Helping some friends move

If you all remember, Pooka's caterpillars went into their chrysalis about mid week. Pooka was so excited and wished them all goodnight. Well I got the directions out that day and did some reading.

It turns out that the cup is not suppose to move the first day or our friends went to sleep. Apparently no one told the cats this since Daddy did say the first night he had found the container on the floor. That explains all the chrysalises being in their food.


The caterpillars fell out of bed

Once everyone is comfy, you need to wait a day or 2 before you move the paper disk so the shells can harden some. I gave it 3 to be safe and then Saturday afternoon, Pooka, Grandma K and I moved the paper disk and pin it to the side of the nylon habitat that our butterflies.

Moving our easy friend

Sadly that was the easy one to move. The rest were on the bottom of the container in their own waste. Fun. I refused to pick them up by hand because I was afraid to squish them, so I grabbed a pair of chop sticks and move the other three. I would not be surprised if at least one of them didn't make it, since it didn't look the same. These guys got put on a paper towel at the bottom of the habitat.

Add 3 more to the container.

Once I had them all in, the top was zipped and they were put on the top of my desk to finish growing. It says to keep them out of direct sunlight and any real breezes, so this should be a good place. I don't have a picture of it, sorry about that.

Hello Runt

What happenned to our little runty caterpillar? He is still growing strong. He is about the size of the other ones were we got them, so I left him in the food container (yes, I know its rather nasty in there). Since we had taken out the paper disk for him to attach too, I asked Pooka to get a stick from her collection. We broke it in pieces to place in their for him. He seems plenty happy with that, and maybe it will be easier to move. At his current growth rate, he should be going to sleep about the time we release his friends, so maybe Pooka won't miss the others as well. The extra bits of stick we broke and put in the nylon habitat for our little friends to crawl on once they wake up. Now we wait and see what happens.

Starting another type of onion

Since the scallions are looking a bit thin, and the cut green onions are still experimental, we decided to hedge our bets and start some onion sets. Our nursery recommends not using the onion sets for onions but rather for green onions. So we decided to try it out and see what happens.

On Wednesday last week, Pooka and I had a wonderfully beautiful day so we actually got to plant something outside. We took our bag of onion sets, a pot and some dirt and enjoyed the sunshine.

These are the onions we bought, I tried to pick out the biggest and nicest looking ones since we didn't need a whole lot. Total price for all of them $0.50. If this works, it will be the cheapest I ever paid for a green onion, especially since we plan on just chopping off the tops and letting it regrow.

Onion sets awaiting their new home.

Next came our favorite coffee filter trick. This is especially true since the pot we were using a had a big hole in the middle and we didn't feel like having all the dirt fall out of the bottom.

Coffee filter to contain the mess.

Pooka got to fill the pot with dirt. Up till now, most of our transplanting work has been done in the house. As a result Pooka wasn't allowed to fill the pot since there is a limit to how much dirt I am willing to clean up when we are done. This was one of the first times Pooka was able to really get her hands dirty. She had a blast getting to put the dirt in and making the holes for the onions.

Pooka + Dirt =Happy girl

Pooka then needed a bit of help to know which end of the onion to plant coming up. I told her the pointy side had to be pointing up, and with that she started adding onion sets. We did have a small bit of work getting them all in this pot, but since the nursery's directions said to plant them close together, I think this will work well.

Pointy bit points the way the plant will grow.

Finally Pooka got to cover all her onions and we placed one of our little craft stick markers in it. Now we wait to watch it grow. I am hoping all the rain it has had the last few days will help it along. It has been out in the cooler temperatures, so it may take a bit long to sprout. Here is to growing never ending green onions.

Now we wait.

 

Mystery Plant

Even when you start with seeds, you can still some times come up with a mystery plant. Take this little guy for example.

Hello mystery plant

The seedling starter he is attached to (I am not going to say in, because when I picked it up, he was woven into the bottom edge of the pellet) is labeled as a carrot, and the seeds in it appear to be carrot seeds. However, this little guy is certainly not a carrot seed.

Not a carrot

I showed it to Pooka who honestly didn't care what it was, to her it was a plant and she was just happy it was alive. I will admit, we have had a small *cough not so small cough* issue with gnats this year. Fortunatly their only victims have been the green beans and the sunflowers all which are very easy to restart.

