Take Your Worms to School Day.

Today I took a container of worms to school. I spoke to and took questions from sixty second graders. This made Baby Monkey the star for a day.

The topic was soil. Ever tried to keep sixty eight year old children on topic? We talked about composting and organic and inorganic materials in the soil. We talked about what plants do for us. We talked about the longest Night Crawlers they have ever seen. Eight year old kids tell monster fish stories.

One of the teachers had two containers to plant. We added some worm castings to one. The other was just potting mix. They are going to see if the compost makes a difference in the way the plants grow. These are going to be crazy container gardens. She had seeds for Bachelor’s Buttons, tomatoes, wax beans, and pumpkins. I can’t wait to get a look at these in about four weeks.

They looked at the worms with a mix of awe and disgust. One poor little girl got one on her arm and had a complete melt down. She may be scared for life, but she will live. They caught on pretty quick that worm castings = worm poo. I got lucky and was able to find a worm egg to show them.

They asked some really good questions.

“Where is the worms head?“

“How do worms see?“

“Why are there so many worms in that eggshell?”

“What is the biggest worm you have ever seen?”

Here is what cracked the teachers up.

Little Girl, “Where do you get worms?”
Me, “I got my worms from my friend.”

Me, “Any questions?”
Several children at different times, “One time, in my yard….”

The question I dodged, “Where do worm babies come from?” I was not sure how I would get around the fact that there are not girl and boy worms, well not exactly - Yikes!!!

They kept me talking for a full hour. Children are more fun to talk to about gardening than grownups.

Killer Kitty and a Quilt

Something caught my eye in the garden this morning. It was a black and white bouncing fur ball. Tisha was chasing a butterfly as it visited the garden. She's a killer. Luckily, this one got away before she got her claws into him. The butterfly she was after this morning was a Giant Swallowtail. Unfortunately, I didn't get the camera in time to show you our early arrival. I need to get the lemon tree out of the greenhouse so the swallowtail can lay eggs on it. The Giant Swallowtail caterpillars look like bird poo. We have seen Gulf Fritillary butterflies already as well. The passion vine is doomed. The Fritillary caterpillars look like they could sting you. They are red/orange and black striped with spines all along their body. Scary looking. The Black Swallowtails are not here yet. Their caterpillars look like something from a Dr. Seuss book. They have green and black bands with yellow dots and get as big as my thumb.

One time I really embarrassed myself by asking an entomologist coworker if could I put a bell on the cat so the butterflies would hear her and fly away. She looked at me like I look at the "can I grow this in a container people" and said, "insects sense most things chemically. They don't really "hear."

Here, in our little garden, we provide both nectar plants as well as larval food for our butterflies. My monkeys know what to look for. They can spot a tiny caterpillar faster than I can. They should, their eyes are better than mine. The larval food plants we grow are dill and fennel for the Black Swallowtails, citrus for the Giant Swallowtails, and Passion Vine for the Gulf Fritillary. Nectar plants are mostly Zinnia and Salvia. I am not sure what the Sulphers need, but I will find out and try to grow it.

Have you seen any butterflies yet?

Here is the completed quilt. I had to use blue as the binding. I didn't have enough yellow.

The Seminar is Over

Today was the big day. We have been potting up plants for sale, buying roses to resale, and getting our presentations together for weeks in some cases months. We spent last night labeling and pricing plants, moving roses, setting up the silent auction, setting up tables and chairs, and cooking. I then came home and stayed up until 2:00 am baking bread and finishing the quilt. We completed the set up this morning. Then, bring on the gardeners. Turn out was about 100 persons. There were three presentations; New perennial varieties, Square Foot gardening, and Earth Kind gardening to preserve water and reduce pesticide and fertilizer use. We gave out door prizes and sold hundreds of plants. We still do not know how much money our fund raising efforts brought in, but our treasurer seemed to think we did well. We work so hard and put in so many hours, then POOF the whole show is over in three and a half hours.

Here are a few questions I was asked along with the answer that popped into my head. I am pretty sure I didn't say any of them out loud.

Woman hands me a plant in a pot, "Can I grow this in a container?"
Me to myself, "A container like the container it is growing in right now?"

Gardening newby, "How do I plant this?
Me to myself, "In the ground."

Another gardening newby, "How do I plant this?"
Me to myself, "Green side up."

