A Little Birdie Came To Visit

     Little Robin Red Breast came to visit one day. She liked her guest room so well, that she left a little prize. She flew back and forth for hours , and  took a lot of care to  place every little stem very precise. A lot of pride and hard work went into making her quaint little nest. Everything had to be just perfect for her precious little ones.

This cute little nest with its beautiful blue eggs were left in a large old wreath that hangs on the side of my house on my front porch. I cant wait to see them hatch. Hopefully my kitties wont notice. A couple of them are quite accomplished hunters.

Planted Out 50 Lbs of Seed Potatoes

  The weather was decent today, so I spent a few hours planting out 50 lbs of seed potatoes. I rhave not gotten my irrigation lines in yet, so i temporarily strung string where they are to go and planted my potatoes out according to the Mittleider recommendations, 8" apart, and 2" deep. This 5 ft bed will have 3 irrigation pipes, so I ran a row of potatoes along each side of where each pipe will be.

I planted them in the far left, new bed where the tractor is sitting. This bed is about 5' x 16'.

Decadent Caramel Apple Crisp

     I am going to start out with an admission. This is not my own recipe, but i did accidently modify it. I am sooo glad I did. It is originally a Butterscotch Apple Crisp, but when I went to the store, I didnt have the recipe with me, and thought I was to get caramel chips. However it was supposed to be butterscotch chips, but I cant imagine it would be near as good as the caramel. I am not much of a food photographer, so forgive me this crappy picture.

Here is where the original recipe can be found. Just remember to exchange the butterscotch chips with the caramel. That is, if you want to. :) Just give this recipe a try. It is seriously delicious. 

2013 Early Morning Spring Blooms

   I love going out into the garden in the morning to see what is growing. I also enjoy how the flowers and leaves sparkle with their little droplets of dew. These are some of my first shots of the year.

I love this pretty yellow alyssum, in the back is a few purple Grape Hyacinths showing their faces.

A beautiful blue Primrose. However it looks more purple here.

A gorgeous Fritillaria, Checkered Lilly

I love this gorgeous yellow Primrose.

This Tulip is such a delicate soft pink.

A pretty Lamium given to me my a Gardenweb friend

Mittleider Method Update.....Week 1

      I have finally been able to get my fertilizer so I can mix my required weekly feed. I mixed the 25 lbs 19-19-19 fertilizer with the one bag of Mittleider minerals, and 3 lb 12 oz of epsom salts. All the cabbage, head lettuce  and broccoli that I have planted got their dose of 1/2 oz per linear foot for an 18" wide bed. I also mixed 2 tsp's in with 1 gallon of water to water my tomato plants that are in lg plastic cups. So they got their meal too. Now, next wednesday I start all over again.

Update on Re-Growing Your Celery

     Remember when I posted about trying to re-grow celery from the base? It can be found HERE.
Well, I just got back from a week vacation at the beach, and just 13 days after my last post,I found a huge difference in my baby.

13 days ago, it was around an inch tall. Now it is close to 4" tall.  I will be eating fresh, home grown celery in no time.

Guess Where I am at?

 

We had to bring my DGD back to Myrtle beach after spring break. We aare heading back sunday morning.

Getting Ready For 2013 Garden

   I just took a couple of shots of my almost empty garden. Its still about 4 weeks before my last frost date of may 10. I just wanted to show the placement of the beds and the two new 5'x16' beds at the end of the potager/garden. We still want to till the two new beds one more time yet.

The new beds are off to the left, outside the fence, Below you can see the three 4x8 beds in the center with the 2' wide bed then runs in a "U" shape around the perimeter. There are about 2 and 1/2 ft walkways between. 

       Then we will start on the irrigation plans. In the drawing below you see the pvc irrigation pipe done in yellow. We are leaving to take my DGD back home in Myrtle Beach then when we return, I hope to get this done. I also hung new sachets of Milorganite around the perimeter of my back yard to renew my deer protection.

Re-Grow Your Celery Instead Of Tossing It

     I have seen posts on the internet about regrowing celery from the base of a grocery store stalk. I tried it once before by placing it in a small amount of water in a cup, but nothing happened. About a week ago, I was cleaning out my fridge , I found an old limp partial stalk of celery. It was starting to look yucky around the edges. Just as I was heading to the garbage can with it, i decided to give it another try. I truly figured that if my healthier stalk before didnt work, this one definitely wouldn't. But what did I have to lose? So I cut off about an 1" thick chunk off of the base and tossed the rest. This time, I just used a  old small 1/4 cup measuring cup I had. I just filled the cup partially with water, set the base into it and set it in my kitchen window. Low and Behold......I now have growth.

The edges of the old stalks continued to brown some, but new growth is coming up out of the center. I thought about continuing to let it sit in water until  I got roots (which i dont have at this point), but then after reading THIS blog post, I decided to go ahead and plant it. Especially since I am going way for a week on Friday and wouldnt be here to maintain the water level.