Herb This » Outdoors

Pumpkin fail

Sheryl — Sun, 26 Aug 2012 10:00:32 +0000

As I wrote a few posts ago about the cucumber plants dying, I realized the EXACT same thing happened to our pumpkin, only we originally thought we stepped on it by accident or something. It was growing really well, then, all of a sudden… DEAD! The vines shriveled up leaving two orphan pumpkins to turn orange and waste away in the sun. Squash, pumpkin and cucumber leaves are all very similar, so they are probably susceptible to the same types of fungus. We didn’t get to the pumpkins in time before the critters got to them, but I did get to harvest the seeds.

Before shot… seemingly healthy pumpkin

After shot… dried pumpkin seeds

I guess we’ll try again next year!

Storm in Morris County

Sheryl — Tue, 12 Jun 2012 10:00:15 +0000

Sunday, my husband & I were at Rockaway mall when a crazy storm came out of nowhere — knocking out the power in the mall (while I was in a dressing room — luckily emergency lights came on in less than 2 seconds) and flooding the parking lot.

Here is a video my husband made. It’s pretty nuts. Rockaway mall was right in the center of the most severe part of the storm. By lack of leaves and branches in the road on the drive home, it looks like our house/street, 1 town over, was left pretty much unscathed.

Spring has almost completely sprung!

Sheryl — Mon, 11 Jun 2012 23:36:24 +0000

As the days get longer, we are nearing the summer solstice, and spring is almost over! I have a lot of ‘spring’ posts still to write so I should really get crackin! It’s also probable that some of those posts will be slightly outdated with the pretty flowers in the pictures actually laying as puddles of petals in the yard. I will make that a goal next year to make the posts more real-time, and document when things actually bloom.

Rain Rain Go Away

Sheryl — Tue, 05 Jun 2012 10:00:45 +0000

I’ve had a few negative posts recently, and I thought maybe it was my typical pessimistic attitude showing its ugly head. However, this time, I realized, it’s not my fault! I blame the weather.

Look at this terrible forecast:

I know rain is good, but I think we’ve had enough for a few days and the plants desperately need a good sunny day. I have not once had to go to the garden to water since getting the plants in the ground. This is not your typical June weather for NJ. It has rained just about every day for the past 2 or 3 weeks (we did at least have some days with a decent amount of sun before it poured), and the threat of drought that was looming at the beginning of spring is long gone. We haven’t even been able to finish the rest of our garden plot because the ground is too wet to till the remaining section! I need to get the rest of my plants in ASAP!

I guess the only (not garden related) silver lining is that we haven’t had to run our AC for more than 2 days, so we will get another month of a low(ish) electric bill. Hopefully the weather will clear up sooner than Friday, and I’ll get back into more smiley and sunny posts.

Aphids

Sheryl — Mon, 14 May 2012 16:00:49 +0000

ugh. I caught the plant lice, otherwise known as Aphids. I added some petunia seedlings to a hanging basket in the front yard. They were doing well, until this week, when I noticed (well, my husband noticed, and alerted me) that there were little green bugs on the leaves.

These little jerks are HIGHLY destructive, and need to be dealt with immediately. A quick search online seems to indicate an easy way to get rid of them is with some original DAWN (not anti-bacterial). I am going to have to go to the store to get some ASAP (I only have anti-bacterial) and take care of this. I will have to give an update later this week to see how successful I was in the extermination.

So far, I’ve only seen them on the petunias, so hopefully they won’t migrate to any of the veggies. Mint and garlic are listed as deterrents, so I will make some mint or garlic “juice” to spray on & around the rest of the plants. I do not need a full blown aphid infestation! This is the anti-fun part of gardening.

Bugs

Sheryl — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 23:41:13 +0000

Another reason why I was always wear garden gloves…

And this isn’t even the worst of them. At least he doesn’t bite or sting!