Tools of the Gardening Trade

I love gardening! There’s just something therapeutic and satisfying about being outside, listening, smelling, breathing, living nature that revives my very being. Each season brings new experiences and I hope to learn more.

After a very inspiring email I received from my Mom, I decided to post some of the tools etc that have been very helpful in my gardening endeavors.

I do a lot of weeding on my knees so, this wonderful squishy knee board really helps a lot! I don't always use the gloves, but they seem to help grip the weeds better than my bare hands as they have a anti slip coating on them. Aren't those Million Bells lovely!

I've had these crocks for YEARS! They were given to me by an elderly friend as a thank you gift for helping her pack when she was moving. They are the most comfortable footwear I own! Sometimes, if my feet are hurting, I'll even wear them inside when I'm washing dishes or cooking. I wear them in the garden all the time. Some of the vegetables I grow I get as plants that have already been started at the greenhouse. The trowel is perfect for digging the right size hole to plant them in!

Of all the tools I have, the roto tiller has to be my favorite! I just can't imagine how I've ever gotten along without it. You may notice that it's called "Super Bronco"... They didn't name it that for no reason, but I have managed to tame the bucking machine. It's rather temperamental in that, if you don't maneuver it correctly, it will really take off! Fortunately for me, it has a safety mechanism so if you let go of it, it'll stop, Notice I said, 'IF you let go'. One day, I was tilling doing just fine when, all of a sudden I hit a patch that 'spooked' my tiller and it jumped and galloped away... with me holding on for dear life. I felt like my daughter when she was little walking our dog who was actually walking HER! All she could've done was let go of the leash and she would've been fine but, she held on for dear life and soon she was being drug across the yard until I hollered at her to let go. Now, said dear daughter was watching her mother do the same thing and laughing rather hard about it. 

Now that I have mastered the skill of tilling with it, it has really been a blessing! I till just before planting my row to make the grown freshly soft. I till between the planted rows periodically to keep the weeds down so my garden doesn't get out of hand.

Here's the ever faithful hoe for those narrow places that the tiller can't get into such as between the rows of corn. Eventually, the corn, which is planted just a little closer together, gets too big and it's not a good idea to till between them even if you fit through because it could damaged the spreading roots below the ground. 

This is another must-have! Diatomaceous Earth consists of fossilized remains of diatoms, a type of hard-shelled algae. This fine powder has many uses and can even be taken eternally. What do I do with it? I sprinkle it on the leaves of my plants and it helps stops unwanted pests from eating the leaves. I have been told that when the beetles etc eat the leaves, they eat the D.E. which slices their intestines causing them to die. Sounds barbaric, doesn't it! According to Wikipedia it dries the little culprits insides up and causes them to die. However it works, I only know that it DOES work. 

This is a picture of my bean plant. Notice that the older leaves on the bottom are full of holes while, the upper newer leaves look nice and healthy!

My dear hubby brought this compost tumbler home for me. It has a vented lid on both ends for easy access adding scraps such as egg shells, coffee grounds, fruit peelings, vegetable scraps. I've even plopped a few earth worms in there! Ever so often, I flip it the over putting the fresher scraps on the bottom. If you have a good compost, it should not have a foul odor but a nice earthy smell.

My childhood love for wagons overtook me this past spring. I was bound and determined to buy one and had it delivered to my door. My sweet boy assembled it for me and I wheeled my green buddy out the door and into the garden! It has been so convenient to have! Until I got a hose, I had to haul the water down to the garden and water each plant by hand (a rather time consuming chore) so I was able to haul 3 5-gallon buckets at once instead of just one. I pull it around as I'm weeding. The sides come down and I can sit in it while I harvest or weed, or prop my feet on it while I sit under the tree and shell peas.

When my little friends come over, they have a blast pulling each other around in it.

When you have a garden as large as mine, (104' x 68') rain is a real blessing? Living where it's humid and we usually see lots of rain, there are still times in between that I need to water if I want my pantry filled. Even though my wagon was a great blessing in hauling all that water to the garden, a hose was a quick addition to my "tool chest". But I was still spending HOURS watering with the hose and so a sprinkler was gifted by my dad who didn't want his daughter turning into a lobster standing in the blazing sun. It works GREAT! You see, ever since I got it, hooked it up, turned it on -  it rained! It's been raining pretty regularly ever since! Amazing, isn't it? Sorry, I don't have a picture of the sprinkler, but I guess everyone knows what a sprinkler looks like anyway!

Diatomaceous Earth works great for certain pests but, not for furry cute ones such as rabbits and squirrels! I watched one such long-eared cutie pie take his liberty on one of my biggest marigold blooms the other day! Dad said it was time for me to get a BB gun. I was a little worried about it as I don't want to actually KILL the critters, just scare them off. Dad assured me that it wouldn't harm them so, I was excited to try it out. Only problem is, just like the efficiency of my sprinkler, I haven't seen on single critter since I got the gun! Actually, I take that back.... My husband was out there pounding stakes in for my tomatoes to be strung up when I saw a CRITTER!
ME: "OOOH! A target!!!"
HUBBY: "Where?"
ME: "There!" pointing to a black cat on the far side of the garden
HUBBY: "that's not a target! That's the neighbor's CAT!"
ME: "I just want to see if I could actually hit it!"
HUBBY: "Are you crazy??
I didn't answer that as I realized I would have to be a good aim if I were to avoid shooting my husband. I don't think he would've appreciated it too well.

