IKEA Therapy

I love IKEA. Seriously. Forget Disneyland. It is the happiest place to which I can go, well IKEA, Target, Panera and Graeter's Ice Cream. They all make me happy. I was left to entertain myself, after meeting up with my daughter for our traditional "It's a week before Christmas and Dad hasn't bought mom's presents yet"  breakfast. Every year, we meet for breakfast at First Watch, have a breakfast (just the 3 of us), then the kid takes the hubbs out to buy my xmas presents. We  have family time, the kid and the hubbs have daddy/daughter time and I get a free day. It is a win-win all around.

So after breakfast, I shirked my responsibilities and headed to my happy place. And I was driving the hubbs zoom zoom car too, hehe. I meandered through the aisles ooohing and aaahing and picturing how each item would look in my house. But I restrained myself by purchasing only a few items. Unfortunately, I was limited by my bank account and cargo space. Otherwise, it would be a semi loaded with stuff parked in front of my house.

Lantliv Plant stand

I found some self watering planter pots. Which of course required some plants.

Small self waterer

I lined my pots with a small piece of weed block cloth so the soil doesn't clog the drainage holes. I punctured a hole in cloth with screw, aligning it to the drain hole, feed the wicking cord through the cloth then the pot. I then added my plant. Voila!

Kalanchoe

There was a larger size. It was much easier to install the liner and wicking cord. 

"Himalaya Mix" Left-peperomia obtusifolia, Middle-codiaeum variegatum batik and Right-chlorophytum comosum (aka Spider Plant)

I also bought these plants (and pots)

Ficus Microcarpa Ginseng

Araucaria

Crassula

What's nice is most of these plants only require part sunlight.  But I do have a plant light if I need to supplement. It was wonderful to play in the dirt in December...even if it was the indoor houseplants  kind. My house will be oxygenated thanks to all my new plants, I had some IKEA & gardening therapy and thanks to my kid (and hubbs), I know I will have the perfect xmas present.  It really was a wonderful day!

And I did buy other stuff but I kinda need to wait and slowly sneak stuff to put out when the hubbs isn't around. I really don't need all those questions about how many shelves do we need? (alot), do you really need another picture on the wall? (yes, yes I do) and how much money did you spend? (somewhere between we are eating ramen and peanut butter sammiches)...

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My sunshine day

I took a vacation day on Wednesday because I was in dire need of a "me" day. And it so happened the sun was shining with temperatures in the 60's. In other words--perfect to work on the raised garden beds. My camera batteries were charging, so I don't have any before pictures. But trust me they would have been horrible. Everything was a hot mess.

Here is my after. You can see the rhubarb (far left) is out of control, which is indicative of the entire garden prior to clean up. Each one of those piles of debris were from the beds. All 6 were overrun with weeds. And creep crawly spiders (shudders). I did my spider freak out dance a few times. ugh

The good news is I initially thought there was only 1 strawberry plant that survived the marauding deer last year. As I dug through all the weeds, I actually had 11! Some are rather puny and spindly but hopefully they will bulk up. I have 12 new strawberry plants and 10 bare roots plants. I am going to need a bigger strawberry bed! 

All 3 blackberry bushes survived. I have 2 Apache thornless blackberries on either side of a Navaho thornless blackberry.  The Navaho is far more vigorous in its growth than the Apache's. I need a better (stronger) trellis.  On the to do list!

My bamboo teepee trellis can no longer weather the elements. So it will be disassembled and added to the burn pile. See where it is currently placed?  That was a raised bed but the wood frame fell apart. We scavenged the pieces which were usable, to repair some of the remaining beds and the soil was redistributed as well. This weekend we are purchasing some composite material or composite kits, soil mix and materials for the deer fencing.. 

I had an unwelcome overnight visitor. Or group of visitors.  #@$% rabbits have already made the strawberries their buffet! GAH!!!

So I rigged up a barrier for now. It isn't very attractive but hopefully it does the job intended.

