winter garden

some pictures of my in-progress greenhouse. YAY!!!

some plants that are actually still growing:

the purple cabbage is from compost! lol!

while sad that the year is done, I am excited for next year!!!! yay I have already received my seeds from Bakers Creek and am thinking about ordering some more from Gurneys.... still thinking on that one.

Seed catalogs!

what can be better than something hot to drink and a slow lookie loo in seed catalogs as you dream of your next years garden? maybe saving a tree or two...

BOTANICAL INTERESTS PDF
(try code: SANTA12 for free shipping for orders over $40, not sure if still works)

BAKER CREEK ONLINE

SEED SAVERS; some online exclusives

WHAT COM SEED COMPANY; some unusual seeds

JOHNNY'S SELECT SEEDS; many smaller size packets

RENEE'S GARDEN SEEDS

SO many more out there!



and there is no waiting for online catalogs, lol!

Amazon ebooks for free

If you go HERE you will find ebooks for free. Scroll down a bit and there will be MORE free suggestions. I just picked up almost fifty new ebooks on all kinds of subjects. I have Kindle for PC (also free).


Helpful herbs for health and beauty

HAVE FUN!

It is the END of NOV and NOW my garden decides to grow...

sigh, not sure if they will make it or not:

did find a few seeds of what I think is clematis:

beautiful video; not too long, on pollination

and a few more pictures:

a visit to the Convention Center next to the Peabody in Little Rock, AR

they have a nice little garden attached. It seems this is the world headquarter of Taekwondo

Here are the snakes I found in MY garden!

it has been a couple years ago but here are the two rat snakes making whoopie in my carrot box!

be subversive

Garden of Eden.....?

a whole nuther spin on a snake in the garden! them tomaters look yummy! The picture is from the author of that blog over there (points at: small town, big garden link to the right). Be kinda funny if I post HER Pictures before SHE DOES!!!! lol!! I have asked her but have not heard back yet....hhhmmmmm should I wait?????? hhmmmm.....

today I began to lay to rest my garden....kinda

I am potting up my herbs and bringing them in where they have a chance of survival...none made it that I left out last year. I most likely will find some hay and actually cover the strawberries.

pull up any dead plants, dump old soil into the compost/big pots, put smaller pots in shed.

I have two more green tomatoes trying to grow so I will leave those plants.

The purple ground cherries have FINALLY put on flowers so I will leave those alone but I do not know if they will produce.

NONE of my cucumber or squash plants produced fruit: lot's of flowers but NO FRUIT!!!! I will plant in a different place next year.

Still working on my green house design, figure there is no hurry since there is no one to actually build it.

Hit THREE dollar general stores and got ALL their huge pots left over: ended up with 8 total!! all were marked down like 75% or more! yay! Their weed fabric was ALSO MARKED DOWN THAT MUCH!! Yes I am YELLING in excitement!! lol!

Another city tries to bust a gardner!

Now it's Memphis TN that is attempting to stop urban gardeners!

Memphis Teacher Ordered to Dismantle his Urban Garden

Stupid towns and regulations.

Lowes sale!

Blueberry bushes: $4
raspberry bushes: $3

also had blackberry bushes

go buy quick!! lol!

human waste as a fertilzer

sounds yucky doesn't it? lol!

Went on a tour of the "local" (two towns away) waste management center. Have to say, I was impressed.

It processes all the waste water for that area into Class A waste. This means it is completely rendered safe. No pathogens, no heavy metals. It can go anywhere.

I found the process not as smelly as I thought it would be.

Basically, they bring in "raw" waste water, remove the trash (like purses, counterfeit money, a diamond ring, six pack rings, etc) and grind the "grit". All the actual waste then gets "blended" in HUGE (six of them) connected blenders (looks like large fans stirring the stuff up) with oxygen and microorganism. The microorganisms eat. and eat. and eat.

Then the mixture is sent to a tank where the oxygen is removed and the microorganisms are either "sent back" to eat some more OR if there are too many, "wasted" out. The wasted out ones are sent to the solids shed where more water is removed and they are dried.

The two end products are: safe clean water and little pellets of dried microorganisms which work fabulously on gardens! They sell this stuff CHEAP! $50 for 5 cubit yards. very cheap for this farm area. They cannot keep up with the demand.

