gap in between the bricks this time
so we had some bricks left over when we were done putting them back.

We also bought a bunch of pretty flowers to plant around the pond.

This gorgeous purple flower is called Marine.
It smells like licorice!
I was standing on the outside of the fence (taking the pictures of the vegetable garden for this blog) when the breeze carried this delicious aroma to me!
Oh I can't wait until this is in the ground and I can smell it from my pool!

With the Marine, we'll plant these Impatients.
They are mixed colors of pink, purple, white and coral.

Next year I'm taking the advice of a dear friend and planting the seeds that will drop from my abundant amount of 4 O'Clocks, that are in the front of the house, along the fence in my backyard. They will look great there and will compliment these flowers around the pond.

I got these beautiful red New Guinea Imapatients for the flower boxes on my deck.
I thought they would attract hummingbirds since I just bought
a hummingbird feeder to hang there.

So far, these flowers are not planted yet. I'll update this blog when they are to show you the finished landscaping. It's hard work but it's so exciting. I can't wait to see it all done!

HAPPY GARDENING!

HAVE A SAFE AND HAPPY 4TH OF JULY!

Down on the Farm

After what seems like a loooong winter and raining spring, Mountain Man and I decided we wanted to plant a really big garden. We have the room and the desire. Not sure our bodies are in tune with our minds though. This is back-breaking work folks!

First we had to cut the grass where we wanted to place the garden. This was kinda a no-brainer as this is the only large plot of ground we have that gets plenty of sun.

Here is Mountain Man tilling the area. Since we do not own a tiller (YET) we had to rent one. Lukily, the local stores around here do not charge a deposit
and they are pretty reasonable. However, they might not charge a deposit because
the equipment isn't exactly what you'd call NEW!

Finally, after renting two, yes TWO tillers, we were able to get the ground ready for our plants. We didn't mix in any organic soil or anything. We have been told that the land that our house, and all of our neighbor's houses are on was once a farm so we figured we'd just leave it as is and go with it.

We put our tomato plants in the ground. These were started from seed indoors and we probably should have gotten them in the ground much sooner because they were pretty long by the time we actually did get them planted. But the weather didn't cooperate so that's why they are so droopy. We planted 24 tomato plants! What were we thinking? If all goes well, we'll have tomatoes coming out our ears!

At the last minute I decided I wanted to try growing potatoes too. This is a "Seed Potato". You shouldn't plant the potatoes you buy in the supermarket because most likely they've been treated with a growth retardant (so the eyes don't grow these long sprouts shown above).
We weren't sure where to buy seed potatoes but as we pulled into a local garden center, the sign right in front of us said "See Potatoes, 5 lb bag $13.00"
Sold!
This is a Yukon Gold Potato. Man, I sure hope these come up!

Next we planted Corn. Yeah, I know, we're adventurous. lol
This is Silver Queen corn seed. We bought it at our local garden center, the same place we bought the seed potatoes. We had bought a package of Silver Queen Hybrid corn from the supermarket but we decided to go with the corn from the garden center. They had lots and lots of seeds for sale! All Kinds of Seeds! It made me want to plant a lot more things but we figured we'd better just stick to what we'd planned in case we totally suck at growing veggies! :)

We also planted Zucchini, Pumpkins and Carrots.
Hopefully, they'll all come up and produce lots of good food to eat and can this summer!

Vincent's Visit

My Grandson came for a visit this past summer. He arrived all smiles and hugs for me, which surprised me since he hasn't seen me in a long time.

It might be hard to see but he desperately needed a haircut. In fact, his mommy and daddy told me that people thought he was a little girl... despite being dressed in blue.

So Grandma took him for his first haircut.
He looks thrilled, doesn't he?
He loved the seat in the car with the steering wheel that turns.
He was such a little trooper too. Didn't mind the woman cutting his hair at all!

Here, he's showing off his new big boy look

Yeah, I think he likes being a big boy now.

He's going to turn 2 pretty soon.
I'm hoping to go out to see him for his birthday.
Wish me luck!

Down for the Count

Staying home from work has it's advantages. Sure, you can sleep late and not worry about being late for work, battling traffic jams or getting there before your gas light comes on.
So when it became apparent that I had to have arthroscopic knee surgery I contented myself with the thought of staying home for a week. No big deal, it would be like a vacation at home. I'd sleep as late as I wanted. I'd sit in my favorite recliner and read a good book. Work wouldn't miss me too much, after all... it's only a week.
Well, that week has turned into 6! Yeah, you heard me. Six weeks! Thank God my job has a great short term disability benefit package.
Of course, I should have known that MY surgery wouldn't be the simple, run of the mill, procedure that my doctor laid out for me. Nooooooo, not me! What he thought was a simple snipping of my plica tendon, and a shaving of a meniscus tear, turned out to be major cartilage damage from an apparent injury I can not, for the life of me, remember doing to myself.

This is a picture of the knee cartilage that looks like it's supposed to. Can you see how the top and bottom are nice and smooth.


This is more how my cartilage looks... yucky:

These are not my pictures, just some that I found online. But mine are even worse that the one above. I have a huge crater in my cartilage that has exposed the bone. Doc poked at the bone to make it bleed and create a blood clot that will cusion my bones... ya know, since I don't have any. ugh, you'd think my body was 80 years old!
The funny thing... and I mean funny... is that this condition primarily effects athletes! Now, I can tell you, I have nothing in common with any athlete whatsoever! lol I'm a couch potato.

So after just 2 1/2 weeks in my recliner, I've read about 4 books, one of them was Breaking Dawn by Stephenie Meyer. "So what" you say? Well, it's 754 pages long, that's what! I read it in two days. Yeah, it was that good.

Anyway, so I'm down for the count, like my title says. Growing more bored by the day. I have 6 books on hold at the library, which Mountain Man will have to pick up for me as soon as they come in. I'm counting the days for that, let me tell ya. Oh yeah, and crutches really suck! My shoulder and hip are killing me on the opposite side as the bad knee. Ugh!

Until next time... protect your knees!

The Curse is OVER!!!!

OH MY GOD! The Phillies have won the World Series!!!
The City of Philadelphia and all the fans in the tri-state area have waited for this day for 25 years! That's how long it's been since any major Philadelphia sports team has brought home a championship! Woooo Hoooo! I can hardly believe it!

Call me superstitious but I can't help think that a lot of the credit has to go to this little guy...



William Penn was once the measuring stick for all the buildings in the City. None were supposed to be built higher than Billy Penn's hat. But that all changed when Liberty One was built and towered many stories over Mr. Penn. Philadelphia couldn't buy a championship since then.

But the curse is broken in 2008 with the Comcast Center building being built. It is the tallest, greenest building in the City and maybe even on the east coast (I'm not sure about this). My office building is right across the street from the new Comcast Center. One thing I recently found out about was that someone in the local union building that building had the forsight to place a miniature statue of William Penn on the last beam placed on the top of the building. AND IT WORKED!

THE PHILADELPHIA PHILLIES HAVE JUST WON THE WORLD SERIES!!!

Congratulations guys, you deserve it, you played a heck of a season and a hell of a world series! You guys Rock!!