Garden Update – June 17th

We cannot pinpoint the exact reason that our garden is doing so well this year, but we’re happy about it!  The multiple factors that we have changed from last year (our first year ever gardening), to now, made all the difference.  As I have mentioned, being a gardener you learn some hard lessons along the way.  For example, last year we did not use a rain barrel.  This year we are.  That in itself, made a huge difference, as we all know that rain water is much better for the garden and it shows in the growth of our plants.  Not to mention, the water bill will be kept to a minimum, as we have not watered our garden with anything else, but rain water.

I know that I have complained about all the rain we have been getting lately, but it has kept our garden well watered.  It is great in that aspect, as just when I think that I have almost exhausted the entire drum of rain water, a storm rolls through and it is full again!  We even have cleaned out a huge garbage can on wheels, and are using it as a backup for rain water.  We just unhook the flexible hose attached to the gutter and let the rain water drain into the garbage can.  This is awesome, because all we have to do is “dunk” the watering can into the garbage can and fill up!  What amazes us is how quick a 55 gallon rain barrel can get filled up with one rainy downfall.

I think I did forget to mention, that we’re trying out two Juliet Tomato plants in large containers just to see what the difference is between plants in the garden, and plants in a container.  Right now, one of our container Juliet Tomato plants is starting to bloom, so tomatoes are soon to follow!

What really blows our mind is, that our whole entire garden (minus the leaf lettuce and Romaine) were all started in our basement under a grow light.  We basically ran out of room on the one table we had as the plants got bigger, so we now know that we will need an extra table and more grow lights for next year to make room for everything.  Heaven help us if we had a bigger yard, as we know that we would most definitely build more raised garden beds!

We had to cover up our strawberry patch (which we are sure by next year, or even the end of this growing season will take over the flower bed) to protect them from all the birds.  We watched them one afternoon just swooping in, one after another, flying in and grabbing a strawberry, then off they went.  We knew immediately that we had to do something to protect our berries!  The chipmunks can still get through this netting, but we are picking berries every day now as fast as they ripen, so at least we are getting the chance to enjoy our harvest!

Gardening is sure an adventure, one that we enjoy each and every day.  Nothing brings so much pleasure than harvesting something that you grew yourself.  I can just see it now… me building a veggie stand for the end of our driveway and selling Juliet Tomatoes!  (now that would make a great blog post for sure!!)

And last but not least, every veggie gardener should also have a beautiful flower garden too!  This flower garden is definitely budding with almost everything ready to bloom any time now.  It is jammed packed with Bee Balm, Moon Beam Coreopsis, Russian Sage, Marigolds, Catnip (which the deer have grown quite fond of lately & ate half the bush!), lots of wild flowers, and if you look closely, you will see little pumpkins popping up all around this garden bed.  (The cement “GROW” stepping stone was made by me last year with a mold and sealed with cement sealer.  Beautiful!)

What do you have growing in your garden or flower beds?

Wordless Wednesday – Unwanted Visitor at 2:30am

Thanks to Bella who woke us up at 2:30am today barking, or I would have not got this photograph!  Good girl, Bella!  I’m going back to bed…

Happy Birthday Steve!

I have been super busy today, but I could not let the day pass without wishing our awesome neighbor, Steve, a Happy Birthday!  So here’s to you Steve, wishing you all the best on your special day!  Thanks for being such a great & wonderful neighbor! We love you man!

Over the weekend, we had dueling fire pits going, one in our yard, and one in Steve’s.  It was the perfect night for one too, as there was hardly any wind.  Steve came outside with $80 in smoke bombs, so you could guess that we basically smoked out the neighborhood in colors that night!  It was an awesome sight for sure, one color after the next billowing down the driveway and into the street.  LOL

Steve had the bright idea and wondered what would happen if you placed a smoke bomb in the fire pit…. smoke bomb + fire pit = Awesome!  The colors danced around in the fire pit, but they did not last long because the heat must have been too much for that little smoke bomb.

So, here’s to you Steve, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!  We hope all of your birthday wishes come true!

Your neighbors,
Roy, Val, Nikita & Bella

Share the Love on Pinterest

Pinterest is the greatest invention other than coffee & wine.  Ever since I heard of Pinterest, I was hooked immediately.  I created my own Pinterest Boards, one by one, adding things that I love, things that I wanted to one day make, funny things, awesome craft ideas, home decorating ideas, holiday things, and the list goes on and on.

But it occurred to me, that most of us fellow bloggers might have Pinterest Boards too, but we are unaware that they do.  So I wanted to reach out to everyone today and have YOU leave your Pinterest Board Link in the comments section so everyone can enjoy your Pins!

Share the love on Pinterest today, and follow the boards that you love from your fellow bloggers.

Here is the link to my Pinterest Boards:  NIKITALAND

Currently, I have 44 Boards, 1,207 Pins, and I am following 166 other Pinterest Boards.

TIP:  If you are new to Pinterest, you can click the red button at the top of the page to Follow All Boards, or you can select just the Board you are interested in following.

