April Garden Humor

It’s that time again already? Here is a very timely joke to say good-bye to April!

If April showers bring May flowers, what do May flowers bring?

Pilgrims.

HAHAHAHA!

April 30, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
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Bugs

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!

April 22, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Great Outdoors

Herb This! Finally!

Finally, some of my perennial herbs are ready to harvest! Tonight’s dinner featured fresh chives and winter savory from the garden. The chives have some flower buds on them for the first time ever (I think they have to be a more mature plant to produce flowers). The flowers are edible, and have a lighter chive flavor — looking forward to trying that out this year!

 

April 17, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
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Learning Experience

So this is the longest break between posts so far. Sorry, pretty busy the last week. I have been doing some gardening — cleaning up & weeding the flower beds, did some sprouting & transplanting (I took some pictures for a later post) — though not as much as I wanted to.

Turns out, researching plants are not really as easy as I thought (still don’t know the name of the purple ground cover), and I’ve already caught a few mistakes I’ve made, so I want to set the record straight.

1) The Early Spring Post – Red Maples don’t flower. The trees that I love so much that produce pink flowers in spring, and dark red leaves summer into fall are actually ornamental plum or pear trees.

2) Hydrangea – It’s actually doing quite well after the pruning. Maybe its just really resilient, or maybe it needed to be pruned so badly that it didn’t matter what time it was pruned (all the websites I’ve read said fall, if at all). I’ll have to post pictures, soon.

We are closing in on the peak planting weekends, so hopefully I’ll have some updates on the community garden very soon! We really need to get the squash plants in the ground asap — I’m now worried they will be stunted because they are already flowering, but don’t look to be as big as they should in their terracotta pots. We absolutely do not need to plant them so early next year!

April 16, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Flowers, Great Outdoors

Ch-ch-ch-chia!

Did you ever have a Chia pet? I did. Well, I had a Chia Tree. I thought it was stupid to grow something with green fur that wasn’t green in real life (I wasn’t the most imaginative of children). I remember having trouble keeping it completely full with water all the time, so while most of the tree grew nicely, the top inch did not.

Why am I bringing this up now? I just read an article on the new “Superfoods” you need to have in your diet — and one was Chia! I had no idea the seed was edible at all, much less such a nutritional food item (with lots of fiber, iron, omega-3, and calcium).

Maybe I should raid my parents basement to see if I can find my old Chia tree to try again!

April 10, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Indoor Garden, Produce

Happy Easter!

It’s almost the end of the day here in NJ, but wanted to say Happy Easter.  It was a really great day, weather and family wise. There were so many great flowers out today, I had to get something on here.

I bought my mother and mother-in-law each an Easter Lily. They were so pretty! I wish I bought one for myself, but instead I bought myself some pale pink tulips that I know I can plant somewhere in the yard. (Those are really pretty, too)

 

April 8, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Posted in: Flowers

New Squash Seeds

Burpee came through and my new packet of squash seeds has arrived! I was a little disappointed that some seeds were broken, and it seemed a little harder this time to tell them apart.

I do think I isolated at least 4 Greyzini seeds — or at least the squash variety that I have not had success growing yet — and I will plant them this weekend. They are a little longer in comparison to the others. Compared to the first seed packet, there is also more seeds in general, so I will plan to vacuum pack them and use them next year (also, next year we will not plant so early). I guess not too disappointing after all!

 

 

 

 

April 6, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
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Squash Update

It’s been awhile since the transplant post, and I wanted to share an update on the squash.

The Golden Squash plants are doing awesome! Seriously, like, really awesome. They even have little buds that are starting to flower. We are not sure if we should actually try to grow little squashes inside just yet, jury is still out if we should let them be or try to preserve energy by taking off the buds.

Goldens April 2nd

The Sure Thing squashes are not far behind, and once they started growing, they kept going!

Sure Things April 2nd

The original largo never popped up, but I did have 2 more of those seeds left (well, I think – remember, this is all my google-educated guess). I planted these directly in the terracotta pots, and finally, Largos have arrived!

Largos April 2nd

Unfortunately, the Greyzini did not actually pop up either. The seed was just dislodged and pushed to the surface in the last picture. I was quite disappointed, as that was the only Greyzini seed in the pack. I ended up emailing Burpee customer service to express my disappointment in the lack of 25% distribution of the seeds since I didn’t have a backup. They responded with their apologies, and I should be getting a new packet any day now. There is still plenty of time to sprout one.

Mmm… can’t wait to GET MY SUMMER SQUASH ON!

 

April 3, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Produce

It’s SNOWING!

April Fools’!

Ok, I know you saw that one coming. This was the mildest winter in NJ in a very long time, but you would have never guessed it would be from the last trickster holiday – Halloween 2011. NJ was hit with a horrendous snow storm the weekend before Halloween.

I thought this was a good time to share a picture that shows why snow should wait till all the plants are sleeping for winter (or stay away once things start to bloom)!

Despite the destruction, it was a pretty neat to see flowers covered in snow. My vincas were still alive and kicking up to this point, and I had some mums in a pot in the front yard– I wish I had remembered to take a picture. If nothing else, this blog has inspired me to document my life better!

Happy April!

April 1, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Flowers, Great Outdoors

March Garden Humor

Wow! I’ve had this site up for a month already. To celebrate, I am starting a new ‘series’. I love silly jokes — the cornier the better, and who doesn’t love a little garden humor? I think a Gardening Joke of the Month is going to become a necessity on the last day of the month. The first joke combines my super nerdy side with my gardening side (or maybe they are the same side?). Either way…

What do you get if you divide the circumference of a pumpkin by its diameter?

Pumpkin pi!

HAHAHAHA! (for the record, I did not think of this. I’m not that clever.)

 

 

March 31, 2012 · Sheryl · No Comments
Tags:  Â· Posted in: Garden Humor