I scored some pretty good deals at Tractor Supply on Wednesday. Bare root roses, normally $6.99 for $0.99 (more about these later), a 10 pack of bare root strawberries for $1.79 and bareroot thornless boysenberries for $2.29 each. WOOT!

Anyone else find some good deals? Or are dealing with keeping wildlife out of your gardens?

A Sunday Stroll around my yard

Happy Sunday Y'all! 

What a BEAUTIFUL morning!  The hubbs was up early to go fishing so I decided to head out in the garden in the wee hours this morning. 6:30 am found me groggy and bleary eyed but I am glad I was out before the waves of heat came rolling in.

I took the dogs out with me but decided Chubbs could be my garden buddy this  morning. He is 10 and  his favorite thing to do is his impression of a speed bump. Except today he was rather alert.  

Here he is inspecting my raised bed's project

Zombie dog and killer garden mist! lol

The morning mist on a grape leaf.

If I can keep the critters off of them--I may get some yummy grapes this year!

My outta control perennial bed.

Dew covered Asiatic Lily

Evil sneaky weed planning to overthrow my garden bed. It must be stopped!

I thought this plant is a daisy--but now I am not sure. oops!

My Cone-flowers are as tall as me.

It just screams HELLO!!

Butterfly bush beginning to flower

A thirsty petunia

Coleus

A perfect dew covered rose.

I have lots more to share but I am tired. Last night was a very late night 3am and back up at 6:30am. ugh! Then this afternoon I had a 70 minute drive each way to attend my nephews graduation. I am glad to be at home in the AC and it is quiet. Umm I think I need a nap! So I am gonna go dream about all my fruits, veggies and flowers. What is growing in your yard?

I may have a plant habit...

Besides my veggie garden

I have so much stuff to plant but it won't stop raining!

I have an overabundance of lettuce, radishes and spinach

 grapevine

Garage Bed

Shed Bed

This is my ER  plop bed. All the ailing plants get plopped here to see if they will survive. If so, then I move them.

Bird bed

  I have acquired  some strawberries, raspberries and  blackberries-which still need planted but I will be assembling the raised bed tomorrow.

 Oh then there are the planter boxes.

This is 1 of 4. (They are all slightly different depending on exposure)

 Oh yeah, the planter bench.

Herbs I need to pot up. I am thinking about one of those tipsy pot planters. That would look kinda cool!

Extra petunias and coleus I need to tuck in somewhere!

And I have no ideal where I can fit these in.  But I got them buy one get one free. The hubbs said "you know you will run out of room, RIGHT?" um yeah.....

Enough outside stuff. (I have quite a few house plants too) ...Hello, plants anonymous? I think I have a problem...

P.S. That really isn't all the outside stuff...I just felt guilty so I stopped taking pictures

It's not my forever green house

...but it will do! I had talked about it (ever so briefly) here and here

This is what I REALLY want

http://jenniferchilds.typepad.com/my_weblog/

Or this

sbgreenhouse.com

Or this

geodesic-greenhouse-online.com

Or this

underglassusa.com

Well you get the ideal. I REALLY, REALLY want a forever kind of greenhouse.

Siiiggghhhh......

Lots of parts. And instructions with tiny print--yay! (Sarcasm  intended)

All kinds of connectors imprinted with little tiny letters

The walls are going up

 The hubbs is well over 6ft tall and he can stand under the peak with hunching or ducking. SO no problem for a Shorty McShorty-Short like me!

Not to shabby! 

Of course I totally had to red-neck-tify by adding zip ties. Haha! I zip tied all the shelves in place to keep them from moving and it actually makes the frame more rigid. Maybe I will toss down some weed-block cloth and pea gravel to make it more permanent. Also my old "mini" greenhouse the cover had gotten ripped bit it fits in the back of this perfectly! Plenty of room for my seedlings.  All total there are 9 shelves including the little gh. I sure do love me some shelves, lol. Just ask the hubbs. Or read the about me. It'll do.