Reporting In

So here I am in FL, and pleased to report, that the garden has a tender!  Mom is doing a wonderful job keeping the babies well tended and growing happy as clams.  The transplanted sunflowers have even made it passed a week of life now and I'm so happy!  There were three babies, but only two made it, but that's better than nothing!  She's even sent pictures to show us all how wonderful they were doing!  That picture is the weekend that I left, and the one on the right is as of last night! You can see the two tiny baby sunflowers in the bottom left corner!  The bud below is from the sunflower that towers over the shoulder of my momma now, and she reports it as a 2 inch in diameter, golfball shaped bud.  Hopefully it doesn't bloom until I get home on Sunday!

The elephant ear has grow exponentially! From the tiny bud in the last post, to a two pronged leaf baring beauty! Soon it might get taller and I simply can't wait. There are so many growing things that she has had to send over 9 pictures last night to cover all the bases!  And apparently last night she potted the picasso petunias, the tequila sunrise petunias, and weeded! The picasso's you can't really tell, but they have purply pink flowers, with lime green tips! They are beautiful! You never know what you might find! She added some other plants but I can't quite make out what they are but there's also some spikeys!

Its the neatest thing ever.  The dill, and the lavender are yet to be close uped, but I saw some yellowing on the dill's lower branches but mom said that was from a few days in between where she couldn't make it.  It will recover and hopefully get nice and strong and big! I love the dill, its so fluffy! And for those of you that keep up on the garden progress and knew the marigolds were just starting to recover right before I left... I have a picture for you!!!!!

WHOOT! WHOOT!  More to come!!!!

From your loving gardener in the forever spring!

-Tine!

P.S.

Guess who's growing! (Mom found him while culling at home!

Recovering

Alright! So today was not my best day, but that doesn't mean I can't think of something to make the day better and guess what... I have just the thing to do it. This morning was not one of my better moments and I think I have dishonored myself in the face of my employers for it, but hopefully, because they are such great people, they won't hold it against me. Either way, in an effort to drag myself from this ridiculous rut I decided that it was time I went to Nicky's and did some gardening. Her garden is less mine and more of just a relaxing place to sit while I planted sunflowers into the seed plugs she gave be for my birthday. 2 rows of Sunspots, 2 rows Dwarf Incredible, 2 rows Teddy Bears, AND 2 rows of Mammoth Russians. That's a lot more sunflowers than I should be allowed to even touch in one day, but I have already plugged them and as of tomorrow we will be on the look out for the babies so they can be put in the garden and Chris and Kelly's. I do love sunflowers. I wish I was one. I also trimmed the chives, which will soon go in the book! Found the lavender from last year has sprouted and begun making flowers, and transplanted basil and the mystery plant that I had in one of the seed plugs. Butterflies were making their appearance today as well. I think in an effort to feel better, tomorrow i will document all the photos down and make a photo entry to show how bright the world is. I have to say, he made everything beautiful. I just have to look out my window.

Harvest Season

That's right guys its time to start harvesting! And I did so, last night! I began with the bushy globe basil last night. It was the only plant that I allowed to create flowers, because that way I would have busy plants from it from next year. HOWEVER! After much research it seems that I may have harvested too early on that one, but I got 10 black seeds, the rest were white and thus immature when I picked them. But 10 seeds is all I need for next year! They are lovely little things, tiny and round and look just like their brothers in the seed packs! This means I have my very first 2nd generation Tine Seeds! After harvesting that plant, I removed it from the garden, its had its day and we all waved goodbye.

After that we moved on to the coleus, which had tons of seeds to share with me! Lots from only the pink and purple one because I like the multicolored ones and I think it will look nicer net year to have the same kinds in the one pot together. Those seed pods were so interesting! I mean how do you think God decided that he wanted 4 little seeds in each pod and that you'd have to peel the pod apart to get at them, just to replant again next year? Very fun.

After THAT! we hung Emma's basil upside down to dry because its come to the end of its rope. Literally, hehehe.

So yes, the harvest has begun and after I finished writing this! Time to trim back the lavender! If mom doesn't thwart me again...

Sunny with a Chance of Meatballs

Ah a good morning to my plants!

I've had a rather busy last few days believe me you! It was frigid the other night and I simply couldn't in my right mind leave those poor babies on the front porch. It was just far more cold than I would have expected, exactly 47, and I draw the line at 50 for the little plants to be outside, SO! I cleaned up the closet and hung the plant lamp present from my friend and brought them into the house. They spent the night in my well lit warm closet and stretched out.

The Lavender is making new growth as well even though I keep telling momma that it will get woody and will be unable to prune it once we wait too long. But that happens. It does smell great!

However! You know how I said that my closet got cleaned out? Well if you recall what was in there I'd like to report! My sunflower seeds dried and were ripe for the picking. I sorted them appropriately, apparently the only edible sunflower seeds are ones where the husk has white stripes on it. So I picked out all those and put the others in a bag for aunty patty's cardinals and jays. Can't wait to drop that off, but look at my harvest! There are several more sunflowers ready for hravesting when I go back to work on Monday, but we'll see if there's room for them in the closet. WHOO!

Indoor/Outdoor

So I spent today playing soccer and going through pictures so I thought it was time I updated everyone on the beautiful garden! I have tons of new pictures and even a video! Just a panned view of the garden, but here's my outdoor garden and Chris and Kelly's:

Those are my dahlias, and as of Thursday there are five of them! Next year I'm going to try ball dahlias. Those colors are just captivating if you ask me. And the Sunflowers, there's tons of them!!!

My happy little people, they are always asking me to show them flowers and here they are. I even managed to take those sunflowers that were finished and have begun to dry them.

