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Updated Garden pics!
Pomegrante bushes
Basil and what’s left of the tomatoes and parsley
And the beautiful pommie tree by my front door. It’s in the neighbors yard of course but its still so pretty!
I can tell fall is coming. Allergies are here and I don’t have to keep the fan on us all night! YAY! Well, about the fan anyways. 
I have had a very busy weekend. We started our fall garden. YAY!
David cut some pomegrante and tried planting a hedge of them over the weekend. Two lived but two have died and we transplanted the volunteers from our garden into the dead ones bowl and they are looking very healthy. This is day 5 so we’ll see. I love pomegrante season. My neighbor has a bush that she always lets us pick from. It will be so nice to have my own though.
They are more heavily mulched now of course.
Here is the first row we planted. In that row there is two rows of radishes. Its a little over a ft wide so its easily fits two rows of radishes. We also planted two rows of green beans, pole and bush type but I haven’t gotten a picture of it yet.
They are already starting to come up. Its sooo exciting. Now here is alittle rant. PET owners. PLEASE keep your dogs and cats inside YOUR yard. We woke up this morning to find pot holes in our rows. Our neighbors dog came and trambled the row. Its VERY discouraging to spend hours preping the soil, planting and using a lot of TLC only to have it trampled to death within minutes. It is not a little mishap. It’s one that could have been avoided. This happens every season. Also, our garden is NOT a liter box for your cats. Please keep your cats liter box cleaned or something. We have tried to be friendly and neighborly about this but it has come to the point where if we find your animal in our yard we will take it to the pound. I know we are not the only ones that have had trouble with this. So if you own pets, please concider what their roaming around can cause. Thank you. 
So, this weekend we also pulled out a closet in the bedroom. This was a very hard task to do. A) because the previous owners built the closet into the ceiling. Smart on their part because they wanted a sturdy closet but very bad for us that wanted it out. Don’t worry we still have 2 closets in the bedroom
So this is before.
and this is after (but before my sprucing up)
I’ll have to update you on what that now looks like. I have a couple homemade quilts hangin up. So pretty and more baby-room looking without having to have a baby room! She still sleeps with us in the “master” bedroom. Its so nice to not have that crib blocking the clothes closet and having to move it everytime you need to get in. Especially for the preggo mom here. ;) I can’t tell you what a relief it has been to have it and a more organized room.
Another yard sale this weekend!
I am also pulling a plug for my used items blog that also has the homemade dresses on it. My friend is also going to use my blog to sell some of her gently used second hand clothes. Two stay-at-home moms bloggin’ away goods for your sweeties. It does help us pay the bills so before you go to the thrift store or second hand store, see if there is anything you could use. Save the ebay hassle too! For all my stuff if you buy six items or lots you recieve free shipping!
Ok, its almost dinner time and I should actually make something. EEK! Where has the day gone?
I am actually going to combine Tuesday and Wednesday and do a gardening book. I have a yard sale planned for Friday so I have found this week rather hectic.
I would like to write about my most useful Gardening book called,
Extreme Gardening
We use this book for our gardening like we use the Bible. Although the Bible is perfect, I do say that this book is not quite perfect in regards to being able to plant the perfect garden but it’s the most useful book ever! David (the author) plants and has simular weather and soil conditions we do.
It is more like a dictionary with information on bugs, soil condition, planting conditions, weather condition and all that. Its MOSt useful for knowing what to plant together. For example he tells us what not to plant next to Leeks. “Protect it: Avoid putting Leeks with Broccoli and Broad Beans”.
We have had most sucess with using this book as our gardening guide. I would recommend the investment in the book. I know most reading this blog do not have such hard soil and weather that we do but it is also good for organic fertilizers, pestides (natural of course) and so on. It tells you how to harvest, how to work with the soil, etc. You may need to ajust the planting seasons but I would say that this book is still good for beginners.
Enjoy!
Well this is very late in the day. So sorry. Its been a hectic day.