And the average home gardener can come in and get a five gallon bucket! I will be grabbing some myself.

While a bit more expensive to set up initially, I would love to see ALL waste water plants be set up to process Class A. Class B needs acres and acres of land to let the finished sludge sit until the left over pathogens and heavy metals breakdown: literally years and years and years. Plus their finished product DOES have pathogens and heavy metals.

good sale at lowes today

Lowes had raspberry, blueberry, and blackberry bushes on sale for $3,4! Got five new raspberry and three new blueberry.

And Kmart had some of their HUGE pots for like $3.50! reg $20 so I got the last three.

got a few of the small ones, for 59 cents (reg $2) that I will transplant some herbs into.

the herbs I stated at school are beginning to grow: some mints.

Brought all my house plants in, temps are dipping! Now I have to rearrange things....

repot some things! lol! lots of work ahead of me. I need a maid and a handy man!

:)

We just cannot seem to stop killing ourselves can we.....

As Roundup Causes Health Problems Around the World, U.S. Researchers Find Glyphosate in Air & Water

Seems so strange to me, that we pay people (big companies) to slowly kill us.

Even those of us who do not use the products, we still feel the effects. We still are dying right along with everyone else.

sigh, we really must hate ourselves.

Debuting the artificial......leaf???

ANAHEIM, March 27, 2011 — Scientists today claimed one of the milestones in the drive for sustainable energy — development of the first practical artificial leaf. Speaking here at the 241st National Meeting of the American Chemical Society, they described an advanced solar cell the size of a poker card that mimics the process, called photosynthesis, that green plants use to convert sunlight and water into energy.

Now I have heard about this and it seems to work pretty well but somehow, I just do not think we would get the same pleasure walking through a garden of these as we do walking through real plants. :)

Native Plants

I was reading an interesting article today on Native Plant "purists". You can find it HERE and well it got me to wondering, I would LOVE to be a purist! Yes I want to be the lady I mean have the yard where everyone in my town says "that is the yard of that crazy freak!" and then "I wonder if she has anything for my headaches?" in their next breath!

lol!

Yes eventually my goal is to have NO grass .... well let me correct that, no LAWN to mow... cause I fully want some grasses. Like lemon grass and some nice tall grasses to help with privacy and provide some food for the chickens I will be getting. :)

The college where I go to school and work has nice prairie garden filled with native plants. And I am slowly identifying them all. Ok, now do not laugh, but I just realized we have Dogbane in that garden! If you have never seen Dogbane, it has a very unique fruit. Two ovaries fuse, making two long fruits (similar to a skinny green bean) and then fuse on the ends. Just the two ends are fused. I need to get a picture.

but it is raining and storming out right now. I will try though later :)

Now I already have a pretty good start on some native plants in my yard. I have some nice yarrow and will most likely take a trip along the Ridge (that is Crowley's Ridge which is very unique, Google it) and see what plants are in seed right now. I hope to find some passion flower in seed. I always seem to miss that!

And despite my numerous efforts, I cannot seem to get Echinacea, purple cone-flower, to grow in my yard. I will be snagging some of the Ozark/Golden cone-flower from the prairie garden this year and trying that next year.

Here's to Native Plants! I hope you plant many and learn all about them and their medicinal uses!!

Feel free to share your favorites!

easy recipe

Trailer park Mama has a nice recipe for Calendula salve on her blog today. If you have not seen her blog yet, you should go and give it a lookie loo!

ADVENTURES OF A TRAILER PARK MAMA

delicious rain and cooler temps!

I am so loving the weather this past week! Lower temperatures: in the lower 80s and now we have had a couple days of awesome thunderstorms WITH rain!!!! (sometimes we have them without rain)

and now I have to wait for the grass to dry and mow. I have not had to mow for over a month!!

I have called for an estimate for a hand pump to be put on my well, no answer yet. And I hope to be able to put a greenhouse around the pump. I have an idea of what I want, even have it kinda sketched out. Now to build it. lol! I will need help for that since I have no clue!

Soaps at the Farmers Market!

Lot's of lovely soaps at the Farmers Market!