Back to the point, this little guy, I have no idea what he is. It could be a pepper (my guess, but I don't know if will be a hot or sweet one). I know it had to come from the growums which limits to a degree what it could be, but not by much.

What is a Pooka and her mom to do with a mystery plant? Why transplant it of course. I had a giant coffee cup that was broken in the course of dishes. Things fall and while I wasn't too attached to that cup, with just the handle broken off, I couldn't throw it away. Not when I need pots so badly. So it got some dirt thrown in it and our mystery plant potted and Bam... now its a pot. It is not the prettiest of things, but it is a use that makes Pooka's reusing habit happy.

Broken cup turns into a pot

I know this plant will need transplanted at least one more time if not two. But for now, its in dirt and can have a happy life. So long a we don't drown it becuase I just now realized I forgot to put a hole in the bottom. Ooops....

Mystery plant in a cup

Pooka not only got to plant this, but she asked very nicely if she could write the question mark at the end of "Mystery". She has been working very hard on making sure her handwriting is good for school next year.

Pooka writing her ?

Now to let it grow and see what comes from it.. I am really kinda hoping it is a pepper. We could use some more.

Nighty Nighty Butterflies

Well, Pooka's caterpillars have been very busy. Pooka recieved a butterfly habitat for Christmas and her friends have been very busy. They came to us very small and grew.


They Grew

Well, on Monday night I noticed one had gotten very comfortable looking. I made sure to get a picture in case he was all wrapped up by Tuesday morning since Pooka was already in bed.

One Tired caterpillar.

By Tuesday afternoon they were all getting ready to form a chrysalis. The one closest to the camera (that is a tad blurry) had already started to form it's "sleeping bag" as Pooka calls it. I will say we have one "runt" as Daddy calls it. He has been very tiny the whole time and shows no sign of going to get comfy.


Nighty night little guys

By Wednesday morning, I think the cat's had decided to say hi. Most of the chrysalis had fallen down into the food. I don't think that was suppose to happen, I guess I get to try to pick them out of the bottom to put in the actual habitat. Pooka told all her little friends good night this morning. Goodnight little guys. Now if you excuse me, I need to go find the directions on what to do if they don't stay on the lid like they are suppose to.

Sweet dreams... and be butterflies soon.



Another step in making more room

If you remember, last fall we had pulled these big ugly overgrown bushes out of this retaining block wall in front of the house. It was bad, and while I don't have a picture I can use of them, just trust me when I say I am glad that they and their spawn of Hades thorns are long gone.

However, in it's place, I had this very open and very empty planting bed that was 37" wide at one end, 30" at the other and had a big circle on the very end. This is a picture of the bed last summer after we pulled the very nasty bushes. It made the house seem so much bigger.


The front bed after bushes were removed, Sept 2012

Around here, we will be having some very busy weekeneds coming up, so I wanted to get this project done. That way, if the weather finally holds, I am not waiting till we have a chance to build it to finally get plants out of the house.

Time go get to work

This is a picture of it Saturday as we got to work. You can kinda see what I was looking to do. At 37" wide, it would of been hard to plant 2 rows of plants without staggering them to make sure they got enough sunlight. The hope was we could plant in each level and give us that much more space. These beds will mostly be used for herbs and some very spicy peppers Pooka wants to grow.

First row

Pooka's Aunt C and Uncle M came over and were a huge help to get this bed done. Here gentlemen had put in the first row of blocks and I could see it would work. It does have some narrower spots, but that should be fine for herbs. They did a great job keeping it level and straight. Honestly better then I could have.

Stonehedge end

Originally Daddy and I had thought we would only do 2 coarses of block, but once we got it in there, it looked rather... squat and slightly like we gave up half done. The boys took a trip back to the garden center and picked up enough to do another row. I like it much better, but the plan we had for the end, was too short. We had picked up an extra rectangular block and Daddy had the idea to split it and make cap stones. Aunt C suggested we turn the cut edge out to mimic the rough face of the stones. I love it this way, and Daddy just finds it entertaining that we have stonehenge in the front yard.

A look into the bed from the side.

Once it was all put together, we had to wait a bit to put the dirt in. We had useds masonary glue to hold the bricks in place. I have a feeling I will have kids run though at least once a year. I wanted to make sure it wouldn't give and the glue gives it that strength, but it also took 24 hours for it to dry. So the bed sat overnight till we could fill it.