Today we did a little gardening. I am planning my fall garden and so far the vegetable plot will consist of,
~1 row of carrots (mini carrots are better for out here since it will either get to hot before they get long enough and will be biter or the frost will come and nip em again before they are long enough)
~ 2 rows of green beans
2 rows of peas (sugar snap and “normal”)
~ 1/2 row of spinach
~1/2 row of lettuce
~ 1/2 row of green onion with beets
1/2 row of squash
This is what has been planned so far for the veggies. List subject to change.
Today I concentrated on a small plot for some herbs and cosmos. It’s near the mailbox and I have been dying to work the soil there. At 7:30am this morning the temp. was already 92f and it was hard digging in the soil with a belly out to there and a child to watch, but we managed and here is the process;
1. First I had to pull the Bermuda or crab grass out. I didn’t get a before shot but this is what the plot next to it looks like. Just to give you an idea. Now, this took 1/2 hour to do because a) I am very allergic to the weed. I break out in hives. I hate wearing gloves. I love the feel of dirt and soil beneath my fingers so I don’t own a pair of gloves and find them a nuisance anyways when you are trying to work. THey are constantly falling off or doing something naughty. So It was all done by shovel and a spade and a small size rake.
2. I bought (yes I did! :O ) some top soil. Organic. I knew we would need our compost for the veggie plot and since that seemed more useful to me than a small hobby area I spent a whole $1.50 on some top soil. So here you have the weeded area and the top soil ready to go on.
3. This is now the soil worked in and wetted down. I wet my soil down before I do any plantin’. The reason for this is to get my soil even. Once the ground is wet and soaked down I will again work the soil to a more even setting. I like evenness.
Now I really can’t do much at this point and I have been outside an hour and the sweat is pouring all over me and babykins is ready for her morning nap. So I snap a few pics of my gardening/sodbustering partner and in we go;
Actually, we first went on a small 20 minute walk THEN she went to bed. I brought the camera with me and did manage to snap a few pictures for your pleasure;
Whats left of our flood. I think it makes our desert area look more authentic. LOL.
Wild Mint. I am going to figure out how to get some of that home!
Our street is famous for its flock of quail. I love it when the babies are out but never manage to get a picture before they leave the coop so to speak. I managed to snap this picture using our zoom feature but it still was dissapointing to be about 100 feet away and them already rushing away. But it made such a cute lil picture.
Our house at a first glance…
Once inside the gate…
And to the left… our famous garden.
You know, I have only been here about 2 years. My husband bought the house about 1-2 years before we were married. He got a job and bought a house when we became very serious in our courtin’ stage. And even then it was still 2 years before we got married… no it wasn’t exactly planned that way so we could have a nest egg. My dear husband wanted so badly to have the perfect home to bring his bride too. It was so sweet of him and he stressed about it so much that I reminded him that he needed to leave me a job for the home. I cant spend all day cleaning up after a meal we share in the morning and spend the rest of the day working on dinner. LOL. Poor guy wasn’t totally convinced that he shouldn’t ready the house. I felt like saying with Charlotte Lucas from Pride and Prejudice;
“I ask only a comfortable home…”
We came here to a deserted yard. We have made a compost bin and area. We have worked hard soil into a garden plot. We planted two peach tree’s that died. 1 ash tree that still lives and a sycamore tree that died. We are working on a drive way for the cars by lining the way with Michaelmas Daisies. All in all, we really have come very far! I could have done more during the 8 months of being a newly wed I totally admit. But once the children started coming while the process slowed, we ended up in the long run getting more done! It is amazing the way God works out even the small details in our life.
So, this has been your Tuesday report.
I’ll tear down in my next blog entry but before I do that I decided to post something how I would love to share MY american dream. We all heard what the american dream is, whatever you don’t have. So here we go… I would have…
Chickens! I have always longed for chickens…
David and I have talked about having 1 dozen. Why so many? Well we would use atleast 4 eggs a day. Then there is my in-laws to concider, my parents, and a few extra to sell (eggs I mean) $$ to help with the chicken feed. I already have a few of them named, Flopsy, Mopsy, and Mrs. Bennett
Then of course we would have the goats…
And no names like Sugar, buttermilk, and that, NO NO, we must have, Cheesecake, and cream cheese.
Then I must give hubby his horse.