TIP:  Look at the top of the page to the right side, and you will see the 166 Following.  Click on this and it will show you all the 166 other Pinterest Boards that I am currently following and what interests me.

TIP:  At the top right side also shows who is following your blog.  I currently have 43 Followers.  You can click on this link to see their Pinterest Boards.  If you follow one of my boards, you will now appear under my Followers!

TIP:  When viewing a Board, if you like something and want to add it to your Pinterest Board, just hover your mouse over the picture and a Pin It button appears, click Pin It and another box opens where you can tell Pinterest what board you want to pin it too.  Also, you can change the description of that pin too!

TIP:  Also, if you are interested, I also found out a way that you can save your Pinterest Boards as a PDF.  Read all about it in this blog post!

TIP:  If you don’t currently have a Pinterest account setup, I would take the time and set one up today!  By having a Pinterest account and exciting Boards, you will also get a lot of traffic sent to your blog!  This is always a good thing, as we all would like more followers on our blog.

Take the time RIGHT NOW, and leave YOUR Pinterest Board Link in the comments section so we can all check out your wonderful Boards!  Share the Pinterest Love!  

FREE 50 Page Patriotic Crafts eBook

I received the greatest news yesterday…I was published in my first eBook from All Free Kids Crafts!  Yippee!  What an honor it was to be part of their Patriotic Crafts eBook along with 20 other great patriotic crafts!

If you feel the need to “craft”, then this is a website you need to check out!  There are thousands of craft ideas for every occasion that will encourage you to get “crafting”.

Here is the Free 50 Page Patriotic Crafts eBook from All Free Kids Crafts!  You can find my patriotic craft on pages 30-31.

Happy Patriotic Crafting!

Wordless Wednesday

Pick up your toys.  No.

Summer is Almost Here, What Happened to Spring?

Time is really flying by, isn’t it?  The first day of Summer is quickly approaching and I am still wondering where our Spring is.  We have had more raining dreary days than nice sunny ones, so when you get a day where you feel you can snag an hour or two of good weather – - you act on it.  We had to replant more cucumbers since the chippies have attacked them, and now they are starting on the romaine lettuce that is coming up.

That is how we operate around here.  Sun comes out, you head outside to get your chores done, and when it rains, it laundry day.  LOL  I am sure that is probably the case for most of us.

It has been an interesting gardening season already, and we’re surprised that our plants have even got the chance to grow a little with all the rainy days.  While it is true that rain does make the garden grow, it also needs  some good sunny days to perk up the plants.  Our garden, overall, we are very pleased with its progress, but the daily saga of battling with the chippies is endless.  Those little **bleep** keep pulling out our seeds, and yanking out the ones who actually manage to emerge through the soil.  I feel so bad when we have to replant seeds, but that is what we have to do in order to have plants left in the garden.

We had a nice relaxing weekend, and our neighbor who actually does read my blog (Hi Steve!) and keeps up to date on my craft projects, had dinner with us the other night.  I made huge split chicken breasts for each of us that were marinated in Marzetti’s balsamic dressing for hours and seasoned with only oregano and basil and placed in a glass baking dish on top of uncooked white rice.  I covered the dish with aluminum foil for at least 40 minutes, then uncovered the chicken for another 10-15 minutes to brown the top.  The chicken breasts come out so flavorful and the rice soaks up the balsamic dressing to please your taste buds.  I definitely have to take a photograph of this dish to show you how delicious it looks. Just ask Steve and he’ll tell you that he was in Heaven with this dish.  And to think that he was just going to eat some leftovers at his house.  We were so glad that he joined us for dinner and got to enjoy the dish that he smells in his backyard when I am getting dinner ready.  :-)

About a week ago, we planted lots of Solar Flare Sunflowers in one of our flower beds, and when they started to come up, the chippies nipped them all.  Now, that just put my underwear in a bunch that once again, in a different location in our yard, the chippies attacked and demolished our little seedlings.  So, thankfully we have more seeds left and we have now started them in little pots under our grow lights in the basement.  Once they get big enough, we’ll transplant them outside.  Hopefully they will have a chance this time!

Our strawberries are growing like crazy which is hard to believe, because if you remember me mentioning that the deer chowed down each and every one of them when we uncovered them in the spring, but within three weeks, they all came back!  Since we have our garden fence up that surrounds the entire garden area, the deer cannot get to the strawberries.  But, now that the strawberries are producing nice red ripe strawberries, the birds have been unstoppable in eating them!  Geez, if it is not the chippies or the deer, it’s the birds!  So, once again, I had to go into action and covered the entire strawberry patch to keep the birds out.

Since I am a huge fan of Pinterest, I looked up ways to rid our yard of chippies.  They reported that chippies don’t usually run in a pack or group, rather there is usually one that claims your yard as his own.  If you could even catch one, they said to take that chippie at least 7 miles away from your home, because if you just caught it and let it go in a field near your home, it would most definitely find its way back to your yard again.  Geez!  Hopefully the seven miles is far enough, right?  Anyhow, we are trying out one way right now to rid them of our yard, and I will let you know if it works.  Since the reports say that there is usually only one in your yard doing all the damage to your garden, we hope that we can rid that one once and for all.