Circle end

This is the circle end of the planting bed. It is full of rocks when this picture was taken, but Daddy worked very hard to clear it. This will be the home of the bigger of the 2 lilacs. I am just trying to decide to plant it now, or wait till fall. Decisions decisions.  

Bed all ready for plants

Here is the bed on Sunday afternoon after we got the dirt put in.Pooka loved being told to stand in the bed and push dirt around. Brother helped too, although he was a bit more work and less play then Pooka. In hind sight, we might need more dirt, but this gives us a starting point. We used a mixture of top soil and garden soil so it should be very happy for plants. The big headache now is waiting to plant. Then we will mulch and it should look really good.

Front view all done

This is a picture of the final product. It looks so much better now. I am hoping once the weather warms up and I have plants in it,I won't have to have as many pots in the back yard.


First plant

This is the baby rosemary plant we bought when were out on Sunday getting soil. It is tiny, but for the cost of the plant, it is the same as 1 set of rosemary herbs from the store. I will be getting more later, but this was a "I will need rosemary soon, so I will just grab one now." You can't really see it over the wall yet, but in a few weeks it should be looking really good. Now it is a waiting game with Mother Nature to make sure it stays warm enough to put the rest in.

Onions and onions and more onions

Sunday it was so nice and we finally felt like we could get some things done. One of the things we really wanted to get done was planting some onions for this year. We use onions almost daily, so it would be wonderful if I didn't have to buy onions for awhile. Not to mention red onions around here have been really crummy for the last year or so.

We stopped by the nursery and bought some onion plants. I was a tad suprised how many were sold in a "clump." Apparently, I forgot to get a picture of them but it is fine.

Before we got to work, I told Daddy it would be nice if I could get a little grid made to plant them since I hate having to measure and my squarefoot gardening book told us that we could get 16 onions in a square foot.  Give Daddy a few minutes, some bamboo poles and some zipties and this is what he made. It was perfect and its simple to use.

Insta-grid

Next was some time for Pooka and I to get our hands dirty. We would poke a hole in the center of the grid with my finger (hers was too short).

Add one hole

The Pooka would drop in an onion plant. We tried to make sure we used the really big plants first, but we ended up using some smaller ones as well. Then we would both take turns making sure the dirt was packed back in around the plant.

Onion planted

 This method was continued across the hole grid. Turns out the bed is bigger then 1 foot wide, so for awhile I was just adding one at the bottom. Later it would be 2 per the bottom.

Now we remove the grid, and go to the next section

Once the entire section was planted, we lifted the grid off the onions and set it next to the first one and continued on with the red onion, and then moved to yellow sweet spanish onions.

A little bit of time and we got a nice patch of onions

We ended up planting something like 60+ red onions which are marked with red sticks, and then we went to the yellow onions which are marked with yellow sticks at the end. I think final number of yellow onions is in the 60 range as well. I forgot to count them at the end and lost track somewhere along the way. In theory, I will have a basement full of onions, or I will have tons of green onions, we will just wait and see.

It's ALIVE, ALIVE

Spring is offically here. While we were outside this weekend, we saw signs of life everywhere.

Peek a boo Garlic

Pooka's garlic is sprouting everywhere. We were slightly worried about the garlic finding its way out of the mulch, but it looks like we didn't need to worry. They have not all sprouted above the mulch, but a good number have and more since I took this picture Sunday. The rain last night helped.


Our tree

This is a picture of the magnolia tree Daddy and I recieved as a wedding gift almost 11 years ago. It is a bit small, but seeing as how it got moved between houses, its doing really well this year. It is finally taller then Daddy. It has flowers ready to bloom any day.

The bigger lilac

This is one of my grandmother's lilacs. It seems to have loved the winter and is very happy in its pot. We are even thinking of putting it in the ground. The littler one isn't doing as well, but I am just happy that ONE of them seems to want to live. Thank you Aunt Pooka for the help getting this for me.

The caterpillars

Even Pooka's caterpillars seem to have grown and are enjoying the warmer weather. They are still living on the counter or on the plant table in their little cup, but we can all tell they have grown and are getting huge. I am wondering how much bigger they need to get before they start getting into their sleeping bags.