Then we will move on to the farm land… and idea herb garden PATCH (not the complete thing mind you.. )
Patch of garden…
And then, the front porch, to sit and talk in the evening over a glass of lemonade. To watch the children play as you sit and do a bit of needlework…
I am not even going to begin on the inside… It’s what’s on the outside that counts right?
Today is Morgann’s graduation. I am sure my Mother will blog about it. But it left Friday very busy.
We mostly did a lot of gardening. But I made some fresh tea as well.
I am really looking forward to my tea. It’s bought from -www.bulkherbstore.com and I was so pleased with the excellent service they provided.
In my tea is Red Raspberrt, Alfalfa, Nettle, and Peppermint. And it tastes excellent!
We then did our gardening-
This is a little decor on my part. I L.O.V.E. Pinecones. I think they add the sweetest decor’ to any garden. This is how I spruce up flower beds.
We also planted some herbs, mint (ladies, my solution to get rid of ants. We will see if it work’s or not. )
Here, I put them up by the house. You can see more of my flowerbed decor’. I don’t claim to be an expert. Nor is there a particular style of decorating. I just throw in what I like.
Upclose shot;
There’s that sod again!
This one will go in our house. We are not sure where exactly since our diningroom table already homes 2 plants and the computer desk one. Maybe on top of the bookcase by the open window. Early morning sun, afternoon shade. Perfect!
I also planted one Zucinni Squash plant. The poor lil thing looked so neglected at Walmart when I was purchasing the mint so I decided to find a home for him as well. We love zucinini around here.
He looks more perky today.
This is our summer garden, we think those are cantelope, they are voluntary whatever they are. We’ll love em!
This is what happens when you have to work the soil a lot. I am not sure what number of fixin’ this shovel handle is on but it’s not it’s first.
But our happiest moment of the day was to find lil basil peeking from the ground. They have survived first stage. Shall they continue on to the next round? Doesn’t that just wanna make you smile! Have a wonderful weekend!
God give you a good Sunday worship!
In reply to this ladies post about my comment, I am replying with a long comment of my own.
Well if we waited for perfect soil we would never get any planting done. LOL! We just need to get the soil turned enough and worked enough so that we can actually dig holes, rows, whathaveyou to actually plant the stuff. Right now if you go into the yard and pick up a shovel most of the dirt you will work for about maybe 1 hour (without soaking or anything) to get a gallon size hole. It’s hard as a rock. We do have some sandy area’s and taht is where i want to plant some things this fall. the problem is, it’s right in the sun, little shade so even with a good thick layer of mulch you still get browned leaves from the intense heat and I don’t think plants need a good California tan.
LOVE mulching. We use left-over straw from the “local” feedbarn place and it also provides a cover crop for later on because the oat seeds tend to plant themselves. It’s so cool.
we usually get rain sometime in Oct. and January, maybe March. Those are our rain months. Usually all day drizzle and maybe 1 hour or 2 of hard rain. So a lot of our watering is from wells and such so water gets to be somewhat expensive when the droubt is here. So we use the water drop off from the cooler to soak the grounds.
And one, hardworking hubby, he is replacing a fuel pump on my in-laws car…
Say, HI! Sweetie…
The element of surprise…
Then there was… The star of the show!
Watering Can! Yep, that’s right, watering cans now have a new and unique look that makes everyone wanna go out and buy 10. The best news is yet to come, you will receieve free juice in the process (well unprocesses juice of a sort). So go and get your new watering cans at any local grocery store!
Yes, that is my watering bottle for my indoor and sometimes outdoor plants. Since most watering cans that you can buy cost an arm and a leg we improvised and found more than one use for our empty juice bottles. One is actually our out of town water jug as well. Keeps nice and cool if you fill it 1/4 way of water, freeze, then when you leave fill the rest up with water. It usually stays cool our whole trip when we see the chiropracter. That’s about 4 hours! Back to my plants, they enjoy these water bottles cause sometimes they also recieve the leftover drops of juice or even the smell of apple juice on their soil. And my indoor plants look so healthy I’d like to think it was my improved watering can. Amazing what you can find to acomplish on a tight budget.