Experienced Gardener, "Do you grow herbs and how do you use them?"
Me to myself, " Huge topic. Please, newby gardener come back with a simple question, hurry, hurry."

Mistake on an evaluation form, " Will you use this information to quit using fertility?"
All the women at my table, "We are pretty sure we will not use our fertility in public, certainly not at a gardening seminar. We will not use our fertility outside, at least not during the day." I think this might have been the point when we all fell into fits of exhausted giggles.

I am going to take a nap.

Have a nice day.

Judging Plants: What did I get myself into?

I agreed to judge out horticulture division at our little county fair today. Wow, that was something. There were only about 50 entries. I have a sneaking feeling that a bunch of high school 4H kids were forced to place an entry, maybe even an Ag class. The kid who put forth the most effort was the only entry in the children's division. She entered a very pretty geranium. She received three ribbons. There were two pretty house plants , a couple of good hanging baskets, and some decent vegetable flats the seniors entered. Two of the veggie flats were water stressed. Otherwise, these plants looked like they were just stressed four inch color plants stuck in a container or some winter stressed plant in a container they lifted out of the garage. Many didn't even bother to pull off yellowed leaves or repot a plant in need of repoting. I felt like a big Meany giving out so many white ribbons, but come on a 3rd grader grew a better plant.

Above is the quilt block of the month for March. I didn't finish the completer blocks. Shhh...don't tell.

Spring Seminar Quilt

I finished the top of the wall hanging I am donating to our Master Gardener silent auction. This is one of the fund raising efforts we put on during our Spring Seminar. This little quilt is a Lemoyne Star pattern. I used the “By Kate…” stamps to mark diamonds on the fabric. This keeps the bias from pulling as it does when marking with pencil and template. I like the results. The top is much smoother and the points are better than with traditional fabric marking. Now I just have to get it quilted and bound before Saturday morning. I need to figure out what color to bind the whole thing up with. The binding will make one more border around the quilt although only about half an inch of fabric shows on the front. I can repeat any of the colors. Should I use the pink, yellow, or blue?

April Fools: Gardening With Monkeys

ACT I

The monkeys came home from school in rare form. As I have mentioned before, they are not funny when they are trying to be funny. Here are a few examples of April Fools "Jokes" they shared with me.

"I will not make you popcorn anymore" - APRIL FOOLS

"May I set fire to your garden?" - APRIL FOOLS

"May I throw this rotten apple at the village idiot?" APRIL FOOLS

"I don't love you" - APRIL FOOLS.

ACT II

After the "I don't love you" I slipped out into the garden to weed and be by myself in the quiet. They found me. First one put a fake spider on my shoulder. This worked the first time, but they have done it about 400 time since then.

Now we have this wonderful dialog.

Baby monkey, "Mom"

Me, "What?"

Baby Monkey, "Mom"

Me, "What?"

Baby Monkey, "Mom."

Me, WHAT?????

Baby monkey, "I love you."

ACT III

Middle Monkey asks to hold a rabbit. Okay, kid knock yourself out. Ten minutes later - MOM, MOM, MOM, MOM I SAW LUCY'S NUTS. LUCY HAS NUTS. Kid hands me an upside down bunny. As I may have mentioned before, Lucy is not a girl. I did not, however, share this information with my boys. I check out the rabbit equipment and declare Lucy a boy. They recovered and renamed him Mario. Then they bring me the other rabbit to be examined. No bunny balls can be seen. Starr is still a girl. Now they want to know when we are going to have babies. As an encore, the newly renamed Mario escaped and hid under an overgrown rose bush. It took us 20 minutes to get him out.

ACT IV

Things I had to say for the rest of the hour.

"Don't lock you brother in the rabbit hutch."

"Get out of the rabbit hutch."

"Get down from on top of the rabbit hutch."

"Do not put your brother under the wheelbarrow."

"Get that 2 gallon container off of your head."

"Don't throw onions into the street."

Help me somebody please help me.

They all Came Back

I had a little time between weather situations to go check out my perennial border and see what came back. The Shasta daisies, salvia, Whirling Butterfly guara, French hollyhocks, ice plant, bog salvia are all showing back up. That is a picture from last summer, but I can look forward to more blooms in the next few weeks. Happy, Happy, Joy, Joy.

Did anybody else catch the gardening skit on Two and a Half Men? I thought I was going to fall over laughing.