Its a beautiful place that makes me reallly happy. Next time I'm there on Thursday I am thinking I will finish trimming in the backyard and update. I just love it so much. Next year the plan is tulips, hyacinths, and teddy bear sunflowers! God gave us so much, I thank him for that.

THIS! Is my home garden. I just finished grooming a basil and another has met its end. It had the trunk of a tree and was starting to lose all its leaves. There was no harvesting it, but it was so beautiful and brought joy to my home. It is good to have these things around me. Soon they will come indoors. The Lavender will be groomed back to the wood and brought inside next week, to be placed under the lamps that were gifted to me, as well as the baby basils that are beginning to grow. Growing season is almost over... for the outside!

They are growing so fast that I'm going to cry when they start to wilt.

This is the marigold this morning: and this is this afternoon!

The basil is producing flowers and is ready to harvest soon as well! And with that I say! adieu!

Sorting

Alright so a few days ago my honey badger/sunflower bunny/MIK, came home. It was great to have him here and show off my little seedies to him. Of course he thinks that its silly no doubt, or my obsession with them is. I think I told him at least ten times how excited I was that, get this, THE CUMIN HAS SPROuTED!!!! Soooo exciting. That's right, two little cumin sprouts.

Now, now some of you might not know just what a cumin plant is good for an apothecary. Wellll, I don't know either! HAhaha, so I'm going to use this time to tell you.

Alright, so first off, apparently as a tea it aids with acute stomach pain. More tea making ^^ And of course this time I get to find out what flavors go with the taste. According to my sources, its a spicy little seed, so making a tea from it should be a new experience. It can help with flatulence, indigestion, diarrhea, nausea, morning sickness, and atonic dyspepsia, AND great for tumors in small animals. If I'd known that I would definitely have been growing cumin before when my aunt's bunny rabbit 'Bean' got sick.

Ooooo! I just found some hugely good news for my sunflower bunny, Mikki. According to several sites, cumin is good for the kidneys and livers. Now this might not seem so oddly amazing but you have to take into consideration, the HSP. Lately the henoch schonlein purpura has been tearing apart his kidneys lately. There has been a large about bleeding there and I think that perhaps if I could get him to try some cumin tea that perhaps it might just help him a little bit. Now the trick is getting Mikki to try it because well, to put it plainly the man does not like tea, nor does he like homeopathic remedies, but I think if I give him this expression, O_O He might just do it so that I'll stop giving him creepy stares.

Also it helps with lung pains, and that's something I REALLY need. I've been using an inhaler and steroids to open up my lungs for years. Anything I can try to help makes me a happy girl. Hopefully I just make the tea tolerate.

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Oh and also for the record. I went to the storage last night and retrieved some pots. his morning I checked to make sure that I had all my soil and such. I'm going to wait until Saturday before potting though because I would like the seedlings to raise up a bit higher. They are still a bit short.

Tomorrow! I am taking my pouch of things to Chris and Kelly's house so that whilst the little one's are asleep i can pull that persistent plant from the ground and pack all the leaves away into a bag. In my pouch, is going: pruning scissors, garden gloves, hand trowel, hand hoe, garbage bag, and bulbs! I don't know if tomorrow I'll get far enough into the cleaning process to plant yet, BUT I want to be prepared.

For those of you who don't understand why this means so much to me. In all honesty its a lot more about finally being able to give something to Chris and Kelly after all the things they have done for me. After the two years I have spent working for them, they have taken such good care me as a person. Paying my doctor's bill when I got sick, and just the way they treat me. They are good people. I want to give them a beautiful garden.

So Many

Oh its glorious my friends! The Bellflowers! The Bellflowers have sprouted. They are sooo tiny, and they are so incredibly small that I barely was capable of taking their picture, but I wanted to document their greatness. There's so many. I was so worried about the little guys that they weren't going to sprout, but I never expected them to be so small considering they are suppose to get about 12 inches tall. They are of course for the garden plot, not for the house, but still very exciting.

Anyway after the discovery this morning that the bellflowers had sprouted I went about checking on all the happy little babies and low and behold! Both the basil and the poor man's weather glass have grown the same height and look at them!

It has been such a wonderful Saturday. Apart from the bigness of all this, I just realized that the sunflowers, awesomely huge as they are, the roots are all puffy and fuzzy. Very neat.

WHOOT!

That's right all today was the day! I finally planted my first seedlings. An entire container of sunflowers. Sunspot Sunflowers. I decided finally the flower choices for the 'plot' I was given. Its a flower bed in the back yard of my wondrous employers Chris and Kelly. Its a stretch about 8 to 12 feet by about 3. A very nice spot. And I've decided to do three kinds of flowers in a tier. Starting with the tallest, the Sunspot sunflowers, which I'd like you to know the seeds were huge! Had to plant them a whole inch into the peat pellets, I hope it works. The next tier is a lovely white flower called a bellflower. Suppose to be very nice accent flowers. Those were the other ones I planted. Those things seeds were so small I didn't know how many I actually put into the little pellets. Lots of seeds to be weeded out once they pop up. The third tier hasn't been planted yet, those will be multi colored fancy pansies. All large flowers.

Anyway, the process was fun, I missed getting dirt under my nails. Tomorrow, I am going to take Sarah and Jonathan into the backyard to work on the flower bed. Work to be done: Weeding, tilling, edging. Hopefully the first will get done. ^.^ Loving the nice weather! I'll keep you all updated on the sprouts. This year is gonna rock!

The coming Spring!

Oh my am I excited! I was driving home from my finacee's house today and let me tell you guys! I saw it! Green GRASS! You know what that means? It means that the rowing season is about to begin. I held off because of all this months ongoing tribulations, such as heartattacks, broken arms, and birthdays, but I'm telling you, coming March first... if there is no snow on the ground I am starting those little seedlings! Now to find out which, so many seeds so little time!