Garden Update: Day 142

It's a HOT and Humid day but it's sunny and plants love sunshine.  :)  I decided to give my plants a good check over since I wasn't able to for the last couple of days since I've been busy.

I was looking all around and in the squash plant I discover probably my biggest squash harvest so far.  This guy was hiding under a huge leaf.  It's crazy how fast these plants produce the veggies.  Meet squash number 5 so far for the season.

Here's possibly squash number 6.  He's not quite ready yet so I will leave him be for now.

I checked my zucchini plant.  And there's 1 zuke that I see that's growing which will be number 6 too.  :)

I grabbed my bag of potatoes from the pantry so I could plant them.  These are store bought potatoes that I got probably a month ago.  All the potatoes have eyes on them so I figured I would plant them today.

I went to my shed and emptied the bag on my potting table.  Here's the 12 potatoes all with eyes ready to be planted.  I've planted potatoes before.  Read about it here.  I decided to try planting with the whole potato this time b/c I saw it can be done that way too.  Hopefully, it won't take 111 days but it will still be exciting.

I am using the biggest container I have available.  It's not the best but I believe it will work for the potatoes.  I can always replant later once the plant starts growing.

I put some potting soil on the bottom.

Then I added 8 potatoes.  I decided to do 8 to see how it does.  I can separate them into other pots later once the plants start coming in.  Then I covered with more soil on the top.

I had 4 potatoes left over and I was out of soil from the big bag.  I still had the small bag of moisture control soil that Nate picked up for me so I figured I would use it for the last 4 potatoes.  I put a little bit of soil on the bottom of each pot.

I then put 1 potato in each pot.

Here's a close up of them.  Eyes up or pointed out.  Then cover with soil to the top line of the pot.

Here's my soil and my shovel.  (It's actually a cat food scooper that I've had for a long time.  I think it came free with cat food one time and I don't scoop cat food so I've just always used it as my soil shovel.  I like it b/c you can get big scoops with it).  :)  If I get a ton of potatoes I might give the little pots away or sell them on craigslist.

Oh while in the shed, I had a huge scare.  Something came in buzzing real loud and then I realized it was a hummingbird.  I think it was cussing me out b/c the feeders were empty.  LOL  So, I looked at the feeders and there was a hummingbird hovering and then flew away.  So, I brought the planted potatoes to the deck to sit in the container garden.  After a quick water break I filled the hummingbird feeders.  Now I hope the hummingbirds come back.

Here's the container garden now.  I've had to move some of the plants out b/c they are getting big.  I also moved the rose plant so I could sit the small potato pots on the crate to keep them up higher.  You can't see the big potato pot but it's back behind the tomatoes.

At the back.....here's the potatoes sitting behind the tomatoes and next to the marigolds.  I need some more marigolds.  Marigolds are good for potatoes too.  Keeps enemy bugs away.

Here's the little potato pots.  :)  Everyone has been watered so now we wait.  :)

Inside.....here's my red peppers, grape tomatoes and pumpkins growing.  :)

Garden Update: Day 141

I want to give an update on my inside garden.

My red pepper plant is doing really well.  This is my favorite pepper right now.  It's bigger than all the others on the plant.  I just wished the peppers would grow faster.  LOL  I wasn't sure if the flowers needed to be pollinated by a bee or not so I googled it and according to the internets they don't so that's good.  And you know if it's on the internet then it must be true.  :)

Look at all the little peppers and little flower blossoms.  Once we have some good sunshine (we've had a lot of rain lately) I might set the pepper plant outside for a little bit for some vitamin d.  But I won't leave it out there b/c I know these critters (<----look be="" dare="" eat="" if="" my="" nbsp="" p="" peppers.="" ready="" to="" will="" you="">

My pumpkin seeds have multiplied even more.  LOL  I did not expect them to take off so quickly.  Just thinking about the little pumpkins that these seedling sprouts will produce makes me happy inside.  :)

1st jack seeds pot.

2nd jack seeds pot.

And this is my pot with the pie pumpkin seeds.

My grape tomatoes are still growing.

Here's my favorite cluster.  You can't really tell in the picture but they seem to have a little reddish color starting on them.  YEY!!  

Here's Harley just hanging out while I was watering my plants this afternoon.  :)  His orange color blends in with the wood flooring.  LOL  :)

Garage/Yard Sale 2013

Garage/yard sales are a way to clean out some clutter and make some extra cash.  We decided to have a sale today.  I got up at 5am and got ready to leave by 6am for the hour drive to be at Kristen's to set up at 7am.  Our sale started at 8am.