This is my kitchen window. That is my gift from Mamacita (Mother-in-law). I had two but one I tried transplanting to a bigger pot and it died… outdoors too. Sigh. Such persnickity little plants. This one looks about pooped but it has looked that way for almost a year now. Amazing lil guys. Love my aloe vera. I can forget to water it for 2 weeks and it will still look fresh and green. Well, as fresh as I can make it.
Have a wonderful weekend!
There are many ways we enjoy the first fruits. In this respect it’s our first Fruit enjoying the first fruit of the garden…
One yummy tomato… no, we didn’t really let her eat it..yet.
When a “country night” is mentioned I think of a swaying porch swing, crickets and frogs singing, full moons, a sky so black that the stars seem bigger and brighter than ever. Well, here in our little area we experiance all that in the day. Well, the frog and cricket songs anyway. AS I type this my windows are open to let the summer breeze come in. I have no curtain fluttering in the wind because soon that breeze will turn into a dust devil. I hear the crickets chirping all the time all day here. Our neighbor has some very large and very full Oleander bushes (BLECH!) that seems to grow not only bush wise but bug wise. We have thousands of cockroaches, and other such things. But its the cricket songs that remind me of the Country LIfe dream.
The other night it was a beautiful cool evening. So my husband and I pulled out the old kitchen chairs and put them on the front porch and talked like we did back in the courtin’ days. We talked about the life we dreamed of (real farm!) the “pets” we someday would have (chickens, goats and horses) and all that. The crickets sang (or scoffed at) for us that night too. It was not long before the child emerged from my husband when I pointed a frog not to far away. With a leap (like the frog) he was after it. I took his picture
That’s no frog! That’s a Horney Toad! He must have been tryin’ to court Molly Mouse. For those of you that are a little confused, type in “Froggie went a courtin’” on google search. Sung only by the Brothers Four. The best group out there. And they are still living! Imagine that!
Tomorrow I plan to post about a day in the life of sodbusters…Chas blog (see right hand side) has really interested me enough that I wanna do it too.
I couldn’t think of a more snatching title and since I have some ladies that love my garden updates I thought I would appease them.
Today will only be the garden up by the house. Mainly flowers but there are some tomatoe plants and herbs.
Snapdragons, Alysum, Volunteer Black-eyed-Susan we think.
More snapdragons, gladiolas, Pansy, and not sure what the other one is…
Tomatoes
More tomatoes, gladiolas, dying tulips, marigold, and alysum
Flower bed up by the house
After hollyhocks the African Daisy is my hubby’s favorite flower. Although he doesn’t know it, but its one of the first flowers he eyes and buys. More tomatoes and you can see the herbs peaking in their pots. I think the cilantro is going to go to pot though… no pun intended.
And our budding gardener… She is planning to compost the left over herb soil and replant. What a helper!
Well, we have no crocus but here is what we have been working on so far.
THis is up by the house. I have a pot garden going right now. For some reason the pansy’s are getting too much water. Not sure how that can happen when they dry out by the end of the day so that’s an experiment I am working on. The pot in the middle is an Amyrillas (sp?) and the one on the far right is my new birthday gift from hubby dear, a red verbena- ground cover. Isn’t it gorgeous? No idea where we are going to put it. But if you stay tuned (picture further down) I will show you what I have in mind.
This is also up by the house but gives you a more detailed look at the potted garden. ;) In the shadow there is my cherry tomato (in the whiskey barrel) it already has a few tomatoe’s on it. The rest of the plants just have blossoms.
More tomatoes. In the other Whiskey barrel is my tulips and it looks like Marigolds and allysum are blooming in there!
We have been enjoying fresh salads every night!
Beets, volunteer sunflowers, more tomatoes, parsley, some sort of grain (from the mulch), sugar snap peas, and we will replace the radish row with onions.
This is my current project. I am creating a driveway with michaelmass daisies. The weeds will definetly come up and be replaced with cosmo’s. I also hope to do a raised bed with the verbena, mint, and some other sun flower since that will get all day heat sun. I have a climbing Jessamine plant for the mailbox.
So, how does your garden grow?
