5-20-13

6:15am

It's going to be a warm one today and tomorrow

at around 88 or so degrees.

We turned our air conditioner on last

night to 77 degrees.  Yeah it seems like

a higher temp to set it at but we try to keep costs down.

If anyone thinks it's warm in here I tell them

to step outside for a few moments then come

back in to see what an 11 degree difference makes!

8:15am

Got most all the plants mulched except for

the ones I planted from seed.

I bought a 2 cubic foot bag of wood mulch

at Menards for $1.50.

This will go a long way as I only put a dent

in the bag after mulching my plants.

If you are wondering what a couple of items are
that are placed in with my garden...
I have two owl decorations and a rubber snake
to help scare of critters.
Before putting the mulch down or the decorations
out I noticed the birds trying to eat?
the egg shells of all things I placed around the plants. 

I'll probably throw some of these wood chips

into my potato tower.  Potatoes like acidic soil.

You can use wood chips, shredded newspaper,

pine needles, peat moss, coffee grounds

to make your soil more acidic for plants.

All these vegetables below like somewhat acidic soil-

Tomatoes, Potatoes, Peas, Beans, Onions,

Peppers, Squash, Berries, Carrots, Cucumbers.


1:30pm


Boy that was close.  I only had 1 dose of Crohn's medicine
left and my mail order prescription came today.
I still can't believe the cost of my one prescription with insurance.
Could you imagine trying to buy it without insurance!

My doctor wanted to put me on Humira for my Crohn's.
My insurance won't cover it so I go without because
it would cost around $7,000 a month!!!
That's for 2-4 doses.


3:10pm


This evening I might do up the last two batches of
potting soil mix.  I need to do four 5 gallon buckets
for my sweet 100 cherry tomatoes.
Then if I have enough leftover I might
fill up 3 or so more flower boxes and do
some more seeds and the rest goes towards
the potatoes.
I'm thinking I might plant some finger carrots,
maybe some mini belle peppers and dill.
We'll see how it goes.

Here is my stockpile of flower, vegetable and fruit seeds.
I also have a mayo jar which has zinnia seeds I 
collected off my flowers last year.
I love zinnias.  They are colorful flowers which
last a long time, are easy to grow and are drought tolerant.
The bag contains marigold seeds which
are good to plant around vegetable gardens.
I get these from my neighbor's yard at the end
of the flower growing season in the Fall.
He didn't plant any this year so I will have to
make a seed stockpile from these if they grow.
Their smell helps to ward off critters.
I still have a metal wire fence I could
put around the garden to keep them out
if they should become a problem.
I know we have stray cats, rabbits, squirrels and opossums.

I got a lot of my seeds from the flea market.
There you can find vendors with many boxes of seeds
that they sell for something like 20 packs for $1.00
or $5.00 for a medium sized box stuffed full
of 100's of packets of seeds!!


3:50pm


Well I got 2 batches of dirt made.
I removed the top layer of leaf mulch from
my potatoes and moved the potatoes
to put down a layer of potting soil mix.
I then put the potatoes in the soil
and buried them just a little since they had sprouts.
I returned some leaf mulch around the
edges of the potato tower to keep the 
soil from falling out the sides.
Will continue to add leaf mulch as the potatoes grow.


8:10pm


They're back!
My three squirrels I've nicknamed
Larry, Curly and Moe.
They've been trying really hard to try
and figure out how to get seed out of
the bird feeders.
For now they've resorted to feeding
off the crumbs on the ground.