Once I got to RVA, I set up my stuff with Kristen and Dave.  Then Ashley and Ella came and Ashley set up her items.  Ashley is moving soon so it's the perfect time for her to get rid of some clutter that she didn't want to take with her to her new place.

Ella sat quietly in her car seat.  Here she is not wanting any pictures taken b/c it's just soooooo early.  haha  Kristen and I grabbed the garage sale signs and put them at the stop signs in the neighborhood.  I had gotten the red and white garage sale signs a few months ago from the dollar store.  They are pretty sturdy, and rewritable too.  (I forgot to get a pic of them)

Here's some of my things set up.  I've had most of these items sitting in the blue tote in my basement since we moved almost over 6 years ago.  6 years is a long time for stuff to just sit in a container right?  I don't know how any of these items managed to escape past yard sales.  Maybe I wasn't ready to part with them?  Well it's all gone now.

Here's some more stuff.

Kristen and Dave hanging.

Cash in the lock box.  We had a pen, calculator, extra pricing stickers and lots of change.

Kristen made a top 10 yard sale rules.  haha

The run down.  Every time someone made a purchase Kristen wrote it in so we knew who was owed from the till at the end.

Some shoppers....

I brought some homemade vanilla extract to try to sell.  Why not right?  I didn't sell any but I tried to.  Kristen told me that some girl said "It's edible".  LOL  I'm guessing she's too young to bake and doesn't really know what vanilla extract is used for.  haha

Oh....We found a dead black widow spider.  Luckily, it was dead.  :)

The butterfly landed on the fake silk sunflowers hoping to get some pollen or whatever butterflies eat from a sunflower.....nectar?  Poor butterfly was confused.  haha  :)  We didn't become millionaires at the sale but hey we cleared some junk, made a few bucks and now the leftovers are going to Goodwill.  :)

Just some random thoughts.........So.....my next adventure.  I was invited to participate in the cupcake bake-off again this year at the local fair.  I didn't win last year but I had fun doing it.  I'm trying to decide if I want to or not again.  I'm also thinking about maybe entering my chocolate chip cookies into the state fair.  I think that would be a lot of fun.  We'll see....I'm thinking about it for now.  :)

Garden update: Day 139

So, yesterday I was very excited to show my first pumpkin seed sprout.  This morning, to my amazement I have 7 sprouts in total.  I was so happy.  :)

This pot has jack pumpkin seeds and currently has 2 sprouts.

This pot also has jack pumpkin seeds and has 1 sprout.

The bigger pot contains my pie pumpkin seeds and has 4 sprouts.

This evening, I sprayed some bug spray on my plants and filled up my milk jugs with water.  We've had some good rains so the plants seems to be getting plenty of water.  :)

I picked squash number 4 this evening.  :)

This squash here will probably be ready for harvest by the middle to the end of the weekend.  :)

Garden Update: Day 138

Yesterday, I pulled off zucchini number 6 off my plant.  :)

I noticed some scratch marks on the one side of the veggie.  Not sure if this is from an animal (squirrel, bird or cat).  It's just weird tiny scratches just on the one side at the end.  hmmmmm

Now this morning, I checked on my plants.  I always give them water in the morning before work and I check on things to make sure they are all happy.  :) 

This morning, I did see 2 little reddish spiders (spider mites) on the zucchini plant.  :|  I flicked them off.  I am going to need to spray the plants to kill the bugs.  I did it over 2 weeks ago so they probably need another spray.  Oh and I've only found 1 stink bug so far this season which I flicked off.  I also found 2 baby grasshoppers living in the marigolds.  LOL  When I re-potted the marigolds one of the grasshopper babies stayed in the shed with me until I scooted him to the grass.  His brother (or sister) is still living in the marigolds and I figured it doesn't seem to be a problem yet so I'll let it live there.  (for now)

Here's the little guy in the shed just waiting for me to help him find the grass.  :)

I have a squash that will be ready in a few days.  I checked the entire plant and there seems to be at least 3 other little squash but they are all still very tiny.  (lens fogged up from the humidity)

I caught this little bee pollinating one of the healthy squash flowers.  :)

Some more little squash....

Tomatoes are still growing.  This is my favorite fat tomato.  I can't wait to see how big it gets.

More tomatoes.

I picked off dead rose buds.  The rose plant is so happy.  Remember when I first brought it home?  It's growing so good.

Inside garden.....I still have growing my Red Pepper Plant, Grape Tomatoes and Pumpkin seeds.  

(pumpkin seeds are pie and jack seeds)

This morning, while watering I was surprised to see a sprout.  Yes, a pumpkin sprout!!!!  This is a sprout from the pie pumpkin seed pot.  I was so excited to see this little guy.

Here's all 3 pots.  You can see the little sprout poking up.  :)