We love compost. I believe I have mentioned that earlier. However, some drawbacks are these little boogers;
They are such awful little critters. However, if you have any strappin’ boys or manly men put them to work. This picture was taken just before my handsome husband threw that junebug larva against a brick wall and watched it splatter to kingdom come. Boys will have fun while we women will scurry away in search of something a wee bit more refreshing. Like these perchance?
However if you plan to be more useful in your gardening… Compost piles can have MANY of those awful critters above. While I transplanted my beautiful pansies I had to kill 1 dozen at least and oh boy I think my stomache still is squemish. My point is this, they will completely destroy your tomatoe plants. So if you plan to transplant your tomatoes, like we did, you must make sure that your new pots are clear from those critters.
They love moist soil. Especially if its rotting like compost does. No, this whole blog post is not going to be about them. I thought that was one tidbit you should know about them. But anwyay, here are our tomatoes, happily transplanted.
And here are my fresh herbs. OOh I can’t wait!
Now, I plan to put my herbs along this fence…
My very sweet and handsome brother is pulling that awful crab grass out for me.
So the blog is called sodbusters cause that’s what my old man and me (his old woman) do, bust up our sod. We dream of the day when we will have the stregnth, energy, and money to own a farm. But until then we will spend our free time working the desert soil of our 160 (less than 1/2 an acre) acre’s of soil. Anyway my point is this entry is about gardening… the kind we do here in the desert. Remember, we are about 1 1/2 hours from Death Valley. Yeah, THE Death Valley. So, without further ado…here we go…
So, remember that Ranuculus plant I bought Monday? Well here is the first peek you get of it… Don’t worry more photo’s to come!
So that was planted with one baby on my hip. I kid you not… I don’t even remember how I did that. Anyway, I had to transplant that from one of those cheap plastic containers to a nice tarracotta pot…. now, that is really not recommendable. I need to figure out a nice pot for the desert here. The tarracotta pot can hold in so much heat in the summer that it is just horrible… but the plastic containers the sun just eats. Now you get more of an idea why its a bit difficult to have nice garden here. Anyway, you take it out of it’s previous home (the plastic cheap home, we can call it an apartment) and stick her in her permenant home… the nice brick home. Hey, we live in a brick home too! Saweet. Sorry, straying here. Now, you need to GENTLY loosen the roots. Don’t strangle them. Don’t frighten the life out of the poor thing. Just try to get the roots free to roam around in their new home. Put in your pot and fill with all kind of goodies to make sure they will have a comfortable stay…namely soil. Now my soil comes from my husband’s compost barrels. Have I ever showed them to you? They are pretty nifty lil thing! He used old barrels from the automotive shop he works at (they use to hold Linex stuff) and added a nice lil door with a little welding and a pin.
See?
Now, I must stray again, see that nice soil?!?! That use to be just left over veggies and everything else. That is what a compost bin is. Left over food that you just don’t wanna eat, like banana peels, orange peels, avacado pits, well you get the picture. Add a wee and I mean WEE bit of desert soil and add about 2-4 cups of water a week and you roll those back and forth about 2 a day and you get really nice soil. Now remember that Ranuculus plant? It was used with that soil? Look at the difference;
Anyway, this is what our garden is right now. That good soil is being worked in our soil. This is our second year of good gardening.
Ok the weeds have just got to go! Tomorrows project in our ahem, spare time? See the barrels in the background? See that Devil grass? Some call it Crab Grass, Its weeds. Awful stuff. Just ruin everything about the soil. The roots go all over the place and you will never really get rid of it. It makes me have hives all over. BLECH! YUCK! So my nice brother, the one I just wrote about, Nolan, is going to be bribed, er paid to take em out for me. In that area, I hope to plant a nice herb garden.
What was I saying? Oh yeah, gardening here in the desert. Well, there you have it. Hard work, rewarding, hard work, fun, hard work, we get to reap the fruits of our labors (sometimes literaly), hard work, and I think we have a wee bit of hard work involved. Just in case you had ANY doubt, hard work is involved.
Here are my tulips from last year or the year before, coming back up, yep, I planted them in a whiskey barrel
Now, here is another picture of that Ranuculus plant I promised,
Well, that’s all folk. Thanks for reading and you have a good weekend. :) Hope you have cleaned a few useful things from this entry.
