Log #3: Some Formal Documentation

I think I should document when I started my seeds.
I am not quite sure, but April 18th I talked about planting them, and April 23rd, my Marigolds sprouted.

So, we will say April 19th, I planted my seeds. For the record.

I am starting to worry, but going off me planting the seeds on the 19th, it has only been 11 days.

Now, from the packets, here are the days to germinate:

Columbine: 22-30
Lavender: 14-28
Parsley: 14-21
Canterbury: 14-21
Marigolds: 10-14
Snapdragon: 10-14
Sage: 7-14
Chives: 7-14

I am surprised Columbine takes the longest. I would have thought Canterbury and Snapdragon would be at the top.

I am worried about my herbs and why they aren't growing. -sigh-

By the way, not sure if anyone really reads this, so I may as well just apologize to myself - lol - for not having any recent pictures. I wanted this blog to be a mostly photo blog, but without that USB cable for my digital camera, I can't do much. If something major happens, I'll use my camera phone.

Yesterday Was An Informational Day

...And then some.

The people across the street from me have a real nice and tidy garden. 7:30am had rolled around yesterday and I had yet to even sleep, so I was determined to go find mulch.

I went to WalMart to see. I asked one of the workers there if they carried any, and she replied 'no', though I could check back Monday.
I went inside and to the nursery section and saw these beautiful and exotic looking flowers called Fuschia. They had ones growing straight up and others that were for hanging. The ones for hanging were $13, and I misread the straight up ones, thought they were $21.

I bought some weed killer, the kind you spray. Yesterday was gloomy, and the bottle suggested to spray on a sunny day. I will try this tomorrow.

When I came home from WalMart, I noticed the lady across the street was outside. I was too shy to go up to her, but I decided for my plants, it's worth it. So I walked over there, and she seemed happy to share things with me. She informed me I could get mulch from Home Depot, and she showed me this cloth paper stuff she had underneath the mulch. We talked a little bit, and one of the other ladies from the house came out, and she rambled on. Not in a bad way, and it's not like I had anything better to do, so I patiently listened to her talk and answered her questions.

Later on that morning, I showed my mother a picture of the Fuschia flowers I saw, and she said she wanted those. She reminded me her best friend, Sherri, had those outside in her front lawn. I vaguely remember, but I do remember being in love with those flowers, so they must've been the same ones.

I finally went to sleep around noon, and when I woke up, I had to go do some grocery shopping for my mom. I went by WalMart and bought the Fuschia, and told my mom it was an early Mother's Day present, and I also picked up some soil, which I've been meaning to do.

So, yes, informational and good.

- I learned where to buy mulch
- I bought some awesome flowers
- I bought soil
- Also picked up a gardening magazine.

Go me!

Sleep time now.

Log #2: re: Marigolds

When I woke up today, I went outside to check on my seeds. My Marigolds looked like they had withered in one night! I am wondering if this has something to do with it being really hot outside today, so I brought them back indoors. Now I am worried I have over-watered them.

On YGG, they keep talking about watering from the bottom...and fuck, I don't even know how to go about doing that! I feel like such a complete newbie, but let's face it, when it comes to gardening, I am. I told myself I was up for the learning experience, and that I wanted to learn from my fuck ups, and here I am pouting about it instead of learning.

I use the YGG forums to learn and to ask questions. I think it's better to ask people instead of stuff people put on a site. I mean, if you email that person who put up the article, it might take a couple weeks before you get a response. At least on a forum, you are likely to get a reply within a day or so.

As for mulching...well...that just keeps slipping. It would be in my best interest to go right now, but here's when "Andrea's a big fat procrastinator!" comes up and is usually proven true.

Damnit.

Log #1: Hello, Marigold!

[Music: Type O Negative - Haunted [Per Version] ]



Yes, my Marigolds have sprouted today. From what I understand, the first "leaves" are to store nutrients and the like.

Unfortunately, no luck with my other 7 seeds I have planted, but I believe this is because of the size of them. The Marigolds were my biggest seeds, all the rest were as tiny as grains of sand, so I won't give up on those yet! But I was a little butthurt nothing else grew...but on the other hand..OH EM GEEZ! My Marigolds sprouted! *does a happy dance* It's just so awesome.

I took a picture, but my mother loaned out the digital camera to her friend, got the camera back, but forgot to get the USB cord, and I refuse to document my garden with my lame camera phone. So you'll have to wait.

Look at what I found!

The other day, I happened to go to Food4Less. At the front of the store, they had a bunch of marked down leftover Easter flowers. Most of them were white lillies, which were already full in bloom and semi wilted. They had some daisies and other stuff as well.

Just as I was about to give up, these caught my eye:



Purple Calla Lillies. The only plant left, too. As you can see, only one was really blooming [not even a full bloom], and there were a few other buds. I figured it was worth the $10, and I could nurse them back to health and continue to healthily grow them.

