What pretty green sticks.

First things first! WOOT WOOT 100 followers! ROCKIN!

Hello ALL! Today I am taking care of my herbs. So to start things off, I would like you go to guess what kind of an herb this is.

 If you said it looks dead and cant be an herb you are close, but If you said basil then you would be 100% correct.  This is in fact a basil plant, broad leaf basil to be more precise.

Now , if you are wondering why it looks like a stringy lifeless bunch of twigs, then your wonderings will lead you to my answer. That answer would be SNAILS! That is right, those gross things that come out when it rains and go crunch squish when you step on them.                          

Snails, the bane of my basil! Now how to get rid of them.

I decided to use the product that has worked wonders for me in the past. The tiny little white rabbit poop looking things. They are made of some kind of biodegradable breakdown in the rain material, with the active ingredient being Some kind of iron. So that means it will help my orange tree too! (if you have been reading for a while you will know my orange tree has a problem with a lack of iron ) 

The magical product I have been touting for this whole time is Sluggo. It is OMRI certified which means it natural and stuff, and it can be used around my dogs!
I will update you some time soon when or if I see positive ore negative results from this.














OK! thanks for reading guys! come back soon for an update on my sunflower seeds or possibly the basil!

Progress In my sisters Garden

Hey All! My sisters garden is doing pretty good. So far we are having about a 78% success rate. I will highlight a few of the things that are of interest today.

Above you can see the cantaloupe . It is still small, but growing everyday. I do believe I saw a bud on it a while ago, but I picked it off to force the plant to focus on getting bigger before it starts fruiting. As with most plants, once it starts to fruit all other aspects of growth will take second place with the growth of the fruit taking most of the nutrients. As wtih all the other plants in my sisters garden they have been active long enough that I need to apply the second application of fertilizer.

As it grows the weather is getting warmer, which is a great plus for this type of plant. They love the heat, as long as they have enough water.

 Next in line Is my Basil. When I planted it in my sisters garden it had lived inside her house for a good few weeks, and had been a steady supply of basil leaves. yummy! But as with most plants that are treated as a baby and allowed to be in a very steady climate (inside her house) then moved outside and planted without warning, it has died back quite a bit from the shock. I even used a transplant fluid on it to lessen the shock. That is probably the only saving grace it has received.

In the background you can see the watermelon doing poorly as well. But

 The only tomato plant that is doing well is the Early Girl.
This saddens me, I am not really sure why only 1 of the 4 plants are doing well. It might be due to the weather, it might also be that the soil is too clay-ey . Once this growing season is over I need to put a WHOLE BUNCH of top soil into that garden. I think it's lacking in nutrients.

The Fruit of my harvest! a single tomato! I'm sure I have more , but they are too small to find. I'll go back soon and take another look!

OFF TOPIC POST

I know this has nothing to do with my topic at hand. However I was wondering if anybody ACTUALLY knows what happened last week with blogger?

Last week blogger was down for it seemed like a full day. I know about maintenance and all that stuff, but does it really take a FULL day to back up everything? I mean come on, its google for toasts sake!

So, Just wondering, leave me a comment with an explanation please, and I will be very very happy!

OH, and here is a quick update on my basil in my garden.

It's not liking its new home, as you can tell. However it does have some leaves left, and that makes me happy. Thus all is not lost. There is still hope for it to come back! just gotta nurse it.

KK! thx all for the reads! and leave me a comment about what happened if you know, please.

Let's Show in detail What I have planted At My sisters house.

I eat uno, dos, tres, quatro burritos
Pretty soon I can't fit in my Speedos

-Weird Al

I know I have told you in text what I planted. But I figure you might like to see pictures too. they are more fun anyway.
I planted a variety of Tomatoes; Sun Gold, Early Girl , and 3 Roma's. Also I put in a Watermelon and a canalope. 3 different kinds of pepper , jalapeno red bell and orange bell pepper. and a bunch of herbs/spices, oregano, chives

The Sun Gold tomato is really just a new thing to try for me. I typically don't like the flavor of tomatoes that are not red.

 The Early Girls Are a good choice because they will produce earlier in the year and allow me to have a harvest for a longer period of time.

 I like to use the Romas for cooking. One of my favorites for sauce and on sandwiches they are perfect!

You gotta have your spices. I consider Onion a spice , haha, also cilantro because I plan on having LOTS and LOTS of salsa this summer! Home grown salsa is the Plan, well see how it works out!

 I Am not sure I will have the room to put the strawberries into the garden itself, so I stuffed it into a pot. However I do think it should do OK there for now. Once I see how big the watermelon and cantaloupe are going to get I might move it. But it seems to like living in it's pot.
The Watermelon and cantaloupe are going to get huge, assuming they get the heat and water they need. I just wish I had the materials I wanted when planting. I was thinking of putting a whole bag of chicken manure under the watermelon and cantaloupe. dig a deep hole, pour manure in, cover with 1 foot regular dirt with veggie fertilizer mixed in. then plant them. For first month or so they will grow normal. Then when the Manure starts breaking down in the soil under the plant and releasing heat it will give them a huge boost. To top it off when the plants roots hit the pocket of manure it will be at just the right time and they will get a second boost. BUT, I did not have the two bags of manure to do this. So sad. Maybe next year.

 For now I'm battling the strange weather. One day it is 90Degrees(F), the next its raining and about 50 Degrees (F). When it levels off and starts to become hotter my peppers will will do much better. For now they are just above dormant then get growing with hot days and get knocked back on cold. two steps forward one step back.

Next Post I will show progress of how my plants are doing. I will Also have my cages set up, so you can see my set up 100% done. Well... it's never 100% because it is always a work in progress. BUT I'll give my opinion on what I'm doing right and what I'm doing wrong!

So, thx for reading all! Tune in next time for a more complete view of my garden, and the TOMATO CAGES!