Thursday, July 31, 2008

Mixed Results

I harvested the corn today. As you can see it is pretty pitiful. The pop corn did better than the sweet corn. It would turn out that my corn started making ears when the rain stopped. Moral of that story, start corn earlier. In fact, I should have started everything earlier. Next year, I am going to do a little math and try to plant backwards. Start from the the point that the drought usually begins and count backward the number of days each particular plant needs in order to produce fruit. Sort of like working with the last freeze date but backwards. Maybe that way the plants can produce fruit before the water runs out. So if the corn needs 70 days, then I need to plant it in the middle of April. I will have to go back and look, but I am pretty sure it was late May before I planted it this year. My tomatoes are suffering from the same fate. There have only been two tomatoes so far, though the yellow pear is still setting fruit. I will be fall before they begin again. I only plant indeterminate tomatoes.
I am still going to plant more corn this summer and give it one more shot. Maybe, we will get more rain. I will just grow the popcorn, not the sweet corn.
In other Debbi's Garden news, IT RAINED. We have had about half a inch so far. My rain barrel has rainwater in it. One-half inch of rain equals about half a barrel of water. I am pretty excited.
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Wednesday, July 30, 2008

It Rained

I woke up this morning to a pair or royally ticked off cats. They decided to sleep on the deck last night and it rained on them. As soon as I opened the door they high tailed it into the house complaining the whole time. Well, they didn't really high tail it, they don't have tails, more like high nubbed it.
It was not enough rain to make much of a difference. Most likely, all it will accomplish is making it more humid this afternoon. Of course, I washed a rug yesterday and left it out overnight to dry. Yep, it's wet.
There is a slight chance for more rain this morning and over the next couple of days. Wish us luck.
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Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Milestones

I started this blog back in November of 2007. I was so serious in the beginning. The first post was on propagating roses. I intended to blog about gardening and then the content took on a life of its own, and here I am blogging about gardening, kids, food, and anything else that I find interesting.

This little blog of mine is about to reach a couple of milestones. I am within 300 points of becoming a guru on Blotanical. The cool thing about that is I get to pick 40 more blogs to add to my favorites list. Lately, I have stumbled upon a lot of great new blogs and a few older blogs that have just come to my attention.

Also, according to my site meter, I should reach 10,000 visitors in the next ten days or so. While this may seem like nothing to some of you with hundreds of visits every day, to me it is mind blowing. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that many people would have any interest in what I have to say. The site meter has also revealed that people visit here from all over the world. This is just amazing to me.

Through this site, I have been able to keep family members up on what is going on with our little family, which was my intention to begin with. I have also reconnected to a long lost cousin. She began reading this blog after getting in touch with one of my sisters. I saw her on the sitemeter, who else could be reading from Pampa, Texas.

Possibly the best thing that has come from this activity, is meeting such a great group of fellow bloggers. Most of the blogs I read and bloggers who come here and read mine are garden bloggers. There are a handful that I found through other links. My sister also has a mommy blog and a craft blog. I try to visit the blogs on my links frequently to see what everyone has to say. I consider many of these bloggers dear friends.

I love reading and responding to comments. There has been very little trouble with spam and I have never had an ugly or hateful comment. Occasionally, though, the comments do take on a life of their own. Gardening Injuries comes to mind. Some of the commentors (I know, not a word) had some pretty gnarly injuries.

All in all, this has been a great experience and I have really enjoyed myself. I can't wait to see what the future holds for my little blog.

Monday, July 28, 2008

It's so Hot....

The devil went home until it cools off.
Chickens are laying fried eggs
You discover that the car seat belt buckle is now a branding iron

The heat makes me feel about as sexy as socks on a chicken.
Hope this does not reignite the stock wars.

102 degrees with a heat index of 104. It is not a dry heat. I feel like I am living in a vegetable steamer basket. How hot is it where you are?

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Mulch Monkeys

The Monkeys and a neighbor boy helped me spread some cedar mulch today. They were not quite as enthusiastic about it as they were about deconstructing a compost pile, but they got the job done. I am sure the 100+ degree temperature did not help motivate them.

Inevitably, someone asked why we are doing this. So I got another chance to teach. Here are a few reasons to use mulch.
1. Mulch keeps the soil cool and moist. This helps conserve water.
2. Mulch discourages weeds.
3. Mulch is is more attractive than bare soil.
4. Using bark mulch is a great way to recycle.
5. As it breaks down, mulch adds organic matter to the soil.
6. Worms like mulch.
Apparently, Trixie did not think much of us invading "her" garden and interrupting a nap.
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Friday, July 25, 2008

Scattergories Meme

I found this little meme at Christie's blog handcramp crafts.

The monkeys are being boring and it is hot so I don't want to take garden pictures or go find something garden related to blog about. Since life is not to interesting, I think today is a good day to play.

It is called SCATTERGORIES …it’s harder than it looks! Erase my answers, enter yours and post it on to your blog. Let me know when you have done it and I will come check it out!

Use the 1st letter of your name to answer each of the following. They have to be real places, names, things. Nothing made up! Try to use different answers if the person in front of you had the same 1st initial.You CAN’T use your name for the boy/girl name question.

WHAT IS YOUR NAME? Deb
4 LETTER WORD: Dork
VEHICLE: Dodge
TV SHOW: Dateline
CITY: Dallas
BOY NAME: Doug
GIRL NAME: Darla
OCCUPATION: Dog Catcher
SOMETHING YOU WEAR: Dungarees
FOOD: Doughnut
SOMETHING FOUND IN A BATHROOM: Drain
REASON FOR BEING LATE: ? Dawdling.
SOMETHING YOU SHOUT: Durn

Here is something extra. Manly Man smashed a stinkbug on his face this evening. Pretty funny.

Silly Garden Art

VP over at Veg Plotting shared a tour of her garden whimsies today. Yesterday there was an adorable picture of a snail.

She inspired me to share another picture of Senor Werm. Someday someone will teach me how to use this keyboard and I will be able to make the little squiggle over the n. Anyway, we want to see your garden whimsies. That's right, we want pictures of funny little statues or art pieces you keep in the garden. Leave me a comment and I will link your post. If no one plays, I will have to lurk and link. Don't make me lurk.
Players
Cinj has a cute gazing ball holding frog over at Cinj's chat room.
Anna has a bunny planter over at Woody and Herbaceous. Well, on second look, she pretty much has bunnys everywhere.
Perrenial Garden Lover has a really cool Scarecrow and turtles and a bird bath
Brenda at the Brenda Blog has a whole bunch of cute garden art. I particularly like the beetle
While it is not silly or garden art, Momo Falis has beautiful pictures of Hocking Hills and some cool pathways. It's my blog and I will link what I want to.
Crafty Gardener went all out for this challenge over at The Gardener Side. There is even a slide show. Check it out.
Karen over at Artist's Garden has a cartoon that made me smile.
Karen at Home Free, has dressed up some rocks in some very cute knitwear.
Tina at in the garden has bowling balls
The Lurking List
Weed Wackin Wenches have a darling picture of Diva Dog
Joy at Gardenjoy4me has a darling bunch of bench warmers
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