Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Little Green Suprise…

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Although I haven’t been able to garden much this past week and a half, I have been checking the plants after work to make they have enough water. I’ve also been keeping an eye on the seedlings and they look fine.

This morning as I was weeding and dead-heading in the front yard, I spotted a Praying Mantis on the Dahlia. At first it freaked me out, but then I ran to get my camera. It’s weird because I’ve only seen one Praying Mantis in our garden before… so I’m wondering if this is the Praying Mantis that I brought home on July 7th.

The Praying Mantis on the Happy Single Dahlia

Grooming Praying Mantis (Note the deep purple foliage on the Dahlia)

… and speaking of bugs that freaked me out, I saw this spider on our patio last night…

Tomato Harvest + Flowers Starting to Bloom…

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Today I thinned the seedlings in the newspaper pots to a few strong ones. I’ll thinned them to a single plant once they get a little bigger.

I also clipped a lot of dead leaves from the tomatoes and cucumber to make things a little tidier. Anyone know why most of the bottom leaves are dying on my cucumber? Is this normal? or is there something wrong?

I did my fourth big tomatoes harvest and I got a lot, considering I only have two tomato plants this year.

Here are two photos of flower that are about to bloom

Fucshia triphylla Firecracker

Naked Lady

I’m not sure if this Naked Lady is Amaryllis belladonna or Lycoris squamigera. Can anyone tell just from the photo?

New Shelf for My Seedlings and Cuttings…

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My Uncle Ray made me a really nice shelf out of some scrap wood that he had. I gave him the dimensions that I needed to fit 6 nursery trays and they fit perfectly! :)

Now I have an neat way to store my seedlings and cuttings

Thank you very much Uncle Ray!!!

Guava Blossom…

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Our Tropic White Guava has finally started to blossom. Hopefully we’ll get guava fruit soon.

Sometimes I feel like an idiot… I planted a sunflower bed ( pic ) back in June 13. Well… The sunflower seedlings I transplanted were Zinnias!!!!… and now they are starting to bloom. Luckily, there were some bare spots where I planted sunflower seeds… so we should still get some sunflowers.

Sunflower… err… Zinnia/Sunflower bed

The Profusion Zinnias that I planted as a border

Green Beans + Organized Seeds

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I’m excited because the Tendergreen Bush Beans that I sowed on June 16 has it’s first fruits :) Yeay!!!

I also went to Longs Drugs and got a Rubbermaid container to organize all my seed packets that are scattered here and there.

Why do I have so much?… Well, I bought a few, but I also got a whole bunch as a gift for being employee of the quarter; my brother bought a whole bunch when they went on sale for 10 or 5 cents and some are gifts from friends.

Back to daily postings :)

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I returned some library books and checked out two more:

– Sunset Pruning Handbook
– Rodale’s Illustrated Encyclopedia of Organic Gardening

Recently we’ve been harvesting a lot of pears, peaches and prunes. Today I harvested more Sweet 100’s and Lemon Cucumbers.

Italian Prunes

I also planted four types of seeds into newspaper pots: Grand Rapids Lettuce, Calabrese Broccoli, Catskill Brussels Sprouts and Jewel Mixed Colors Nasturtium.

The seeds I planted on the 12th are doing well and I thinned them down to a couple few.

I had a few failures though… The Correnta Hybrid Spinach I planted on the 13th, looked well, but when I transplanted them a few days ago, they just died :(… Also, the Ginger rhizomes that I tried to root on the 12th got moldly and shriveled up :(…

Multi-entry placeholder…

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It’s been busy around here… We’ve been packing at work last week for our move to another building. Along with all the work that was due, I was just pooped when I got home and didn’t feel like touching the computer, so I didn’t…

…but I did do a lot gardening, a lot of buying and a lot of harvesting :)… mostly to forget about work… I did take notes daily, but in photo form… I’ll append it to this entry later when I have more time to write…

Can you identify this cactus?

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I just discovered that one of our freelancers here at work is really into cactus and succulents, like me. I was trying to explain on of my favorites. it’s kinda toupe or grayish tan with long spines that look like thin fingernails. Then I tried to draw it:

[Edited July 20, 2005] I found it with the help of (Anonymous). It’s a Opuntia Diademanta. Here are some pics of it: ( link 1 ) ( link 2 )

[Edited July 25, 2006] The actual name of this cactus is ‘Tephrocactus articulatus var. papyracanthus’ or Paper Spine Cactus. ( DG PlantFile )