I'm excited about these, because now I have something in my face to really motivate me. In fact, I am setting my alarm right now so I can get up and work out back. I need it.

I've flexed my cooking magic muscle all weekend, and I showed what I was made of in that area, now it's time to put some love into my goal of a garden.

Lush.

Abundant.

Those are my goals, right?

It's Spring! I need to live. I'm so SICK of this lifestyle.

Wake Up, Andrea!

[Music: Rasputina - Wish You Were Here]

Yes, Lord do I need to wake up!

Since my mom got back from Florida, I've been in a weird sleep schedule. I have not been able to fall asleep until the morning, and then haven't been waking up until around 1pm. Sad, isn't it?

Because of this damned sleep schedule, I haven't been able to get back to my garden! And that is just not cool, period. My seeds are sitting next to me on my computer desk. I think I may plant a few in the starter trays. Something to keep me excited and motivated.

I keep reading through the YGG forums, but I'm still a little confused about the best and most effective way to start the seeds. Like I've been telling everyone, I need to go out and do, try, note the results, if you fail, then you learn, if you succeed, you still learn:)

My mother talked the other day about having our gardener go out back and dig it all up and put the mulch down, but I told her no! This is my project, and I want to put all the hard work into it.

So..that's that.

Hopefully the next time I update, it'll be a brighter entry.

Introduction

[Music: Rob Zombie - House Of 1000 Corpses]


Okay, if anyone is actually going to read this, I'll warn you now that this will be long.

To see pictures of me and for some random info, you can visit my forsaken MySpace [I promise it's not all cluttered with stupid things]

Gardening is something I've always secretly had a desire to pursue...but..never acted on it. I'm going to be 20 later this year..and..well, my life is just a bunch of uncertainty right now. I have no clue where my life is going, so I decided while I'm trying to figure out what I'd like to go to school for and all that nice stuff, I might as well start on something to put my energy into.. It's kind of a personal challenge.

I live in a small town in Southern California. Nothing spectacular. I've lived in this house basically all my life. My grandparents bought it when I was 1 or 2 years old. My grandfather passed away when I was young. My grandmother passed away last November. She liked to garden, she liked her house plants and growing tomatoes, but she never had the energy to really put forth into growing a lush garden.

I decided to experiment in the backyard first, since if I ever actually spend time outside my house, I'll go out back. [I'm not the kind to sit on the porch and drink tea or anything like that...honestly, my neighborhood is an eyesore, and though I don't mind children, I mind hearing the badass kids around her riding on their bikes, yelling and cussing to one another...so..no, not much to enjoy]

Unfortunately, when I decided to start this whole process, which was a couple weeks ago that I started rolling the idea around in my head and reading up on a few things, it was some bad timing.
First of all, a couple weeks ago, my [ex] step dad got into a car accident with my mother's Montero Sport SUV. He flipped it [not to mention with my younger brother and step brother inside]. It wasn't his fault, but the point is, the car is totaled, so for now we are sharing my little car. When all this happened, we had absolutely no money whatsoever, so we've been pretty tight on things [this was due to my mother's supposed 'best friend' witholding money that he owes her].
Things settled after a week or so, so I decided to go out and get some seeds of my choice since I want to start this from scratch. I bought starter trays and soil, but I think it may be safe to plant seeds directly in the ground about now..but I have not gotten that far.
The seeds I got are: Canterbury Bells, Columbine, Marigold, Chives, Parsley, Sweet William, SnapDragon, Tomatoes, Morning Glory, Lavender,and Sage
I'm looking forward to the Canterbury Bells and SnapDragons the most.

After reading up on the seeds I chose for a couple of days, I decided it was time to go out back and face the fury of the weeds. I only got to spend one day weeding. I worked for about 3 hours and only got about 40% of the weeding done.
I've been locked up in the house for a while, going through a bad breakup and being generally depressed, so the next day after starting the weeding process, I was COMPLETELY sore everywhere! I took that day off.

The next day, my mother left for Florida early, so I was stuck babysitting my nephew and brother, not to mention I've been home alone with my brother keeping an eye after him, so I haven't had a chance to get back out in the garden.

Without further ado, let's take a walk in my backyard. These pictures I took were from just a little while ago. I tried to measure the thick garden best strip with a regular tape measurer, so it's about 34 feet by 4ft.

These pictures are from right to left, sorry they're in sections.

Right side:





Here's where the weeding ended

Now, my night blooming jasmines that I'm surprised are even blooming in my junky yard that no one until now has paid attention to, growing up our old trellis.

Left side:




Now, in this one you can see most of the junk left around from us doing remodeling around our house around this time last year. Kind of understand the challenge now? lol

A view down the bed:


Roof of the trellis:


Facing the flower bed, the jasmines are surprisingly lush:




So...that's pretty much it. Hopefully later this week I can finish my weeding and decided whether to start all or some of my seeds directly outside or use the starter trays.

Any and all comments are welcomed!!!!!!!!