What is bugging you in your garden?

 

Wordless Wednesday

Bella’s first experience with bubbles.  She paid more attention to the bubble wand instead. Silly dog.

Garden Update June 3, 2013

Ah, the beginning of June has finally arrived.  By now, everyone’s garden should be planted and the hopes of harvesting a plentiful crop is on everyone’s mind.  We are as well, dreaming of the day when we can start picking veggies from the garden, but also watching your plants mature is an adventure in itself.

A few days ago, we took off the Creamora bottles from our zucchini.  The plants have matured enough to stand alone from chippie attacks, but we are still keeping a watchful eye on them.  (one seed still has the bottle over it so the chippies don’t eat it!)

Our strawberry plants are growing like they are on crack and will soon take over the whole garden bed by our garage.  We even got to eat our first few strawberries over the weekend, and need to watch the chippies as they are starting to nip the ripe berries.

The Black Seeded Simpson Leaf Lettuce is coming in beautifully in two straight rows.  It is funny how we have some spots that are bushier than others, but that is probably because we might have dropped more seeds in those places.

Both are red and green pepper plants are maturing nicely.  We even have little peppers forming!

Two of our Juliet Tomato plants that we thought we might have lost due the frost we had are actually producing tomatoes right now!  Nice!

I even added some Halloween crows in our garden, which scare the pants off of Roy every time he goes into the garden.  I laugh, but hope that the birds will scare away whatever might enter to munch on our plants.  We’ll see if they do any good, but for now, it provides a good laugh every time we head into our garden.  Here’s one, just hanging around on our garden door.

We headed off to our local garden center over the weekend to purchase the only two plants we did not start from seed.  These Jalapeno plants will be used for my salsa and I will get my Cilantro from our next door neighbor.

All in all, we are so pleased on the progress of our garden as it is coming along nicely.  Even Roy’s Jack Be Little Pumpkin plants are getting bigger by the day.  We also have other pumpkins growing too, which include Connecticut Field and Red Warty Thing pumpkins.  If you have never heard of the Red Warty Thing Pumpkin before, Google it to see how cool it looks! It it reddish orange in color with bumps or warts all over it.  We tried to grow these last year and they did remarkable in the garden, but the deer ate them and we were left with nothing.  This year, we have them protected inside our garden fence, so the deer won’t be munching on them this year.  Live and learn – the gardeners hardships only make them better gardeners!

Pizza Pan Patriotic Platter

Oops, I did it again!  I pulled out my Pony Beads today and created a Pizza Pan Patriotic Platter.  With the Fourth of July coming up, I decided that I needed a platter to show off my goodies, like my Patriotic Strawberries, or perhaps some garnishes.

Just like my other Pony Bead projects, I just poured the beads onto the pizza pan and used red, white and blue beads, just perfect for the Fourth of July.  Make sure you fill up all the holes on the pan and all of the edges have a bead touching it.

Once the pizza pan is completed filled (one layer of beads only), place in a pre-heated oven at 425 degrees.  Watch the beads closely, as they will melt quickly.  Keep a fan on or open a few windows to let out the light smell from the melting beads.  (Note:  You can also melt them on your grill outside, just make sure to leave the lid open so as nothing accidentally drops into the plastic while it is melting)

You will start to see the beads starting to melt in the pan.  The way you can tell that your project is completely melted, is when the top is completely flat and smooth.  If you still see some bead “bumps”, then it needs to stay in the oven a little longer.  Carefully remove from the oven once the top is completely flat & smooth.  Place gently on top of stove to cool.  You might hear a slight cracking sound, but that is just the plastic cooling, so do not worry.

Once the pan is completely cooled, just turn the pizza pan upside down and the platter will pop out.  Easy, right?

Now all you need to do is take your Glass Candlestick that you got at the Dollar Store for $1 and hot glue it to the direct center on the bottom of the platter.  You’re done!  You have now created a Patriotic Platter that everyone will wonder where you got it….only you will know that you made it! (NOTE:  I would not suggest using any sharp knife on the platter as it will most likely scratch the plastic)

Since I had some red, white and blue Pony Beads left over, I decided to make a Patriotic Star out of a metal cookie cutter.  I just placed the metal cookie cutter in a round cake pan, filled the metal star up with Pony Beads and melted it in the oven.  Once it has cooled, just slightly pull on the sides of the metal cookie cutter to release the star and it will pop right out.  I will probably drill a small hole in the top of this star and hang in my kitchen window for a little Patriotic charm!

So there you have it, a Pizza Pan Patriotic Platter and a Patriotic Star all made within a few minutes of an afternoon!  What a great craft project to share with your kids, or make one for yourself!

If you missed some of my other Pony Beads crafts, you can find them below:  

Pizza Pan Suncatcher
Pony Bead Hearts