Well, this is the end of my list of tools for now. Do you have a favorite tool you like to use in the garden? I'd love to hear about it. 

First Canning of 2016 ~ PICKLES!

I really enjoy canning the fruit of our labor. It's such a joy to see my shelves fill up with fruit and vegetables that we will use for the next year. I also love sharing with others what the Lord has blessed ME with!

This year I planted only 1 row of Straight Eight and Marketmore. Not all of my plants did very well as the farthest half of my garden doesn't have very good soil. I'll need to work it more as time goes on.

After a few pickings of cucumbers and storing them in my fridge, I had enough cucumbers to pickle! I was pleasantly surprised to end up with 14 pints of dill pickles to store away! I've tried a recipe or two for dill pickles and I will keep trying till I find one that I like but, for today, I just used Mrs. Wages mix for this batch.

One thing I have learned is that it's important to pick the cucumbers before they get very big. I like to use them when they are about an inch in diameter. If you let them get too big, the pickles will be mushy and the seeds a bit tough. It's also important not to over process them (like I did last year!)

If you have a recipe that you have tried and love, I'd love to try it out!

Blooming Where I'm Planted

Have you ever wondered just how many times a plant can be transplanted and still thrive? Meet some of the plants I have been blessed to be acquainted with that have had this experience – some on several occasions.

I dug this lovely Bugle Weed (Ajuga Reptans) from my mother's flower bed and planted it in mine 50 miles and approximately 4000 feet lower elevation. At the time, I really didn't give it much thought whether it would survive or not; I simply planted it and it DID survive and thrived in spite of the change in soil and dramatic heat change. Purple flowers of the plant bloomed for me every Spring and again in the Fall. The roots of this plant are shallow and likes to be well watered often. It didn't particularly like the hot sun and I discovered in time that it seemed to move itself under the shade of my rosebush.

Then we moved to a cooler higher climate. I dug up as many of the plants as could fit in my large planters. I was determined it would go wherever I went. I know…  I’m overly sentimental for my own good… but, that’s just me!

Then we moved AGAIN. Not too much difference in climate in the new location but I decided that I would keep my darlings in the pots until I knew where we were going to settle down, buy a house and “grow roots”.

Then we got ready to move AGAIN! This time the climate would be dramatically different than anything these little troopers had ever experienced! We were moving approximately 1800 miles away! As we prepared to leave behind the beautiful state in which I grew up, I found, to my horror, that my beloved Ajuga Reptans – (Fairy Carpet as my mother and I have always called them) was gone!!! My broken heart sank deep into the sandy earth and I cried – literally cried. The only thing I could think of that could’ve happened to them was that they were devoured in the night by a hungry furry critter – perhaps the lone squirrel that would steal the bread I left for my Jay birds and Mourning doves. I can’t imagine that any of the dozens of cottontails that mowed and fertilized my lawn each night could’ve ever been guilty. There was no evidence and no one to charge for the crime. They were simply gone. And not long after, so was my family and I.

I wanted to take every rock, every tree, every mountain, every sunrise and sunset, every star and every person that was so dear to my heart. But, obviously, that was quite impossible and I have only the fond memories and pictures of my purple Bugle Weed.

Whoever would’ve thought that I would’ve ever uprooted and live 1800 miles away! But here we are. Along with all our other possessions, I did manage to bring some beautiful iris bulbs that was given to me by a dear elderly friend we left behind and a houseplant given to me by another friend as a thank you gift for helping THEM to move.

I never knew how many absolutely gorgeous varieties of irises there are! These were dug up by my elderly friend and placed in a bucket where they stayed for quite some time until we finally transplanted them. They’ve since been transplanted again two more times. I’ve shared some of the bulbs with other friends just in case by all our transplanting mine should ever bite the dust.

I had transplanted some of my Fairy Carpet into the same pot as the asparagus! 

Another plant I transplanted a number of times is the asparagus I planted upside down in containers. I wasn’t able to tell which end was the roots so I just planted them. After several weeks of no sign of life, I dug them back out and figured out that I had indeed planted them upside down (perhaps China could use some asparagus?) I was happy I had planted them in containers as it made it so much easier in our moving escapades to take them along. They still had to adjust to climate changes but they did very well – until…. I had to move them so we could paint our house. As I lifted the pots, I heard the most devastating sound: the ripping sound of roots! A few days later, most of the plants turned yellow and died! It took a very long time for the remaining plants to recover. I gave them to a friend of mine when we headed east.

So, I suppose it depends on the type of plant and just how much love and care it’s given whether or not it will survive so many times of being transplanted. Only time will tell.